... We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again,
And by that destiny to perform an act
Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come
In yours and my discharge.
 - William Shakespeare
The Tempest, Act 2, Scene I


                 I have a message from another time...

                      Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
                                presents

                 UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT
                    - SYMPHONY OF THE SWORD No. 5 -

             SUITE FOR TRINITY AND AVATAR (THE DIQIU SUITE)
                Second Movement: What's Past Is Prologue

                          Benjamin D. Hutchins
                            Philip J. Moyer
                            with Anne Cross
                              Geoff Depew

                 (c) 2013 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited


                         MONDAY, MARCH 15, 2410
                          PHOENIX HOUSE HOTEL
                          REPUBLIC CITY, DIQIU

        When Corwin Ravenhair and Utena Tenjou checked out just before
noon, all was proceeding normally at the Phoenix House.  Azana was gone,
having clocked off at some point while they slept, and the day man was a
different one than had been there during the weekend.  As Corwin was
turning in their key to the Avatar Suite, a young woman in the snappy
uniform of a chambermaid appeared from somewhere in the back of the
house and hurried over to them with a large object under her arm.
        "Thank goodness I was able to catch you before you left, Captain
Tenjou," she said, slightly out of breath.  Presenting the item she
carried, she went on in a faintly, cheerfully chiding tone, "You nearly
forgot this!"
        For a moment, Utena wasn't sure what to be more surprised by:
that the staff of the Phoenix House had learned from somewhere that she
held the rank of captain, or that she was apparently expected to take
the big book on the Phoenix Flight with her when she left.
        "Oh, uh... thank you... "  She looked at the maid's nametag, but
of course it was in Tongyu, so she arched a questioning eyebrow.
        "Xiulan," said the chambermaid, bowing.
        "Thank you, Xiulan," said Utena, taking the book.  "I thought it
was supposed to stay in the room," she explained.
        "Not at all, Captain," said the desk man with a friendly smile.
"Please accept it with the compliments of the Phoenix House Hotel."
        "Well, thank you," Utena repeated, smiling back, as she tucked
the book into the top of her duffel bag.  "And thank you for making sure
I didn't forget it," she added to Xiulan.
        "It was my pleasure, Captain," she said, smiling.
        "Well, you're all set," said the desk clerk.  "Thank you very
much for staying with us.  I hope we've made your stay here very
special, and that we'll be seeing you again soon."  He placed an object
on the counter in front of Corwin.  "Before you leave, sir, a personage
left this for you."
        Corwin picked up the item, examined it with a slightly puzzled
expression, then laughed and slipped it into the top pocket of his wool
jacket.  "Thank you," he said.  "It has, indeed, been very special."
        "Very," Utena agreed, grinning.  She'd been doing a lot of that
the past few days, and she didn't feel like stopping yet.
        Now she bowed to Xiulan and the desk clerk, took Corwin's arm,
and they descended the three steps from the reception desk into the
lobby.  While they were taking care of business up there, what seemed
like the entire staff of the Phoenix House turned out to line the lobby,
thank them for coming, and wish them health and happiness.  It was
enough to turn a person's face a bit red as they emerged onto the
sidewalk.
        "Aw, the Korramobile's gone," Utena said.
        "Spirited away in the night whence it came," Corwin said
philosophically.  "But," he added with a grin, "I've got this now."  He
produced the item the clerk had given him and held it up.  It was a
small, carved wooden object, shaped in the silhouette of a bison in
profile, with an angled slot on its "forehead".
        "... What is it?" Utena wondered.
        Corwin just kept grinning.  "Try it," he said, handing it to
her.  Utena turned it over curiously in her hands, discovered another
hole, this one round, where the hind feet would be, and laughed as she
realized it was a whistle.  She raised it to her lips and blew into the
round hole.  This seemed to produce no particular sound other than the
hiss of air being forced through the object.  She tried twice more,
thinking perhaps there was a trick to it she hadn't figured out the
first time, then handed it back with a quizzical look.
        Corwin didn't appear dismayed; instead he returned the whistle
to his pocket, then indicated the other side of the street with a tilt
of his head.  Over there, Utena noticed a small group of reporters and
photographers, no longer even trying to be discreet about their
inquiries.  She recognized the dark shape of Emily Wong's overcoat at
the front, with its slightly exaggerated shoulders.  She wondered what
they could have to do with the whistle that didn't whistle.
        She eyed Corwin.  "Gonna be honest: that wasn't really up to the
buildup you just gave it," she said.
        "Wait for it," Corwin replied, still grinning - and a moment
later, the bulky and unmistakable shape of Mogi swooped between two of
the buildings on the other side of the street, passed straight over the
press group at barely more than head height (causing hats, scarves, and
notebook pages to go flying amid cries of surprise and dismay), flared
like an aerodyne, and made a stylish six-point landing smack in the
middle of the Phoenix House's striped loading zone.
        "OK, I stand corrected, that was pretty good," Utena
acknowledged.  Then she stepped down off the sidewalk and addressed the
bison directly: "Good morning, Mogi!"
        "Ghrmph," Mogi replied cordially.  Utena petted him on the head,
then climbed up to the saddle to secure her bag.  Corwin tossed his up
to her as well, then clambered up to the "driver's" position at the back
of Mogi's head, took hold of the reins, and prepared to get underway.
Utena, standing at the back of the saddle, grinned at the group of press
people (who were still getting themselves back together after their
buzzing), and - as she had seen Wakaba do not too long before - gave
them a great big Nixon wave as Mogi sprang into the air.

        It was another beautiful, sunny spring day in Republic City, and
when they arrived back on Air Temple Island a few minutes later, the
scene was a little like the carnival had just come to town.  A crowd of
the youngest airbenders and Air Acolytes swarmed around Mogi like the
deck crew of a spacecraft carrier around a returning fighter, even
though he'd only been gone for ten minutes and required neither
refueling nor fresh missiles.  Everyone seemed to want to help Utena
with the bags, which was a disappointment for most of them as there were
only two.  Gyatso ended up with both, staggering slightly under the
weight of the one with the book in it.  The others had Mogi unsaddled
and set up with a stack of hay in little more time than it took to
describe, an impressive feat given how elaborately the saddle was
anchored.
        "Your ground crew's pretty good, Ikki," said Corwin cheerfully
to the white-haired master in charge of the team.
        Smiling broadly, Ikki caught him up in a bear hug.  "You should
see them in the summertime, when a few dozen of their aunts and uncles
arrive all at once!" she said, then let him go and stepped back.  "Great
Spirits, look at you!  Korra tells me you're an earthbender now.  You
look the part!"  She thumped his wool-clad chest with a fist, as one
might check to see whether a barrel was empty.  "Like a -stone wall.-
Oh, if only you'd been here 120 years ago!" she added, clasping her
hands wistfully under her chin.  "We'd have been spared all that
tiresome business with - "
        "Ikki," said Korra from behind her.  "Standing right here.
We've talked about this."
        Ikki turned to see the Avatar giving her a grumpy look, arms
folded, and grinned at her.  "I'm not blaming -you,- dear," she said.
        "Thank you," said Korra sarcastically, as if graciously
acknowledging a concession.  "C'mon, you guys.  Jinora wanted to see you
as soon as you got in."
        "Oh yes, of course," said Ikki readily.  "Wouldn't do to keep
her highness waiting."  She patted Corwin on the shoulder.  "We'll talk
later."
        "Sure," Corwin replied, giving her a hug and a kiss on the
forehead.  Utena bowed and said it was nice meeting her; Ikki gave her a
speculative look and said,
        "You're very lucky.  I'm an ancient pacifist."  Then, punching
the younger woman on the shoulder with a playful grin, she added, "If I
was only one or the other you'd have a problem!"  With a parting
airbender salute, she turned and trotted off, her gait that of a much
younger woman, to start corraling her young charges.
        "... so that was Ikki... " said Korra tiredly as she led the way
up the stairs toward the temple.

        In some corner of her mind, Utena had been preparing herself for
this meeting since she had learned it would be happening.  It had only
come to the front of her consciousness a couple of times - in the
parking lot of the United Republic Museum, most prominently - but it'd
been rattling around in the back for most of the weekend.  Now it was
back on the main burner again, and she could feel herself just coming to
a simmer as they reached the end of the Air Temple's main corridor and
Korra rapped on the doorframe.
        A gust of wind blew the door open, and there was Jinora, rising
from her side of the pai sho table in the center of the room to greet
them with a short bow and the airbender salute.  Anthy was already
there, seated at the other side of the table with what appeared to be a
sort of lemur perched on her shoulder; she didn't stand, but smiled
cheerfully at the couple as they entered.  Corwin, gravely observant of
the proprieties, responded to Jinora's salute with the linked-fingers
one favored by earthbenders.  By this point, Utena was sufficiently
angry that she'd have liked to offer a gesture of her own.  She forced
herself to be civil for civility's sake, but the flicker in Jinora's
eyes showed that she didn't miss the quick, perfunctory nature of the
bow the pink-haired Duelist made instead.
        "Thank you, Avatar Korra," said Jinora formally, her tone one of
very polite dismissal - but dismissal all the same.
        Korra seemed to have been expecting this.  Uncharacteristically
solemn, she bowed to the room, then backed out the door and closed it
without a word.
        Before either of her newly arrived guests could speak, Jinora
looked Utena directly in the eye and said, "First things first.  I owe
you an apology, Prince Tenjou."
        Utena blinked, her head of steam dissipating, and just stared at
the elderly airbender for a moment.  With the very faintest hint of a
smile, Jinora let her absorb the remark, then went on, "When word of
your appearance in Corwin's life first reached us here, many of us were
pleased.  A good number of us have grown fond of him over the years
since he first met Korra," she added, casting the young man a spare but
sincere smile, "and you seemed a good match for him, if you'll pardon
the old-fashioned phrasing.
        "That changed the following year.  When we learned that you were
Cephirean, and that you and Corwin had found yourselves caught up in
the... cosmic... events there, a few high-ranking members of the Order
of the White Lotus... overreacted.  Panicked, might not be too great an
exaggeration," she added frankly.  "This was only reinforced by news of
your various exploits in both worlds over the next few years.  I'm sure
Korra has told you of the way in which their apprehension ultimately
found expression: Certain members of the Order conspired in a secretive
effort to prevent you and the Avatar from ever meeting."
        Jinora shook her head sadly.  "That was unacceptable.  It was
high-handed and wrong-headed.  If I had known it was happening, I would
have put a stop to it immediately... but I failed to discern it, and
you, Corwin, and Korra all paid a price for my failure.  Korra and I
disagree on this point, but I believe that as Grand Lotus, the ultimate
responsibility for the entire fiasco is mine.  Therefore, it is I who
owe you this apology, on behalf of the entire Order."
        So saying, she came out from behind the pai sho table and
lowered herself smoothly into seiza before Utena, bowing her white head.
        "I'm sorry, Prince Tenjou," she said.  "By waging its hidden
campaign to keep you away from Avatar Korra, the Order of the White
Lotus has misjudged you, mistreated your lover, and misguided our
Avatar."  She looked up and met Utena's shocked blue eyes.  "I promise
you, I take none of those things lightly."
        Utena gazed back at her for a few moments, utterly at a loss for
words, everything she -had- been going to say blown to tatters inside
her head.  Then her natural dignity and gallantry kicked in - she was,
after all, a prince - and she extended a hand to Jinora, this woman to
whom she had been about to read the riot act.
        "I accept your apology, Master Jinora," she replied.  Behind
Jinora, she saw Anthy beaming proudly at her, and winked over Jinora's
head as the airbender rose to her feet again.  "Thank you."
        "As do I," said Corwin, nodding.  Then, a half-smile stealing
onto his face, he held his hands open at his sides, tilting his head
inquisitively.  Jinora hesitated, then smiled and embraced him.
        "It's good to see you again, Corwin," she said when they'd
finished.  "Please - all of you, come and sit.  We have much to
discuss."

        They arranged themselves on cushions in the homiest corner of
Jinora's spartan study, Utena with Corwin on one side of her and Anthy
on the other, Jinora opposite them.  As they sat down, Utena noticed
Anthy's passenger and gave her a curious look, but Anthy only smiled.  A
couple of Air Acolytes appeared with a tea service, set it on the low
table between them, and then cleared off.
        "You said you'd failed to discern the... plot," Utena said.
"How did you eventually find out about it?"
        "I learned of it the same way those who had perpetrated it
learned that they were discovered - from Korra," Jinora replied.

//                       TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 2410
                           AIR TEMPLE ISLAND

        Of the ten Master Lotuses summoned to this meeting, nine had,
upon arriving and discovering who else had been called, a sinking
suspicion that they knew what it was about.  The tenth, the Grand Lotus,
was entirely ignorant of its purpose; she knew only that the Avatar had
called them all together urgently, drawing them together from the far
corners of the world to the Order's circular meeting room near the top
of the Air Temple.
        Precisely at the stroke of noon, the great doors opened and
Avatar Korra strode in - and the Masters knew at the very first sight of
her that their fears were justified.  Korra customarily dressed
casually, without much regard to style or effect.  Today, though, she
was dressed in clothing that had the same general cut as most of her
everyday outfits, but in darker shades of her usual colors; it was
subtly structured and detailed in such a way as to make it more like a
suit or uniform.  For her to have bothered to do that spoke volumes
about the importance of this occasion to her.
        Also, and more worryingly, the Avatar was normally a cheerful
woman, always ready with a smile and a joke.  Now, though, she was not
smiling.  At this moment Avatar Korra was -very far- from smiling.  Her
mouth was a thin line, her blue eyes cold, as she walked straight
through the gap in the ring-shaped table to stand in its exact center,
then turned a slow circle, raking the assembled Lotuses with her flinty
gaze.
        Then, fixing that gaze on the Master Lotus seated to Jinora's
right, she stepped toward him, removed a document from inside the double
breast of her dressy navy-blue tunic, and placed it squarely on the
table in front of him.
        "Master Tenneq," she said, her voice icily controlled.  "Would
you care to tell me what that is?"
        Tenneq looked down at the item - a curiously proportioned silver
envelope, nearly square, its triangular flap secured with a now-broken
red-and-black wax seal.  Then he looked up at the Avatar, who stood with
her arms folded across her chest, glaring at him.
        "Shall -I- tell -you- what it is?" Korra asked him rhetorically.
"It's an invitation.  An invitation to the wedding of a very dear friend
of mine, whom I haven't seen in many years."  She abruptly reached out
and turned it over, causing Tenneq to flinch as though he'd expected her
to strike him, then tapped the face of it with her forefinger.  "As you
can see, it's clearly and properly addressed to -me,- at my home in
Senna Village."  She removed another, very similar envelope from her
tunic and placed it down on the first, overlapping them about halfway.
"This is another copy of the same invitation, addressed to me here, care
of the Air Temple."  A third joined them, making a little row like
roofing shingles.  "And here's another.
        "Now, that one, unlike the others, I know you haven't seen
before, because it didn't go through the United Republic Postal
Service," Korra went on, taking a couple of paces away from Tenneq and
strafing the others with her eyes again.  "-That- one was delivered to
my very own hand yesterday morning, by a private courier with orders to
permit no one else to take it.  She slipped through your net, but don't
feel too bad about that.  She's a ninja, after all.  That's their job."
        Fists on hips, she rounded on Tenneq again.  "Inside that
envelope is a little note from Corwin, informing me that the date and
place of the wedding's been changed due to circumstances etc. and
warning me that I should disregard the other two.  Which made me think,
What other two?  So my friend Inspector Imanishi and I - you may
remember him, HE'S A DETECTIVE - did a little sniffing around
yesterday... and what we found was very, very interesting."
        A fourth envelope joined the three others in front of Tenneq.
This one was different, long and narrow, buff-colored, with one of those
string-and-button closures and the emblem of the Republic City Police
Department.
        "I'm going to ask you a direct question, Master Tenneq, and I
expect a direct answer," said Korra, her voice very low and even.  "Have
you and your colleagues here been interfering with my personal life for
the past five years?  Are -you,- not bad luck and strange circumstances,
responsible for the fact that I haven't seen Corwin Ravenhair since the
summer of 2404, nor -ever- met the woman he'll be marrying this Friday?"
        Tenneq stared at her for a few moments, his face going ashen as
the blood drained from under his brown skin; then he bowed his head,
eyes closed, and murmured in a barely-audible voice,
        "Yes, my Avatar."
        Korra gazed at him for several seconds.  Tenneq wouldn't look at
her, but several of the others were riveted to her reaction.  They saw
the muscles at the corners of her jaw bunch, her fists clench, her
nostrils flare, and braced themselves for the explosion.
        Then, to their surprise, she opened her hands, brought them
together in front of her, and made a meditative gesture instead.  She
bowed her head, relaxing her jaw with an effort of will, and closed her
eyes - visibly containing her fury, shutting it down.
        "No," she said, her voice soft.  "I'm not going to shout at you
guys.  I'm not going to throw a tantrum.  That would be childish, and
whatever you think of me, I am not a child."
        Several of the masters, not least among them Tenneq, sagged
slightly with relief - then stiffened again as Korra's eyes snapped
open, their irises and pupils entirely blotted out by brilliant white
light.
        "On the other hand," she said, many other voices layered upon
her own, "you might want to hold onto something."

                          /*  Jeremy Zuckerman
                   "Greatest Change" (03:26 - 04:02)
     _The Legend of Korra: Original Music from Book One_ (2013)  */

        For a few terrifying, exhilarating seconds, the Avatar seemed to
-disappear-, engulfed in a tiny cyclone of blue-white mist that
condensed, whirling, around her, lowering the temperature in the room by
several degrees.  Documents were pulled from shelves and desks around
the perimeter of the chamber and swept up into the maelstrom, whipping
through the air.  Then the miniature tornado drew inward, quivered, and
burst in a spray of chilly little droplets...
        ... and someone else was standing where Avatar Korra had been a
moment before.  A taller woman than Korra, she wore an elaborate green
kimono and a golden headdress; her face was painted in a fierce,
intimidating mask which the severe expression underneath it did nothing
to counterbalance.
        Avatar Kyoshi's remarks were brief and direct, delivered in a
tone of voice that struck like a scourge.  She drew comparisons between
the self-righteous high-handedness of these masters and that of her own
failed experiment in social safeguarding, the infamous Dai Li, which had
evolved from a noble attempt at securing the cultural heritage of the
Earth Kingdom into a cunning and brutal secret police force.
        "Their purpose was to protect the Earth Kingdom, but they took
it upon themselves to control it instead, and in the end - having nearly
destroyed it - they had to be destroyed themselves," she told the
masters coldly.  "YOUR purpose is to help the Avatar manage her busy
life.  You took it upon yourselves to control it instead."  Fixing
Tenneq with a pointed glare, she added coldly, "Do the math."
        Then, with a finality that was like a slamming door, she turned
away from and dismissed him, addressing her final remark to Jinora:
        "Rein in these fools.  Your grandfather would be disappointed."
        With that, Kyoshi closed her eyes and was gone, her aspect
dissolving like smoke and leaving behind the familiar shape of her
successor's successor's successor instead.
        Korra blinked, the glow leaving her eyes, and wobbled on her
feet, nearly stumbling before she could catch herself on the table.
Straightening up, she passed a forearm over her sweat-speckled brow,
took a couple of deep breaths, and then looked around at the shambles of
the chamber.
        "Well," she said.  "That's that point made, then."  Turning to
Jinora, she spoke as though the others weren't present: "I'm going to
Cephiro in a couple of days for Corwin's wedding.  I'd appreciate it if
you'd have a file drawn up of what the Order knows about the place, and
get in touch with Maki about providing some security, not that I expect
it'll be needed."
        Jinora nodded.  "I'll take care of that personally," she
promised.
        "Good.  Thank you."  Korra gave one last look around the room,
briefly meeting the eyes of all the other masters.  Then she collected
her documents from in front of Tenneq, gave him a cool look in the
process, and left the room, pausing in the doorway to tell Jinora, "And
please let me know as soon as you can who you'll be replacing these
clowns with, because they're all fired."
//

        "Sackings all around, huh?" Corwin mused.  "Harsh.  But not
entirely unjustified, in my admittedly biased opinion," he added with a
grim little smile.
        "Well, not exactly," Jinora replied with a faint smile of her
own.  "As you well know, Korra is a merciful soul, and once her temper
cooled, she did rescind her mass dimissal of the masters.  Several
resigned anyway, and the rest have been quietly reassigned to... other
duties, where they will be out of her line of sight.  They will have
nothing further to do with the management of her affairs, which is what
she really wanted."
        "She can -do- that?  Trade places with her past lives?" Utena
said, a touch incredulous.
        "Not under normal circumstances," Jinora told her.  "A full
manifestation of a previous Avatar is the most extreme form that the
Avatar State can take.  How much has Corwin told you about Korra's
abilities?"
        "A fair bit," said Utena.  "And I've seen her in action a couple
of times.  She and Corwin sparred after our wedding, so I saw some of
what bending is about then, and of course I've seen her veilbending."
        Jinora nodded.  "The more... overt... manifestations of the
Avatar's powers are impressive, but they're only the uppermost surface
of what she can do - what she IS.  Veilbending gets closer to the
essence of it.  The Avatar is connected not just to the four elements,
but to the entire Spirit World.  She has not only her own power as one
of the world's most capable benders, but also, deeper within, the
accumulated power of all the Avatars before her.  To tap into this
power, she must achieve a higher state of consciousness.  You'll have
seen her do that when she began the veilbending dance - the glowing eyes
are the most obvious sign.
        "An Avatar in the full grip of the Avatar State," she went on
didactically, "is a tremendously, terribly powerful being, the most
powerful in our world... but also, in some ways, the most vulnerable.
The phenomenon requires such focus, or such fury, that she tends not to
be fully aware of the world around her.  My grandfather, Avatar Aang,
was almost killed in such a moment once, struck down from behind.  If
that had happened, there would have been no next Avatar.  The line would
have ended with him.  If such a thing ever came to pass... "  She
shrugged eloquently.  "The implications for the world don't bear
considering.  And there are those who believe that the same thing would
happen if Korra were to perish in the universe beyond Diqiu, Avatar
State or no."
        Utena considered this for a moment, then nodded slowly.  "I
begin to see why your people were so nervous about her... going
outside," she said.
        "Indeed," said Jinora, nodding again.  "That path is fraught
with uncertainty.  And yet she must - the time has long passed when we
believed this was the only world.  As, once, it was clear that the
Avatar must transcend the nations of the world, it's plain to me now -
if not to all of my colleagues - that today she must be a citizen of the
galaxy."  She gestured vaguely to the world beyond the room in which
they all sat.  "Part of the Avatar's function is to promote balance, and
to view the world anew so as to best protect its peoples, both human and
spirit.  With the opening of the way to Zipang, we're no longer limited
to this single sphere in the cold silence.  We need to be more active in
the goings-on in the galaxy.  Otherwise, we risk those who would do us
harm coming -here-, and our Avatar unprepared to counter them.
        "That being the case, I fear that Korra's job has become much
larger than that any previous Avatar has ever faced - even my
grandfather.  She no longer must be content with simply preserving the
balance -within- Diqiu; she must find a way to maintain this world in
balance with... well... -all the others.-"  She paused for a moment to
let that sink in, then went on, "This is a colossal task - a terrifying
task.  One not even an Avatar can possibly hope to accomplish alone."
        Jinora sipped her tea, which her visitors recognized as a means
of buying a little time to put her thoughts in order; then she put the
cup down and explained, "Grandfather Aang realigned the Order of the
White Lotus into a support organization for the Avatar to follow him
because he recognized that the world was changing, and that the pace of
that change was accelerating all the time.  He knew his successor would
need more than the merry band of rogues and idealists with which he had
surrounded himself to face such a world."  With a wry little smile, she
added, "Unfortunately, what no one seems to have realized in all the
excitement was that -both- are required, particularly in the face of
such an enormous challenge.
        "Being the sort of person that she is," Jinora went on with an
indulgent little smile, "virtually the first thing Korra did upon
embarking on her active career was assemble such a band of her own."
Sobering, she added, "But now, alas, most of us have gone... and
replacing us is no simple task in these times.  She has served this
world so long and so well now that her reputation precedes her
everywhere she goes.  Few young people today would dare presume to
befriend the Avatar."
        Corwin failed to suppress a chuckle at this, which got him a
surprised glance from Utena and a faint frown of disapproval from Jinora
until he he explained himself, saying with gentle sarcasm, "Jinora, you
sound like you're hiring us to play cards with your lonesome old aunt
and pretend to like her."
        Jinora blinked at him, then went faintly red and smiled an
embarrassed little smile.  "Well, cousin - she's not very much older
than I - but you have a point.  What I'm trying to say," she went on
earnestly, "is that friendship - genuine, warm, one might even say
passionate if the word weren't so easily misunderstood - is vital to
Korra's well-being.  You know very well that she'd wear her heart on her
sleeve if she wore sleeves - "  Corwin snorted again, prompting Jinora
to order him mock-sternly, "Don't start giggling now, or you'll get me
started and this entire meeting will be ruined."
        "Yes'm," said Corwin contritely, bowing his head.  "Sorry."
        She smiled indulgently at him then, revealing a warmer, merrier
side that had been absent from her aspect thus far.  "The point is," she
went on, "Korra needs her friends in ways I don't think she even fully
appreciates, and by trying to keep her life from intersecting yours,
Prince Tenjou, my misguided colleagues not only cut her off from several
that she prizes very highly in Corwin and his family, they prevented her
from making at -least- two more."  She gazed around at the three of
them, then said seriously, "I would consider it a personal favor if you
would not let that stop you."
        Utena opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, Anthy had
startled them all by laughing happily.
        "You don't know Utena very well yet, Jinora," she explained to
the elderly airbender's puzzled look, then went on without rancor, "or
you would know what a damned silly thing you just said."
        Utena put a hand behind her head and grinned sheepishly as
Corwin remarked, "Speaking of reputations preceding."
        That got a laugh and finished breaking the ice a bit.  When
they'd finished, it was a serious but no longer edgy Corwin who said,
"Jinora... I have to ask you something."
        Jinora looked curiously at him.  "Yes, Corwin?" she replied.
        "Do you know why Korra's stayed young for so long?" Corwin asked
her bluntly.
        She shook her head.  "No.  No one does.  Oh, there's any number
of theories.  Everyone has one.  Mind you, it's not unusual for powerful
benders to live longer than ordinary people.  I'm only seven years
younger than Korra myself, though," she added with a wry little smile,
"rather less well-preserved.  Some airbenders and earthbenders, in
particular, are known to live long lives: airbenders because of our
intensely spiritual paths of study, earthbenders because they partake,
in some measure, of the permanence of the earth.  King Bumi of Omashu
lived to be nearly 150."
        "I thought maybe it was an Avatar thing," Utena mused, but
Jinora met that with another headshake.
        "Would that it were so, but no," she said.  "The historical
record doesn't support that conclusion.  Some Avatars have lived very
long lives - Avatar Kyoshi, for instance, was the longest-lived person
ever recorded in Diqiu.  She was 230 years old when she died in 2037.
Others, though, have not.  My grandfather died 166 years after his
birth, but he spent a century of that time in suspended animation, so in
practical terms he was only 66.  His predecessor, Avatar Roku, was
murdered at the age of 70, so there's not much help there.  Contemporary
depictions of him near the end of his life do show him as an old man,
albeit a vigorous one."
        "You said everyone has a theory," Anthy noted.  "What's yours?"
        Jinora glanced sharply at her, then smiled, reddening slightly.
"I did say that, didn't I?" she said.  "One must always be mindful of
one's words around you, Lady Anthy."  Anthy nodded graciously at the
compliment.  "But you're quite right, of course.  I do have a - well,
theory is too strong a word, actually; call it a conjecture.  You see,
particularly skilled waterbenders can use water as a conduit for healing
energies, mending disease and injury in themselves and others.  Well,
old age is nothing more than a slow accumulation of tiny injuries that
are eventually beyond the body's power to repair... "
        Corwin frowned and raised an objecting forefinger.  "Uh, point
of order: Wouldn't she know if she was doing that?"
        "Not necessarily," said Jinora.  "She's run herself ragged so
often over the years that even -overtly- repairing herself is largely
instinctual nowadays.  What's more, she learned waterbending - including
its healing arts - from my Gran-gran Katara, the greatest waterbender
the Southern Water Tribe possessed in her time.  Couple that with the
level of skill and power Korra has access to as the Avatar, and there's
very little she cannot heal, short of immediately mortal injury."
        "Hmmm," said Corwin thoughtfully.  "She -is- good at it.  She
knocked the flu out of me in an afternoon once, though she claimed that
had more to do with her mom's chickenshark soup recipe."
        "Chickenshark soup?" Utena wondered.
        "The hard part is killing and beaching the chickenshark," Corwin
told her with a grin.  "You've got to stay clear of the beak."
        Jinora chuckled, then sobered again and said, "At any rate,
there you are.  That's what I suspect is happening.  Every morning, she
unknowingly repairs the little things that went wrong during the
previous day.  I believe it's within her power, and it explains why she
remains the apparent age at which she became a fully realized Avatar."
She shrugged.  "How long she can remain ahead of the curve in such
fashion, one can't say.  Presumably not forever... but possibly for a
very, very long time."  She paused.  "Frankly, there are those among us
who shrink from investigating the phenomenon, for fear that determining
the cause will in some way undo it."
        Corwin had gone thoughtful again; he rubbed at his bearded chin
in silence for a few seconds, then sighed.
        "You may have a point there," he conceded.  "Particularly if she
-is- doing it herself, unconsciously."
        "It's only one hypothesis," Jinora reminded him.  "My brother
thinks it's because the world isn't willing to risk the instability of a
change of Avatar in the midst of such a rapidly accelerating period of
change."  She smiled fondly.  "I think that ascribes entirely too much
conscious volition to 'the world' as an entity, but then Rohan has
always been a bit of a dreamer."
        Corwin smiled slightly, but said nothing to that.  It fell to
Utena to ask the next hard question:
        "Uh... Hmm.  OK, this is awkward, but... leaving aside how she's
stayed -youthful-, how unusual is it for people to live as long as she
has?  Or you, for that matter?  I mean... "  She glanced at Anthy, then
Corwin, before facing Jinora again and continuing, "Where we come from,
a normal human can reasonably hope to see 180, and a lot of people live
to be 200 or more."
        "It's becoming less unusual all the time, thanks to advances in
our own healers' knowledge and the influx of medical technologies from
the 'big universe' by way of Zipang," Jinora told her.  "When I was a
little girl, it was unusual for anyone to live long past 80, but now...
well, my generation has largely passed, but each one after has looked
forward to more and more time under the sun.  A child born today can
reasonably hope for twice that.  Some wonder if this is really a good
thing, but... "  She smiled ironically.  "Well, as an Air Nomad, I
learned long ago not to fear death, my own or anyone else's, but that
doesn't mean I'm prepared to be its advocate."
        Anthy smiled.  "Well said."
        Jinora nodded to her, acknowledging the compliment; then she
went on, "At any rate, from what I understand, Zipang isn't exactly on
what your people would consider the cutting edge itself, and the
diffusion of knowledge across the Veil is far from instantaneous.  We
didn't wake up one day to discover that the natural human lifespan had
doubled from what we had come to know.  It is a gradual process, still
ongoing.  Regrettably, rather -too- gradual for many of my generation.
Which brings me back to my concern for Korra... "   The elderly master
shook her head sadly.  "She covers it well, but hers is an increasingly
lonely position.  You won't find a person in this world who doesn't know
her name - but there are precious few of us left who know -her,- and
time is thinning our ranks."
        She looked solemnly from one of her visitors to another,
starting with Anthy and ending with Corwin.  "When my brothers and
sister and I are gone, there will be no one left in this world to whom
she is simply a human being and not a figure out of legend.  She needs
that."  Looking Corwin straight in the eye, she added, "Everyone needs
that."
        Corwin looked back at her for a second or two, his gaze level;
then he smiled.
        "Well, then," he said.  "I guess we'd better start looking for a
way to make it happen."

        By the time Utena, Corwin, and Anthy retired to Anthy's room in
the women's quarters (where, Corwin presumed, no one was objecting to
his presence because it was daytime), they had a good many things on
their minds.  They didn't speak much on the walk over, each lost in his
or her own thoughts.
        With a private smile, Utena noted the way Anthy had already put
her personal stamp on the room in the two and a half days she and Corwin
had spent in town.  It was still as achingly neat as the rest of the Air
Temple complex - but then, that was Anthy's own personal style as well -
but it bore the unmistakable signs of her occupancy.  These took the
form of tidy stacks of books and scrolls that would presumably not have
been there otherwise, and a slightly incongruous jar of white roses in
the middle of the table, next to the bowl of fruit.  Utena made a silent
note to ask her what she was reading about later.  There were enough
books here to make a decent bibliography for a term paper, assuming they
were all on similar topics.
        For the first half-hour or so after they arrived, they
maintained their pensive near-silence.  Utena sat the wrong way round on
the bed, her back propped against the footboard, hands folded on her
middle, regarding them with a thoughtful frown.  Anthy sat sideways at
the bed's head, petting the lemur she seemed to have acquired while
Corwin and Utena were away.  Corwin stationed himself in the armchair by
the table.  He noticed the scrolls and books there as well, but he
didn't say anything either; he was much too preoccupied with what Jinora
had just told them... and not told them, which might well prove the more
important thing in the long run.
        The gentle trilling of the lemur was the loudest sound in the
room until Corwin, at last, broke the silence:
        "Who's your friend?"
        Anthy looked up, meeting his eyes, and smiled.  "This is
Makoto," she said.
        "Hi, Makoto," said Corwin.  He reached to the fruit bowl,
selected an item, and leaned forward in the chair, offering his choice
to the lemur.  "Tangergrape?"
        "So," said Utena while Corwin was being relieved of fruit, "that
was... interesting."
        "Yes," Anthy agreed.  "Very interesting indeed."
        "How much of what Jinora said did you already know, Corwin?"
Utena wondered.
        "Well, I at least suspected most of it," Corwin told her,
rummaging in the bowl until he found a lychee.  "No, this is for me," he
told Makoto, as the lemur held out his forepaws hopefully.  "You take
this.  I think it's a melonsteen."  Makoto appeared happy with that
substitution, so Corwin got on with peeling his lychee and continued to
Utena, "I'm more inclined toward Rohan's theory about Korra than
Jinora's, but what she said about Korra needing her friends... "  He
shrugged and took a bite of the fruit.  "It's the classic immortal's
dilemma.  Easy to get disconnected when your generation leaves you
behind."
        "You don't think she was overselling it a little?" Utena
wondered.  "I mean, she made the whole thing sound like the first act of
a Greek tragedy."
        Corwin smiled.  "That's just Jinora.  Everything to her is Very
Serious Business.  She was right about the basics of the scenario,
though.  Dad and the rest of the early Wedge gang sidestepped some of
that by all being in it together.  Korra doesn't have that option."
        Anthy nodded in agreement.  "I understand why Jinora is
concerned.  Not only concerned for Korra, who's been her friend for more
than a century, but also for her world.  You both know as well as I do
that terrible things have been done by long-lived, powerful people who
have lost that essential connection to their humanity."
        "C'mon, Anthy," said Utena.  "You don't seriously think... "
She trailed off, leaving the rest of the question unspoken.
        "I didn't say so," Anthy replied mildly, "but I understand why
Jinora fears such a thing -could- happen."
        "What are we supposed to -do- about it, though?" asked Utena.
"Don't get me wrong, I like Korra a lot, I've got -zero- problem with
any of that.  It's just that she's here - by definition she sort of HAS
to be here most of the time - and we're... not, usually."
        "I think the White Lotus not obstructing most of our lines of
communication will help for a start," said Corwin wryly.  "Just knowing
she CAN turn to us is likely to be a great comfort, even when she
doesn't actually have to.  Beyond that, well, we're all grown-ups.
Weird as that thought is at times," he added with a smile for the mother
of his impending child.  "We have responsibilities, sure, but we're
still free people.  We can come back whenever we like.  In fact, I was
thinking last night - "
        "(Not sure I buy that,)" Utena muttered with a slightly blushing
mischievous grin, causing Anthy to give her feet, the only part of her
within reach, a chiding swat.
        " - that I might see about getting a place in Republic City
before we leave," Corwin finished, magnificently ignoring the aside.
        Utena arched an eyebrow.  "What, -another- apartment?"
        Corwin shrugged.  "One of my Einherjar pals from Nirn once told
me, 'Always remember, boy, if you're going to make a living as a
traveling adventurer, you can never own homes in too many towns.'"
        Anthy laughed cheerfully.  "Wisdom, to be sure," she said.
        "Hmm... yeah," said Utena, thinking it over.  "Yeah, I like
that.  We'd still be foreigners, but at least we wouldn't be tourists.
We'd have a -stake- in what goes on here, and we wouldn't have to
presume on Korra's hospitality or the airbenders' every time we came."
She grinned.  "And it'd be cheaper than staying at the Phoenix House all
the time.  Too bad we can't just move the Wildwood Road house over from
Tomodachi, now that everyone from our gang there seems to be moving to
New Avalon."
        "Technically, I think we could," said Anthy; then, with an
impish smile, she added, "But we should probably ask Kaitlyn first,
since it's her house."

        Kaitlyn Hutchins wasn't around to give her opinion of that plan
just at the moment.  She and her kenjutsu student, Anne Cross, were on
the mainland, exploring the Republic City Art Museum on the
recommendation of Anne's firebending instructor, Azana.
        "I don't really know much about art in itself," Azana had
explained apologetically when she'd joined them there mid-morning, "but
there's a lot of stuff here that shows bending in its historical
context.  Before photography, art was as good as the record got."
        (That wasn't the first thing she'd said when she met them.  That
honor went to, "Oh, whoa!  Is that a tigerdillo?  What happened to his
armor?")
        And indeed, as they toured the first gallery, both Kate and Anne
had to agree that she had a point.  Many of the artists whose works were
displayed had clearly cared a lot about their depictions of the bending
arts and worked hard to make them as authentic as possible, and the
contexts in which they were shown were often as illuminating as the
stances and effects themselves.  Kate found it absorbing and
enlightening from the standpoint of the martial arts in general; in the
various representations of firebending and firebenders in action, Anne
found rather more immediate inspiration.
        Korra joined them for lunch at the cafe in the museum's
courtyard, causing a stir - but a much smaller one than Anne would have
expected, all things considered, perhaps because the people in the
courtyard were still recovering from the sight of Serge - by arriving on
dogback.  Neither Kate nor Anne was particularly surprised when the
Avatar and Azana greeted each other as friends, or at least friendly
acquaintances.
        The newly expanded foursome took in the other half of the museum
in the afternoon, a half which - by fortunate coincidence or subtle
design, Anne couldn't tell - included the Avatar Gallery.  This was not
simply a gallery of art -about- Avatars, but also included artworks -by-
Avatars, a number of whom had been celebrated artists in (or at least
after) their times.  Avatar Kyoshi, namesake of Kyoshi Island, had been
an adept watercolorist with a penchant for landscapes (all of them, Anne
noticed, a bit disquietingly empty).  Avatar Kuruk, the Water Tribes'
most recent representative before Korra, was evidently a dab hand at
scrimshaw.
        Anne found herself standing in front of a large piece that put
her more in mind of a cartoon than a Serious Artwork somehow.  Rendered
in simple, bold black painted lines, it depicted a boy in his early
teens with airbender tattoos, standing dramatically in a doorway.  He
was in three-quarter profile, pointing in an accusing sort of way at
something that would have been in front of him and slightly to his
right.  His face was set in a fiercely triumphant grin, mouth slightly
open, and above his head was a row of Tongyu characters that she
realized, after a moment's consideration, were probably supposed to
represent dialogue.
        "Ha ha, I love this one," said Azana, joining her.  "It might be
my favorite thing in this whole gallery."
        "Who is it?" Anne asked.
        "It's Avatar Aang as a boy," Azana explained.  "This was drawn
by his brother-in-law, Master Sokka, the great second-century swordsman,
painter, and poet."
        "It looks more like a cartoon than a painting," said Anne.
        "What does?" said Korra as she joined them; then she grinned as
she saw what they were looking at.  "Ohhh, this one.  I love this one."
        "I know, right?" said Azana.  "I was just saying it's the best
thing in here."
        "It sort of -is- a cartoon," Korra told Anne.  "Sokka more or
less invented the form here."
        "Is that dialogue over his head?"
        Korra nodded.  "Yes it is."
        "What's he saying?"
        Azana and Korra answered together: "'No, Fire Lord Ozai - YOU'RE
not wearing any pants!'"
        Anne considered the two women, who were now standing on either
side of her giggling, and then admitted, "... I don't get it."
        Azana stopped laughing and gave her a puzzled look.  "You don't
get it?  It's Aang, and he's - "  She blinked.  "Right!  Sorry!  You
didn't get all this in the third grade like I did."  She smiled.  "This
is stuff you should know, though, and it's a great story.  I'll see if I
can round you up a Standard history before you leave.  Do you like
books?"
        Anne snorted and gave her firebending teacher a crooked grin.
"That's like asking Deng if he likes shouting at people."

        They split up at three; Kate and Korra, along with Niri and
Serge, headed back to the Air Temple, while Anne and Azana went uptown
to the Fire Lord Zuko Firebending Academy to get in a couple of hours'
practice.  They timed their session to end at 5:30, so that Anne would
have time to head over to the train station and meet the 5:45 arrival of
the Republic City Limited.
        "Have fun at the train station," said Azana with a yawn and a
stretch as they left the academy.  "Me, I'm heading home.  If the
streetcars are on time, I can get another two hours' sleep before my
last night shift at the Phoenix House."
        Anne looked surprised.  "Your -last?-"
        "Well, not -ever,-" Azana qualified, "but I don't work the hotel
job during the MLB season."  She smiled wryly.  "You spend three or four
hours a day throwing your chi at the wall, it's hard to be that nice to
people all night."
        Anne laughed and said she could see where that would be a
challenge.  They parted amiably at the street corner with promises that
they'd see each other at the arena tomorrow, and then Azana ran to catch
the uptown streetcar while Anne headed east toward Central City Station.
        Having only avoided getting hopelessly sidetracked by the street
market outside the station by a supreme effort of will, she was on the
platform when the train arrived.  Not much to her surprise, she spotted
Amy Pond first.  At nearly six feet tall, the Scottish redhead stood out
in most crowds, but especially here in Diqiu, where, even in the
cosmopolitan hub of all the world's cultures, virtually nobody had hair
that color.
        Seeing Anne's wave, Amy grinned and made her way over through
the streams of other detraining passengers with Nall and her boyfriend,
Rory Williams, in tow.  Rory had little choice in the matter, since he
and Amy were carrying a compact but heavy chest between them, each
holding onto one of its sturdy iron handles.  Anne smiled a little wider
at the sight of it; she'd seen it presented to Corwin in the audience
chamber of none other than the Dragon King of Alfheim himself, and it
was a potent reminder of that epic day out.
        Behind the chest and its bearers, Nall was in the curious
position of looking the least out of place of the three.  His shock of
white hair stood out a bit, but he was dressed the most like a local, in
blues and whites that suggested one of the Water Tribes.
        "Hullo!" said Rory cheerfully.
        "Fancy meeting you here," added Amy.
        "Hi, guys," Anne replied.  "You're right on time."
        "-Exactly- on time," agreed Nall with a satisfied smile,
observing the tall pedestal clock in the middle of the platform.  "Ah,
you've got to love Republic Rail."
        They passed Customs without any problem at all - here as in
Saikyo, nobody showed the slightest interest in the mysterious runed
box, which Amy seemed to find a bit disappointing - and were walking
across the station's bustling main concourse when Nall asked Anne,
"How's everybody been the last couple of days?  Nothing, uh, urgent
going on yet, I hope."
        Anne shook her head, grinning.  "Nope, not yet, but we're all on
the edge of our seats."  She held half of one of the station's many
bronze double doors for them, while Nall got the other half, and added
as Amy and Rory emerged onto the station's wide entry plaza, "Welcome to
Republic City!"
        "Thanks," said Amy, looking around with evident pleasure at the
square and the market stalls lapping like tidewaters at its far edge,
past the great statue of Fire Lord Zuko.  "Sure has changed since the
last time, eh, Rory?"
        "You guys have been here before?" asked Anne, surprised.
        "Well, no, not to the city specifically," Rory told her,
shooting Amy a look the younger Duelist couldn't read.  "I don't suppose
you've brought a dolly?" he asked, indicating the chest with his free
hand.  "This is getting a bit heavy."
        Anne regarded him thoughtfully for a moment.  He and Amy glanced
at each other, then the chest, which suddenly seemed to have become
substantially less heavy.  Then they both turned back to Anne, who was
giving them an enigmatic little smile.
        "Sorry, 'fraid not," she said, as if nothing at all unusual was
happening, "but we've got something much better on the way."  She looked
up at the clock set into the station's facade.  "Any... second... now."
        Just as she said it, as if summoned by her voice, a sky bison
swooped over the buildings off to the right and landed in front of them.
        Nall blinked at the colorfully dressed figure who alighted
gracefully from the bison's head and trotted toward them, smiling
cheerfully.  It took him a second or two to recognize her.  When he'd
last seen her she had been just a tiny thing, a little short for her age
and scrawny, with long, unkempt dark hair and a perpetually timid
expression.  Now she was tall, and so thin she seemed even taller, but
not puny; instead her slenderness somehow gave her an air of wiry
indestructibility.  Her hair was mostly gone, revealing the entirety of
her master airbender's arrow tattoo, and far from timid, her expression
now was one of cheerful, confident aplomb.
        "Greetings, travelers!" the young airbender declared, presenting
the group with a fist-to-palm bow and a wide smile.  "Welcome.  My name
is Nyima, and this is Vayu."
        "Rormph," said Vayu.
        "We're to guide you to Air Temple Island today," Nyima went on.
She noticed Nall staring at her and gave him a curious look, her cheeks
reddening slightly.  "... Yes?"
        "Nyima!" he blurted.  "Little Nyima?!"  Then, seeing the
confounded look she was giving him, he grinned, dropped his duffel bag,
and held out his arms wide, declaring, "It's me!  Nall!"
        Nyima frowned.  "Nall?" she said.  "That's im - ... wait.  Your
eyes... "  Her face lit up, the wide smile returning, and she darted
forward to embrace him.  "Nall!  Welcome back!"  Stepping back, she
looked him up and down, then gave him a little smirk.  "And I thought
-I- had a growth spurt."
        "No kidding," said Nall, picking up his bag again.  "Look at
you!  Not sure about the hairdo, though."
        Nyima's cheeks colored again.  "It's growing back," she said.
"I had to shave it to get my arrow, that's all."  She turned to Rory and
Amy.  "That looks heavy.  Would you like a hand getting it aboard?"
        "Uh, yes, please," said Rory.
        "Be careful," Amy cautioned her.  "It's hot.  And fragile."
        "Don't worry," said Nyima cheerfully, "I won't even touch it."
Then she took what looked at first to be a fighting stance, concentrated
for a second, and conjured a miniature cyclone out of nowhere.  This,
guided by graceful, precise movements of her long, slender hands, lifted
the chest from between its two bearers and conveyed it neatly to a spot
at the back of the broad, platform-like saddle on Vayu's back, then
dissipated.
        "There!" she said.  "There are tiedowns in the compartment at
the back of the saddle, if you'd like to make it extra-secure.  The
weather's very calm today and I doubt there'll be any trouble on the
short flight back to the island.  All aboard!"

        It was a -very- short flight back to the island; Vayu, Nyima
explained once they were on their way, was the swiftest of all the bison
based permanently at the Central Air Temple.  Even loafing along at what
was for him a leisurely pace, they were on Air Temple Island in just
minutes.  While the ground crew raced out to take care of business,
Nyima lofted the egg chest gently to the ground on another of her
miniature tornadoes, then jumped down to find that the youngsters were
already taking charge of their new guests as well.
        As she climbed down, Anne was amused to see Gyatso and one of
the other airbender boys, about the same age or a little younger, having
a bit of a foot race to see who would get to help Amy with her rucksack.
The other boy won, elbowing his way in front of Gyatso with a big grin
and piping,
        "Welcome to Air Temple Island!  I'm Tenzin and he's nobody
important.  I'll be happy to show you to your quarters.  May I take your
bag?"
        Amy blinked, then smiled, unshouldering the pack and handing it
over.  Tenzin covered any surprise he might have felt at its weight
well, hoisted it onto his back, and turned to go.  "This way!"
        "You guys go ahead and get situated," Nall told them.  "We'll
meet back here in an hour - I think the plan is for us all to head back
to town for dinner."
        "Works for me," Rory agreed, following after Tenzin and Amy.
        "Are you a firebender?" the boy asked Amy as he led the way
across the courtyard toward the dormitories.  "Or a fire -spirit?-  Your
hair is amazing."  After a moment's consideration, he added matter-of-
factly, "You're probably the most beautiful woman in the world."
        Amy went a little bit red.  "Uh... well, thank you," she said,
entirely disarmed by the cheerfully candid way he's said it.
        "Hey, now," Rory objected mildly.
        "Oi, you'd better not be disagreeing with him, matey," Amy
warned him.
        Off to one side of their path, a young girl in Air Acolyte robes
stood with her arms folded, frowning, as she overheard Tenzin's remarks.
"You really need to work on your detachment, Tenzin," she scolded him.
        "Not a master, don't have to yet," Tenzin retorted cheerfully.
        The girl sighed, rolling her eyes, then put out a hand to
intercept Rory as he tried to follow Tenzin and Amy past her.  "Not so
fast, champ," she said.  "You're a boy."  She pointed to a different
building.  "Your quarters are over there."
        Rory looked at the building, then at her, then at Amy, and
sighed.  "Oh.  Just like being back at school," he said, then nodded
with an air of resignation and went on, "Righto... "
        "I'll show you a room you can use," the girl added, as if
conceding a point.
        Amy grinned.  "See you later... champ."
        "Don't you start, Mrs. Williams," said Rory with a wry smile,
and then he trundled his rolling suitcase off toward the men's quarters.
"What's your name?" he asked his frowning little guide after a few
paces.  "I'm Rory."
        "Sita," the girl replied curtly.  Then, without any preamble at
all, she asked, "Is it just me, or is Tenzin the biggest dope who ever
walked the face of the world?"
        Rory looked slightly taken aback by this inquiry, then replied,
"I'm... sure I don't know.  I've only just gotten here."
        Sita gave a long-suffering sigh.  "Figures you'd take his side,"
she said.  "-Boys.-"
        Back where Vayu had landed, Nall stood by Anne and watched the
crew removing the bison's saddle and beginning to brush him, marveling -
as Corwin had earlier in the day - at the speed and precision with which
they worked.  Gyatso, who seemed to have taken no particular offense to
being cut out by Tenzin, pitched in with the rest of them.
        While they stood watching, they were joined by Anthy, Utena, and
Corwin, who greeted them cheerfully and confirmed that going to town for
dinner was still the plan.
        Nall eyed Makoto on Anthy's shoulder and remarked, "This guy's
muscling in on my turf here."
        "Krrbt?" Makoto wondered, tilting his head inquisitively.
        "Yeah, I mean you," Nall replied.  "Let's see your permit, pal.
You need a license to sit on ladies' shoulders around here, and I don't
remember seeing you apply for one."
        "Now, be fair, Nall, I have two," Anthy pointed out, smiling.
"And you're not sitting on either one like that, anyway," she added
archly.
        "Well, I can fix -that,-" said Nall, but before he could act on
that declaration, another teenage airbender arrived.  Trailed by waves
of long, dark hair, she came zipping down from the main temple by air
scooter, then jumped off to slide stylishly to a halt in front of the
bison.
        "Hello everyone!" Lhakpa said brightly.  "Oh, Corwin, you're
back!"  She wagged a chiding finger at him.  "You ran away to town
Friday night without even saying hello to anyone, it was -very- rude."
She nudged her younger sister with an elbow.  "Nyima was -crushed,-
weren't you, Nyi... "
        She trailed off as she noticed the white-haired, red-eyed young
man standing by Anthy.  She didn't think she knew him, but, wide-eyed,
she gave the impression that she'd very much like to change that.
        "... who is -this?-" she went on.
        Nall, for his part, was staring at her with equal puzzlement;
then his eyebrows went up and he blurted, "-Lhakpa?!-"
        If Nall had found the change in Nyima's appearance surprising,
that in her elder sister's was downright -shocking-.  When last he had
seen Lhakpa, she'd been at the all-elbows-and-knees stage herself, but
unlike Nyima, she appeared to have grown out of it with a -vengeance.-
Even her deliberately undecorative Air Nomad clothes couldn't hide that.
        He was -so- shocked, in fact, that he unconsciously reverted to
his old default flying-cat form; he'd been cuing that action up when she
arrived, and it was a standard part of Option B in his fight-or-flee
response anyway.
        Seeing this, Lhakpa drew back for a moment, startled; then,
seeing what he had become, she broke into a huge, delighted grin and
cried, "NALLY!"
        "oh crap," said Nall, and he was out of there, with Lhakpa in
hot pursuit just as fast as she could shape another air scooter.
        "... So what was -that- about?" asked Utena while the dust
settled.
        "Well," said Corwin.

//                                2395

        Nall fled, noting ruefully as he did that his pursuer was -fast-
for a four-year-old.
        "So cuuuuuuuute!" cried Lhakpa in a voice that could've cut
glass.  Behind, Corwin looked at his mother, who shrugged.
//

//                                2398

        "... so I said to the guy," Gryphon was saying, when Nall
suddenly swooped past his head, across the refectory, and out through a
window.
        "Come baaaaaack!" cried seven-year-old Lhakpa, evading the well-
meaning arms of several Air Acolytes like a broken-field runner as she
crossed the room, bounded onto the last table, and scrambled out through
the window after him.
        Gryphon watched her go, then turned back to Korra and remarked
dryly, "I didn't know the Air Nomads were into parkour."
//

//                                2402

        Corwin and Korra sat opposite each other on the meditation
pavilion, breathing slowly and evenly, settling gently into the deepest
peace within.
        "Helllllp!" cried Nall, speeding past.
        "Wheeee!" eleven-year-old Lhakpa cheered, banking her glider
around the pavilion and shaping an intercept course in an effort to
catch him before he reached the temple.
        Korra slowly opened one eye, registered the figures receding in
the distance, and closed it again.
        "... what was that?" Corwin mumbled.
        "Nothing," Korra told him.  "Keep breathing."
//

//                                 2404

        "This is just not faaaaair," Nall protested, weaving frantically
through the airbending gates.
        "You will be miiiiine!" thirteen-year-old Lhakpa declared,
spinning deftly through the gates herself, then whirled onto an air
scooter as soon as she was clear and streaked down the hill after him.
        Off to the side of the training area, Maki raised an eyebrow at
Corwin, who shrugged.
//

        "Ah," said Utena, enlightened.
        This time, though... this time was different.

                               /*  AC/DC
                           "Shoot to Thrill"
                       _Back in Black_ (1980)  */

        This time, once he'd recovered from the shock of her sudden
appearance, Nall wasn't making a headlong attempt to escape, as he
always had before.  He was older now, less inclined to panic at the
insistent attentions of a girl - particularly one who was, after all, an
old friend, and who now looked like -that,- into the bargain.  He let
her think he was, making it look as though he were flying flat-out with
no particular destination in mind, shouting for help he knew wouldn't
come; but in fact he had a -very- particular destination in mind.
        He led her a merry chase, nearly a full lap of the island, so
that she wouldn't get suspicious; but at last, having adjusted his speed
until she was at -just- the right distance behind, Nall sped toward the
airbending gates, knowing that she would see him heading for them and
set them spinning to complicate his escape.  In doing so, she forced
herself to abandon the air scooter so that she could navigate them
properly in turn.  That slowed her down just enough for Nall to put the
next part of his plan into action.
        Lhakpa whirled out of the last gate in record time - she'd have
been impressed with her own performance if she'd been of a mind to give
it any thought - and pulled up short in consternation.  Nall should've
been staggering dizzily away from the now-slowing gates, having been
jostled mercilessly by the air currents, but he was nowhere to be seen.
        She looked around in puzzlement, calling his name, then nearly
jumped out of her skin as something tapped her sharply on the shoulder
from behind.  She spun, raising her hands in a defensive stance, to see
the handsome young man who had turned into Nall, standing just outside
the gates, grinning at her.
        "Got you," he said, in sardonic imitation of the triumphant cry
she had always let out of old when she'd finally caught him and given
him his right and proper scruffling, and then -she- was getting a right
and proper scruffling.
        In the moment, Lhakpa, she thought, remarking wryly to herself
that Master Rohan probably hadn't meant it quite this way when he'd
taught her that bit of Air Nomad philosophy, and she relaxed happily
into his embrace.

        As planned, the whole gang regrouped an hour later and rode the
evening ferry back to the mainland: Utena, Anthy (and Makoto), and
Corwin; Kate and Anne; Amy and Rory; Niri and Serge; Korra, Nyima, Nall
and a curiously, contentedly disheveled Lhakpa.  Anthy perceived an
opportunity here for Nyima to give back some of the merciless ribbing
she'd been receiving from her elder sister about Corwin all weekend
long, and was pleased and impressed to see her let it pass by entirely
without comment.
        They dined convivially and well at a middling-upscale Earth
Kingdom restaurant called - completely unconscious of the Standard-
language joke implied - Chau's.  On the way inside, Utena spotted Emily
Wong lurking across the street.  She nudged Corwin with an elbow, then
caught Emily's eye, waved to her, and pointed theatrically at Korra's
back as the Avatar preceded her into the restaurant, grinning as if to
say, "See?  Huh?  The plot thickens!"
        Night was just falling as, dinner done, they caught the last
boat back to Air Temple Island and dispersed to their beds, with a
fairly early morning planned for Tuesday.  Most of them, anyway.

        Evening, and Korra was in one of her accustomed haunts: the roof
of the White Lotus guardhouse.  She wasn't out at the end of the gable
ridgepole tonight, but instead back on the pitched part of the roof that
also (the building being L-shaped) faced east.  Here she could, and
often did, spread a blanket over the tiles and sit in the slight
concavity of the curved roof.  From this vantage point, unlike her perch
on the ridgepole, she could lie back and relax, kept from sliding off
the roof by its curvature, and take in the view, or look up at the sky,
or just doze off.
        She was looking at the Republic City skyline and mulling over
the events of the last few days - the first time she'd really taken the
time and space to do that - when she spied a figure walking past the
front of the guardhouse below.  Whoever it was paused and looked up, as
if checking the gable end to see if Korra was up there.  She sat up,
elbows on knees, and tried to see who it was, but the courtyard in front
of the guardhouse was too dark for her to make out any details.
        A moment later, seeing that she wasn't in her usual spot, the
figure turned and started to walk away.  In the process, he passed
through the little pool of light cast by the guardhouse's front window,
and Korra saw that it was Corwin.
        "Sst!  Corwin!" she called, keeping her voice down for no real
reason other than that it seemed the thing to do at this hour.  "Over
here."
        Corwin looked up, peered into the dark, then smiled - his teeth
glinting in the windowlight - and used an earthbending technique to
throw himself into the air, depositing himself neatly on the roof a
couple of paces away.
        "Not bad," said Korra with a smile, patting the blanket next to
her.  "You make ragged edges, though," she added, pointing to the not-
very-square upraised chunk of rock he'd left standing in the courtyard.
        Corwin seated himself next to her.  "They're a badge of honor in
the Beifong style," he replied dryly, then gestured toward his inverse
divot and flattened it out again.
        "Hah.  Yeah, I'll buy that," Korra said, settling back against
the curve of the roof.  Corwin followed suit, folding his hands on his
chest, and they lay side by side and contemplated the Republic City
skyline in silence for a while.
        Then, not unkindly, Korra remarked, "Anthy and Utena threw you
out of their room?"
        "How do you figure?" Corwin wondered.
        "Woman's intuition," said Korra dryly.
        "Well, since you put so fine a point on it," said Corwin, "I
have been asked very nicely to find something out-of-the-way to do with
myself this evening."  He shrugged.  "Which, after the last couple of
days, seems only fair."
        "So... it's a... time-share kind of thing?"
        "It's a very improvisational kind of thing, at the moment,"
Corwin said.
        "Heh, fair enough," said Korra.  "You're not technically
supposed to be over there anyway."
        "Where do the married Air Nomads stay when they're passing this
way?" Corwin wondered.  "They don't split up for the duration, do they?"
        Korra shook her head.  "No, that's what that third building at
the back of the courtyard is for."  She chuckled at a fond memory.  "We
had to build that after the third and fourth generations started
arriving.  Aang didn't think of it when he originally built the new Air
Temple.  Even though he was doing it himself, that whole marriage-and-
family thing wasn't how the Nomads operated when he was a kid.  I had to
add an entire cliffside just for the foundation space!  A pretty
monumental day."
        She hitched herself up on an elbow and looked back over the top
of the roof.  "Tenzin and Pema used to stay up in the big house by the
ornamental pond, and that's where Jinora raised her brood.  She offered
it to me when her children were all grown and gone, but what am I gonna
do with a house that size?  I'm fine with my room in the ladies'
quarters."  Returning to her previous place, she shrugged and added
wryly, "Not like I'm getting a lot of overnight company.  Speaking of
you and the ladies," she added, turning her head to favor him with an
arched eyebrow, "when did you and The Late Toph Beifong get to be such
buddies?"
        Corwin made a lying-down shrug.  "Well, I dunno, I mean, she's
one of those people like - well, like you, actually.  I can't remember
not knowing her.  We sort of took it to the next level last fall,
though."
        "What, while you were stuck in Asgard?" asked Korra.
        "Right."
        "What happened?"
        Corwin smiled nostalgically.  "She broke into my apartment."
        "... Uh.  You're really going to have to elaborate on that."

//                    SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2409
                                VALHALLA

        As he had for many evenings lately, Corwin had dozed off on his
couch with the television on.  He snapped back to consciousness with a
jolt at the unexpected sound of a voice, loud and insistent:
        "OK, Ravenhair, on your feet!  Nap time's over!"
         Blinking awake, Corwin sat up and saw a familiar, diminutive
figure standing foursquare in the middle of his living room, one of the
windows (which had been locked) standing fully open behind her.  It was
Toph Beifong, and she was, he realized with deepening puzzlement,
dressed for traveling.  No shoes, as ever, but she had a heavy cloak
over her usual green-and-tan outfit and was wearing a hat that looked,
if Corwin was being honest, a bit like an overturned wok.
        "... Toph?"  He glanced at the TV.  The eighth inning of the
Knights-Rangers game was in progress; he'd fallen asleep in the third.
Returning his confused attention to Toph, he asked, "Why are you
breaking into my apartment?"
        "I'll tell you why!" Toph snapped, her hazy mint-green eyes not
quite looking at him.  "Because I'm sick of this crap!  I'm down at the
Golden Axe and all the Valkyrie girls are crying in their mead about how
sad you are and how mean Frey is and how SAD it all is and BOO HOO HOO.
Get your ass off that couch and let's go DO something."
//

        Korra snorted.  "OK, I can see that.  And did you?  Go do
something?"
        "Yeah, you could say that," Corwin replied with a chuckle.
        "What?"
        "Well, see, King Ulfgerth of Jotunheim used to have this green
diamond called the Eye of Destiny.  Colossal.  Got to weigh at least
five pounds."
        "Used to," Korra repeated, smiling slightly.
        Corwin nodded.  "Mm-hmm, he kept it in his legendary treasure
vault deep beneath Mount Frostcrag.  Guarded by a legion of his best
jotunn troops, and completely unreachable without his magic key,
besides.  Dvergar craftsmanship, that vault.  Nothing like it anywhere
else in the Nine Worlds."  He turned a lazy grin to her and added,
"Buried under two and a half miles of solid rock."
        Korra laughed.  "I get the picture," she said.
        "A heist can be a great bonding experience," said Corwin
philosophically.  "We ought to try it sometime."
        "Heh, maybe we should at that."
        "One of these days," Corwin mused thoughtfully, "I fully expect
to be notified that Toph has singlehandedly subjugated the dvergar of
Deeper Svartalfheim and is now their dark and terrible queen.  Lounging
insolently upon a throne of obsidian and gold while terrified goblins
peel grapes for her one at a time."
        "Given some stories I've heard about what she got up to back in
the day... I wouldn't be surprised," Korra admitted.  She thought in
silence for a few moments, then said, "Hey Corwin?"
        "Yeah?"
        Leaning up one one elbow, Korra gave him a serious look and
said, "I need you to level with me about something."
        "OK."
        "Do you know Katara?  Is she in Valhalla too, like Toph?"
        Corwin hesitated, but only for a second.  "Yes."
        Korra sat back again and turned her face up to the sky, closing
her eyes.  A few seconds later, without opening them, she said in a
level voice, "I'm going to assume there's a good reason you never told
me about her."
        "She asked me not to," Corwin replied.  "Many years ago.  She
made me promise never to tell you unless you specifically asked."
        "Why?"
        "She didn't want to put me in a position where I'd have to lie
to you," he said.
        Korra shook her head, eyes still closed.  "No, I mean, why not
let you tell me?  I'd have been thrilled.  I -am- thrilled, but also...
confused."  She sat up and turned to face him suddenly, her eyes
glinting wetly in the moonlight.  "Corwin, I loved that woman like she
was -my- gran-gran," she said.  "I saw more of her growing up than my
own parents.  And now... why would she hide this from me?"
        "I asked her that when she made me promise not to tell you,"
said Corwin soberly.  "I still remember what she said.  I was... what...
six or seven?  I had just put it together, that -she- was the Katara you
had told me about, and I was all excited - I was going to get Mom to
bring you to Valhalla and you'd get to see her again."  He closed his
eyes.  " I can -see- her.  How sad she looked."

//                     TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2398
                                VALHALLA

        Katara lowered herself to one knee to meet Corwin's eyes,
putting her hands on his shoulders, and spoke to him as if to a peer:
        "No, Corwin.  You mustn't do that.  You mustn't even tell her
I'm here."
        Corwin frowned, confused.  "Why not?  She'd be really happy.
She misses you."
        Katara bowed her head for a moment, unable to reply; then she
looked him in the eye again and said, "I know she would.  And I'd love
to see her again.  But your mother must have taught you - there's a
dividing line between the world of the living and this place for a
reason.  You can walk on either side of it because of who you are, but
for the rest of us... no.  No, Korra has to keep moving forward.  She
mustn't be tempted to dwell on what was.  My time has passed for her.
It's best if it stays that way."
        "I can't -lie- to her," Corwin objected, faintly indignant,
partly as a way of covering the fact that he was none the wiser for her
explanation.
        "No.  I wouldn't ask you to do that," Katara assured him.
"Only... promise me you won't mention me.  If she asks you directly, or
finds out some other way, of course you can tell her the truth, but
promise me it won't come from you."
        Filled with misgivings, but unable to refuse such a direct
request from a friend, Corwin hesitated, then said, "... All right.  I
promise."
//

        They sat gazing at each other in a solemn silence for a few
seconds; then Korra let out a faint snort and lay back again, one arm
across her forehead.
        "Well, that's just -dumb,-" she said grumpily.
        "I don't think so," said Corwin, mirroring her posture with both
hands behind his head.  "I mean, I don't think she's -right,- but I can
understand why she would think she was.  Most people -wouldn't- be able
to cope with direct knowledge of the afterlife.  She should've known
better when it comes to -you,- but... well, you said it yourself.  She
knew you when you were just a little kid, all enthusiasm and no
judgment.  On some level that's how she still sees you.  It's human
nature."  He quirked a little smile at her.  "Be honest, how many times
in the last three days have you had to remind yourself I'm not the Great
Bison Hijacker any more?"
        In spite of herself, Korra laughed.  "You have a point.  Doubly
so when I consider how strange it feels that you're over there being all
wise and mature at me," she added with a wry grin.  "I mean, I know it's
because of not seeing you in a while, but to me it's like you've just
suddenly grown up all at -once.-  Here we are, like old times, shooting
the breeze on the guardhouse roof, except all of a sudden we're talking
about heavy grown-up things and it's just... odd."  She looked over at
him and half-smiled.  "Nice... but odd."
        She sighed, gathering her thoughts, then went on, "You're right,
you know.  That's my main problem, even with people who -haven't- been,
um... out of circulation... for as long as Katara has.  I look the same
as I did when I first came to Republic City.  On a lot of levels, I
-feel- the same.  But it's not all it's cracked up to be.  I mean, I
-like- being healthy, don't get me wrong, but it... colors people's
perceptions of me sometimes.  Even people who I saw -grow up-.  To the
point where they forget I'm older than -they- are.  At which point,
well... you get things like what Tenneq got up to."  She shook her head.
"If they'd only bothered to talk it over with me, -face to face-, maybe
we could've reached some kind of compromise or something.  I'd have been
willing to take it slow, study the angles.  Instead, we got five years
of nothing but letters, and then Kyoshi trashing the meeting room."
        Corwin chuckled.  "Well, hey, look on the bright side," he said.
"You must have mellowed her some.  Time was, there would have been
structural damage."
        "Yeah, true."  Korra lapsed into silent thought for a few
moments, then asked, "Do you ever ask your dad how he does it?"
        "What, you mean 'be 400 years old'?  I tried once.  His answer
wasn't that illuminating.  He shrugged and said, 'Hell, I dunno, son, it
just kinda happened while I was doing other stuff.'"
        Korra laughed again.  "Yeah, that sounds like Gryph," she said.
"Still, at least it's a more upbeat answer than the one I got."
        "You asked Dad about the lifespan thing?" Corwin asked.  "I
never heard about that.  Seems weird that he'd have given you a downer
of an answer... even when he gets into a dark corner, which happens
sometimes, the fact that he's still going is usually one of his bright
spots.  If you see what I mean."
        She smiled, nodding.  "Yeah, I hear you.  I wasn't thinking
about him, though.  I was thinking about the -first- time I seriously
explored the question.  That was before I met your father - long before.
My hundredth birthday was the first time I really stared hard at it, and
back then there was only one person I could ask.  I asked Kyoshi."
        Corwin looked askance at her.  "... seriously?"

//                     XINQIWU, SIYUE 14, 253 ASC
                      (FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2372 GSC)
                            THE SPIRIT WORLD

        Every time Korra entered the Spirit World, it was subtly
different, and this time was no exception.  She found herself sitting in
an open field, surrounded by rocky crags that were streaked with pastel
chalk veins, thrusting out of the terrain.  The air was thick with the
scent of clover, and dandelion spirits drifted with the breeze.
        Korra nodded to herself, got to her feet, and looked around.  In
the distance she could see rolling hills, reaching for the turquoise and
violet sky.  Yes, this would do nicely.
        Putting thumb and forefinger in the corners of her mouth, Korra
let out a piercing whistle that echoed out over the landscape.  She
waited for a few moments, and then smiled as an eager howl answered
back.  Leaning against one of the rock outcroppings, Korra only had to
wait a few minutes before she saw movement on the horizon.  A low wide
white something rapidly approached, resolving itself into many narrower
somethings, preceded by more howls and barks.
        "There you are!" Korra exclaimed, stepping away from the rock
and spreading her arms wide, as an entire pack of polar bear dogs
surrounded her, each one eager for their master's touch.  She laughed as
they nearly overwhelmed her; as it was, she was forced back down to a
sitting position as she was obliged to scratch and rub the proffered
muzzles and foreheads of her loyal companions.
        "Hey, leave some of me for the rest of them, Atii!  Wow, Nuvuja,
do you ever need a bath!  Caught any good fish lately, Imaani?  Keeping
your claws sharp, Amaruq?  You're definitely getting exercise, aren't
you, Innruq..."  Korra grinned as she gave each of the bear dogs a
warm welcome, reassuring them she was there, remembered their names,
still cared about them.
        Finally, there was but one left, and she got to her feet as the
last polar bear dog nuzzled her.  Korra smiled sadly, brushing tears
from her eyes before she embraced the giant dog around her wide neck.
        "Oh Naga, I've missed you so much..."  She buried her face in
the thick white fur, just breathing in Naga's scent, before pulling back
to look her in the eye.  "I'm sorry for being away so long - ack, hey!"
Korra blurted out as Naga licked her face, and her tears away in the
process.
        "No hard feelings, huh?" Korra asked, with a tired smile.  Naga
barked and nuzzled her cheek.  "Thank you."
        Taking a deep breath, Korra stretched, then swung up into Naga's
saddle (which hadn't been there a moment before), situating herself as
she always had.  Below her, the rest of the pack looked up at her
expectantly.
        "Sorry, guys and gals, but I'm afraid this one's me and Naga
only," Korra apologized.  Before the pack could voice its protest, she
gestured off into the middle distance.  "Look, I'm sure if you stay
together, you can run down some rabbaroo spirits off thataway without
problems."
        Atii appeared to find this a fine idea, and with a final bark
and licking of Korra's booted ankle, she turned and led the pack off.
        Korra watched them depart, then leaned down and murmured into
Naga's ear:
        "Let's go find Kyoshi, Naga.  Let's ride."

                          /* Jeremy Zuckerman
                              "Fresh Air"
     _The Legend of Korra: Original Music from Book One_ (2013) */

        It was impossible to measure how much time it took for Korra and
Naga to track down the prior Earth Kingdom Avatar.  Such things mattered
little this deep in the Spirit World, and if questioned, Korra would
have to admit she didn't really mind.  It had been far too long since
she had last spent time with her first-ever friend, and she savored the
journey as they searched the varied landscapes.
        Finally, they found themselves traveling though a bamboo forest.
Through a gap in the bamboo stems, they could see the glimmer of the
ocean beyond.
        "This looks promising," Korra murmured, and urged Naga onward.
The polar bear dog quickly found a path through the forest that hadn't
been there before, and followed it eagerly as the bamboo stands parted
before them.
        What awaited them was a clearing along the crest of a hilly
ridge line.  The hills fell down sharply towards the ocean beyond, and
the bamboo groves thinned out.  If Korra narrowed her eyes and squinted,
she could see a long serpentine creature among the offshore islands.  It
looked like an unagi, but she couldn't tell for sure, and in the Spirit
World, it could have represented almost anything.
        Still, the place felt right.  Korra dismounted, scratched Naga
behind the ears, and looked around.  The clearing was landscaped in the
Earth Kingdom style, with carefully spaced rocks, plantings, and the
occasional stone bench.  Amid them stood a tall woman dressed in green,
a golden headdress above her painted face.  Curiously, she was standing
before an easel, and wielding a paintbrush instead of one of her
customary golden war fans.  Korra arched an eyebrow, gestured for Naga
to stay at the edge of the clearing, and stepped forward to get Avatar
Kyoshi's attention.
        "If you are wondering why you are not aging, Korra, I cannot
help you.  Such matters were beyond our understanding in my time as
Avatar, and I severely doubt the same circumstances apply to you,"
Kyoshi said, not moving her focus from the landscape painting she was
working on.  "You would do better to talk with one of the Air Nomads,
like Yangchen, who divorced themselves from worldly affairs and accepted
that their ends would come at the appointed time."
        "... I wasn't going to ask about that, actually," Korra pointed
out.  She quirked a grin as the taller woman was brought up short.  This
was a moment to be savored.
        Kyoshi blinked.  "Oh.  I see."  She set her brush down and
regarded her successor.  "But still you are troubled."
        Korra nodded, and walked over to the nearby bench, sitting down
with a sigh.  "Yeah, I am.  It's not the 'how' or 'why' of not getting
old that's worrying me... it's just... how do you -deal- with it?
Living so long?"  She shook her head and gestured out towards the ocean
beyond.
        "Mom and Dad, Master Tenzin and Pema, they've all long passed
away.  Jinora and the airbabies..." Korra snorted derisively.  "It's
ridiculous to even -call- them that anymore.  Spirits, Jinora's got
GREAT-grandchildren now.  And Asami, Bolin, Mako..."  She closed her
eyes tight, and her fists briefly clenched at her sides.  "... well,
we've gone over all that before."
        Kyoshi curtly nodded, and moved over to the bench.  "If I may,
Korra?"
        Korra nodded, opening her eyes and relaxing her hands to gesture
at the empty space next to her.  "Sure, it's a free Spirit World."
        The elder Avatar sat down next to her successor, the folds of
her ornate kimono settling around her. "In my time, it was rare for
people to live as long as they do now in Diqiu.  To say -I- was an
anomaly would be severely understating the issue.  Even before I
attained my great age, I already stood apart from most people of my era
thanks to my height, and it was only enhanced when I was announced as
the Avatar."
        Korra frowned briefly.  "Strangely, that sounds oddly familiar."
        Kyoshi nodded.  "Your own isolation due to the early realization
of your abilities, yes."  She looked out towards the island peaks, her
expression grim behind her warrior's face paint.  "I made being the
Avatar my watchword.  Acknowledged it as the reason for my existence.  I
sought to be a mountain, persistent and enduring, embodying the
substance of Earth.  The world would change around me, but I would not.
My justice would stand when all other options failed."
        Korra considered this.  "Makes sense, I suppose... but it sounds
awfully lonely."
        "I made some connections, of course.  That sort of thing is
inevitable in any but the most cloistered life, and I was never a monk.
But I always strove to hold others at arm's length, so they wouldn't
distract me from my duties, and so that when the time came to let them
go, it would be easier."
        Korra shook her head.  "I don't think I can live like that.
Not after everything I've done and seen."
        "Then you will suffer," Kyoshi replied - bluntly, but not
unkindly.  "It cannot be avoided.  You already know that.  If you choose
to go on facing it again and again anyway... then perhaps you are braver
than I."
        Korra arched a curious eyebrow up at her predecessor. "...
Really?  How do you figure?"
        "As I was the mountain, you are the ocean, Korra."  Kyoshi
nodded towards the waves beyond, and the sea spirits that dwelled there.
"Like the ocean itself, you change yet remain the same as the world
turns.  You embody Water; your strength is in the connections you make,
the people that you love.  It is from your community, whatever form it
takes, that you will draw strength in the long run."
         Korra blinked, then blinked again, and then nodded, finally
allowing herself to smile.
         "Yeah.  Yeah, I think I get it now."  She chuckled,
straightening up.  "Not that I didn't learn the lesson before, the hard
way, but it's always good to have a refresher."
         Korra got up from the bench, turned, and performed the Water
Tribe salute as she bowed towards the taller woman.  "Thank you, Avatar
Kyoshi, for your wisdom."
         Kyoshi smiled slightly as she stood, clasped her hands
together, and returned the bow.  "It was my honor to aid you, Avatar
Korra."
        Korra's eyebrows went nearly up to her hairline.  She honestly
could not recall Kyoshi having smiled, -ever-, in her past or those of
Aang or Roku.  "OK.  What's that you're not telling me, Kyoshi?"
        "It was a thought, told to me once by Yangchen.  That if your
answers were not to be found here, or in Diqiu, that perhaps they could
be found elsewhere.  For centuries I had thought it just Air Nomad
rambling, but given recent developments..."
        "... then perhaps I -should- look elsewhere.  Or in this case,
else-world-."  Korra chuckled, and gestured for Naga to approach.
"Yangchen always -did- play all the angles, didn't she?" she continued,
swinging up into her companion's saddle.
        Kyoshi nodded in agreement.  "Indeed."
        "Again, thank you, Kyoshi," Korra replied, giving her
predecessor one last look.  "I will keep your words to heart."
        Kyoshi returned Korra's gaze.  "Thank you.  Safe travels,
Korra."
        And with that, Korra and Naga departed.
//

        "... Wow," Corwin mused.  "You -have- mellowed her."
        "Hey, this was -years- before you came along, godboy," said
Korra, giving him a nudge with her elbow.  "She's just like that with
you because she doesn't approve of you."
        "What possible reason could she have not to approve of me?"
Corwin wondered indignantly.
        "Search me.  Maybe she thinks you're a flighty young man who'll
tempt me to run away with him and leave my world in the lurch."
        Corwin scowled at that, then snorted - giggled - outright
laughed as a thought dawned upon him.
        "... Yes?" Korra wondered.
        "I just realized what we should've done," said Corwin, coming
down from the fit of laughter with a long sigh.  "When we came back from
Cephiro, we should've convened the White Lotus Masters right then and
there, gone in, and told them the whole thing was a smokescreen and we
eloped.  You and me.  -Just to see what they would do.-"
        Korra stared at him for a few seconds as if he'd just declared
his ambition to be the next Fire Lord; then - just as it had him - the
thought made her first snicker, then giggle, then give up and let fly a
hearty burst of laughter.
        "Oh, man," she said when she'd recovered.  "We totally
should've.  That would have been -epic.-  Although," she added wryly, "I
suspect Captain Mrs. Prince Ravenhair Tenjou wouldn't have approved."

                            /*  Joe Satriani
                    "I'll Put a Stone on Your Cairn"
                   _Unstoppable Momentum_ (2013)  */

        "You would be -amazed- at the measures Utena will approve of
when the goal is to stick it to an interfering bureaucracy," Corwin told
her.  "I mean, don't get me wrong, she'd expect you to take your turn on
dish duty and stuff just like everybody else, being the Avatar doesn't
get you a pass on the household business."
        Korra giggled.  "I'll be sure to note that for my files," she
said, then elbowed him.  "Have you started on her betrothal necklace
yet?"
        "How did you know about that?" he wondered.
        "Cousin Kemba likes to talk," said Korra mischievously.
        "Ah.  Of course.  Well, no, actually.  I'm still thinking about
the design.  Which reminds me, I'm going to need another set of those
materials.  Heck, in Anthy's case I've still got a chance to do it in
the right order for once.  Sort of."
        Korra snorted.  "Yeah, uh, you're not going to find 'step 1:
father child' on many of the standard checklists, but."
        He shrugged.  "Her idea, not mine."  He smiled, a bit dreamily,
at the star-splashed sky.  "Although I have to admit I've warmed to the
notion somewhat."
        Korra chuckled.  "I can tell."
        "Which reminds me," Corwin said, his voice slightly drowsy now.
"Since she said it to you up on the dueling floor, Anthy likes to call
you my imaginary friend, but it'd be closer to the truth to call you my
fairy godmother.  In a world where fairies are hardcore ass-kickers,
anyway.  And actually, some of them are.  We've got one in the Valkyrie
who can drop a giant at 200 yards.  But I digress.  Anyway, my -point-
is, Avatar Korra: Anthy asked me to tell you that we'd be beyond honored
if you'd do the same for our daughter."  He shook his head.  "Not the
fairy part.  That was just me wandering."
        Korra turned her head and regarded his profile with a
sentimental smile, then reached across the small space between them and
took his hand, the gesture one of plain, uncomplicated affection.
        "The honor," she said softly, "would be mine, Prince Corwin."

                        TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 2410

        Corwin's first discovery on Tuesday morning was that, while a
fine vantage point for taking in a view of Republic City and an
excellent spot for a private conversation, the roof of the White Lotus
guardpost was not really a good place to sleep.  For one thing, it
wasn't very comfortable.  For another, it faced east.  And for a third,
it got you some mighty strange looks at breakfast.
        "I thought you were a Viking," Korra chided him as they entered
the refectory.  "Used to sleeping in rough conditions."  She shook her
head sadly.  "You wouldn't last a week on the icepack."
        Corwin gave her a half-hearted glower, stretching his arms
backward.  "The icepack would not - aaaargh," he interrupted himself as
something crackled meatily, " - have left my spine this shape."
        "Hmph.  Well, -I- slept just fine," she said airily.
        Corwin rolled his eyes.  "I'd point out that -you- had something
to put your head on, but the airbender kids are having a hard enough
time pretending they're not staring at us already."
        "Well, not all of them," Korra pointed out, and, following her
suggestive eyeline, Corwin saw what she meant.  At least one of the
young airbenders was paying them no attention at all: sitting at their
table with the rest of the newly expanded crew, Lhakpa appeared only to
have eyes for Nall.
        Hmm, thought Corwin.  Stepping to the other side of the table,
he bent to kiss first Anthy, then Utena good morning, then slipped onto
the open cushion next to the latter.
        "Kate got a great photo of you guys just before dawn," said
Utena with a grinning nudge.  "I'm thinking of sending it to Emily
anonymously."
        Pouring himself some coffee, Corwin replied mildly, "Elskr, you
know that photo of you and Saionji in your sophomore class yearbook?"
        Utena made a dismissive gesture.  "Oh, pff, Emily wouldn't have
any use for that, she doesn't even -know- Saionji."
        Anthy giggled; Corwin sighed and buttered some toast.
        "Speaking of, let's see what's in the morning edition of the
Tribune," said Korra cheerfully, extracting Section Four from said
paper.
        "I guess we won't find out until tonight's edition whether Emily
owns a telescope," said Anthy with a slightly evil grin.
        "Hah, don't even joke," Korra told her, "I've seen 'em do worse.
Although that's usually the guys from the United Daily."  She scanned
the section's front page, then grinned and said, "Heh, well, she's still
on the job, though."  She turned the paper around so her fellow
breakfasters could see the picture - showing them all emerging from
Chau's in a cheerfully chatting mass the night before - and the headline
stack below:

                           A NEW TEAM AVATAR?

               More Intriguing Strangers Arrive by Train

             Mystery Couple, Others Dine with Avatar Korra

            "They Were Very Polite," Say Restaurant Staffers

        At the bottom right, there was a smaller headline, AND WHO IS
THIS?, next to an arrow pointing to a separate photo; this one showed
Amy, dressed in her traveling clothes from the day before, her hair
fetchingly tousled from sleeping on the train.  It took her a moment to
place it, but the bronze-edged doorway behind her and the straightness
of her left arm gave it away; it had been taken just as she emerged from
Central City Station the previous day.  The photo had been cropped so
that the egg chest would have been just off the page's righthand edge.
        "Well, that's typical," Rory groused.  "They've cut me right out
of the picture."
        Korra turned the paper back around and read them a bit of the
article, in which Emily Wong speculated that this small invasion of
interesting foreigners gathering around "our Avatar" might constitute a
new manifestation of the informal special action teams with which Korra
had been known to surround herself in the past.  She seemed to think
this indicated that something big might be in the offing, something that
might extend well beyond Section Four, and she was determined to find
out what it might be.
        "I like the kid's moxie," Korra mused, "but I'm afraid she might
be setting herself up for a little bit of a disappointment with -that-
line of reasoning."  Thoughtfully, she got out her gearPhone and thumbed
a speeddial code.  "Cheong.  Hey.  Yeah, lookin' at it right now.  Has
she called you?  Uh-huh.  Well, she seems to think - no, I - well, did
you come right out and -say- they're not working the Comet case with
Eitaro and me?"  Her brows knitted.  "Aw, jeez.  You know as well as I
do that that's as good as confirming it!  I don't pay you to make that
kind of rookie mistake."
        She paused and listened for a few moments, then replied, "Well,
no, you're right, I don't pay you at all.  You have a definite point
there.  Well, partly because I don't have anything to pay you with,
unless you have some pressing -use- for fishing rights in Pangniqtuuq
Fjord.  Look, we're getting off topic here.  If she calls back, see what
you can do about defusing that.  No, it's only for a couple more days.
We'll let her off the hook before Corwin and the gang head home.  OK.
Yeah.  Thanks.  Seeya."
        Turning off the phone, Korra regarded it for a second, then
pocketed it.  "Hmm."  Then she smiled ruefully at Corwin and Utena and
said, "Boy, I hope you guys have a good payoff planned for that girl."
        "I thought we did, but she's sort of going above and beyond,"
Utena admitted.  "We may have to go bigger."
        Korra considered the paper for a moment, then folded it up, set
it aside, and said, "I should probably get out The Hat while we're
running around today.  Just so I don't get mobbed at the museum."  At
Utena's curious look, she smiled and said, "You'll see."

        When those who were heading to the Avatar Museum gathered in the
courtyard an hour later, several of them were a bit bemused to see that
Korra appeared to be wearing a half-hearted disguise.  Consisting
solely of a minor hairstyle change and a light camelephanthair overcoat
and cloche hat added to her regular clothes, this seemed like it would
be about as effective at concealing her identity as schnoz glasses.  She
didn't seem concerned, though - and, slightly to some of her friends'
amazement, it seemed to work.  She wasn't -acting- like she was trying
to be incognito, but even though they arrived on Aang Memorial Island by
sky bison and no one could possibly have failed to recognize her, people
acted as if they didn't.
        "What's going on?" Rory murmured to Amy as the dozenth or so
person in the museum -didn't- swoop in seeking an autograph.  "Why
doesn't anyone recognize Korra?"
        Amy shrugged and probably would've asked him how he figured she
would know, but before she could, Nyima leaned smilingly over and
explained quietly, "Everybody -does.-  But it's an old, old custom in
Republic City that no one acknowledges it when she's wearing The Hat.
The tradition goes back generations.  It's the city's way of giving her
some space."
        Amy raised one coppery eyebrow.  "And that works?"
        Nyima nodded.  "Usually.  Sometimes tourists and people who are
new in town don't realize, but the locals usually set them straight."
        "Huh," said Rory.
        "The people at my high school do something similar with one of
my classmates," Anne mused, smiling.  "I mean, we all -know- he's Robin,
but it would be rude to rub his nose in it."

        The building beneath the colossal statue of Avatar Aang on his
memorial island had originally been the entire Avatar Museum, but as
that institution's prestige had grown and its collection had expanded,
it had rapidly outgrown the facility.  Today, for the most part, only
the items most directly connected with that -particular- Avatar were
housed there.  The rest resided in a large and splendid edifice on the
mainland, across the courtyard from the United Republic Museum (with
which it was affiliated).
        The Aang collection took up a good chunk of the morning, and
filled in many of the gaps that had been left in Utena's understanding
of his history by the United Republic Museum - in part because the
Avatar Museum was also bilingual in its signage, but its Standard
placards were actually intelligible.
        "Well, thank you," said Korra with a smile when Utena related
this fact to her.  "I wrote the copy for these myself, here and at the
downtown museum.  Took me about a year.  One of these days I ought to
touch up the URM's, but I keep finding more interesting things to do."
        Utena laughed.  "OK, fair enough," she said.
        In addition to the regular ferry service to Air Temple Island,
there were scheduled ferry runs between Aang Memorial Island and the
mainland, the better to link the two halves of the museum together.  It
was this, rather than another sky bison hop, that the group used when
they'd finished the island's collection.  This positioned them nicely
for lunch at the mainland museum's much larger and more elaborate
cafeteria.  They ate in the outdoor part, which was configured as a sort
of sculptural garden, featuring statues of various Avatars that had been
salvaged from various places around the world.
        "What's the story with this?" Kate wondered, pausing with her
tray of food in front of a badly damaged statue.  It looked as if it had
once depicted a tall, thin, bearded man, but it was partly broken and
partly melted, so more than that was difficult to say.
        "That's Avatar Roku," said Korra.  "The one before Aang.  This
was in the Fire Temple on Crescent Island.  Roku was... -not pleased-
that the Fire Sages threw their support behind Azulon and Ozai during
the Hundred Year War.  When Aang made contact with him at the temple,
he, uh, showed his displeasure.  With a volcanic eruption.  Shame,
really, the Fire Temple was a pretty historic place, but... "  She
shrugged.  "I wasn't born then, and Aang was a little preoccupied with
just getting out alive.  It was that kind of day.  He had a -lot- of
that kind of day that year."
        "Ah," said Kate, nodding, and they moved on.
        They found a big enough table for everyone in the shade of the
garden's biggest statue.  This reminded Kate of the great stone Buddha
outside the New Avalon Zen Center - it was in a similar seated pose and
on a similar scale, probably two stories high - but instead of a thin
man in a tunic, this depicted a woman in airbender garb, the arrow on
her high, shaved forehead carved in relief so that it would be more
obvious.  Heavily weathered and mottled with patches of moss, the statue
had an air of ancient gravity and repose, but there was something a bit
haughty in the angle of the airbender's head, the set of her jaw.
        "Hey, Nyima, I thought airbenders were humble and retiring
folk," Amy mused, looking up at the statue.
        "We are," Nyima said.  "Or we try to be, anyway."
        "I think the person represented by this statue may have missed
the memo," said Rory dryly.
        "It's Avatar Yangchen," Nyima conceded.  "She had a reputation
for being... reasonably impressed with her achievements."
        "Keep in mind, though, that almost all these statues were
commissioned by people other than those they represent," Korra pointed
out.  "I mean, you don't think Aang himself had anything to do with the
huge Aang statue in the harbor, do you?  He's -still- a little
embarrassed about it."
        "What about you, Korra?" asked Anthy.
        Korra hesitated.  "Well," she admitted, "there is -one,- at the
Southern Air Temple.  But that's because there's one of -every- Avatar
there.  And I don't think it's really idealized.  I mean, they're all
pretty basic.  I'm just standing there next to Aang.  It actually looks
like we're all in line at the DMV."
        "I saw one in Senna once," Corwin objected.
        Korra laughed.  "That was ice," she said.  "They do that every
year on my birthday.  And then every spring, everyone in town bets on
when it'll fall down."
        That got a laugh around the table, and the conversation turned
to other matters for the rest of lunch.
        They came back to the same topic, however, almost immediately
upon going back inside, for the high-arched entrance to the Avatar Korra
Gallery was flanked by two enormous banners bearing her mildly stylized
likeness.  Twenty feet high, she stood vivid in pale blue against a dark
blue background, one hand on cocked hip, the other in a loose fist at
her side.  The artist had clearly been aiming to make a statement,
depicting her as tough, sassy, literally larger-than-life: ready for her
close-up, or a fight, whichever happened to offer itself.
        "I always feel a little narcissistic coming in here," said
Korra a trifle ruefully.  Looking up at one of the banners, she added,
"Of course, the giant Avatar Korra Equals Badass Babe posters don't
help with that.  Which brings us neatly back to what I was saying
before."  She regarded the flattering image thoughtfully for a second,
then turned to Kaitlyn and remarked, "Y'know, in hindsight it's
embarrassing how obvious this is.  I'll say this for Tarrlok: he was a
weaselsnake, but he was up front about it."
        Kate didn't reply; she just gave the Avatar a sly little smile.
        "... You're gonna do it, aren't you," said Korra, her shoulders
sagging.
        "You know I am," Kate replied, holding up her minicamera.
        Korra gave a long-suffering sigh, then took the camera from her
and said, "OK, everybody group up."  Then, while the others all arranged
themselves in front of the banner on the left, Korra scanned the passing
museumgoers before settling on a young man in a Ba Sing Se University
sweatshirt.
        "Excuse me!  Sir?" she said, approaching him with her most
winning smile.  "Would you mind getting our picture in front of the
banner here?"
        Surprised, the young man pulled up short, looked from her to the
group under the banner and back, then smiled and said, "Uh, sure, no
problem."
        Korra handed him the camera.  "Thanks.  Yeah, just - just press
this here," she confirmed, pointing to the button his finger had already
found.  "Right.  Maybe one close up, so everybody's face shows up, and
then another one from back there so the whole banner fits in?" she
suggested, pointing to a spot at the far end of the corridor leading
back to the Avatars Before Sozin's Comet wing.
        He nodded.  "OK, that sounds good."  Then he blinked in sudden
realization, looked quickly from Korra to the banner and back a couple
of times, and said in a quiet, hesitant voice, "Uh... are you... ?"
        "Shh!" said Korra, putting a finger to her lips.  "Careful.  I
don't mind?  But if the locals catch you recognizing me while I'm
wearing this hat they'll -shun- you."  She winked.  "It's a Republic
City thing."
        The young man looked puzzled, then shrugged.  "Oh.  Uh... OK."
        "Thanks, you're a pal," said Korra, clapping him on the
shoulder.  Then she headed back to the rest of the group and fitted
herself into the spot they'd left for her in the middle.  The young man
took a couple of close shots, then retired to the other end of the hall
and shot a few more frames from there before returning and handing the
camera back with a shy smile.
        "There you go... um... miss," he said, reddening slightly.
        "Perfect!" said Korra, checking the pictures.  "Hey, what's your
name?" she asked.
        "Yang," said the young man automatically.  "Yang Tao."
        Korra smiled at him again.  "Well, Tao, we really appreciate
your help."  Turning to the camera's owner, she returned it and held out
her empty hand.  "Hey, Kate, give me a yuan.  No, not a coin, a bill."
Money in hand, she got out a felt-tip pen from an inside pocket of her
overcoat, turned Corwin around, and used his back as a desk to jot a
quick note on the back of the bill.  "And... there," she said, then
capped the pen, put it away, and tucked the bill into Yang's hand,
telling him, "Thanks again.  Have a great day!"
        "Um... thank you?" said Yang, his face almost blank with
bemusement except for a lingering slight blush.  "You too," he added,
then moved off in his originally planned direction.
        "That young man is -utterly- confounded," Anthy observed with a
fond smile.
        "And probably in love," Utena agreed.
        "The two sensations are often difficult to distinguish," said
Corwin sagely.
        "(tell me about it,)" Korra mumbled, almost inaudibly.
        "The wisdom of the Trinity, ladies and gentlemen," a grinning
Nall put in, drawing a giggle from Lhakpa.  Nyima gave her sister a
suspicious glance, then ignored her as they all trooped through the
archway into the exhibit area itself.
        There were a few thin spots here, mainly to do with things that
were better-represented in their larger historical contexts elsewhere.
The Equalist Revolt, for instance, was covered in greater detail at the
United Republic Museum, and Project Phoenix Flight had its own -museum-
all to itself in the Fire Nation, as well as the displays in the lobby
of the Phoenix House Hotel.  For the most part, though, the gallery
presented a fairly comprehensive, and even reasonably impartial,
overview of Korra's long career to date.
        The most obvious items were pieces of machinery.  In one corner,
surrounded by a velvet rope, stood an old friend: the black and silver
shape of the Korramobile, freshly polished back to a showroom shine.
Utena laughed at the sight of it and went over for a closer look.  Even
right up next to it, she'd hardly have known that just the day before
yesterday, she'd been driving it around the city.  It looked like it'd
been there, meticulously dusted but otherwise untouched, for decades.
        Next to it, on a small plinth, stood a descriptive sign in
Tongyu and Standard:

This 2289 Future Industries P2X touring roadster is one of two that
were used by Avatar Korra and her friends to patrol Republic City and
its environs in the 2290s.  The first was destroyed during the Equalist
Rebellion.

       "Oh!" Utena remarked upon reading it.  "So it really -was- the
Korramobile."
        "Yeah, pretty much," Korra replied, smiling nostalgically.  "Ah,
those were the days."
        The other, larger and more obvious machine stood along the back
wall, surrounded by other items pertaining to the Avatar's long
association with the Sato family and its various enterprises.  To the
unfamiliar eye of Amy, who was the first to notice it, it looked like a
cross between a tank, a freight loader, and an old-timey diving suit,
complete with a "head" that resembled such a suit's spherical, many-
windowed helmet.  This one wouldn't have been much good for diving,
though; several of its greenish glass windows were only fragmentary, and
the metal framework that had surrounded them was bent.  The machine's
oddly lustrous silvery armor was dented and scratched in several other
places.  Plainly, it had -not- been painstakingly restored to factory
condition before being put on display.
        "Hey, what's this doing here?" Corwin wondered.  "Last time I
saw it, it was at the Sato."
        "We switch the exhibits around sometimes," Korra explained.
"Our car from the '93 Future City GP is over there right now, for
instance."
        "What is it?" Amy wondered.  "Some kind of industrial machine?"
        "Sort of," said Korra.  "Corwin, I believe this is your area,"
she went on, adding with a faint smirk, "god of Mecha."
        Corwin bowed sardonically to her, then told Amy, "This is in
fact what happens when an Authentic Wacko re-tasks an industrial load
lifter as a terror weapon.  Under the platinum armor - you heard me -
and the grappling hooks which are also tasers - again, you heard me -
it's a forklift."
        "Hey, don't knock it," Korra said, and the others all got the
impression (well, Kaitlyn knew for a fact) that this was a conversation
they'd had before.  "These things were very much an out of context
problem until we got enough breathing room to actually -think- about how
to defeat them.  You definitely don't want a bunch of them coming after
you in a locked warehouse," she added.  "Which happened."
        "Why platinum?" Rory wondered.  "That must have cost an absolute
fortune."
        "Metalbenders can't bend it - too highly refined - and I guess
gold was too blingy," said Corwin.  Then, twirling a fingertip next to
his temple, he added, "Remember, Authentic Wacko."  He grinned at Korra.
"I do have to concede they were effective.  I mean, the historical
record is clear on that point, and hey, I'll be the first to acknowledge
that in mecha design, sometimes crazy works."  He shook his head.  "Two
tons of platinum per unit, though!  In today's money back home that
would be something like a hundred million credits apiece.  And that's
just for the hull!  That doesn't even take into account internal
components, actuators, dynamogenerators, research and design, labor
costs, tooling, logistics, fabrication, the -actual robot-... "
        "Yep," Korra agreed.  "Turns out backing a terrorist conspiracy
isn't really a viable business model.  That's one of the main reasons
why this is the last one left.  The others had to be scrapped to reclaim
the platinum.  No wonder Future Industries nearly went bankrupt after
Hiroshi went to prison.  He'd redirected the entire world supply of the
most valuable known metal of the time into this one project for
something like two years.  Even by his standards, that was... pricey."
        Corwin smiled sentimentally at the old machine.  "I don't want
you guys to get the wrong impression here," he said, mainly to Rory and
Amy.  "I have a real fondness for these nutty things.  They're crazy and
stupid and impractical in every way, but they've got style.  I wish
someone had thought to preserve one of the ones with the giant magnets I
saw in a book once," he added with a grin.  "Those were great.  On some
level, I can't help but be tickled that that even worked.  The tinheads
must've felt like they'd just been defeated by Wile E. Coyote."
        "Be nice," Korra chided him mildly.  "We didn't have plastics
yet."
        "Or aluminum, or austenitic stainless steel," said Corwin
mischievously.
        "Neither of which would've helped with the conductivity problem,
as you well know, and we're losing our audience," said Korra with a
grin, noting the increasingly bemused looks on several of their
companions' faces.  "Anyway!" she went on.  "Guys, you'll be pleased to
know that this story has a happy ending."  She gestured to the exhibit
they'd been discussing.  "The original mecha tanks were horribly
wasteful and really dangerous and they were used by the Wrong People to
do bad things, but the -second- generation revolutionized the
construction industry.  Without Mecha Builders, it would've taken
-years- to rebuild Gaoling after the earthquake."
        "Which is a clean segue into the next part of the museum!" said
Nyima cheerfully.
        Korra pointed to her.  "Correct!  Two points for Master Nyima,"
she declared, offering a hand for a high five.

        They went from the Avatar Museum straight to the Professional
Bending Hall of Fame, a smaller and more specialized establishment in a
utilitarian but handsome building adjoining Shiro Shinobi Arena.  Much
of what was presented here went over the outworlders' heads entirely,
since - being an unfamiliar sport's hall of fame - it was mainly
concerned with enshrining byegone athletes of whom few of them had ever
heard, and who had played a game few of them had ever seen.  Corwin and
Kate, pro bending fans from way back, had been there before and enjoyed
checking it out again, Anne was intrigued thanks to her newfound
interest in firebending, and Utena and Anthy were up for anything that
might add to their growing stock of insight into this world and its
people, but Amy and Rory mainly concentrated on the old video games in
the atrium by the snack bar.
        Before splitting up to follow their own whims, though, they did
have to pass the display near the entryway having to do with - what
else? - the Avatar's own professional bending career.  This was
reasonably understated as these things went, largely at Korra's own
insistence, but she couldn't have prevented it outright.  Like it or
not, she was a key figure in the sport, not because she had been a
really great player (she herself would insist she'd never been more than
"pretty good"), but because she'd been the first, and so far the only,
Avatar to play the game at all.  Her interest, and ultimately
participation, in the sport had legitimized it in the eyes of a good
many members of the public, starting it on its path from its somewhat
shady, semi-organized roots to mainstream popularity.
        There were still those who claimed that it had been better
before that happened - that the modern game was too clean and corporate
to be really cool - but, as Avatar Aang's brother-in-law, the great
second-century swordsman, painter, and poet Master Sokka said, haters
gonna hate.
        The really interesting thing to Anthy about the Korra display at
the Pro Bending Hall of Fame was that it was not - as some of the
others, she noticed later, were - gushingly congratulatory.  Her career
stats were presented, as with all the players enshrined in the Hall,
without comment or embellishment, and it had to be admitted that they
contained few superlatives.  The mannequin displaying her Future
Industries Fire Ferrets uniform, as well as those wearing the uniforms
of her two teammates, were not posed in dramatic or flattering style,
but just stood there, showing the uniforms and nothing more.  And then
there was the painting.
        This showed a pro bending arena - an earlier iteration of
Shinobi Arena, presumably - with a match in progress between the Fire
Ferrets and some other, fairly generically rendered team.  Korra was
unmistakable in her blue waterbender's sash, the lines of her body
squared off only slightly by the padding of her uniform, her high
ponytail protruding from the back of her skeleton helmet.  She was shown
in a fighting stance, directing a stream of water that had just knocked
one of the other fighters over the ropes and off the side of the arena.
At the side of the scene, standing on his platform, one of the referees
was in the process of unfurling a fan, its surface a bright canary
yellow.
        "... Are you getting a -penalty?-" Anne wondered.
        Korra, hands on hips, grinned wryly at the painting.  "Yep," she
said.  "Ah, my -favorite- painting of myself," she added sarcastically.
"This could be used as a bookend with Tarrlok's giant banner in an
exhibition.  The least and most flattering portrayals of Avatar Korra."
Then she shrugged.  "I did tell 'em not to make me out to be some kind
of superhero, but I think they might've been a little too diligent about
it," she added with a wink for the young samurai.

        At three-thirty, they adjourned to Shiro Shinobi Arena itself.
Korra eschewed the fancy VIP box seats in favor of the bleachers, which
she claimed was the only way to -really- watch a pro bending match.  The
magic of The Hat continued working; those seated around them seemed more
interested in the gang of Obvious Foreigners than the equally obvious
fact that the Avatar was with them.  Anne supposed Korra was probably a
pretty well-known quantity in these particular parts, anyway.
        In the few minutes before the afternoon's exhibition matches
began, Korra gave the newcomers a quick rundown of the rules.  These
mainly had to do with what did and did not constitute fair uses of
bending (earth- and firebenders, for instance, were forbidden to direct
their elements at the opponents' heads, while neither fire- nor
waterbenders could sustain a streamed assault for more than a second),
territorial matters involving the various lines on the court, and
questions of timing and scoring.  It seemed like a fairly simple game,
all things considered.
        Then play began and they saw that it wasn't really as simple as
the basic rules made it appear.  There was quite a bit of strategy
involved, and - strangely for what was essentially a combat sport - a
lot of restraint.  Players weren't allowed to actually -fight- one
another; they weren't, in fact, allowed to be in the same sectors of the
court at the same time.  In practice, that meant it was a game that was
largely about positioning - knowing one's own and one's teammates',
working out ways of disrupting or exploiting the other side's.
        This was the first exhibition of the year, not even part of the
official preseason (which didn't begin until the following week), and so
the teams were all at least a bit rusty.  In some cases, a -lot- rusty,
to the point where even the untrained observers among Korra's guests
wondered whether the players had done anything over the offseason that
didn't involve a couch and a remote control.  This occasionally made for
good comedy, and just as often good schadenfreude.  Before long, even
the most mystified of the newcomers was into it, picking sides more or
less arbitrarily.  Anne noticed with a little grin that Rory and Amy
tended to pick the opposite ones, while Anthy seemed to have a quiet
preference for whoever was losing, and Utena a not-so-quiet one for
whoever was doing whatever they were doing, winning OR losing, with the
most heart.
        During the brief intermission following the fourth preliminary
match (a battle of two teams from the far-flung Si Wong Desert, in which
the Night Vale Spiderwolves narrowly defeated their arch-rivals, the
Desert Bluffs Sunbeetles), Korra was mildly surprised (and slightly
nonplussed) to receive a call on her silenced gearPhone.  As there
wasn't any actual play in progress just then, though, she decided she'd
better answer it, and so, with a mumbled apology to her companions, she
withdrew to the aisle and did so.
        "Hello?  Oh, hey, we're just waiting for you - "  She held the
phone away from her head for a second to scowl at it, then put it
hastily back and said, "Wait, wait, -what?-  Run that by me again?  What
do you mean, he didn't make his flight?  -Seriously?-  And he couldn't
get rerouted?"  Another interjection from the caller.  "OK, OK, calm
down.  Look.  As long as that storm isn't going to hit any major
residential areas there's very little I can do about it, -especially- in
this kind of time.  I mean, at this point I couldn't even -get- there
before it was all over.  -Maybe-, if you'd called -yesterday-... yes,
yes, I know."
        Enduring a brief storm of objection from the person who had
called her, Korra sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.  "Look,
it's not like it's - it's not even spring training, nevermind the
regular season.  And you -know- the fuss they'd make if I stepped in at
the last second, even for an exhibition match.  I really don't think
there's anything I can do for... "
        She trailed off, looking back toward her vacant seat.  Next to
it, Corwin was leaning down and explaining something about the rules of
the game to Anne, using fighter-piloty gestures to do it.  Korra
considered this for a moment (her caller repeating, "Hello?  Hello?" in
her ear), then slowly smiled.
        "... on second thought, I'll be right there," she said, then
snapped the phone shut before any question could be forthcoming, put it
away, and waded back toward her seat.
        "So!" she said cheerfully.  "While we're waiting for the next
match, who wants refills?"  Pointing to various companions, she ticked
off their preferred snacks.  "Popcorn, fire flakes, soda, lychee juice?
Rory?  More rice balls?  Amy, you want another squid-on-a-stick?"  She
rubbed her hands together with glee as everyone relayed their orders,
then said briskly, "Good, good.  Corwin, you're with me."

        "Korra... this isn't the way to the concession stands," Corwin
observed a minute or so later, as she half-led, half-dragged him by the
hand into the employees-only area of the arena.  He'd been here before,
on the Special Tour, but not for a number of years.
        "Not much gets by you, Corwin," she said cheerfully, leading him
around a corner and into what he recognized as one of the hallways where
the dressing rooms were.  As they moved down the hall, she took off The
Hat with the hand not occupied with dragging him along.
        "So you say you're an earthbender now, Corwin?" Korra asked.
She gave him a sly grin and said, "Well, it's time to put your yuans
where your yapper is," then hustled him through a door and into one of
the dressing rooms.  Unlike the locker rooms in any other gym or
sporting venue he could think of, those at Shinobi Arena were as
pleasantly decorated as the rest of the facility - the designers had
made no distinction between the areas of the arena that were to be seen
by the public and those that weren't.
        There were already two people in the room, both women, one
dressed in a red-and-white Temple Island Fire Ferrets uniform, the other
only about halfway there.  Neither seemed dismayed that the Avatar had
just barged into their dressing room and brought a slightly-bewildered-
looking young man with her.
        "Right!" Korra declared, striking a triumphant here-he-is pose.
"You guys can relax, I found you an earthbender."
        Corwin glanced sharply at her.  "You what?"
        The young woman who was still dressing finished pulling her
jersey over her head, raked her hands through her short brown hair, and
only then took a look at the new arrival.  When she did, she blurted,
"-Corwin?!-"
        "Karana!" Corwin replied, equally surprised.
        The other woman shook her head with an indulgent little smile
and asked him rhetorically, "You really do know everybody, don't you?"
        Corwin, already a bit at a loss, took a second or so to realize
that he knew her.  "Wh - Azana!"  Regaining his aplomb quickly, he
smiled.  "I didn't realize you were a pro bender."
        "And I didn't realize you were a bender at all, so I guess that
makes us even!" Azana replied with a grin.  "So.  Are you any good?  For
starters, do you know the rules?"
        "Are you at least aware that you can't knock people off the
sides?" Karana asked impishly.
        "ONE TIME!" Korra objected.  "I did that ONE, TIME!"  Pointing
mock-threateningly at Karana, she went on, "Listen, missy, I brought you
into this world, I can show you back out."
        Karana didn't seem impressed by the threat; she just rolled her
eyes in a distinctly un-dealing-with-the-Avatar-like manner, then
returned to securing her uniform.  Still smiling, Azana guided Corwin to
one of the cabinets (they were really far too nice to call them lockers)
along one wall of the room.
        "Here," she said, opening it up.  "Wan's spare uniform ought to
fit you reasonably well, he's a big guy."  She frowned.  "Hang on, you
can't wear his number, though."
        "That's OK, 'Zana, we've got what, six minutes?" Karana asked
breezily.  She took the uniform jersey out of the cabinet on its hanger
and tossed it casually to Korra.  "I'm sure Gran-gran can sew that fast
if she puts her mind to it.  She -is- the Avatar, after all."
        Korra gave a put-upon sigh, carried the jersey to the low
cabinet on the other side of the room, put down The Hat off to one side,
and opened one of the drawers, hunting for the spare numbers and sewing
supplies.  "You guys just don't respect me," she mock-grumbled.  "And do
-not- call me gran-gran.  Corwin, what number do you want?  Anything
above 60 should be available."
        While Korra removed the team's usual earthbender's number from
the back of the spare jersey and affixed another one, Karana and Azana
got Corwin into the rest of the gear.  As Azana had predicted, it fit
reasonably well, once they'd adjusted a few of the straps and buckles a
bit.  He was getting the feel of the light torso armor, how it flexed
and how it didn't, when a man in a suit poked his head in the door and
asked if everything was all right.
        "It is now," said Karana cheerfully as she finished helping
Corwin with the last of the adjustments he wanted to the armor.  "We'll
be ready to go in a minute."
        "You're making a substitution?  Make sure you file your 74-D by
the end of the day," the official warned them.  "We don't want another
protest."
        "It was an honest mistake," Karana complained.  "Anyway, Korra
vouches for him.  She'll take care of it while we're whipping the Ice
Wraiths," she added with a grin.
        "Oh!  Avatar, I didn't see you there," said the official.
"Surprised you're not taking the field yourself, for old times' sake,"
he added with a little smile.
        "Not this time, Huandao.  There wasn't enough warning for
effective crowd control," said Korra wryly.
        "The management appreciates your discretion," said Huandao with
a short bow.  "Well, I'll leave you to it."  He consulted a pocket
watch, then put it away and said, "You have ninety seconds.  Good luck
out there!" before departing.
        "Jersey's ready," said Korra; she handed it to Karana, who
dragged it unceremoniously over Corwin's head.  While he got his arms
through the sleeves and then sorted out his gloves and forearm guards,
Azana knotted the green belt marking him (along with his number color
and a stripe on his helmet) as the team's earthbender around his waist.
Finally, Korra stepped up, holding a green-striped, open-topped helmet
with a transparent face shield.  Slightly to his surprise, she leaned up
on tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek, murmuring, "For luck," before
reaching up and fitting the helmet onto his head, then fastening the
chin strap.
        "There!" she said, clapping her hands to the padded sides of his
helmet as if trying to box his ears.  She wiggled the helmet a little,
making sure it wasn't going anywhere, then stepped back and grinned.
"Now you're... "  She hesitated, her face going slightly blank as she
got a good look at him in the complete kit.  "... fully... regulation."
        Corwin gave her a puzzled look, which only heightened the
resemblance that had stopped her in the first place.  His eyes were the
wrong color (but that wasn't apparent through the slight tint of the
face shield anyway), and he was too tall, MUCH too tall... but in this
light, in that outfit, on a day that was full of nostalgic reminders of
times gone by anyway...
        "Korra?" he asked, his voice snapping her back to the present.
"You OK?  You went away on me for a second there."
        Korra shook her head, not to say no, but to finish returning
from her reverie.  "Yeah, sorry, I just... all kitted out like that, you
suddenly reminded me of... "  She smiled sentimentally.  "Your father's
phrase for it is 'the elder days'."
        He nodded, an understanding smile crossing his face, and gripped
her shoulder gently.  Fully recovered now, she grinned and gave his left
shoulder pad a stout thump.
        "Go get 'em, killer," she said.

        Back in the stands, Korra and Corwin's friends were starting to
suspect that something peculiar was going on, but before they really got
a chance to discuss it amongst themselves, they found themselves
approached by a pretty, auburn-haired young woman in stylish green and
gold Earth Kingdom dress.
        "There you are, I knew I'd find you eventually," she said,
smiling.
        "Hey!  Maki!" said Nall, as everyone in Row 4 budged over a bit
so the Kyoshi Warrior would have a place to join them.  "I almost didn't
recognize you without your face on," he added, grinning.
        "Occasionally, we do like to be able to walk down the street
without stopping traffic," said Maki.  She looked over the group.  "Have
I met everyone?  I think so.  Hang on, where are Corwin and Korra?"
        "An excellent question," said Anthy wryly.
        "Went to get some more munchies.  ... And now she's coming back
without him," Nall mused; for, indeed, Korra (back under the protection
of The Hat) was making her way toward them, carrying a large, shallow
cardboard box full of various concession items, and she did very much
appear to be alone.
        "Korra doesn't carry money," Lhakpa pointed out, then added
matter-of-factly, "She must have traded him for our food."
        "Sorry about that, bit of a line at the seal jerky stand," Korra
said as she came within earshot.  "Oh, hey, Maki, good to see you.  You
just missed the snack run, but I'm sure there'll be another."
        "Uh, where's Corwin?" Nall wondered.
        "He had to use the little benders' room," Korra replied
offhandedly.  Kate gave her a look that said she very much doubted that
was the case, but didn't care to press the issue; Korra winked at her,
then got down to distributing the snacks.  "Now let's see here.  Popcorn
for Utena, flaming fire flakes for Anthy and Anne, candy floss for Kate,
squid-on-a-stick for Mrs. Williams, rice balls for Mr. Pond, pinepear
sections for Nyima, lychee juice for Lhakpa, filet-o'-catgator for Nall,
and this is my seal jerky.  Did I miss anybody?  Don't give me that
look, Lhakpa.  I'm off the island, I can have as much blubbered seal
jerky as I want.  That was the deal.  Take it up with your great-gran-
gran, if you dare.  Yeah, I thought not."  She folded up the box and
stashed it under her seat.  "Don't let me forget to take that to the
barrel when we leave.  I hate it when people leave trash in the stands."
        Utena gave her a few seconds to get situated and start in on her
seal jerky, then leaned toward her and said dryly, "Korra, at the risk
of sounding bourgeois, what have you done with my husband?"
        "Arranged a world-expanding experience for him, of course,"
Korra replied blithely, drawing an explosive cough from Nall.  Before
Utena could investigate further, the platforms bearing the next two
teams from the sidelines departed from their staging areas and began
moving toward the elevated court at the center of the arena.
        "Ladies and gentlemen!" the PA announcer's voice boomed.  "It's
time for tonight's main event!  On the blue side, your challengers!
They started out last season with high hopes but then went a
disappointing 19 and 23, finishing the regular season four and a half
games back in the Eastern League, so you can bet they've been training
hard this offseason: the Frostbite Point Ice Wraiths!"
        The players who stepped from one platform onto the blue end of
the lozenge-shaped playing surface were a tough-looking trio, two men
and a woman.  Their uniforms were mostly a pale ice blue, with silvery-
white accents, and the logo on their chests was a stylized depiction of
some weirdly spiky serpentine creature with very large, pointy teeth.
        "Wearing the red number thirty-two," the announcer went on, "the
Eastern League's leader in knockouts and penalties served, Zanya!"
        Zanya, standing in the center of the formation with arms folded,
didn't even bother waving to the crowd (which was just as well, since
many of them were booing her).  She had a sour expression that was plain
even at this distance, through the tinted face guard of her helmet, and
she wore a patch over her left eye.
        "Wearing the blue number twelve, a native son of Frostbite Point
who's hoping to turn things around for his hometown this year: Kassa!"
        Kassa was a tall and burly man, unusually so for a Water
Tribesman, with the aquiline nose and faintly disdainful demeanor common
to a particular clan in the North.  He, at least, deigned to give the
stands a wave, and in return, the Republic City crowd didn't boo him
quite so vigorously as they had his firebending teammate.
        "And wearing the green number six, the winner of last year's
Earth Rumble, eager to see how his skills translate to the MLB stage:
Doctor Rockalanche himself, Gen Zhuwan!"
        This guy, now, he was a showman, and unlike his teammates he
knew how to work a room.  He strutted (a bit comically, given that he
was a full head shorter than either of his teammates) to his place,
hands clasped above his head, as if he'd already won.  The home crowd
didn't seem to know quite what to make of that; he got a few laughs and
more cheers than boos.
        "Aaaaand on the rrrred side!" the announcer went on, clearly a
bit more enthusiastic for the home team.  "Your defending Western League
champions: the Temple Island Fire Ferrets!  Wearing the red number one,
the top-scoring firebender and last year's league MVP, the Flame of the
West, AZANA!"
        Utena blinked in surprise, then looked at Anne, who was yelling,
"Woooo!  Go Azana!" as the firebender gave the room a cheery wave.
        "In the blue number seven, the South Pole's finest, icy-cool
KARANA!"
        Now, as the grinning waterbender struck a rather Korra-like
hipshot, check-out-this-biceps pose, it was Nall's turn to look
surprised, and then to let out a whistle and an encouraging shout.
Utena took that to mean he knew Karana from somewhere, as she knew
Azana, and like Utena he hadn't been expecting to see her here.
        "And - ladies and gentlemen, we have a Rule 74 substitution!  It
appears that Xiang Wan is stranded in Gaoling due to inclement weather.
In his place, sporting the green number ninety-nine, making his Major
League Bending debut... the completely unknown Watari Karasu!"
        This announcement received polite applause from most, up-for-
anything cheers from the diehards, and a few disappointed boos from
particular Xiang Wan fans - except in the section where Korra and her
friends sat.  There, as the substitute earthbender stepped to his place
with a wry salute directed specifically at them, the response was first
a sound like a collective "... -what,-" and then vigorous cheering and
whistling.
        Maki was distracted from her part of the cheering by the sudden
arrival of a small red-and-white animal, which scampered down the aisle
from above, darted down the row, and climbed up the outside of her
trouser leg into her lap.
        "Hey, a ferret," Amy observed, then looked more closely and saw
that the creature was wearing a tailored garment with the Fire Ferrets
logo on the back.  "In a jacket."  Noting the object the new visitor was
in the process of presenting to Maki, she added, "... And he seems to
have brought you a squid-on-a-stick."  She shook her head, grinning.
"It's a Dr. Seuss book in here all of a sudden."
        "Why, thank you, Pabu," said Maki pleasantly, accepting the
offering and petting the animal on the head.  "You won't be able to see
anything from there, though.  Here, I know."  She picked up the ferret,
turned him around, and placed him opposite Makoto.  "You can have
Anthy's other shoulder.  Best seat in the house."
        "All right, this is definitely a conspiracy now," Nall grumped.
        "You can sit on -my- shoulder if you want," Lhakpa told him,
hugging his arm with a cheesy grin.  (One row in front of her, Nyima
made a retching noise and got kicked lightly in the back for her
trouble.)
        "Who's this, now?" asked Anthy with a smile as the ferret and
Makoto sniffed tentatively at one another's nose in front of her chin.
        "That," said Korra grandly, "is Pabu XVII, the official mascot
of the Temple Islands Fire Ferrets."  She grinned and nodded toward the
court as the bell rang to kick off Round One.  "Officially he's
Karana's, but she's kind of busy right now."

 /*  Chris Tedesco, the Angel City Dixieland Band, and Jeremy Zuckerman
                             "Squeaky Rags"
     _The Legend of Korra: Original Music from Book One_ (2013)  */

        Unlike his old friend the Avatar, Corwin did not manage to begin
his professional bending career by instantly committing a foul.  Apart
from that, though, his debut round was no more distinguished than
Korra's had been.  She, at least, had seen her teammates in action
before joining them.  Though neither of Corwin's was entirely a stranger
to him personally, he didn't have even that tiny bit of preparation in
hand.  He'd seen the game played more than she had when she started, but
he had no particular feel for the court or the players, no instincts for
position or timing; only a lot of not-directly-applicable combat
experience, a measure of raw ability, and a talent for improvisation
sufficient to avoid making a complete hash of everything.  At least
right away.
        Unfortunately, that was evident to the Ice Wraiths.  Zanya, in
particular, had a well-developed sensitivity to the weaknesses of other
players, and she zeroed in right away on the Ferrets' replacement
earthbender's hesitancy.  He was a big, husky lad, and he had an
interesting way of moving - she'd never seen a man of his size,
particularly an earthbender, who was so light on his feet - but he was
clearly too concerned about getting in his teammates' way to mount an
effective offense.  She glanced at Kassa, her upper lip curling back
from her teeth in a familiar sneer, and he nodded.  He'd seen it too.
        While Dr. Rockalanche kept the Ferrets' firebender busy, Kassa
and Zanya double-teamed Karana, forcing her to make a desperately
acrobatic move to keep from being driven back into Zone 2 by their
combined assault.  Corwin moved to support her, pulling an earth disc up
from the nearest dispenser in front of him.  He had intended to use this
to intercept the blast of water Kassa was directing toward his teammate,
but he misjudged both its weight and the amount of force necessary to
pull it from the dispenser and, like a man who didn't realize the carton
of milk in the fridge was mostly empty, ended up flinging it clean off
the side of the court.
        "Dammit - !" he blurted, turning to try again with the one to
his right.
        "Never mind me, look out - " Karana shouted, pointing with one
hand as she deflected Kassa's blast with the other.  Corwin got the disc
out of its depression in the floor without hurling it into the moat this
time, then turned in the direction Karana was warning him about -
        - and straight into a bolt of flame that struck him full in the
face.  The crowd, which had been laughing at him a moment before, now
gasped as one as he recoiled from the blast, falling to one knee and
batting at the flames clinging around the edge of his faceguard.
        "Ow!  OW!  I'm on fire," he declared, sounding more startled and
dismayed than actually hurt.
        "Corwin!" Karana cried, springing to his side.  "Are you OK?"
        Corwin finished pulling off his helmet.  "I'm fine," he assured
her, coughing and waving away smoke.  She knelt beside him, moving his
hands away so she could examine his face, as he assured her again, "I'm
fine, I'm fine.  Am I missing an eyebrow?"
        "Penalty!" the referee barked.  Unfurling a yellow fan, he
displayed its face to Zanya and declared, his voice amplified to reach
the far corners of the arena, "Ice Wraiths red 32, flagrantly unsporting
conduct!  Thirty-two warned; blue side withdraws to Zone Two."
        Amid the storm of boos that followed, Zanya sauntered insolently
to the centerline as Karana helped Corwin up and said, "Worth it.  I've
told you before, Karana - if you simply must bring your boyfriends to
the arena, at least make them sit in the stands with the rest of the
rabble."
        Then, with a dismissive shrug, she went unhurriedly back to Zone
Two on the blue side, returning to formation with her teammates.  Karana
stared after her for a second, her fists slowly closing, then turned
away with a growl and finished helping Corwin to his feet.
        Kassa didn't seem to have an opinion one way or another about
the penalty, but Azana, advancing into Blue Zone One, noticed that Dr.
Rockalanche seemed annoyed.  She wondered if he had been sufficiently
briefed as to his new teammates' proclivities before he'd signed with
the Ice Wraiths, decided she didn't care at the moment.
        Karana stepped up next to her, jaw set, eyes cold.  "This is
only an exhibition match," she observed matter-of-factly.  "Not even the
preseason yet."
        "No, Karana," said Azana.
        "I'd only be suspended for a week.  Two at the most," Karana
persisted.
        "-No,- Karana."
        "No jury in Republic City would convict me."
        "NO, Karana."  The firebender looked past her (not literally)
smoldering teammate and said, "OK, Corwin?"  Corwin finished fastening
his slightly scorched helmet and nodded.  "The earth discs are
terracotta, not solid stone," Azana pointed out.  "They're lighter than
they look."
        "Yeah, thanks, noticed that," Corwin replied casually.
        "Fire Ferrets green 99, can you continue?" the referee asked.
Corwin gave him a thumbs-up.  "Very well!"

        "Oh come on, a lousy one-zone penalty for that?" Korra demanded,
shaking a fist at the ref's box.  "That was a -flagrant!-  Round
forfeiture at the very -least!-"
        "Booo!" Maki agreed.  "Team warning!"
        "The fix is in!" Nall jeered.

        The rest of the round went little better.  Corwin contributed
little of note, despite what was obviously a dogged effort to do so.  He
just never seemed to arrive in the right place at the right moment to
accomplish anything useful.  In the end, the Fire Ferrets were forced
out of the territory they had gained, then driven back to Red Zone Two,
and the Ice Wraiths took Round One.
        During the short break between rounds, while the players
regrouped and caught their breath, it occurred to Korra to use her
gearPhone's radio function and pick up the Republic City Radio broadcast
of the game.
        " - earthbender is a strange one, I don't think I've ever seen
that technique before," the play-by-play announcer - Korra could never
remember their names any more, all she really cared about was that they
weren't Shiro Shinobi - was saying as she tuned in.  "Makes you wonder
where they got him!"
        "At a guess," the color commentator quipped dryly, "under a
bridge."
        "He's sure not making much of an impression so far, it's true,"
the play-by-play man agreed, "but let's not count the Fire Ferrets out
just yet!  They've pulled off some magical second rounds in the past.
Time now to see if they can do it again!"

                             /*  Jim Croce
                    "Workin' at the Car Wash Blues"
                       _I Got a Name_ (1974)  */

        In Round Two, Corwin seemed comfortable with the playing field
and the apparatus, and more in tune with his teammates in terms of
positioning and timing, but he also appeared to be... his friends and
family in that one section of the stands weren't sure what.
Preoccupied?  Almost -distracted.-  It was like there was something
going on out there that he hadn't quite put his finger on, and none of
the people watching from the sidelines could figure out what it might
be.  Whatever it was, it seemed to be keeping him from giving the match
his all.
        Unfortunately, the Ice Wraiths were giving -him- their all.
Like sharks scenting blood, they were concentrating virtually all their
fire on him, evading attempts by his teammates to intervene and
pummeling him mercilessly.  Zanya kept her attacks legal this time
around - she well knew that if she blatantly fouled him again, she'd be
ejected from the game - but only barely, and Kassa's whole -thing-
seemed to be skirting the boundaries of the rules.  Waterbending attacks
were to be no more than a second long, and ice was not permitted, but
the Ice Wraiths' waterbender had clearly put in a lot of practice
learning to channel water that was -just barely- not frozen.  The only
one of them not being particularly vicious about it was Dr. Rockalanche,
but he hit hard anyway.
        "Well, Zheng, it looks like the Ice Wraiths don't like Watari
Karasu any more than you do," said the play-by-play man's voice tinnily
from Korra's phone speaker.
        "You know Zanya and Kassa have both been vocal proponents of
eliminating Rule 74 in the past, Kenji," the color commentator remarked.
"Unless I'm very much mistaken, Karasu's being made an -example- of
here.  Mark my words, what we're watching right now is the case study
that'll finally see that antiquated, dangerous rule struck from the
books at this year's mid-season referees' conference.  There's no place
for amateurs like Karasu in the modern game.  I just hope the poor jerk
survives!"
        Utena and Anthy sat side by side in the stands, slowly eating
their snack foods of choice, never taking their eyes off their lover as
he was beset from all sides, driven inexorably back to Red Zone Three
despite his teammates' efforts to help him.
        "He's not doing very well," Anthy observed matter-of-factly.
        "No, no he's not," Utena agreed.
        Anthy ate another couple of flaming fire flakes, her expression
thoughtful, and then added mock-candidly, "I'm starting to doubt his
suitability as a mate."
        "Bit late for that now," Utena pointed out.
        Anthy glanced down at her expanded middle and shrugged.  "True."
        Next to Utena, Korra had seized her sidelocks in dismay and was
sinking lower in her seat, as if pulling herself slowly down by them, as
Corwin was backed right to the edge of the court by the onslaught.
        And then...
        ... Korra couldn't have said -how,- exactly, or how she knew it
had, but something... changed.
        Korra and the others were too far away to see Corwin's facial
expression, but if they could've seen it, they would've understood
immediately what had changed.  Azana saw it, but she didn't know him
well enough to realize what it meant when his look of grim and vaguely
preoccupied concentration suddenly cleared, replaced with a slightly
cruel little smile.  Eyes narrowed, teeth slightly bared, it was an
expression many of his friends had seen before.
        It was the look he got when he was thinking, "I have you now."
        He sidestepped, his hands raised in the curious way he'd learned
from his very unusual teacher - palms up, fingers curled upward - and
popped an earth disc from the nearest dispenser.  Splaying his fingers
stiffly, he turned the disc upright on its edge and used it like the
flapper in a valve, blocking a stream of near-frozen water from Kassa.
A jet of water shot through the square hole in the middle of the disc,
but he'd tilted it so that the jet missed him, spraying harmlessly off
at an angle.
        That was a pretty nice move, and got an approving (and slightly
surprised) "ooh!" from the crowd - and another when, still in motion, he
stepped away from the edge of the court, flipped the disc flat again
with another stiff-fingered gesture, and launched it to intercept a
second one sent speeding toward him by Dr. Rockalanche.  The two discs
annihilated each other in a billowing cloud of dust that swept back and
blotted Corwin momentarily from sight.  He emerged from the far side,
having advanced right to the line dividing Red Zones Two and Three -
        Another bolt of Zanya's fire struck him high in the chest - no
more than an inch lower than unmistakable foul territory - and blasted
him clean off the platform.  He fell like a meteor, trailing flame, and
splashed down in the moat far below.
        No action was forthcoming from the referee or either of his
linesmen, apart from the routine logging of Fire Ferrets #99 as
eliminated from play for the remainder of the second round.
        Korra, her face suffused with wrath, reached up and took hold of
the crown of The Hat with one hand, intending to wrench it from her head
and then unleash the full flower of her fury on the referee, and damn
the consequences to crowd control.  Before she could do so, however, the
figure to the Avatar's left had shot to her feet, drawn breath, and
roared in a voice that could be clearly heard as far away as Aang
Memorial Island:
        "OH _COME ON,_ REF!"
        People winced and dived for cover all around the arena as the
shout resounded from the walls and ceiling.  Up in the glass dome
surmounting the playing surface, a few of the many intricatedly framed
panes of glass cracked, though none broke outright.
        There was a second or so of utter silence; then the five
remaining players recovered their wits and resumed the action, while
much of the crowd voiced similar sentiments at a somewhat lower volume.
Still there was no call.
        Red-faced, but not with embarrassment, Nyima returned to her
seat, her substantial jaw set angrily.  Korra leaned over to her and
murmured, "(I said you should speak your mind more often, Neem, but
-spirits.-)"
        "(Sorry,)" Nyima replied tersely, and then, in an even lower
undertone, "(I'm not sorry.)"
        Korra chuckled and patted her knee.  "(He's fine, look, he's
already on the elevator.)"
         Corwin had indeed reached the platform that would carry him
back up to the court once Round Two was over.  He stood on it now,
dripping, his helmet in hand.  Looking up, he scanned the crowd until he
found the section where his friends and lovers were sitting, then
grinned and gave them a thumbs-up so they would know he wasn't seriously
hurt.
        The round ended not long after; neither of Corwin's teammates
had joined him in the drink, but by round's end they were barely
clinging to Red Zone Three.
        "I bet right around now, Azana's wishing she hadn't listened
when Karana said she knew someone who could take over for Xiang Wan,"
color commentator Zheng remarked from Korra's phone radio.
        "I'm fairly sure Zanya didn't really know what she was talking
about there," play-by-play man Kenji said dryly.  "In fact, I'm looking
at the Fire Ferrets' Form 74-D right now, and you'll never believe this,
folks: It's countersigned by the team's not-so-silent partner herself.
This Watari Karasu fella looks like Avatar Korra's own pick!"
        "Well, I guess that proves she's not good at everything," Zheng
replied, "because she's sure no talent scout.  The Ice Wraiths are
-murdering- that poor fool.  If I was him, I'd stay in the water."
        "Yeah, we'll see about that, pal," Korra muttered, as if the
radio link were two-way and Zheng could hear her.
        Out on the court, Corwin stepped off the elevator and joined his
teammates, working a last bit of excess water out of one ear with a
pinky finger.
        "OK!" he said.  "I actually didn't mind going in the water; it
put my hair out."
        "This is not good," Karana said.  "They've taken two rounds.
Only way we can beat 'em now is to knock 'em all out in Round Three."
        "Well," said Corwin calmly, "I've learned two interesting things
that might help with that."
        "What are they?" Azana wondered.
        "One: Zanya -isn't- blind in her left eye."  Both women blinked
at him, giving him matching are-you-serious stares.  "I've been watching
the way she moves this whole time.  That eyepatch is fake, she can see
through it.  I don't know -why- she's shamming, I don't really -care-
why.  But she is.  So that's interesting.  And two," he added with a
tiny smile, "Dr. Rockalanche -doesn't know that.-  He keeps trying to
cover her left flank even though she doesn't really need it.  That's
more interesting."
        Azana glanced speculatively at him, then smiled slowly.  "Yes it
is," she agreed.
        "Let's try not to hurt him," Corwin added, buckling his helmet
back on.  "He's the only sonofabitch on that team who's even trying to
play fair."

			   /*  Joe Satriani
			  "Hands in the Air"
		 _Is There Love in Space?_ (2004)  */

        If the Ice Wraiths were expecting the third round to be a simple
matter, they were disabused of that notion almost immediately when the
bell rang.  After one round to find his feet and one to get his eye in,
it appeared Watari Karasu was suddenly on the beam.  His confidence was
visibly, markedly improved in Round 3 - and with it, apparently, his
competence.  He and his teammates were still an unpolished trio, lacking
the nearly telepathic connections of benders who have trained together
for months or years, but now that Karasu had found his groove, they did
seem to have an instinctive rapport with which they could do a decent
job of faking it.
        Thus re-engaged, the Fire Ferrets came roaring back from the
brink of humiliation at the sound of the opening bell, zeroing in on
their opponents with relentless, laser-like focus.  The first object of
this focus was Gen Zhuwan, who had spent most of the first two rounds
forming the opinion that his opposite number was no particular threat.
Tossing that first disc clean overboard was the most hilarious rookie
mistake he'd ever even heard of an earthbender making, and since then
he'd seen nothing to make him revise his conclusion that Karasu was a
well-meaning but tragically outclassed amateur.  Well, until those few
seconds before Zanya had blasted him off the platform, anyway.  That was
pretty impressive, he had to admit.  Still, even a loser gets lucky once
in a while.
        At first he thought the earth disc Karasu sent arcing toward
Zanya's left was a clumsy attempt at blindsiding the firebender - a
cheap shot, but permissible under the rules, and Gen did have to admit
the guy rather owed her one.  It was too obviously telegraphed, though,
swooping in too wide and obvious a curve; easy for the likes of Dr.
Rockalanche to spot and counter.
        When he stepped out of position to counter it, protecting his
teammate's flank, the good doctor discovered just slightly too late that
his counterpart had known -exactly- what he was doing.  That disc wasn't
for Zanya.  It was for him.  With a stomping sidestep and one of those
weird palm-upward snaps of his left wrist, the man the Ice Wraiths knew
as Watari Karasu redirected his strike from a lazily curving, patently
obvious attack on Zanya to a high-speed, machine-precise shot, straight
into Dr. Rockalanche's heavily padded chest.
        Early in his bending career, Gen Zhuwan had once been hit by a
motorcycle, driven by a drunken young man on the way home from an
afterparty following the very Earth Rumble in which Gen had just
competed.  In a lifetime of being hit by heavy things, it was the
hardest impact he'd ever experienced; it had knocked him headlong up the
street and fractured three of his ribs, putting him out of commission
for six weeks.  The policewoman who investigated the accident had told
him later that if he hadn't been in such superb physical condition from
all his training, it likely would've killed him.
        Taking that earth disc from Karasu didn't compare to that, but
it was a respectable second place.  It -staggered- him, something no one
had ever managed to do in the six months he'd been crosstraining for his
jump to MLB.  He hadn't thought these wimpy little terracotta discs
-could- hit him hard enough to stagger him.  This one did, making him
stumble and gasp for breath.  A half-second later he was deluged in cold
water, instantly converting part of the cloud of dust the disc had
exploded into on impact into a coating of thick, gluey mud all down the
front of his uniform.  He heard the buzzer as this impact made him
stumble over the line into Blue Zone Two.
        Struggling to regroup, he stomped down hard on the canvas-
covered metal deck of the bending court, wishing it could be replaced
with the combined reassuring solidity and useful malleability of the
stone arena used in Earth Rumbles.  He could sink his feet into that for
the one second permitted and regain his balance, or pull part of it up
and shield himself from the relentless onslaught of the suddenly
energized Fire Ferrets.  Here he had nothing.  He wasn't a metalbender,
and even if he was, bending the playing surface was against the rules.
        Bolts of fire laced the air around him, adding a tang of
scorched air to the smell of sweat and incipient panic that was starting
to permeate his faceguard.  A couple of them hit him, thumping his chest
like blows from an angry fist, and he heard the mud on his jersey sizzle
and crackle as the heat baked it back into clay, then the buzzer that
told him he'd just staggered back into Zone Three.
        "They're all over me!" he cried, hoping one or the other of his
teammates could step in and take some of the pressure off him.  For a
second, he thought it had worked.  The small storm of firebolts around
him cleared, and as he shook his head and tried to refocus, reaching out
with his bending for the nearest disc dispenser to get back into the
fight, he saw Kassa rapid-firing blobs of water from the supply gutter
built into the Zone Two line at the Ferrets' firebender, forcing her to
break off the attack.  Dr. Rockalanche turned his head and saw that his
opposite number was also occupied, holding an earth disc vertically in
the air in front of him and shielding himself from Zanya's counterfire
with it.
        But where was -
        Karasu smiled slightly behind his tinted visor and took one wide
step to his left, then spun his shield and launched it so that it flew
edge-on, vertically, toward Zanya, forcing her to dance aside.  She
saved herself from stumbling back into Zone Two only by seizing hold of
the rope at the edge of the ring.
        Behind the Ferret earthbender, revealed to Gen by this maneuver,
was their waterbender, who had used the time afforded her by her
teammate's shielding move to create for herself four shimmering,
illusorily solid tentacles of water.  Two surrounded her own arms; the
others arched out and around from behind her like the extra arms of that
weird Avatar Yangchen statue he'd seen in the Ba Sing Se Botanical
Gardens.  (He was reasonably sure Avatar Yangchen hadn't really HAD four
arms, but then again, who knew with the ancient Air Nomads?)
        He didn't have a lot of time to ponder that, though, because she
proceeded to launch first one, then another at him, each one a spinning,
drill-like torpedo of semicoherent water.  The first hit him in the
shoulder, nearly turning him completely around; the second hit the
other, knocking him back the other way; the third and fourth landed
within inches of each other, high on his chest, and catapulted him over
backward.
        For the half-second or so it took him to fall to the moat, Dr.
Rockalanche reflected that what he'd just been eliminated with might
well have been the most beautiful bending technique he'd ever seen.
        I need to get to know a waterbender who isn't Kassa, he thought,
and then he was swimming.

        In the stands, Corwin's friends and family realized that the
flavor of the match had changed at around the same time as Dr.
Rockalanche.  Amy and Rory cheered louder, finally on the same side.
Maki felt a smile stealing onto her face as she saw Corwin's movements
get quicker, surer, more decisive.  The hesitancy was leaving him, and
he looked much more like -himself- without it, less the man thrown
unceremoniously into the deep end of the pool and more the confident
youth who'd jumped onto a moving train without a second thought just to
break her out of her shell.
        At that moment, she also noticed that all four of the women
sitting in a row in front of her had started leaning slowly forward, as
if they were all actuated by the same lever.  Anthy, Utena, Korra, and
Nyima were all gazing intently at the scene, their shoulders slightly
hunched, and they weren't cheering.  Instead, they were all, in
unconscious unison, murmuring:
        "(Yeeessssss.)"
        She giggled and nudged Rory next to her, indicating them with
her eyes; he looked, then grinned and passed the nudge on to Amy, who
sent it on down the line.  In front of the four, Kate and Anne noticed
the same phenomenon at about the same time; between Utena and Korra,
Maki caught a glimpse of the elder samurai looking back over her
shoulder with a merry smile.
        "Down goes Dr. Rockalanche!" Kenji's voice announced from
Korra's near-forgotten phone radio.
        "What in the world is going on out there?" Zheng demanded.
        "The Ice Wraiths' offense has completely fallen apart!" Kenji
declared, sounding rather more pleased about it than his colleague.
"This man Karasu is finally starting to play like an earthbender, and
the Fire Ferrets are crystallizing around him!  I guess the Avatar might
know what she's doing after all, eh, Zheng?"
        "(frickin' right I do, bucko,)" Korra muttered, virtually all
her attention still riveted on the playing field.
        "If this were any other team, I'd suspect them of having pulled
a switch when Karasu went in the drink," Kenji went on.  "Instead, I can
only assume that he wasn't fully awake until he took a swim!"

        Kassa put up a good fight, but despite his cool, dismissive
Northern demeanor, he wasn't one of those people who handle sudden
reversals by getting tougher and more focused.  He tried to
counterattack, launching a furious fusillade of fist-sized water
globules at Azana, but his fine control was fraying, and some of them
began sporting obvious icy crusts.  That would probably have gotten him
yellow-fanned (or possibly even red, since his team had been warned
about that sort of conduct once already), but the point was moot.
Azana's fury was such by this point that her flames had changed from the
usual red-orange to yellow, then white, so hot that they flashed the
icebolts to steam before they ever reached her.
        She had to dial back with a conscious effort to keep herself
from charring his uniform as she overpowered his offense, then slammed
straight on through his defense and drove him to the edge of the ring.
Even so, Kassa began to understand why people trapped in high-rise fires
would willingly jump from ridiculous, unsurvivable heights rather than
stay and face the heat.  He didn't quite bail out - he was a
professional, after all - but he'd have been lying if he'd said it
didn't come as something of a relief when he ran out of floor and found
himself falling toward the water.
        That only left Zanya, still fairly secure in Blue Two and pretty
furious herself by that point.  She knew she still had this one in the
bag.  All she had to do was hold out for - glance at the clock - 44
seconds.  Forty-four seconds, and this match would be hers.  ALL hers.
        Corwin had to hand it to her: She really was good at the game.
She'd managed to stay half a step ahead of him -and- Karana while Azana
was busy eliminating Kassa; even their combined firepower had only
barely been enough to force her back to Blue Zone Two.  Now that she was
up against all three of them, she still wasn't going down easily.
       He wondered why, with the kind of talent and ability she had, she
felt the need to play so dirty.  She was by far the most acrobatic of
the three Ice Wraiths, avoiding Karana's water streams and Azana's
firebolts with a series of twisting leaps and flips that covered a lot
of distance laterally, but gave up little ground where it counted on the
playing field.  Occasionally she'd launch a counterattack as a matter of
form, but all she really needed to do was run out the clock, and
everyone knew it.

        "What's Karasu waiting for?" Kenji wondered.  "His teammates are
giving it everything they have, but they can't quite pin down a customer
as slippery as Zanya without his help."
        "It's as if he's completely lost the plot," Zheng put in.  "If
he just stands there much longer, they'll wear themselves out - or just
run out of time!"
        Utena, her attention fixed on the floor, had unconsciously taken
Anthy's hand in her right and Korra's in her left some time before.
Now, as she heard the color man's pronouncement of impending doom, the
corner of her mouth Korra could see drew back in a nasty little half-
smile.
        "(-Wait- for it, pal,)" she muttered, her voice a sort of low,
happy growl.  Korra nodded, though Utena wasn't looking at her, because
she'd just had exactly the same thought.  Corwin wasn't just standing
around sucking his thumb while his teammates did the work, trying to
force Zanya back and failing without his help.  They were -driving- her.
Steering her.
        Positioning her exactly where he needed her to be.
        Bolin would go for the bank shot right now, thought Korra, and
-as she thought it,- Corwin wrenched discs from the nearest dispensers
to his left and right simultaneously, set himself, and hurled them...
but not at Zanya.  The one from his left, he dispatched to the right; it
passed narrowly behind Azana's back and seemed bound for oblivion, like
the first one he'd ever pulled.  The one from his right crossed
underneath it as it hurtled to his left, flashing in front of Karana
between two of her waterbolts.
        Zanya grounded in the middle of Blue Two, confident that she was
still -miles- from the Two-Three line, much less the edge.  With one
hand, she deflected a pair of shots from Azana, noting with satisfaction
as she did that the enemy firebender's flames had cooled to a dull
orange.  Running out of gas.  With the other, she raised a flame shield,
boiling away Karana's latest attempt before it could strike her.  Within
her, she was gathering her own energies for a last-second counterattack.
        This was not strictly necessary - all she had to do was survive
another 11 seconds - but she had Watari Karasu dead in her sights, right
in front of her, and she was constitutionally incapable of letting him
go unpunished.  Particularly when he was making it so easy.  That little
flash of competence he'd had seemed to have run its course.  He'd spent
the last twenty-odd seconds just standing there watching, as if he'd
forgotten he was participating, and then dispatched not one but -two-
earth discs into neverland.  Even now they'd be flying off into the
moat.  Hell, he'd thrown them away so hard he'd be lucky not to hit
someone in the stands and get a ten-game ban.
        Just as she thought it, Zanya realized she was wrong.
        About everything.
        He wasn't just standing there; he was still in that strange
earthbending stance he had, hands upraised, fingers splayed in a way
that looked a bit painful.  He wasn't watching his teammates work, he
was looking straight at her.
        And he hadn't thrown the discs away.  They'd hit the ropes.
Rebounded.  Time seemed to slow down as the depth of her miscalculation
struck Zanya like a fist.
        I'm an idiot, she thought, and then first one, then the other
rock disc clobbered her amidships.  The first one nearly knocked her off
her feet to the right, breaking her rooted stance and dispelling the
energy she'd gathered for her final strike.  The second belted her in
the opposite direction, and -would- have knocked her clean over, except
that in the instant of weightlessness before she began to fall, a sphere
of water three times the size of her head smashed into the center of her
chest and swatted her from the air like the fist of an irritated god.
She came down hard near the edge of the arena, the buzzer of Zone Three
relegation ringing in her ears, and then scrambled upright, exultant
that even now they hadn't quite managed -
        - fire, incandescent white, so hot she imagined the air around
it warping like hot glass, charring an arc in the canvas cover of the
floor in front of her - she danced back, teetering on the edge -
        - water -
        - a disc of baked clay, upright like a coin flicked from a bent
thumb in a childhood game, its edge crumpling against her armor as it
smashed into her from logo to belt -
        - freefall -
        - the sharp shock of immersion, the arena lights wavy blobs of
yellow beyond the silvery ripple of the surface.  Even down here the
roar of the crowd was deafening, though warped by the water into
something like whalesong.

        "Woo -hoo!-" Korra cried, jubilantly throwing The Hat in the
air.  "Now THAT'S what I'm TALKIN' about!"
        (Like a flash, Makoto darted after it, intercepting and
returning it so quickly that its absence was never even noticed by most
of the wildly cheering arena crowd.)
        Next to Korra, Utena and Anthy weren't cheering, but only
because Utena was too busy being kissed by her wife.
        "And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you come from behind
Fire Ferrets style!" Kenji declared.  "Zheng, would you like wasabi or
mustard to go with your words?"
        Korra didn't hear Zheng's reply, which was probably something
ungraceful anyway.  She switched off the radio and pocketed the phone,
then told Maki to get the gang to Entrance Wo as soon as the traffic
would allow.  As the moving platform started bearing the victorious Fire
Ferrets off to their dressing room, Korra collected Pabu from Anthy,
picked up the empty box from under her seat, and made for one of the
service doors.
        After trashing the box in an appropriate receptacle, she took
her time navigating the hallways, in order to give the Ferrets a decent
interval in which to, well, make themselves decent.  The crush up above
was going to be such that even Maki would need at least twenty minutes
to get the crew out of the building through the right door anyway.  When
she knocked on the doorjamb and put her head into the dressing room, she
found them all wet-haired and at least halfway back into their street
clothes.
        "Hey, you guys!" Korra declared, entering.  "You put on
quite a show!"
        Karana grinned.  "Yeah, this Karasu kid's pretty good.  It's
just as well we can't keep him, though."  She caught Corwin in a playful
headlock and mussed his damp hair.  "If we did, it'd get all comics-for-
girls up in this place."  Tilting her head toward Azana, who was in the
process of fixing her hair, she went on, "'Zana and me would have a huge
falling out sometime around the All-Star break and, well, you know."
She released Corwin to make jazz hands and said in a singsong voice,
"Draamaaaaa!"
        Corwin rubbed his neck and edged away from her, eyeing her mock-
warily.  "Uh, also, I'm married."
        "Like I said!" Karana declared cheerfully.  "Drama!"

        The Fire Ferrets and their patron emerged from the rear exit of
the arena, about as far from the public entrances as it was possible to
be.  This was no particular protection, though, as virtually everyone in
town knew that it was the door the athletes tended to use.  There was an
absolute -mob- of people out there.  Many of them were press reporters,
pushing and shouting questions, flashbulbs popping.  The rest were fans
and spectators, some clamoring for autographs, others just cheering or
taking in the moment.  A few were even other competitors - the Night
Vale Spiderwolves were instantly recognizable in their matching jackets,
politely applauding a thrilling performance.
        "Oh boy," said Karana.  "OK, that's... more of a crowd than I
was expecting for a pre-preseason match."
        Korra grinned.  "I'll handle this," she said, then whipped off
The Hat, handed it to Karana, and strode forth.  The clamor kicked up a
few notches as the reporters recognized her; the Ferrets couldn't hear
what she said to them, but whatever it was, it caused first a still
louder surge of question and comment, then a sort of collective groan of
resignation, after which the mob of press people dispersed.  The Fire
Ferrets fans were less grudging about it; something Korra said to them
got a laugh, and they went on their way with another round of waves and
cheers.  Corwin noticed with smiling surprise that someone even had a
hastily painted banner on a pole, samurai-film style, that said WATARI
KARASU RULES OK.
        Azana nudged him with an elbow and gave him a sly smile.  "Fan
sites within the hour... "
        "What did you say to them?" Karana asked as Korra rejoined them,
still grinning.
        "Welllll," said Korra with an unconvincingly innocent air, "as
you know I don't generally like to throw my weight around - " (here she
magnificently ignored Azana's skeptical snort) " - buuuut, I -may- have
threatened to Kyoshi Island the part of the quay they were standing on
and park them just off the cross-harbor ferry route.  The next one will
be along... "  She glanced at Corwin's watch.  " ... in about twelve
hours."
        Karana laughed.  "You're mean."
        "No I'm not!" Korra objected.  "If I was mean I'd have just
-done- it."
        "She's got a point there, 'Rana," Azana pointed out.
        "Also, I wouldn't treat your fans that way," Korra went on.
"But they took less persuading than the press, anyway."
        Corwin opened his mouth to remark, but before he could do so,
the passive-mode UI of his quarian omni-tool sprang to orange-glowing
life around his right hand, playing the guitar solo from the end of "We
Will Rock You".
        "What is -that?-" Karana wanted to know.
        "Uh, I have a phone call," said Corwin, surprised.  "Excuse me a
second."
        "Dang," said Karana as he took a couple of steps away and raised
his free hand to the side of his head in the international I'm-on-the-
com gesture.  "Is that a new gearPhone prototype?" she asked Korra.
"They're really getting fancy with those glowscreens."
        "Hello?" Corwin asked.
        "You're too far up on the balls of your feet, you little puss,"
a girl's voice declared cheerfully.  "Why don't you just put on a dress
and swish around for us?"
        Corwin looked at his omni-tool, faintly incredulous, then said,
"Toph, how were you even -watching?-"  He considered what he'd just said
for a second, then added, "That's a question on -several levels,- come
to think of it."
        "Nall hooked me up," Toph replied casually.
        "... I can't even process that right now," Corwin admitted.  "I
knew I shouldn't have gotten him the Asgard Extended Throughput plan."
        "Well, go and enjoy your adoring public, that's the whole point
of kicking that much ass," Toph told him.  "You did good, sugarlump,
even if you -are- a hopeless ponce.  Later!"
        The omni-tool interface winked out as she disconnected the call;
Corwin stood looking at his hand for a second, then shook his head and
rejoined the others.  "Sorry about that."
        Korra eyed him warily and mouthed, "(Sugarlump?)"  Corwin just
shrugged in reply.
        "Did... your earthbending sifu just phone you up and abuse you
about your technique?" Azana wondered.
        "Yes, yes she did," Corwin confirmed.  Then he smiled wryly and
added, "And that makes me feel all warm inside.  Verbal abuse and
violence are how she shows love."
        Karana snorted.  "Sounds like she's taking a page from the
Beifong playbook."
        "She certainly is," Corwin agreed gravely, causing Korra to fall
into a fit of giggles.
        "(What's wrong with Gran-gran?)" Karana stage-whispered to
Azana.
        Azana shrugged.  "(Search me, she's -your- gran-gran.)"
        Korra recovered in a few moments, waving away their snark, and
looked around.  "Now where'd everybody else get off to?"
        As if summmoned, Maki and the crew came around the side of the
arena, having left by one of the public exits.  They crowded around the
Ferrets, cheering, congratulating, introducing - except Anthy, who went
straight to Corwin and, without hesitation or opening remarks, took him
in her arms and laid the kind of kiss on him that even her closest
friends weren't expecting her to uncork in a public place.
        "Well, uh... " said Utena with a slightly sheepish grin, hand
behind head.  "Line starts at Anthy, I guess."
        "Ooh, me next," Nall declared, making a great show of elbowing
his way past Utena.
        People were still laughing about that when Anthy finished with
Corwin, letting him go with a quiet, "Well done, my Pillar."
        Corwin eyed her for a second, partly in surprise at what she'd
just done and partly because that was an odd thing to be called as an
endearment; but she just smiled cheerfully at him, and he unconsciously
mirrored Utena's gesture and said, "Wow.  I must remember to show off
for you more often."
        Karana put up a hand like a schoolgirl with a question and said,
"OK, just so I'm clear on this, whose husband -is- he actually?"
        "Hi!" said Utena, waving.  "That'd be me."
        Karana nodded and made no comment regarding the obvious
discrepancy there; instead, she just said decisively, "OK!  I owe
-you- dinner, then."
        Utena cocked an eyebrow at her.  "How do you figure?"
        Karana grinned, looking remarkably like Korra when she did so,
and replied casually, "It's my standard apology when I use people's
stuff without asking first."
        "HAH!" said Nall involuntarily; then he composed himself and
said with heavy mock gravity, "Uh, I mean, scandalous, scandalous."  He
glared at Corwin.  "Manwhore."
        Corwin shrugged, unconcerned.  "Failed my Dodge roll," he
replied.  "Anyway!  Speaking of dinner, I've noticed on many a training
day in Valhalla over the years, getting beaten up is hungry work."
        "I'm with you there," Azana said at once.  "I burned so much chi
this afternoon, I feel like I might start fading away," she added wryly.
"Don't want to start a new career as the Ghost of the Phoenix House
Lobby Girl."
        "Let's go to that new place!" said Karana.  "Korra, have you
been there yet?  It's amazing.  Just opened a few weeks ago, down where
Old Man Kradak's Crab Shack used to be."
        "No, I didn't know something new had moved in there," said
Korra, intrigued.  "What kind of food is it?"
        "It's... it's -weird,-" said Karana.  "But good weird.  Some
kind of foreign thing that just came over from Zipang.  I'd never seen
anything like it before."
        "Huh.  Well, OK.  Who's up for strange and experimental?" Korra
asked the group at large.

        Twenty minutes later, the ravening horde descended on the former
site of Old Man Kradak's Crab Shack - literally, in the case of those
who arrived on the back of Mogi.  Slightly to Karana's dismay, everyone
who had come over from the Big Universe burst out laughing at the sight
of it.
        "What?" Karana demanded, climbing down from the pillion of
Niri's saddle.  "What's the matter?"
        Rory slid down Mogi's side to the ground, looking deeply amused.
"It's nothing bad," he assured her.  "Honestly, it isn't.  It's... it
would take too long to explain.  But it's nothing bad."
        "Really and truly," Amy agreed, jumping down behind him.  She
put her hands on his shoulders and looked around him from the right.
"This is great."
        The establishment they had arrived in front of was a low, flat-
roofed building, like many of the restaurants in this part of Republic
City, and it sported a large, illuminated sign made up of individually
erected glow-tube characters above the parapet at the front.  The first
and last two were Tongyu ideograms, and so not intelligible to more than
a couple of the visitors from Outside; but in between the pairs were
Standard letters, the two languages flicking alternately back and forth
between neon red-orange and green every few seconds.
        And what the Standard letters said was CELESTIAL PIZZA.
        Those who knew the one in Port Jeradar on Jeraddo assumed this
was an amusing coincidence, nothing more; until they entered the
establishment and found themselves confronted with a tall, thin young
man with a thick sheaf of straw-blond hair pulled back in a rock
ponytail, little round blue-tinted spectacles, and a day or two's growth
of beard.  He wore the typical costume of a Republic City restaurateur,
plus an apron, and as they entered he grinned broadly and swept himself
into a deep bow, one wide-sleeved arm extended to his side, the other
folded across his midsection.
        "Ni hao, travelers!" he declared.  "Welcome to my humble
establishment.  Here you will find the finest pizza in all of Diqiu."
Then, with a furtive glance around, he added confidentally, "Also the
only pizza in Diqiu, at the moment."
        Utena stared at him.  Hell, they -all- stared at him, all those
who recognized him, anyway, but it was Utena who took the lead, and
Utena who spoke:
        "Zach!  What are you doing here?"
        Zach Stephens shrugged, still grinning.  "Workin'," he said, as
if it were both obvious and expected.  "How many ya got here today,
Cap'n?  One, two, three... whoa, fourteen, OK.  You're gonna want the
big corner table, then!"
        Utena shook her head.  "No, I mean... how can you be here?  In
Diqiu?"
        Zach's grin became a more personal smile.  "Utena," he said, in
a friendly tone which suggested that he'd expected better from her, but
forgave her.  "I'm -everywhere- people need pizza."
        Then, while she was still digesting that, he turned and
conducted them to the aforesaid big corner table with cheerful
efficiency, passed menus all around, and asked if he could get anyone
started with a drink, then bustled off to the kitchen.
        "You know Zakku?" Karana asked Utena, surprised.
        "Not as well as I thought I did, apparently," Utena replied
philosophically.

        Dinner was a noisy, happy affair, as befit the occasion.  The
day's action was rehashed and analyzed, compliments exchanged,
friendships built or reinforced.  An excellent evening, one of a string
of excellent evenings for several of those at the table.  As she ate and
participated in the flow of chatter, Utena found herself considering the
two "official" Fire Ferrets.
        Azana she had already known slightly, since she'd been the night
clerk at the hotel where she and Corwin had spent their brief but
wonderful honeymoon the previous weekend, and had somewhat appointed
herself their personal concierge while they were there.  She was a very
pretty woman about Utena's own age, with contrasting pale skin and coal-
black hair, her wide, clever eyes an arresting shade of amber.  As
neatly groomed and impeccably dressed off-duty as on, she was warm and
personable, but not as... well, as -fiery- as Utena would have expected
from someone whose job was throwing actual fire at people.  Utena
supposed that was an illogical stereotype, anyway.
        That supposition was borne out by her partner, Karana, who
lacked any semblance of the cool reserve her antarctic origins and
element of - well, Utena guessed "choice" wasn't really the word - might
tend to imply.  She was boisterous, blunt, and cheerful, a very up-front
kind of girl - a lot like Korra, who, at this range, Utena could see
she resembled closely.  She had the same medium-brown skin, dark brown
hair, and bright blue eyes.  Karana was a little bit taller, her build
just a trifle lighter, and she wore her hair in a simple, slightly
asymmetrical center-parted pageboy cut, with a single narrow braid
hanging down over one shoulder (similar to a style she'd seen on some
Jedi Padawans), instead of Korra's medium-length ponytail and sidelocks.
They might've been sisters, and paradoxically enough, Karana was very
slightly the elder-looking of the two.
        Karana seemed to notice Utena thinking her over; she turned her
head and caught the pink-haired Duelist's eye, then grinned at her and
raised her glass.  Utena returned the smile and the salute, and as they
drank together, she decided she couldn't hold it against the girl that
she'd kissed Corwin without the express written consent of Major League
Baseball.  She'd decided that Karana was the kind of girl who wouldn't
be able to stop herself from sampling the merchandise under the
circumstances, but also the kind who wouldn't take the matter any
further.  Besides, she told herself wryly, if she held grudges against
every woman who at least theoretically wanted a piece of that action,
she wouldn't have many girl friends left.  Certainly she'd lose a few at
this table, with the exceptions of Kaitlyn, Anne, maybe Amy, and
probably Lhakpa.
        Midway through the main course, a short and stocky figure
dressed mostly in green entered the restaurant, looked around, and
easily spotted the group in the corner.  He approached them with a
tentative air, as if uncertain whether he should really be putting
himself forward this way, but Korra spotted him and waved him over with
a smile.
        "Dr. Rockalanche, I presume," she said.  "Would you like to join
us?  We can make room.  You like pinepear?  You wouldn't think it would
work in this application, but it's really good with pigchicken ham."
        Gen Zhuwan shook his head, looking a little nervous.  "Uh, no...
thank you, Avatar... that is to say, I do, but I don't want to intrude
on your gathering.  I just wanted to apologize to the Fire Ferrets for
my teammates' conduct today.  It was shameful.  Those two are a scandal.
I knew they had a reputation for hard-nosed play, but I had no idea I
was joining such a pair of ruffians."
        Karana and Azana looked at each other, and some silent flicker
of nonverbal communication passed between them, the sort of thing that
friends of very long standing can do without thinking about it.  Then
they smiled and moved their chairs apart, bumping their neighbors over a
bit and so on down the line, until there was a space for another.
        "Please, Doctor," said Azana cordially.  "We'd like you to join
us.  To show there's no bad blood."
        Gen blinked in surprise, then said, "Well... if you're sure I
won't be intruding... "
        "Not at all," Azana informed him.
        "Yeah, grab a seat, Doc," said Karana, reaching to snag an
unused chair from the vacant table behind her and spin it into place.
        "Well, I... thank you," said Gen, taking the seat.  "And please.
We're not... er, at work... at the moment, so you can call me Zhuwan."
He gave a self-deprecating smile and added, "I'm not a real doctor
anyway."
        "Well, if we're not doing stage names, I guess you'd better call
me Corwin," said the man Gen had known as Watari Karasu.
        Gen looked a few places up the table to him.  "No hard feelings
on your part either, I hope."
        "Nah, not for you," Corwin replied.  "Kassa, maybe; Zanya,
definitely.  But not for you."  He gave the man a friendly grin.  "I
hope we didn't hit you too hard."
        "You, sir, hit me harder than anyone else has ever hit me in the
ring," said Gen didactically; then he smiled and added, "But it was a
fair hit, and a man in my position can't ask for more than that.  You've
got quite a technique; I've never seen anything like it.  Where did you
study, if you don't mind my asking?"
        "I don't mind, but you probably wouldn't believe me," Corwin
replied.  "It's a very old style."
        "Oh, spirits, here we go," said Karana, rolling her eyes.  "No
shop talk at the table!"
        "'Rana, we've been talking about the matches all night," Azana
pointed out.
        "That's not shop, that's war stories.  It's when you get into
training tips that I draw the line."

        The second hour passed like the first, except with one more
person at the table.  Gen Zhuwan proved to be a charming and intelligent
fellow, with well-considered opinions on a number of the important
topics of the day.  He was a little older than the other professional
benders at the table, having spent a few years on the Earth Rumble
circuit before jumping to MLB, but he was still a young man, with a
young man's eagerness to get a handle on the world.  Once he got over
the dual hurdles of his nervousness about the social awkwardness of
showing up, and his nervousness at sharing a table with the Avatar and
her friends, he proved to be excellent dinner company.
        Eventually, weary and happy in equal measures, the party paid
their bill (Korra was slightly refreshed by the proprietor, whom Kaitlyn
and the others appeared to -know,- not even offering to comp her) and
adjourned to the street outside.
        "... Oh.  Oh my.  Camera, where, is, camera," said Korra, waving
a hand until Kate put her minicamera in it.
        As was his wont when not dealing with an immediate call to
action, Mogi had curled up against the nearest firm surface (in this
case, the front wall of the restaurant to the right of the door) and
gone to sleep.  Lacking any better ideas, the other animals taking part
in the evening's excursion had all done the same, arranging themselves
by design or serendipity by descending order of size, calling to mind
those nesting dolls Korra had seen in a street market in the Siberian
quarter of Bear City once.
        Thus, Niri had nestled herself within the curve of Mogi's furry
bulk, then Sergei had rolled himself into a sort of tigery donut
alongside her.  Makoto was tucked into the protective arc of stripes
this created, and within -his- snugly curled body snoozed Pabu XVII, his
fluffy ringed tail draped over the lemur's neck.  The five creatures'
collective snoring had a funky sort of syncopated quality, like
somnolent jazz, all underpinned by Mogi's basso rumbles.
        "That is the most adorable thing I have -ever.-  Seen," Karana
mused quietly as Korra photographed the scene from several angles, using
a low flash setting in hopes of not disturbing the animals.
        "One hates to wake them," Anthy agreed.
        "Unfortunately, we're going to have to, unless we want to swim
back to the Air Temple," Kate pointed out.
        "I could probably fly us back," Nall said, "but that would be
pretty showy-offy.  And it'd probably attract the zeppelin cops."
        "Yes, let's not have that party tonight," Maki agreed.

        In the event, they waited ten minutes, until at least one of the
animals (it turned out to be Serge) woke, before rousing the rest.
Karana, Azana, and Gen parted from the rest of the group there, with
goodnights and well-wishes.
        "We'll be having a practice session at Shinobi Arena tomorrow
afternoon," Azana told Anne.  "You should come join us.  You can meet
Wan, he should be back from Gaoling by then, and you might learn a thing
or two about defending yourself from other kinds of benders."  She
produced a small metal object from a pocket and handed it to the young
samurai.  "Show this to the guard at the back gate and he'll let you in.
We'll be in practice hall two."
        Anne regarded the item she'd just been given; it was a metal
token, like a coin, only a little larger and heavier, with the stylized
cartoon Pabu head that was the Fire Ferrets' jersey logo on the obverse
and the flame sigil of the Fire Nation on the reverse.  Smiling, she
pocketed it.
        "Sounds like fun," she said, then squared herself and bowed with
the firebender salute.  "Until then, Sifu Azana," she added with a
smile.  Azana returned the bow, the salute, and the smile, then went
down to the corner to catch a streetcar uptown.
        Karana said she'd be in touch soon, collected Pabu, and headed
off down one of the side streets, whistling, completely unconcerned with
the lateness of the hour.  Gen repeated his apologies to Corwin one last
time for his colleagues' behavior, then took himself off to find a
subway station.  The rest of them climbed aboard Mogi and headed back to
Air Temple Island, where they scattered to bed.
        Only then did it occur to Korra, on the doorstep of the ladies'
dorm, that she hadn't thought to make any better arrangement for
Corwin's sleeping quarters during that day; but he told her he had a
plan and sent her off to her bed.
        "You have a plan?" Utena inquired.
        Corwin smiled.  "Well, I can't come inside with you two; it'd be
disrespectful to the Air Temple.  I don't think I should get too far
away, though.  Not... under the circumstances."  Anthy nodded, smiling,
and Corwin smiled back and said, "So... show me which window is yours."
        This turned out to be handily situated around the back of the L-
shaped annex, where most of the guest quarters were - out of the way,
but well-situated, with a view of Republic City almost as good as that
from the sentry post across the way.  After seeing his sweethearts off
to bed with kisses and declarations of love, he went back around until
he stood outside the window, turned to face the city, took out his bison
whistle, and blew it, knowing that only Mogi would respond to the
particular ultrasonic note it played.
        The bison arrived only moments later, unsaddled and looking
slightly puzzled, but once he'd landed and taken stock of the situation,
he seemed to understand, nuzzling his master with a thoughtful look.
        "Well, Mogi, looks like it's just you and me," Corwin said.
        Mogi replied equably, "Raaurmph," and then settled himself down
against the wall below Anthy and Utena's window.  Corwin lay down
against his shaggy side, feet outstretched toward the city, and
contemplated the skyline.
        A few minutes later, Korra's head and shoulders emerged from a
window, two down from the one Corwin was camped under; she looked
around, spotted Mogi, and called quietly, "Here.  You might need this.
Supposed to get chilly later tonight."
        "Thanks," Corwin replied as she lofted a blanket his way on a
gust of wind; at the last moment she put a little English on it so it
unfurled and settled over him, prompting him to add fondly, "Showoff."
        "You're one to talk," Korra replied.  "G'night, Corwin."
        "Night," Corwin said, bundling the blanket around his shoulders.
Korra gave him a parting wave and disappeared into her darkened window,
though he noticed that, even on a cool night that she'd said was
forecast to get cooler, she left it open.
        Corwin snuggled back against Mogi, remarking to himself that it
would have been very convenient on several levels if he had known he had
a sky bison a few years ago.  That endless trek on foot across Cephiro
would've been a lot simpler.  Then again, if he hadn't been on foot he
might not have met up with the Rune Knights when he had, and then the
whole thing might've unfolded very differently - or not at all.  And
that didn't even bear thinking about, did it?
        At a soft sound above and behind him, he looked up and back to
see Utena - from his current perspective, upside down - leaning out over
the windowsill.
        "All set out there?" she asked, her voice hushed.  "I was going
to offer you our spare blanket, but I see you found one.  And a bison,"
she added with a smile.
        "Yeah, the blanket just happened to come along," he replied.
"Strange weather around here."
        "Well, I'll holler if anything comes up," she told him.  "All
quiet at the moment.  Pleasant dreams.  Love you."
        "You too," he said, and she went back inside, shutting the
window behind her.  A moment later the light went out, and Corwin sat
back in the dark and regarded Republic City again.  He was physically
tired, but not mentally; too many things going on, too many things to
think about.  And not just inside the orbit of his own life, though his
ancestors knew there was plenty happening there at the moment.
        He'd been mulling a number of things over for half an hour or
so, not getting very far with any of them, when a flicker of white in
the darkness made him look up.  For a second he thought it was one of
the island's winged lemurs, on the way past on some late-night errand,
but then it altered course and he saw that it was Nall in his flying-cat
form, making for him.
        "Phew," Nall remarked as he landed on Corwin's head, furling his
wings.  "She's finally gone to sleep."
        Corwin rolled his eyes upward in a failed attempt to give his
dragon friend a dubious look.  "Dude, WTF," he said, pronouncing the
letters individually.
        "I know, I know," said Nall, dropping down to Corwin's shoulder
now that his wings were put away properly.  "I guess it's been pretty
obvious."
        "No more so than a moderately sized house fire," Corwin said
dryly.
        "And I know what you're going to ask," Nall went on.
        "And?"
        The dragon sighed.  "And we're sort of... on a break right now."
        "I see," Corwin said, letting the demand for elaboration go
unvoiced.
        "Last Thursday night, after I left with Hikaru and Fuu...
-stuff- happened," Nall replied.  "Things were... said."
        "Oh," said Corwin, and then, "You seemed OK on Friday."
        "Well, we're not -enemies,- I mean, it's not like Blossom and
what's-his-face," Nall argued.  "We're just... stepping back... for a
while.  -Space- is required."
        "Uh... -huh.-"
        "And Lhakpa is... "  Nall hesitated.
        "Available?" Corwin suggested.
        "I was going to say 'inescapable'," Nall replied.  "Or possibly
'relentless'."  He headbutted the side of Corwin's head grumpily.
"Also, that was cheap."
        Corwin sighed.  "Yeah, you're right, sorry.  Still, I mean... "
He shrugged.  "Even if you and Umi -are-... 'on a break'... somehow I
doubt Jinora would be amused.  I mean, here I am -outside- so as not to
disrespect the temple by being in there after sundown with, let me just
emphasize this, -my wife,- and you come toddling back from - "
        "Hey, whoa, no, c'mon," interrupted Nall hastily.  "Cat mode
only after dark.  I have standards.  We've just been... talking."
        "She was making it pretty plain at dinner that she was
interested in a fairly vigorous conversation," said Corwin archly.
        "I know, right?" Nall agreed.  "You'd think Air Nomad girls
would be into moderation and temperance, but apparently Lhakpa skipped
that class."
        "Does she know we're most likely leaving this weekend?" Corwin
asked.
        "She wants to come with us."
        Corwin thought about that for a second, then said, "Uh, yeah,
don't see Jinora going for that either."
        "I know, I know," Nall repeated.  "I'm working on it.  I don't
want to just slam the door in her face, you know?  I mean, she's gone in
an unexpected new direction on me, but we've been friends for years.  I
don't want to hurt her.  Besides, what she's feeling... well, I don't
think it's that one-sided.  You know?"
        "... Yeah," said Corwin after a moment's hesitation.  Tilting
his head back, he looked up at the darkened window.  "I know."

                       WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 2410

        Over the last few days, Korra had slipped out of her usual habit
of checking the sports page in the morning Tribune first, in favor of
proceeding directly to Section Four and seeing what Emily Wong had to
say about the city's mystery visitors.  Today, however, she was back to
her earlier pattern.
        As expected, the sports page featured a prominent article about
the previous afternoon's Fire Ferrets exhibition match.  This would
probably have happened anyway, since the Fire Ferrets were the hometown
team, but the tone was a bit different than it normally would've been.
There was much made of the Ferrets' dramatic come-from-behind victory,
and of the curiously slow start made by the team's heretofore-unknown
substitute earthbender, but the Tribune's sportswriters were a sober lot
who confined themselves to covering the events rather than speculating
about the personalities.  The closest they got to that kind of thing was
a brief and well-researched sidebar on the history and controversial
present of Rule 74.
        Over in section 4, however, Emily's editors were clearly less
inclined toward restraint.  They had once again unpacked their outbreak-
of-war headline scales, blaring from the top of the first page,

                             THE SAME MAN!

          Mysterious Earthbender Is the Phoenix House Stranger

           Are the Fire Ferrets Part of the New Team Avatar?

                     Rest of Team Takes In the Game

        An apologetic caption noted that the photographs here, unlike
those of these subjects in previous editions, were not taken by Our
Correspondent Emily Wong, as she was not assigned to the sports beat and
was therefore not cleared to take press photos within the precincts of
Shiro Shinobi Arena.  Korra thought that showed in the fact that they
weren't as good, particularly those of the rest of the gang in the
stands.  Something about the framing just wasn't quite on.  She supposed
the Trib's sports photogs were probably not as adept at getting pics of
people in the bleachers as they were of photographing the game itself,
and she had to admit the action shots of the players were pretty good.
Korra especially liked the one of Zanya just on her way out of the ring,
surrounded by dust and water and fire, her face curiously serene and
resigned behind her faceguard.
        As she was reading the rest of the (perplexed, but now more
convinced than ever that something big was in the offing) article to the
table, Korra's gearPhone pinged - not an incoming call, but a text
message.  Still reading, she got the phone out with her free hand and
flipped it open, glancing at it between paragraphs to read the newly
arrived message.

(Cheong) y r u doing this 2 me?

        Snorting, Korra thumbed back, "sry unintentional will call
soon", then folded the phone back up and put it away.
        "That was Cheong," she said to Utena's curious look.  "He's
getting a little desperate.  I can only assume that Emily Wong is at
this point camping in his in-tray."
        Utena laughed.  "Well, I suppose we'd better let the poor girl
off the hook soon."
        "And get Cheong a nice fruit basket or something," Corwin added
ruefully.
        "That does raise the awkward point that you don't actually have
a plan for her payoff yet," Anthy observed.
        "Sure I do," said Corwin.  "Or, well, an idea, anyway.  Korra,
what's this thing you keep telling Cheong I'm not helping you with?"
        "Huh?  Oh, the Comet case?" asked Korra.  "One of my contacts in
the RCPD's detective division got word that the Red Monsoon Triad is
moving a big shipment of one of the latest stupidly dangerous street
drugs of choice through a front of theirs in town sometime within the
next few days.  When you haven't seen me around, I've mainly been out
helping him try to pin down exactly when that's going to be, or planning
the raid."
        "Aha," said Corwin, smiling.  "I thought it might be something
like that... "
        "That sounds like something an intrepid reporter could work
with," Utena said, catching the line of his thoughts.
        "She works the -society page,-" Nall objected.
        "Yeah, but it's obvious from her copy that she doesn't want to,"
Utena replied.  "Besides, you haven't met her.  She's pretty fierce."
She grinned.  "If we hadn't cut in when we did, I'm pretty sure she'd
have decked Mr. Noneck at the Velvet Pal, or at least tried to."
        "Hmm," said Korra thoughtfully.  "Well... it's not unknown for
us to take people from the press along on operations like that, if it's
something we think is in the public interest to know about, and if we're
reasonably sure they won't get somebody killed.  Some reporters are a
real liability in a tight spot, others not so much.  I'd have to meet
her to know whether I'd be willing to propose embedding her in the op to
Eitaro.  It's his collar, I'm just fire support."
        "Well, why don't we do that, then, tomorrow or the next day?"
Utena suggested.  "I think we're all going to be too busy today."

        The day was, indeed, a rather full one.  March 17 happened to be
a special day on several of the group's calendars.  It was Kaitlyn's
birthday and Utena and Anthy's wedding anniversary; also the anniversary
of Corwin's investiture as one of the Aesir, and the official date of
Nall's recognition as Draconia's paragon of white dragons (though the
ceremony itself took place later).  In some years, they all went and
celebrated these things collectively.  This year, they had a group
lunch, then dispersed to mark their occasions in their own more-or-less-
private ways, and those who didn't -have- a particular special occasion
to mark were at their leisure.

        Amy and Rory went into town to tourist it up a bit, like Corwin
and Utena had on their first day in the city, except without the antique
car.  They got about the same number of stares, though, even without it.
Rory was surprised to find that almost as many of them were directed at
him as at her.  He was accustomed to -Amy- drawing attention, she was a
six-foot-tall Scottish redhead with a sword and a tartan miniskirt.  If
he had been the sort of bloke who found it difficult to accept other
people appreciating his girlfriend on an aesthetic level, he'd have been
institutionalized (or worse, dumped) a long, long time ago.
        It was a -less- familiar experience to be stared at himself.
Rory Williams was not, by his own internal standards as by those of the
places where he most often found himself, a particularly arresting
character.  About the same height, sandy-haired and almost perpetually
in need of a shave, he counted as his only really distinctive feature a
fairly large nose, and that wasn't -so- large that people would tend to
stop and stare at it in the street.  When he and Amy were out in public
together, a lot of people didn't even notice him, which generally suited
him just fine.
        Today, though, he cut as plainly foreign a figure as Amy by the
standards of the locals, and that made him an object, not of occasional
amazement like her, but of undeniable curiosity.
        Amy noticed it too, and it seemed to amuse her; she'd catch his
eye and give him a sly little smile occasionally as they roamed the
city, taking in this and that and nothing in particular.  They passed
the first half of the afternoon wandering the Station Square market,
then headed over to the Republic City Art Museum.  There, Amy sought out
the local equivalent of the post-Impressionist period (her particular
favorite period of Earth's art history) while Rory spent an inordinate
amount of time examining the most unwieldy single item in the museum's
collection, the colossal battle-scene fresco "The Day of Black Sun".
        This, depicting the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes' abortive
invasion of the Fire Nation in 100 ASC, covered an entire wall at the
back of the Art of the Hundred Year War gallery.  It was so vast that
Rory, armed with a giant gatefold diagram giving the name or probable
name of each figure whose identity was known or suspected, was only
about halfway across when Amy reached him again, having made a complete
circuit of the museum's south wing.
        As such, he was slightly nonplussed when, within 30 seconds of
arriving back at his side, Amy pointed at the painting and said, "Oh
hey, it's us."
        Rory partly folded up the key and looked up.  "Where?" he asked.
        Amy pointed again, leaning a little closer.  "Right there.
About three-quarters of the way up."
        Rory peered at the fresco, then nodded.  "So it is," he said.
"Although I don't recall us being in that particular spot -or- being
quite so... Conan-and-Red-Sonja."
        Amy grinned.  "Artistic license."
        "I should say so," Rory agreed.

        Anne Cross returned to Shiro Shinobi Arena after lunch, not to
take in another match - there were none scheduled - but to watch the
Fire Ferrets at practice.  She had no trouble gaining access to the
backstage training areas thanks to the token Azana had given her the
night before.  There she was introduced to Xiang Wan, a big, cheerful,
slightly sheepish man who asked her to pass on his thanks to Corwin for
filling in for him, and then the team went back to work.
        Anne had only been expecting to -watch- the Fire Ferrets
practice, but none of them would hear of it, and before long she was
right in the thick of it.  The way Azana approached firebending here was
different from the way she did it at the Academy; the fundamentals were
the same, but the MLB flavor was a little more fluid, a little more
improvisational.  And, as she had noticed during the match itself, it
was - despite being part and parcel of a combat sport - more restrained
in many ways than "traditional" firebending.
        When Anne put this to her during a water break, Azana nodded and
said, "Yes, you're right.  You see, a lot of the bending we do in the
ring evolved from street fighting techniques in the early days of
Republic City."
        Xiang Wan nodded.  "A lot of today's pro benders don't like to
talk about it, but the roots of our sport lie largely in crime," he
said.  "People started making side bets on battles between the bending
Triads, and eventually someone realized, hey wait a minute, this could
go mainstream."
        "That, and there were earlier forms of bending dueling.
Firebenders have the Agni Kai, for instance, and the Earth Rumbles have
been around a lot longer than pro bending," said Karana.  "Either way,
the sport eventually went legit, but it took a long time.  In Gran-
gran's day it was still pretty shady."
        "And so even today, a lot of the techniques involved can trace
their roots back to those early street fighters," Azana concluded.  "In
the case of firebending, one of the things they discovered was that the
traditional methods tended to destroy a lot of property.  Most of them
were originally military techniques, and in that context collateral
damage wasn't really very important, but in a street battle it's a
constant concern.  You wouldn't automatically think of Triads as that
concerned with that sort of thing, but from their perspective, it does
no good to take over a block if you burn it down in the process."
        "And that was nothing compared to what earthbending or
waterbending could do to property values," Xiang agreed.
        Karana grinned.  "Ask Gran-gran sometime if you want -that-
story."

        Nall stood at the rail on the Harmony Tower's observation deck,
gazing thoughtfully out at the northern expanse of Republic City and the
craggy mountains beyond.  They reminded him of home, inasmuch as
Draconia even -was- home.  He'd never lived there, and yet he still felt
an instinctive connection to the place and its landscape, such that this
view could touch him with nostalgia for a land he'd rarely even visited.
        By draconic standards, his life path had been a strange one from
the very first day, and though he wouldn't have traded his life to date
for many things, it troubled him a little that Matalde's youngling was
predestined for the same weird boat.  He didn't mind, and he supposed
the young red wouldn't either, but still, Nall found himself with
certain reservations about the idea that the practice looked like
becoming a -habit- with Draconia's nobility and Corwin's family line...
        Lhakpa returned from buying a couple of sweet bean rolls from
the observation deck food vendor, saw him frowning pensively off into
the distance, and paused to regard him for a few moments.  On some
level, she was still getting used to the idea that this shockingly
handsome young man really was the same... the same -being- as her
childhood friend and foil, though on another level she understood it
without question.  Something in the vaguely feline angles of his face,
she supposed, or his deep red eyes, which were the same, just larger.
He had the same shock of brown hair in front, too, that his flying-cat
form had as a sort of crest on top of his head.
        Satisfied, she closed the remaining distance between them and
startled him slightly by hugging his arm.  "You look like Great-gran-
gran Jinora with that face on," she chided him.  "What's the matter?"
        "Nothing," he said unconvincingly.  "I'm fine.  Whatcha got
there?  Bean rolls?"
        "It's not nothing, nothing wouldn't make you look like that,"
Lhakpa insisted.  "Come on, you can tell me."  She squeezed his arm and
laid her head on his shoulder.  "You can tell me anything."
        "Anything?" Nall wondered skeptically.
        "Anything," replied Lhakpa positively.
        Nall seemed to be considering that for a few seconds; then,
without any buildup to it at all, he said, "I killed my cousin Nax the
other day."
        Without releasing his arm, Lhakpa leaned away from him a little,
not in a nervous bid for some space, but so she could look at his face
and try to tell whether he was messing around with her.  That would have
been the usual thing; but his face was perfectly serious, even a little
solemn.  He wasn't looking back at her, but out at the city, as he went
on,
        "It was a duel, you understand, I didn't just up and murder a
relative for no reason.  We have codes about that kind of thing, you
see?  I gave him an out and he didn't take it.  So I had to kill him."
        Lhakpa gazed thoughtfully at him for a few seconds.  With a
gentle but insistent pressure on his arm, she guided him to a bench a
few yards away and sat him down on it.  Then, slightly to his surprise,
she settled next to him, still holding onto his arm, and put her head
back on his shoulder.
        "Tell me how it happened," she said, her voice low.
        "It was a duel," Nall repeated.  "I mean, I didn't like Nax.  He
was a genuine monster and a war criminal, and I'm glad he's dead, but I
didn't set out to be the one who made him that way.  He pushed and
pushed and finally hit that point where there was no other choice.  I
had to fully embrace my entire draconic nature in ways I never have
before.  And part of me really... hates that he made me do that.
Particularly in front of witnesses."  He paused, collecting his
thoughts, and then added quietly, "Particularly... in front of Umi."
        "Who's Umi?" Lhakpa wondered.
        "She's - ... was... my girlfriend," said Nall.  "We'd sort of
just broken up when Nax showed up.  But she was still there and Nax
didn't know that part, so... "  He shrugged.  "Draconic culture has...
issues... with that kind of thing."
        Lhakpa didn't reply, other than by remaining where she was, a
warm and supportive presence.  On some level, Nall was surprised by how
well she seemed to be taking this.  He'd grown accustomed to thinking of
her as... well, as a bit of a lightweight, really.  Cheerful, carefree,
a little bit flighty.  Good company, she'd always been that, except when
carried away with potentially painful little-girl affection; but not
particularly deep.
        Now, though, she let go of his arm to slip the nearer of hers
around him, holding him a little closer, and said softly, "That must
have been terrible."
        Nall drew a deep breath through his nose, then let it out slowly
through his mouth, shivering a little.
        "It was a bit," he agreed.  Then, with a weak attempt at his
usual wry humor, he went on, "I should probably have warned you sooner
that you were cozying up to a dangerous beast with deep-rooted cultural
maiden issues that only sort of -looks- like a rakishly handsome lad.
Sorry about that."  He paused, then went on in a less flippant, more
resigned tone, "If you want to forget about the last couple days,
that's... "
        "Nall," Lhakpa interrupted quietly.
        "Mm," said Nall, turning to look at her.
        "Stop talking," said Lhakpa, and then she enforced it by kissing
him soundly.
        Nall looked momentarily surprised, then faintly dismayed.  He'd
been expecting those unintended revelations, made so suddenly and
bluntly thanks to their lingering rawness within him, would cause her to
-back up- a little.  He hadn't really wanted to do it that way, but he
-had- been hoping that he'd -find- some way of getting her to back up a
little, at some point during this excursion.  Instead...
        ... ah, the hell with it, he thought, and kissed her back.

        Utena wasn't actually expecting the action to involve her when
she and Anthy arrived at Ming and Daughters, Clothiers on the dot of
five-fifteen.  Under Korra's light overcoat, borrowed for purposes of
being at least slightly less obvious downtown, Utena was already dressed
in the clothes she'd been fitted with the last time she'd come here.
That was, after all, just the past Saturday, and she was on her way to
the very same destination, so she - silly girl - had assumed that the
Daughters would ignore her, except perhaps to fix her hair, while they
concentrated on Anthy.
        Instead, the same thing happened that had happened Saturday.
Upon entry, they were politely greeted by the full staff of the shop,
and then each was whisked off to a different corner by a brace of
Daughters and given a complete workup.  Utena's fancy clothes from the
weekend were briskly removed and taken away, and then new ones in an
almost entirely different style were fitted in their place.  She didn't
see Anthy again until nearly half an hour later, when, just as before,
they found themselves gently but firmly ejected onto the sidewalk with
polite farewells and assurances that the things they'd come in with
would be cleaned and sent back to the Air Temple.
        As she and Corwin had done Saturday afternoon, Utena and Anthy
stood there for a moment, blinking at the suddenness of it all, and then
turned to take each other in.
        Having evidently read the present situation differently, the
Daughters had - without asking her a single question - entirely changed
up their game regarding Utena from the last time they'd seen her.
Before, when she'd arrived as Corwin's date in the midst of their
honeymoon, they'd dressed her as a sort of paragon of glamorous
femininity, a state in which she was entirely unaccustomed to finding
herself - and between their consummate skill and the specialness of the
occasion, they'd made it work.
        This time, on the other hand, they'd gone the other way,
adapting a style of men's wear similar to what they'd pulled out for
Corwin to her very different frame, on the fly and without comment.  The
result didn't make her seem mannish, but, like the best of her regular
clothes, rather as if men dressed the way they did in homage to her.
The Fire Nation cues remained: the wasp-waisted, heavily brocaded jacket
she wore had the same sort of fitted shoulders as the little demicape
they'd draped her with on Saturday, and the same reds and deep black
dominated the color scheme.  They'd even put her in a pair of those
genie-toed shoes, which she'd expected to be both less comfortable and
more absurd-looking than they really were.
        Not having been shown a mirror at any point, Utena didn't really
know how the whole outfit worked, but Anthy wasn't laughing, which she
took to be a good sign.  For her part, Anthy looked - there was no other
word for it to Utena - radiant.  Taking cues from who knew what, the
Daughters had discerned her interest in Air Nomad culture and dressed
her in a dress-under-sleeveless-robe combination very like those worn by
the Air Temple elders, complete with a luxuriously long and broad sash
that took a supportive turn around her middle and then up over her left
shoulder: an arrangement which looked both practical and comfortable.
        The color palette they'd used for her, though, was slightly
different.  The sash was the standard bright scarlet that airbender
women wore, the robe a slightly deeper crimson which hearkened back to
the dress Anthy had worn first as the Rose Bride, and then on some
occasions in her capacity as High Priestess of the Pillar.  The full-
sleeved, ankle-length dress beneath, though, was not the usual Air Nomad
yellow, but instead a lush, shimmery grey that seemed to sparkle
slightly in the sun.  It was, Utena realized, the same material Corwin's
waistcoat had been made of in -his- Ming outfit from Saturday.
        Beyond that, they'd done something to exaggerate slightly the
wave in her hair, so that it became a full-on Rita Hayworth tumble of
long, loose curls, utterly casual and yet somehow studied, their rich
violet color setting off the quartz-flecked grey of her dress.  Utena
had never really bought into the old saw that pregnant women glowed, but
Anthy seemed to, just then - though that might have been the afternoon
sunlight, as they were getting on toward the golden hour when the light
took on that certain quality, much prized by photographers.
        As Utena had the thought, they -were- photographed, just as she
and Corwin had been.  Utena turned to see Emily Wong standing about
where the Korramobile had been, across the street, giving them a
startled look over the viewfinder of her Rolleiflex.  When Utena looked
toward her, they made momentary eye contact in which the reporter gave
her a plaintive what-is-going-on look, but Utena just smiled and shooed
her away, mouthing, "Later."
        "That's your friend the reporter, I assume," said Anthy with a
smile as Emily beat it to the corner and caught a streetcar.
        "Yup," Utena replied.  "Probably hopelessly confused now.
That's the second time this week she's seen me coming out of this shop
with a date who's dressed to kill."
        "You're not bad yourself, my love," said Anthy, taking her arm.
"Shall we?"
        "You're sure you don't want me to get us a cab?" Utena wondered.
"It's a fair walk to Kwong's from here."
        Anthy smiled.  "It's a lovely day and we've plenty of time," she
said.  "I'd rather savor the moment."
        Utena glanced at her, then grinned and patted her hand.  "As you
like it," she said.

        After bending practice, having no wish to do any -further-
training that day nor to deal with Deng, Azana and Juniper adjourned to
the former's apartment to talk over the day's work and consider next
steps.  Actually, they'd started that during practice, and didn't stop
during the walk from Shinobi Arena to the building where Azana lived,
but these are details.
        Azana lived on the top floor of a studio-apartments building
catering mainly to students and artists, conveniently located about
halfway between the Fire Lord Zuko Firebending Academy and the arena.
It reminded Anne a bit of the World Wide Building in New Avalon, where
Corwin lived; it even had the same sort of old-timey cage elevator,
though Azana skipped it and just took the stairs.  Her apartment was a
bit like Corwin's, too, just one big room apart from the partitioned-off
bathroom space in one corner, with a similar lack of any fancy ceiling
to cover up the iron rafters and industrial ductwork lining what was, on
this floor, the underside of the roof.  It was neater than Corwin's
place, not because Corwin was any kind of slob, but because Azana was
apparently about as tidy as a person could be without being actually
pathological about it.
        She had different taste in decorations, too; where Corwin was
fond of repurposed municipal signage and old posters, Azana went for
abstract Fire Nation artworks and landscape paintings.  On one wall,
near the couch Anne chose when invited to take a seat, was a small group
of framed portraits.  One was the official depiction of the current Fire
Lord, denoted by a small brass plaque affixed to the bottom edge of the
frame.  Anne recognized another as the same picture of the late Fire
Lord Zuko that they had at his eponymous academy.  The others were
presumably family members; after a moment's thought, she recognized one
of them as Ito-sensei as a much younger man, dressed in what looked like
a military uniform.
        Azana went to the kitchen area, which was separated from the
rest of the apartment only by an island counter, and bustled about for a
few moments gathering up supplies for tea.
        "One moment and I'll get the hibachi started," she said, nodding
toward a bronze brazier standing under a vent hood at the end of the
room.  "You can't make proper tea on a gas hob, I don't care what Karana
says," she added wryly.
        Anne considered for a second, then rose and said, "Oh,
actually... let me.  There's something I want to show you."
        Azana paused, giving her a curious look.  "Oh?"
        Anne nodded, then focused her attention on the hibachi.  This
required concentration.  She wanted to ignite the charcoal she could see
piled in the brazier, after all, -not- explode half the room.  In the
old days, that would have been a dicey proposition.  Nowadays, less so,
and even after the handful of days she'd spent training in firebending,
she could feel still more of a difference.  Narrowed eyes, a slight
push, a distinct and not unpleasant (that was a marked change from the
bad old days) sensation, and the brazier suddenly thumped to life, the
flame rising merrily up and then settling down to a steady burn as white
ash spread across the surface of the charcoal.
        The job done, she glanced nervously at her hostess to see her
reaction.  It hadn't escaped her that this might be a mistake.  She
might have misjudged, or even imagined, the bond she felt developing
between her and her new teacher.  It could be too soon, or too sudden
and dramatic a demonstration.  Doubt rose up a trifle belatedly within
her as she saw Azana gazing wide-eyed at the burning hibachi, her
expression too blank to read.
        "You... you set that on fire just by -looking- at it," Azana
said slowly.
        "Well... it's a -little- more complicated than that, but
basically... yeah," Anne admitted.  She cringed a little inside and
waited to see whether the moment was about to go terribly wrong.
        Azana stood looking at the brazier for a moment longer... then
turned to Anne and unveiled the biggest smile the young samurai had yet
seen on her face.
        "That is -amazing,-" said Azana positively.  "I can't do that,
even -Grandfather- can't do that.  I've never heard of any firebender
who -could.-  The closest thing I've ever heard to that ability was a
man back in Avatar Aang's day who could firebend without moving his
hands, but if the legends about him are true, he would have destroyed
the -building- trying to do what you just did."
        Anne felt her knees go slightly weak with relief and covered it
by pretending she'd intended to sit back down on the couch anyway,
saying, "Yeah, well... there was a time when I probably would have
too."
        Azana went and put the kettle on, then returned and sat down in
an armchair opposite the sofa.  "Have you always been able to do that?"
        "Not -always- always," Anne replied, shaking her head.  "I
didn't have any special abilities at all until I was about 12.  Most
people like me back home don't.  It's kind of a puberty thing."
        "Oh."  Azana sat back, crossing her legs elegantly at the knee,
and considered.  "That must've been tough.  Around here, most benders
are benders from the time we can walk.  Which can make life tough for
our parents," she added wryly, "but it does mean that by the time we're
that age, we have a pretty good handle on the basics."  She tilted her
head thoughtfully.  "But when it did manifest itself, that's the form it
took?"
        Anne nodded.  "Firebending the way you do it is a new thing for
me.  Korra showed me how to do that basic punch last week.  That was the
first time I'd ever actually... you know.  -Moved fire around,- instead
of just making it happen somewhere."  She gave her crooked little smile
and added, "I kind of like it better.  Easier to see what's going on.
Still, the other way does have its uses."
        "I should say."  Azana smiled.  "Korra said you had potential;
she didn't mention that you were an out-and-out prodigy."
        Anne blushed slightly.  "Believe me, you wouldn't be saying that
if you'd been around for some of my early attempts."
        Azana heard the water come to a boil and got up, still smiling.
"We all have to start somewhere," she said, and then went to take the
kettle off the coals and make the tea.
        A few minutes later, as they sipped their tea and talked
firebending techniques, the two were interrupted by the high, silvery
sound of a bell, which Anne realized was coming from an elegant old-
fashioned telephone which stood on the endtable next to Azana's chair.
        Giving the instrument the classic who-could-that-be look, Azana
excused herself and picked it up.  "Hello?" she said, and then instantly
frowned at the reply.  "No, Mother, this is really not a good time.  No.
NO," she repeated with greater emphasis.  "I'm with a student.  Yes, I
have a student now."  (Eyeroll.)  "Yes, that's right, Grandfather
finally talked me into it.  What?  -Really,- Mother.  I've told you - "
        She paused then, her face taking on a thoughtful, slightly
mischievous look as she glanced speculatively at Anne.  Then, with a
mildly evil smile, she said as if conceding a point, "Well, yes, I
suppose she -is- rather handsome, but I hardly - what?"  (Another
frown.)  "You asked, it's hardly MY fault you jumped to - if
you're going to take that tone with me, Mother, this conversation is
over.  You know the rules."
        After that little contretemps, Azana's mother was speaking
loudly enough that Anne could actually hear her, a tiny, tinny voice
coming from a handset now held a wincing inch or two away from Azana's
ear:
        "You can't blame me if I worry about you, darling.  I don't want
you to turn out like your Aunt Zina!"
        Now outright scowling, Azana snapped, "Which Aunt Zina?  The one
who's been blissfully happy with the same life partner for the last 15
years?  THAT Aunt Zina?  Yes, gracious me, Mother, I wouldn't want to
end up like HER."
        "You know I don't approve of - " Azana's mother began, but Azana
interrupted her,
        "Yes, Mother, I know.  And YOU know that I REFUSE to have this
conversation with you AGAIN!  Aunt Zina's life choices are HERS and MINE
are MINE.  And if you can't respect either one, then I'll thank you to
refrain from raising the topic!"  She got hold of herself with a visible
effort, composed herself in her chair, and then said calmly, "Now.  Is
there anything you would actually care to talk about?"
        Anne didn't hear Azana's mother's reply this time - she had
subsided enough that it only came across as a sort of wordless, petulant
buzz - and after a few seconds of it, Azana said in a cordial but cool
tone of voice, "Fine.  In that case, I'll get back to what I was doing.
Have a good day, Mother."
        The other end disconnected with a clearly audible click; Azana
sat looking at the handset for a moment, then sighed, hung up the phone,
and said apologetically, "I'm sorry you had to hear that.  She usually
doesn't call until evening."
        "Does that happen a lot?" Anne wondered.
        "Almost every time she calls," Azana confirmed.  "She's
convinced I'm getting up to all sorts of wild hijinks, living alone in
the terrible city - all of them disreputable and none likely to present
her with grandchildren."  Rolling her eyes, she added, "At least not
legitimate ones."  She sat back in her chair and heaved a sigh.  "I
don't want you to get the wrong idea," she added wearily.  "I do love my
mother, but by all the spirits, she tasks me."
        "Mm," said Anne sympathetically.  Then, after casting about
momentarily for anything she could say to break up the moment, she held
up her cup and said, "This is really good tea."
        Azana met her eyes, giving her a skeptical I-see-what-you-did-
there look, and then laughed, the moment successfully broken.  She
raised her cup in response and said, "Your health, Juni-chan.  And my
mother's too, spirits help me," she added wryly.

        At Kwong's Family Cuisine, as at Ming and Daughters, Clothiers,
no one gave any indication that they had ever seen Utena before.  As he
showed them to their seats - at a different table from the one she and
Corwin had been at a few days ago - the headwaiter even addressed her as
"sir" and stood correctly aside while she pulled out Anthy's chair for
her, which seemed to amuse Anthy inordinately.
        In fact, as they ate and talked of various matters, it began to
dawn on Utena that -many- things seemed to be amusing Anthy at least a
little inordinately tonight.  She was in quite a merry frame of mind,
and in very good form as a raconteuse; at one point she told a
hysterically funny story about one of the trips she and Corwin had taken
down the coast road in Cephiro of a Saturday, during the time shortly
after his Trial that he'd spent living there, seeing them only on the
weekends.
        "Oh, be careful," Utena warned her when their entrees arrived.
"Those red things are really - "  She blinked as Anthy picked up one of
those red things with her chopsticks and ate it, seeming to go out of
her way to crunch it between her teeth.  " ... hot," Utena finished, a
little lamely.
        "Hmm.  Yes they are," Anthy remarked, and then, seeming quite
satisfied with that realization, proceeded to go hunting for another
one.  "What?" she asked, seeing Utena's startled look.
        "Nothing," Utena replied, returning her attention to her own
dinner.  Then she smiled slyly and added, "But you're not kissing me
with that mouth until that stuff wears off."

        For her birthday, Corwin took his favorite sister for a magic
carpet ride of her own, once around Republic City by sky bison, with
Korra along to point out landmarks and items of interest.  Then they
were off to an old haunt for a dinner of their own.
        Narook's Seaweed Noodlery was a bustling restaurant in the heart
of the Little Water Tribe district, and a much less fancy sort of place
than Kwong's.  For all that he had enjoyed his evening there with Utena,
Corwin would have had to admit that Narook's was much more his style
(and hers, come to think about it; he made a mental note to bring her by
soon).  No obsequious headwaiter here, nor any dress code beyond that
required by law.  It didn't even have tablecloths.  What it had was a
battle-scarred counter along one wall, three rows of sturdy square
tables, and a cheerful staff who greeted the trio with boisterous cries
of welcome.
        Hanging behind the counter was a large, framed, slightly age-
faded poster of Korra in her pro bending days, her arms folded across
her chest, looking sassy and confident.  In the upper right corner, in a
bold black-markered hand, she'd signed it (translated from the Tongyu):

I'M AVATAR KORRA -
AND THIS IS MY FAVORITE
NOODLERY IN REPUBLIC CITY!

        As such, it was even less of a shock than usual that the staff
knew her on sight; but the two waitresses and the burly head cook
surprised and pleased Kaitlyn by recognizing her and Corwin as well, and
welcoming them like long-lost friends.  One of the waitresses actually
shooed another group of customers away from the corner table where Korra
customarily sat.  They gave the place up willingly enough when they saw
that one of the people they were being evicted for was the Avatar, but
Corwin and Kate both suspected that wasn't the reason the staff were
doing it.  They were doing it because she was a regular customer of very
long standing, and the people getting booted from her table were just
some random MLB team.
        Anne and Azana joined them just as they were getting situated,
having caught the streetcar over from Azana's apartment.  The latter
tried, as a matter of form, to excuse herself at that point, having seen
their mutual student safely to the appointment, but Kate wouldn't hear
of it.
        "Don't be silly, Azana-sensei," she said cheerfully.  "Please,
if you've no other plans this evening, join us."
        "Thank you, Master Kaitlyn," said Azana with a cordial smile.
"I'd be happy to.  But I don't think we need to be so formal on your
birthday, do we?"  Her smile turned into a grin.  "Or any other time
we're not in a dojo, for that matter.  Just call me Azana."
        "In that case, you'd better call me Kate," Kaitlyn replied.
        In the reshuffle this necessitated - Korra's usual table was
nominally a four-top - Corwin ended up more or less cornered, hemmed in
between the wall behind him, a half-wall which served as a border for
the seating area to his right, and Korra to his left, with Kate and Anne
on the other side and Azana at the end.  Once everyone was resettled and
their starting orders in, Korra dragged up the messenger bag she wore
and set it on the table, then opened the flap and started rummaging
inside it.
        "Well, Kate, I've missed a few birthdays," she said wryly, "but
I think this'll make a start on making up for it."  So saying, she
pulled out a couple of large books.  "This," she went on, sliding the
first across, "is the complete libretto and score to the classical
version of 'Love Amongst the Dragons' - which is the only version, as
far as I'm concerned," she added with a wink.
        "Oh, thank you!" said Kate, picking up the book and leafing
through it.  "I might get together with the drama department at NAU and
try staging it this fall.  I'm sure Professor Ford would be interested."
        Korra's grin widened.  "I look forward to the complete
bewilderment of your students, then," she said.  "And -this,-" she
added, tapping the leather-bound cover of the second, larger volume, "is
a book I promised I'd track down for you... what... seven years ago?
Ironically, because it's so late, I can now present it to you as the
work of one of your peers.  Master Kaitlyn, I give you the one and only
Standard-language edition of 'The Spirit and the Sword' by the great
Master Piandao."
        With a sound of delight, Kate took up the leather-bound book and
opened it to the title page, her eyes widening as she saw the neatly
calligraphed lettering there.
        "It's handwritten!" she said.
        "How can Master Piandao have known Standard?" Azana wondered.
"He lived in the time of Avatar Aang, long before contact with Zipang."
        "He didn't," Korra told her.  "As a matter of fact, unbeknownst
to me, no Standard edition of any of his works -existed- when I promised
Kate I'd get that book for her."  She grinned again.  "So I had to make
one.  Translated it myself!"
        "Wow," said Azana, impressed.  "And I thought reading it in
school was hard work."
        Still grinning, Korra hooked an arm around Corwin's neck and
mussed his hair.  "Ask the boy wonder here - when I do presents, I don't
fool around."
        "It's true," Corwin agreed.
        A moment later one of the waitresses, a middle-aged Water
Tribeswoman with a beaming smile, appeared, greeting them (as she had
when they'd entered) like heroes returning from a long war.
        "Welcome back!" she said cheerfully to Corwin.  "Been a long
time.  What can I get you?"
        Corwin smiled and said, "Long indeed, Nelqa.  Good to be back at
last."  He picked up a menu card from the little wooden box of them in
the middle of the table and glanced down it, confirming his suspicion
that nothing much had changed.  "I think I - " he began, and then Korra
interrupted him with an elbow.
        "Super Noodle Bowl," she prompted.
        " - What?"
        "Super Noodle Bowl," Korra repeated mischievously.
        Corwin regarded her with an entirely fake expression of cool
appraisal and replied, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you asking for
a challenge?"  Korra responded to this with nothing more than a slightly
devilish grin, so Corwin turned back to Nelqa and said, "I'll have the
Super Noodle Bowl.  And some of those fried dumplings."
        "And for you, Avatar?" Nelqa asked, playing the game to
perfection.
        "D'you know, I think I'll have the Super Noodle Bowl," said
Korra, as if she'd just thought of it.
        The Super Noodle Bowl turned out to be just about what it said:
a large wooden bowl, mostly full of Narook's signature green seaweed-
infused noodles, with some hot chickenshark broth poured over them and a
few chopped scallions scattered on top.  Corwin's and Korra's arrived
together mere moments later, placed simultaneously in front of them both
by a broadly smiling Nelqa, who informed the others that their own
orders would be out soon.
        "Ready to lose, rocketboy?" asked Korra as she snapped her
chopsticks apart and prepared to dig in.
        Doing the same, Corwin rolled his eyes and intoned in a deeper-
than-usual voice, "Your powers are weak, old woman."
        "Ohh, it's on now," said Korra, grinning.
        "Right then!" Corwin said, picking up his bowl with his free
hand.  Korra did likewise; they glanced at each other with matching
wicked little smiles, and then Corwin warned the others at the table,
"This isn't going to be big on dignity."
        And indeed it wasn't: for the name of the game with Super Noodle
Bowl Challenge appeared to be eating all the noodles in the bowl in a
single uninterrupted go, and the one viable strategy for that was to
shovel up the biggest possible wad of them with the chopsticks and then
slurp as if the fate of the galaxy were at stake.  People at neighboring
tables paused to look, some craning their necks.  Had it gone on for
more than the few seconds it took, Anne suspected betting pools might
have started.
        The tail end of Corwin's noodles vanished with a final, broth-
shedding flick perhaps half a second before Korra's.  With all that on
board, he barely had room to chew, but chew he did, putting paid to a
whole bowl-load of green pasta in record time.  Swallowing with a look
of triumph, he tipped his head back and poured the remaining broth down
after it, then banged the bowl down on the table and cried,
        "HA!  I win."
        Korra, still chewing, gave him a venomous look made doubly
comical by her bulging cheeks, then finished off her own bowl at a less
frantic pace and put the empty down next to his.
        "This is no longer a fair competition," she declared petulantly.
"Look at the size of your jaw!"
        Corwin cocked a hand theatrically next to his ear.  "What's that
I hear?  It sounds like the faint and distant mewling of someone who has
LOST."
        "Stupid Viking genes," Korra grumbled, unable to make it
convincing by masking her smile.  "Think they're soooo big."
        "You two are disgusting," Kate laughed.
        "Hey, be glad we're not at the old Republic Apothecary soda
fountain," said Corwin.
        "Man, they tore that place down!" Korra exclaimed.
        "Aw, no way!" cried Corwin.
        "Way!  Two, three years ago.  To put up a -bank!-"  Korra folded
her arms, her scowl less put-on now.  "I'm sure they waited until I was
out of town."
        "Jerks," said Corwin.
        "I know!" Korra agreed.  Then, sighing, she went on, "Just goes
to show you, I guess, 'the Avatar dined here' is NOT a guaranteed spot
on the Historic Places Register."
        "What about this place?" Anne wondered.
        Korra laughed.  "They wouldn't just have to worry about ME,
they'd have everybody in Major League Bending after them if anything
happened to Narook's," she said.  "Particularly the Spiderwolves.  Those
guys are creepy."
        The rest of the meal unfolded in similar style, with a lot of
laughter and goodwill.  It struck Anne that they'd had a lot of meals
like that since coming to Diqiu, but this was different from the others,
because there were fewer of them here, and it made for a warmer and more
intimate mood than the larger groups.  She thought this over during the
relative quiet of a visit to the restroom.  Seeing Kaitlyn approaching
in the hallway as she was on her way back out, she put the observation
to her sensei to see what she made of it.  Hearing it, Kate smiled the
kind of smile she got when she was pleased with her student's insight
and remarked,
        "You're right, Juni-chan; this -is- different.  Take last
night's pizza run, for instance.  That was an afterparty; this is more
like a family gathering for a special occasion."  She turned and cast a
fond glance back at their table.  "My birthday, yes, but also a
celebration of a friendship... one that survived a five-year attempt to
smother it to death."
        Anne considered this for a moment, then smiled.  "Azalynn would
like that," she observed.
        "Yes she would," Kate agreed.  "We must remember to tell her
about it when we get home."
        They parted there, Kate continuing on to the ladies', Anne
heading back to her seat.  About halfway across the dining room, she met
Azana coming the other way.
        "Hey, kiddo, you want to give me a hand for a second?" she
asked.  She gestured toward the counter, up onto which the head cook had
just muscled a large basket.  "The kitchen's put together a fruit basket
for Mogi."
        "Sure," said Anne, nodding.  They went to the counter and lugged
the heavy basket outside, Anne discreetly helping out with her TK.  Mogi
was lounging in the alley around the side of the restaurant, near a
window that looked in on the dining room, and was very pleased to
receive his gift of fruit.
        "Well," said Azana after they'd put the basket down in front of
him.  "That wasn't so bad."
        "Nope," Anne agreed, smiling slightly to herself.  She suspected
Azana would be as OK with telekinesis as she'd been with pyrokinesis,
but best to approach these things gradually.  There was a time and place
for that sort of revelation.
        A burst of laughter emanating from the window drew their
attention; from here, they had a clear sightline to the table where
Corwin and Korra sat.  They couldn't hear the conversation from this far
away, but judging from their body language, it had something to do with
a reminiscence of some shared experience or another.  Korra had her arm
around Corwin's neck again, playfully pretending to punch him on top of
the head, as he blatantly failed at fending her off.
        Azana smiled fondly, an expression very similar to the one Kate
had worn when surveying them from a distance.
        "It's good to see Korra enjoying herself so much," she said.
"Not that she's been -morose- lately or anything," she hastened to add,
"but it's been a while since I saw her in a position where she felt able
to be so completely -unfiltered.-  Dealing with the younger crowd,
people like Karana and me, she sometimes seems as though she's holding
herself back, possibly out of a sense that she ought to be providing
more of an example.  Master Kaitlyn's brother seems to just... -unlock-
all that."  She smiled.  "It's a good thing."
        "You won't get any argument from me," said Anne cheerfully, and
they left Mogi to his fruit and went back into the restaurant.
        On the way back to their table, to which Kate had returned while
they were gone, Azana's sharp eyes spotted a figure sitting at the end
of the counter.
        "Um, don't look now," she told the others as she slid back into
her seat, "but I think you're being watched."
        Corwin raised an eyebrow.  "Earth Kingdom girl, about so high,
green dress?"  When Azana nodded, Corwin only smiled, surprising her a
little.  "Yeah, you don't need to worry about her."
        Then he got his own confirmation, as - though he hadn't turned
to look - Emily Wong suddenly appeared in his field of vision, hurrying
past on her way to the door.  She spared him only a glance, the merest
flicker of eye contact, as she passed... but the look she gave him was
such a dark, reproachful one that it took him quite aback for a moment.
        "Where's she going in such a hurry?" Anne wondered.
        "Probably just got tipped off about Utena and Anthy at Kwong's,"
Kate suggested with a slightly evil smile.
        Corwin considered this, looking even more puzzled.  "Maybe.
That doesn't explain why she'd give ME the how-could-you look, though."
        Korra sighed.  "Yyyeah, I get the feeling there's gonna be a
-lot- of explainin' to do at your meetup."
        "Hey, we promised her a -good- story, we never said it'd be a
simple one," Corwin quipped.

        Utena and Anthy didn't see Emily on their way back from Kwong's
to the ferry port; she arrived at the restaurant just after they left
and guessed incorrectly which route they'd taken to the ferry.  By the
time she arrived there, the early evening boat had just pulled away from
the quayside and out into Yue Bay.  The reporter saw the distinctive
colors and shapes of her quarries on the boat's foredeck, too far away
to hail, sighed, and trudged away.
        The sun was setting behind Air Temple Island, casting the temple
tower into silhouette, as the the ferry sailed westward through the
glassy twilight calm.  On the foredeck, Utena lounged back against the
rail and admired her wife's serenely smiling profile, rendered in
burnished copper by the sunset.
        "How goes?" she asked, much less fussily than she had in some
time.  After this perfect evening, she felt warm, relaxed, utterly on
top of the game.  Ready for anything.
        "Fine, nothing to report," Anthy replied, still smiling out
across the bay.  Then, just before Utena could respond, she added in
exactly the same offhanded tone of voice, "It's barely even gotten
interesting yet."
        "Good, good," replied Utena, and then, when her reactions caught
up with her perceptions a moment later, "Wait, what?"  She straightened
up and turned to face Anthy.  "-What's- barely even gotten interesting,"
she said in her don't-be-messing-with-me-now voice.
        Anthy glanced at her, then turned her eyes back to the sunset.
"The contractions are still a good ten minutes apart.  I doubt I'm even
fully dilated yet, though it shouldn't be long now."
        Utena blinked at her, feeling proud of herself for not
experiencing the sudden-onset blind panic all the standard comedy tropes
called for at this time.  In fact, she was still quite calm about the
whole thing - calm enough to give Anthy a sardonic eyeing rather than
commencing to witter and fret.
        "Annnnd how long has this been going on?" she inquired.
        Anthy looked thoughtful for a moment, as if calculating in her
head, and then replied, "Eighteen hours?  Give or take.  I didn't make a
note of the exact time."
        Utena looked around at the open deck on which they stood.  "And
you've just been walking around that way all day, without mentioning it
to anyone."
        Anthy shrugged.  "I told you," she said calmly, "it's barely
interesting to -me- so far, let alone anyone else.  People would have
gotten all excited for no reason.  Kaitlyn's birthday dinner would have
been spoiled, we wouldn't have gone to Kwong's, it would all have been
terribly dreary."  She turned a cheerful smile to her husband and went
on, "As it is, we've all had a lovely day and no one has had to fuss
unnecessarily."
        Utena arched an eyebrow at her, then said, "I see.  And would it
now be unnecessarily fussy of me to Lens Corwin and let him know things
will be happening soon?"
        Anthy shook her head.  "Not at all," she assured Utena
agreeably.  "That would be a perfectly appropriate thing to do at this
stage."
        "I'm so glad I'm doing it right, then," replied Utena dryly.
        Anthy patted her arm.  "I've always had faith in your ability to
improvise, my love."
        Utena rolled her eyes and concentrated on her Lens.  <Corwin,>
she thought.  <Are you back on the island yet?>
        <No,> Corwin replied.  <We're just leaving Narook's, why?>
        <I hope Mogi's had a nice nap, because he's got work to do,>
Utena quipped with a wry mental grin.  <Anthy and I are on the ferry
now, and when we get in?  It's showtime.>
        <!> said Corwin, and then, in that everybody-get-ready-for-
action tone that always gave her a thrill, <I will -see you there.->
        <And I,> Korra's psychic "voice" put in (to Utena's considerable
surprise), <will be with you shortly.>

        Emerging from Narook's at something just short of a run, Corwin
nearly ran smack into Emily Wong.
        "I have questions that need answering," she said flatly, and
even under the circumstances, he had to respect the directness of her
approach; at least respect it enough not to just brush past her and get
on with the business at hand without even bothering to acknowledge it.
        Instead, he told her with equally disarming forthrightness, "And
you've earned a few answers, but I can't give them to you right now.
Important things happening.  Excuse me."
        Then, while she was parsing the first part, he stepped around
her and into the side alley.  Recovering quickly, Emily moved to pursue
him, but a hand on her shoulder stopped her and drew her back.
        "Not the time, Ms. Wong," said Korra.
        "OK, I can be flexible - let's start with -you,- Avatar," Emily
retorted.
        Korra gave her a puzzled look.  "Me?" she wondered, then
continued, "Since when was -I- a great mystery to be solved?  Look, you
heard the man.  Time is tight right now, for very personal reasons that
have nothing to do with news.  But you won't be left hanging much
longer, I promise."
        With that, she rummaged in a front pocket of her messenger bag,
took out a card and a pen, jotted a short message on the back of one
with the other, and handed the card to Emily.  "Come to Air Temple
Island on the Friday midday ferry and give this to the first Air Acolyte
you see," she said.  "We'll sit down with you then and tell you the
whole story.  Don't come tomorrow.  We'll be too busy to talk.  OK?"
        "Wha - no!" Emily protested.  "It's not OK!  Just because you're
the Avatar doesn't give you the right to - "
        "This isn't about me being the Avatar," Korra cut her off.
"It's about me being there for my friends.  Now I've given you my word
that you'll get your story.  That's the best I can do, and I don't have
time to stand here and argue with you about the details.  Come to the
island on Friday."
        Then she, too, sidestepped the young reporter and went into the
alley.  Leaning in through the side window, she called thanks to the
staff of Narook's, then turned toward Mogi.  Before she could start
climbing up to the saddle, she noticed Azana standing next to the bison
and said, "C'mon, up you get.  Don't tell me you're afraid of heights."
        "I wasn't assuming I was invited," Azana replied.
        "Of course you are," said Korra, commencing to climb.  "Besides,
I'm probably gonna need your help with crowd control."
        Azana climbed after her, looking confused.  "You'll be on Air
Temple Island, what kind of crowd are you expecting?"
        "You do realize how many airkids are on that island, right?"
Korra asked wryly.  "I'm not about to go earthbending all the doors and
windows to keep 'em at bay.  Jinora would give me that -look- again."

        No more than five minutes after Utena's call, the great cream-
colored bulk of Mogi swept past overhead.  As the bison passed, Korra
stepped to the back of the saddle and jumped overboard, arching her body
in a nicely executed swan dive before arrowing into the water a few
yards off the ferryboat's starboard bow.  Anthy waved gaily to Corwin
and the small group of people still on the saddle, unrecognizable in the
gathering dark, as Mogi sped away toward the island, moving faster than
Utena had ever seen him go.
        Seconds later, the sea near where Korra had gone into the water
began to roil and froth; then the Avatar rose from the depths atop a
waterspout of her own making, which was, Utena had to admit, a very
stylish way of making an entrance on a boat.  It deposited her neatly on
deck a few feet away from the Tenjous, then curled away and fell
harmlessly back into the bay, its energy dissipating.  Utena noticed
that her clothes weren't even wet.
        "So!" she said cheerfully.  "The time approaches, eh?  How
long?"
        "Eighteen hours," Anthy replied, still with her same calm smile.
"Or thereabouts."
        "Hmm.  Well, then."  Korra turned and hailed the quarterdeck,
where the ferry's captain and first mate had evinced no particular
surprise at the sudden and dramatic appearance of the Avatar aboard
their vessel.  Being Air Acolytes, Utena supposed they were used to that
kind of thing by now.
        "What do you say, Captain, shall we take things up a notch?"
Korra called.
        "We're ready when you are, Avatar!" the captain shouted back.
        "All righty then."  Korra turned to face forward again, then
struck an airbender's starting stance and said with a grin, "Let's go to
force 5, shall we?"  As she began to move her hands, the light breeze
that had been scudding the ferry along began to freshen, picking up
until it whistled in the rigging, the boat's sails bellied rigidly out.
The ferry's speed immediately began to pick up, creamy foam rolling back
from her cutwater.
        "This is pleasant, but it's really not necessary," Anthy
murmured to Utena.
        "Oh, let her have her fun," Utena replied, smiling.
        "If you insist," Anthy said, "but - "  She paused, a thoughtful
look coming onto her face.  "... Oh, bother."
        Utena arched an eyebrow at her.  "Himemiya, protip: 'Bother' is
among the last things anybody whose wife is in labor wants to hear her
say."
        "Oh, it's nothing serious," Anthy told her.  "I just rather
hoped I'd have a chance to get out of this lovely dress before this
stage arrived."
        "Huh - ... oh."
        "Ah, well.  It's mostly water; it'll wash out."  Seeing the look
coming onto Utena's face, Anthy smiled a little wickedly.  "Ahh, -now-
you're starting to look a little peaked, darling.  I was beginning to
wonder... "
        Utena cracked an only-slightly-wan smile and put a hand on
Anthy's shoulder.  "I know it is, I've read all the same books you
have," she said, looking her wife in the eye, "but right now I need to
hear you tell me this is perfectly normal."
        "This is perfectly normal," Anthy replied agreeably.  "In fact,"
she added, "it's quite a good sign.  And no," she added before Utena
could say the next thing on her mind, "you don't need to ask Korra if
she can make the boat go even faster."
        Utena gave her a mock-pugnacious look, then laughed.  "Fine,
OK."

        The ferry docked at Air Temple Island minutes later, and as they
disembarked, Korra didn't fail to notice what had happened while she was
busy speeding their passage.
        "Right on schedule," she said, unfazed.
        "Should we get a palanquin or something down here?" Utena
wondered.  "That's a lot of stairs... "
        "Best thing to be doing at the moment, actually - walking,"
Korra said.  "If you feel up to it.  Some do, some don't."
        Anthy nodded.  "Let's go," she said.
        Jinora and Ikki met them at the quayside; as they all began the
climb from the dock up to the temple complex, the former reported that
Corwin and his team were already above, helping the Acolytes prepare the
Air Temple infirmary's birthing room.
        "Is he in fact helping," Utena wondered dryly, "or just getting
in the way?"
        "Actually, he's very calm just at present," said Ikki.  "He's
always been at his best with a situation to manage, after all," she
added with a wink.
        Utena laughed.  "True," she conceded.  Then, nudging Anthy
gently with an elbow, she said, "Hey, Korra said you moved like an
airbender the other day; now you'll get to give birth like one too."
        "The standard around here nowadays is more of a hybrid Air
Nomad-Water Tribe style, for obvious reasons," Ikki noted; then she
grinned and went on, "If you really wanted to do it in the old-school
Air Nomad style, you'd get on Mogi and see how far east you can get
before the baby comes.  The ancients called it 'dawnchasing'."
        Anthy smiled.  "Tempting," she said, "but I don't think we need
to go quite that far in search of the authentic experience."
        As Korra had predicted, a small crowd had gathered at the Air
Temple infirmary by the time she and the rest of the ferry group arrived
there.  Mogi, still saddled up, had stationed himself near the main
entrance, next to a window, ready to move out at a moment's notice if a
run to one of the city hospitals was called for.  Anthy paused to thank
him for his thoughtfulness before they all headed inside.
        The birthing room lay at the end of a wide corridor lined with
benches, obviously intended to serve as a waiting area.  Here, Meelo and
Rohan were doing their best to corral the island's youngsters, many of
whom had turned out from sheer curiosity.  At the far end, flanking a
double sliding door, stood Maki and Izumi of the Kyoshi Warriors, fully
kitted out in their most formal attire, as they had been at Utena and
Corwin's wedding.  They both bowed deeply to Anthy as she approached,
and then Maki slid open the door and stood aside, just the slightest
twinkle of a smile showing through her game face.
        The room itself turned out to be the same sort of space as every
other room in the temple complex Utena had so far seen, which was to say
it looked much more a dojo or zen meditation chamber than a place where
Serious Medical Business was undertaken.  It was a large, open, airy
place that had a sense of orderly peace about it, with cheerfully pale-
colored walls, dark wood trim, a smooth stone floor, and occasional
plants.  Unlike any dojo, though, it was dominated by a large semi-
sunken pool or tub in the center of the room.  This was easily big
enough to accommodate three or four people, and outfitted with a couple
of ledges on the outside of its low perimeter wall, where still others
could sit within reach of the action without actually being in the
water.
        Here, they found Corwin and the rest, completing final
preparations.  Nyima stood off to one side, thoughtfully inventorying
the supplies in one of several lacquered cabinets; near the back of the
room, Lhakpa stood close by Nall as he, in turn, stood next to the open
chest containing Matalde's egg and consulted with Corwin.  Kate and Anne
were nearby, talking with Amy and Rory, while Azana hovered near them,
looking slightly at a loss.  Seeing Korra enter with Anthy and Utena
close behind, a few advanced to express their hopes that everything went
well, some awkwardly, others with the easy confidence of old friends.
        "All the supplies are in order, Lady Anthy," said Nyima with a
smiling bow.
        Anthy returned the smile and made the airbender salute, though
she didn't bow.  "Thank you, Master Nyima."  Then, her smile becoming
slightly wry, she said, "Hopefully when this is over, we'll have moved
beyond titles."
        Nyima blushed slightly and said, "I'd like that.  Spirits
protect you."
        When their turn came to wish Anthy well, Rory glanced a silent
question at Amy, who gave it a moment's consideration, then nodded.
Anthy saw the exchange and gave them a questioning look of her own.
        "How far apart?" Rory inquired, his tone of voice unusually
clinical.
        "Eight or nine minutes, I should say," Anthy replied.  "I
haven't been timing them exactly."
        "Hmm.  May I?" he asked, reaching for her wrist.  Slightly
puzzled but game, she nodded; he took hold of it gently, positioning his
fingers just so, and consulted his wristwatch, timing her pulse.
        "Amy," he said as he was doing that, "I need you to run to my
room in the men's quarters and get my bag.  The small one.  It's in the
top of my suitcase."
        "On it," Amy replied briskly.  With a reassuring smile and a pat
on the shoulder for Anthy, she left the room at a brisk trot.  When she
returned, less than a minute later, she was carrying a small black
leather bag, which she handed to Rory without a word.
        "... Why do you have a doctor's bag?" wondered Utena, who had
been watching this entire exchange with an air of slight bemusement.
        "Because I'm a doctor," Rory replied, as if that wasn't a
strange thing for a high school sophomore to be saying.  "It's a long
story.  Not an ob/gyn," he added with a faintly self-deprecating smile,
"but I'd be happy to provide backup, if no one objects."
        "Remember on Tau Ceti, I said we were here to help?" Amy asked.
"Well... "
        Anthy chuckled.  "You two are full of surprises," she said.  "I
welcome any help I can get at this point, believe me."
        "Well... uh, OK then," said Utena, chalking it up as one more
thing she'd have to adapt to this evening.
        "What's up?" Corwin wondered, breaking away from his
consultation with Nall."
        "Oh, uh, turns out we should've been calling Rory -Doctor- Pond
this whole time," said Utena with a wry smile.
        "Really?  Huh.  Bet there's a story there," said Corwin with a
slight smile.
        "You have no idea," said Amy with an eye-rolling grin.
        "Well, if you guys don't object, I sure don't," said Korra.
"I'm not anticipating that we'll need one, but I'd never complain about
having an MD standing by at a time like this."
        "Corwin?" asked Utena.
        "Anthy's call," he said at once, and when she nodded with a
smile, he went on, "I guess you're hired."
        "OK, boys and girls, this is where I get unusually
businesslike," said Korra, unusually businesslike.  "Some of us have to
get changed for the show."  She took off her boots and stood them by the
door, then padded barefoot back to the tub.  "Corwin, Utena, that means
you too.  You're gonna get wet.  Trunks and whatnot in that cabinet
there," she added, pointing, "if you didn't think to bring your own.
The rest of you will please withdraw; what happens next is not a
spectator sport.  Not you, Mrs. Williams," she corrected herself, as Amy
kissed Rory for luck and made to retire with the rest.  "Dr. Pond may
need a runner."
        "Oh, and keep an ear on the egg, please," Corwin put in,
pointing to the chest.  "If you hear it cracking, that'll be your new
job.  I'll talk you through it."
        Amy nodded, evidently unfazed that she might be called upon to
midwife a dragon hatching in the middle of everything else.  "Got it."
        "Right then," said Korra as the last of the well-wishers filed
out.  She went to one of the supply cabinets and took out a generously
cut short-sleeved shirt, almost like a surgeon's scrub top, in the
standard-issue Air Nomad yellow, then crossed and presented it to Anthy.
"Let's get you out of that dress, Mrs. Tenjou, and see what's what."
        With most of the people evacuated and those who remained fully
attuned to the business at hand, the atmosphere in the birthing room was
serious but not tense.  Corwin and Utena retired behind a screen and
returned a few moments later, he in swim trunks, she stripped down to
sports bra and bike shorts, the way she used to do for basketball as a
teenager.  Anthy changed from her Ming and Daughters finery (carefully
arranged on a hanger to be taken away and cleaned) into the yellow
shirt, which only covered her from mid-torso up.
        "This is a perscan - a personal scanner unit," Rory explained as
he affixed a wide yellow plastic bracelet around Anthy's left wrist.
"It'll relay a full set of diagnostic data on your vitals and the baby's
to my tricorder."  He glanced up from his work and smiled.  "Wonderful
invention.  Saves us both the annoyance of me waving around one of those
wibbly scanner heads the whole time."
        Anthy returned the smile.  "Very clever," she agreed.
        Listening to him explain what he was doing and why, Korra - busy
performing her own checks of relevant sitations, in accordance with her
training and experience as a Southern Water Tribe midwife - was suddenly
struck by the oddest feeling of deja vu.  Rory Williams had been a
stranger to her until only a few days ago.  Until just a few -minutes-
ago she hadn't known he had any medical training at all; nor, apart from
Anthy's calm willingness to accept his word, did she have any real
reason to believe that he did now.  And yet... and yet she couldn't
shake the curious feeling, as he spoke, that she had seen him do this
kind of thing before.
        She shook it off and got on with the job, then reported, "OK.
Everything looks good.  I suspect things are about to start happening a
bit faster now."  She placed a palm against Anthy's abdomen, looking
thoughtful, then raised her eyebrows.  "Strong," she said, smiling.
"OK.  Let's get you in the water.  Corwin, I'm going to need you in
there too - your job's to make sure she can concentrate on what she's
doing without having to worry about keeping her head above water."
        Corwin blinked, looking on the verge of asking, "Me?"  He
glanced at Utena, thinking - even after all that had to happen for them
to get to this point in the first place - that perhaps he should defer
the place to her; she was, after all, Anthy's actual husband.
        <Get in there, you big dope,> Utena's voice said through his
Lens.  She grinned at him, rolling her eyes slightly, and added, <This
one's all you.>
        Spotting his hesitation, and not hearing Utena's remark, Korra
smirked slightly and said, "Chop chop, Tomorrow's Son, this is the part
where STUFF is HAPPENING."
        Corwin and Anthy situated themselves as instructed, he crouching
catcher-fashion with his back against the wall at the rear of the pool,
she in his arms, sunk down to her chin in the warm water.  At Korra's
direction, Utena took up her post on the shelf-like seat to their right,
towel over her shoulder, ice chips at the ready.  Rory stationed himself
on the left with his tricorder in hand and a small row of spray hypos,
each a distinctive shape and color, queued up on the bench beside him.
        "We probably won't need any of these," he explained to Corwin's
questioning look, "but if we do, it's best to have them ready to hand."
        "Right," said Corwin, nodding.  The scale of the situation in
which he found himself seemed finally to be sinking in, but he was
showing himself equal to it; he wasn't getting glazed or showing any
signs of incipient freakout, but rather maintaining an even strain.  He
even managed to crack a wry grin for Utena as he settled himself in for
the duration.
        "Everybody ready?" Korra wondered.
        "Ready and willing," Anthy reported, then added wryly, "so that
only leaves a question mark next to 'able'."
        Korra smiled.  "You'll do fine," she said.  Then she took off
her jeans - as was often the case, her snug-fitting top was really a
one-piece swimsuit - and climbed into the other end of the tub, facing
Anthy.  Once in position, she closed her eyes, took a couple of deep,
slow breaths, and then spread her hands over the surface of the water.
In response, it began to glow, ever so faintly, a pleasant blue glow
that reminded Corwin - a bit unnervingly - of Cerenkov radiation.  The
glow brought with it a faint tingling and a sensation of immense well-
being, amplified in his case because there was nothing actually wrong
with him, as Korra's waterbending talent charged the water around them
with healing energies.
        "This is how we do it at the South Pole," she said with a little
smile in response to Anthy's widened eyes.  Then, clapping her hands
briskly together, she went on, "Now for the interesting part."

        The atmosphere in the infirmary corridor outside the birthing
room was a strange combination of festive and tense, like a low-key
party everyone is slightly afraid might go wrong.  Jinora and Meelo had
packed most of the youngsters off to bed within the first hour or so of
the vigil, apart from Tenzin and Gyatso, who had insisted that they had
to stay and keep interceding with the spirits.  This they did with such
a quiet and sincere intensity that the elders decided to leave them to
it.  Lhakpa and Nall were together near the door, huddled in the soft,
comforting arc of Niri.  No one seemed to find that worthy of comment,
not even the elders; once the children were sent on their way, they all
settled into meditative positions along one wall and lapsed into
silence.  Meelo, it appeared, had actually fallen asleep.
        Anne sat on one of the long benches with Kaitlyn, Azana, and
Nyima (the last cuddling a slightly fretful Makoto the lemur), none of
them saying very much, lost in contemplation of the moment and its
implications.  Anne, in particular, was pondering something she
remembered reading in one of the Asagiri Katsujinkenryuu's founding
texts, Jedi Master Talar Kem's treatise on following the flow of the
Force as it guides the course of one's life.  The particuar point on her
mind had to do with potentiality and actuality and how one could
successfully surf the strange transition points between them.
        She wasn't sure how long she'd been meditating on that - perhaps
an hour, perhaps two - when the door at the far end of the hall opened
and a familiar, but somewhat unexpected, figure entered.  Lying at Kate
and Anne's feet, Serge looked up at her entrance, then laid his head
back down and sighed.  Anne reached down and scratched behind his ear as
Karana and Pabu made their way toward her and the others.
        "Hey, guys," she said, keeping her voice down in deference to
the occasion.  "Did I miss anything?"
        "Hey, 'Rana," said Azana, budging over a little to give her
teammate room to sit down.  "Nothing yet.  It's only been a couple of
hours, though."
        Karana nodded and took her seat.  "Good, good.  No news is good
news at this stage," she agreed as Pabu disembarked and took up a
station on Serge's head instead.
        "How did you get here?" Anne wondered.  "Utena and Anthy were on
the last ferry."
        "Swam," Karana replied casually.  "Took me longer than I was
expecting, though.  I don't know how Gran-gran makes it look so easy.
Oh right - Avatar."

                           /*  Ramin Djawadi
                      "Mako" (feat. Priscilla Ahn)
      _Pacific Rim_ Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2013)  */

        In the birthing room itself, matters proceeded in as calm and
orderly a fashion as such matters could.  Time ceased to have much
meaning for the direct participants in the drama - particularly the
parents of the impending child and their lover.
        Though still calm and in control of her emotions, Utena found
herself in a peculiarly piquant kind of agony as she watched the woman
she loved fight a battle in which she could have but the most peripheral
part.  She'd seen Anthy suffer before, and in much worse ways, ways
which had no redeeming upside; but there, at least, she'd had the option
of at least attempting to charge to the rescue, as was her wont.
        This time, no such option existed.  The best Utena could do was
keep supplying her with ice chips as she requested them, placing them in
her mouth in lieu of liquid refreshment.  Beyond that offering, which
felt a bit pathetically meager from where Utena was sitting, there was
nothing she could do but -be- there.  This struggle was Anthy's alone.
The sheer size of that realization was almost more than Utena's
crusading heart could bear.
        At one point, during one of the ever-shortening breathers she
received, Anthy looked to her right and saw the stricken look in her
husband's eyes, divined that entire train of thought, and - slightly to
her own horror - found it almost paralytically funny.  The look of
shocked, slightly offended dismay her uncontrollable giggling evoked was
even worse than the expression that had caused it; it was all she could
do to stammer out an apology, still laughing.
        "Don't take it personally," Rory advised from the other side of
the tub.  "A woman's neurochemistry gets... a bit strange at times like
this.  She literally can't help it."
        The next contraction cut off the laughter like a gunshot in a
theater.  When it was over, Anthy's mood seemed to have stabilized; she
turned apologetic eyes to Utena and started to tell her how much she
appreciated her being there, but this - to Utena's renewed dismay -
tipped her the other way down the hill into a full-on crying jag.
        "This is also - sniff - perfectly normal - sniff - just so you
know," Anthy sobbed.
        "Yes it is," Rory confirmed.  He consulted his tricorder, then
looked across the tub at Utena and nodded.  "She's fine."
        "This must be - sniff - what drugs are like," Anthy mused.
"Frankly - ahuh - I don't see the appeal."
        They all rode out a couple more of those cycles over the next
hour or two, while Corwin kept the air available, Utena kept the ice
chips coming, Amy fulfilled the federal pacing-up-and-down requirement
(periodically checking the egg, which, slightly to her annoyance,
continued to do nothing), Rory monitored systems, and Korra maintained a
running stream of encouragement and status updates.  Corwin began to
feel that he wouldn't be that surprised if it was daylight when he
finally left this room again.  Or if he found himself on a different
planet when he stepped through the door.
        "All right, not long now," said Korra at length.  "A couple more
like that one and we're in business."
        Corwin shifted his embrace around Anthy a bit as she let out a
low groan and nearly doubled over into the water face first, her unheld
left hand slipping from the edge of the pool.  She's wiped out, he
thought, leaning to kiss the corner of her jaw as Utena, by now looking
genuinely rattled, did the same to the knuckles of Anthy's right hand.
-I- should be wiped out, he added to himself, as his thighs gave a
twinge of protest, but only a twinge.  I've been holding this stance for
-how- long now?
        "That's it, we're almost there," Korra declared.  "No, Corwin,
don't look.  Just hold on another few seconds.  Right.  OK.  Anthy, bear
down -hard-..."
        Anthy took a deep, shuddering breath.  Corwin -felt- the ripple
of effort under his hands as she pushed down with every muscle in her
abdomen; then she let out a kiai that nearly shattered the windows.
        "Hah-HAH!" said Korra, evidently delighted.  "Good work - one
more, Anthy, and then you can rest for a bit."
        "one more," Anthy murmured, an exhaustedly sardonic smile
touching her face.  "right.  sure.  can always do one more."  Then she
took another deep breath, hesitated for an instant, and applied herself
once again.
        As one last great shuddering wave went through Anthy, Korra made
a pleased noise and looked up.
        "Congratulations!" she said, beaming.  "It's a girl!"
        "we knew that," Anthy mumbled, rolling her head back against
Corwin's shoulder and blinking punch-drunkenly up at the ceiling.
        Korra chuckled.  "Of course you did, but it's traditional.  OK,
Corwin, you help her over to the bench there and - "
        And she pulled a small, dripping, squirming mass out of the
water, pink and white and brown and still -connected- and Corwin felt
everything go slightly out of focus for what was really the first time
tonight.
        Korra took one look at him and laughed.  "OK, plan B - Dr. Pond,
YOU help Anthy.  Utena, help your husband sit down."
        Corwin could never quite remember exactly how he and Anthy ended
up on the wide padded bench along the back wall, snuggled together under
one of those amazing bison-wool blankets with this small, squirming,
burbling item that couldn't quite seem to look at anything, flailing
about with tiny arms and legs.  He dimly remembered there had been a few
more operations, the details of which his memory had quite considerately
refused to take serious hold of; but mostly what he remembered was the
tiny, confused expression on his daughter's
        HIS DAUGHTER'S
        little face, and the exhausted, contented glow on Anthy's.
        You and me both, kid, he thought.
        After a few moments of just sitting there basking in... whatever
in the universe this sensation was... Corwin returned at least partway
from his astral voyage to the bottom of the sea and looked around the
room.  Amy, Rory, and Korra had gone, presumably to give the well-
wishers out in the hall the news, but Utena was standing a few feet
away, regarding the three(!) of them with a deeply strange expression on
her face.  It took even Corwin, as familiar with her moods and feelings
as anyone who wasn't her could be, a few moments to untangle everything
he saw on that face.  Love, yes, and pride; relief; but also a nervous
hesitancy that was almost completely out of character for her, and just
a dash of... could that possibly be fear?  What of?
        Oh, he thought.  Of course.
        Then, with a warm smile, he opened his free arm, lifting the
blanket away from his shoulders, and gestured with that hand for her
while he touched her Lens with his:
        <Get in here, you big dope.  This isn't all me.>
        Utena's cheeks went a little red, but the balance of emotions in
her face changed to favor relief and love as she crossed the awkward
distance and joined them on the bench.  Anthy looked up, blinking out of
a light doze, at the movement as Corwin resettled the blanket around all
four, then smiled and reached across him with the arm that wasn't
cradling the child to touch her hand.
        "Hi," Utena said quietly.
        "Hello, my love," said Anthy wearily.  "Have you met our
daughter?"
        The awkward look coming back onto her face, Utena reached over
and very tentatively touched one of the tiny hands.  "Hello," she said.
        "That was the royal 'our', by the way," Corwin murmured in
Utena's ear; then he added wryly, "Remember the original plan, where I
was just going to drop off some DNA and then head home?"
        Utena snorted and headbutted him very lightly.  "Not so much
now," she said.
        "No," Corwin agreed, contemplating his, their, all of their,
child again.
        She was starting to resolve for him now, to come into focus as a
person, or a least the prototype for one.  She had light brown skin,
midway between her parents' colors (logical, but, he knew, not
inevitable), and now that her short ruff of hair was starting to dry, it
appeared as though it would be a slightly lighter shade of violet than
Anthy's; but she had the same emerald-green eyes, which now looked more
or less back at him with an air of mild, abstract interest.
        Inasmuch as he could read her infant affect at all, she seemed
less confused than she had at first.  Corwin had never really considered
it before, but he supposed it must be dismaying to suddenly barge into
the world this way; he didn't remember doing so himself, but it stood to
reason.  That it seemed to have passed so quickly, replaced with this
sense of quiet, intrigued contemplation, spoke well for the child's
adaptability... if, in fact, that was what any of this meant.  This was,
after all, a completely new system, not previously tested.  It would
take a while for him to develop an algorithm for decoding the output.
        "No," he repeated softly.  "Not so much now."
        The door opened far enough for Korra to slip through and close
it behind her.  Sometime while Corwin wasn't entirely present, she'd put
her trousers back on; now she walked quietly, still barefoot, over to
the bench, then crouched before them.
        "There's absolutely no hurry," said Korra, "but when you're
ready to move again, we'll take you someplace where you can get some
better rest than you'll get in here.  It'll be better for seeing
visitors too."  She angled a thumb back over her shoulder at the door.
"In the meantime, Nyima's keeping the rampaging horde at bay."  Then,
leaning a little closer, she smiled at the baby.  "Hello," she said, her
tone of voice hushed but normal, as if she were speaking to an adult.
Then she turned the smile to Anthy and asked quietly, "What's her name?"
        "Annabelle," said Anthy, touching the child's forehead gently.
        "That was Dad's mother's name," Corwin mused.
        "I know," Anthy replied.
        Utena considered for a moment, then smiled and said, "Annabelle
-Korra-.  If you don't mind."
        Korra blinked at her, a hint of a blush coming into her cheeks;
then, seeing that Corwin and Anthy had both responded with smiling nods,
she closed her eyes, leaned in, and kissed Annabelle lightly where Anthy
had just touched her, murmuring, "It's my honor."
        Annabelle tried to grab one of her sidelocks, but couldn't quite
manage an act that ambitiously coordinated at less than thirty minutes
old and ended up vaguely punching her godmother in the cheek instead,
which drew a giggle from all three of her parents and Korra as well.
        "Oh, it's gonna be like -that,- is it," said the Avatar with a
grin.  She ruffled the child's sparse hair and straightened up.  "C'mon,
let's get you guys into a proper bed."  She winked cheerfully at Anthy.
"Gonna be time for breakfast pretty soon!"


                            /*  Joe Satriani
                            "A Celebration"
                  _Unstoppable Momentum_ (2013)  */

                      Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
                               presented
                         UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES
                            FUTURE IMPERFECT
                    - Symphony of the Sword No. 5 -

             SUITE FOR TRINITY AND AVATAR (THE DIQIU SUITE)
                Second Movement: What's Past Is Prologue

                                The Cast
                        (in order of appearance)
                            Corwin Ravenhair
                              Utena Tenjou
                                 Xiulan
                                Ping Chu
                               Emily Wong
                                  Mogi
                                 Gyatso
                                  Ikki
                                 Korra
                                 Jinora
                              Anthy Tenjou
                                 Makoto
                                 Tenneq
                                 Kyoshi
                            Kaitlyn Hutchins
                               Anne Cross
                                 Azana
                                 Sergei
                                  Niri
                                Amy Pond
                             Rory Williams
                            Nall Silverclaw
                                 Nyima
                                  Vayu
                                 Tenzin
                                  Sita
                                 Lhakpa
                          Benjamin D. Hutchins
                                  Maki
                              Toph Beifong
                                 Katara
                                Yang Tao
                                 Karana
                                Huandao
                                 Zanya
                                 Kassa
                      Gen "Dr. Rockalanche" Zhuwan
                               Pabu XVII
                             Kenji & Zheng
                             Zach Stephens
                               Xiang Wan
                    The Daughters of Ming, Clothier
                     (the voice of) Azana's mother
                                 Nelqa
                              Captain Qin
                                 Rohan
                                 Meelo
                                 Izumi

                               featuring
                   AVATAR KORRA'S ANTARCTIC WILD HUNT
                                  Atii
                                 Nuvuja
                                 Imaani
                                 Amaruq
                                 Innruq
                                 et al.
                                  and
                                  Naga

                   Several Major League Bending teams
                               including
                      The Night Vale Spiderwolves
                                  and
                      The Desert Bluffs Sunbeetles


                            and introducing
                             (... finally)

                         Annabelle Korra Tenjou
                               as herself

                               Written by
                          Benjamin D. Hutchins
                          Philip Jeremy Moyer

                          Maternity Consultant
                               Anne Cross

                            Dialogue Tweaker
                              Geoff Depew

                         The EPU Usual Suspects
                             as themselves

                    The Diqiu Suite will continue in
              Third Movement: Goodbye and Hello, As Always

                          E P U (colour) 2013