Initially unbetad so that I can say that I actually posted in 2018. However, a huge shout out should go to jesterlady for finishing reading super fast (and putting up with the long wait) Sorry for the long wait.

Thank you for your support.

INTERLUDE II: BRIDE'S MOON

Zuko cast flame on his palm as he touched a corner of his shrine. Meifeng, who had been trailing after him shuddered while Jiang watched impassively.

"Lord Zuko, your bending has recovered enough for the flame, but please have care, your core is still not burning brightly, its well is not deep enough and the bridge to your spirit still lacks two more braids," advised Jiang as the Dao sword took into account the spirit strands that were weaving to expand the shrine.

Zuko closed his eyes against the effort, anchoring one of his rooms in the heavenly realms to the shrine before sealing it off. His palace in the Heavens was still largely closed to him, and he still could not create space out of nothing, but he could give Mai this. As long as he himself did not step into the room, it would not be against the terms of his exile. "We are spirits, Jiang, but humans have more needs than one cramped room with my Sacred Flame and power well."

Meifeng passed her hand through stepping fully into the room before assessing the conditions. "There are dark spaces here, it is not fully anchored into the World of Man, my lord."

Zuko inhaled his hand twisting on his fire, to attempt the binding of the room once again.

Jiang touched his sleeve in warning. "I do not think another binding is going to bridge this room fully into the mortal realm, my lord."

It was because he still lacked two elements to fully bridge the two realities. Shrines became as large as their heavenly counterparts because they were connected through a god's spirit. Lacking air and water, they could not make what he needed. "I could simply build the rooms in this physical plane, instead of binding the shrine fully into the heavens," Zuko mused to himself, directing his flame to other places.

Meifeng smiled as she walked towards him. "Is this what Lord Iroh, has taught you, Lord Zuko?"

"It's what living in the mortal realms as a near mortal has taught me," Zuko answered eying the space around the shrine critically. He could make a small room that could house Mai, but building a bath house and a kitchen would take time and more space than his small shrine had. It's why gods chose to bind their heavenly spaces to shrines, because the heavens were not constricted by volume and space, a small room could be a mansion if it was linked to his heavenly palace.

"The central room could house her during times of rest while waiting for another room to be built. And we could prevent her from going into the dark places, my lord," Meifeng suggested as she motioned towards the room. That room was built at the Shrine's core and could not be disconnected from the mortal plane. "I am sure that you will be able to get water's favor soon and can make the room more solid. In the meantime, we will care for your lady."

Jiang sighed dramatically. "Sister, there you go promising my services again. I am a sword, I am not decorative. I have not tasted blood in a while and I am not a fox messenger."

"Fox messengers for dragon princes. Isn't the divine messenger of a dragon a snake or, surely, a sea horse?" Meifeng asked her twin, closing the doors that Zuko had left open. Zuko in the meantime continued to bind other spaces for Mai to live in. Meifeng dutifully inspected the new rooms while humming with a pleased note. "Yes, I think we'll be able to care for Lord Zuko's bride with these rooms."

Carefully Zuko picked up Mai, who was still unconscious after receiving the Breath of Fire, and handed her to Jiang. "Attend my lady, until I can call messengers once again."

Meifeng tapped her cheek contemplatively as she looked at her brother and her lord with the lady between them. She narrowed her eyes. "My lord, you need a room that you can enter with her, we cannot have only the rooms of worship and your Sacred Fire be here."

"One room, to be made by hand that could function both as a bedroom and a dining room," Zuko declared pointing towards the space that occupied a large part of the gardens. "Jiang will toil for the rooms while I am not around and Meifeng will serve, my lady."

"Worse and worse," Jiang said in jest before bending his head in a small bow towards Zuko. "As my lord commands—"

"—we obey," Meifeng finished, bowing deeply towards Zuko.

oOo

Zuko had barely finished opening the walls to his shrine, but he made haste getting back to Yue's kingdom. Yue had given him her token so that he could come back easily without traveling the absurdly cold way that he'd done the first time.

The goddess raised a delicate eyebrow at him when Zuko approached her while she was tending her garden. She stopped pruning to get a look at him before circling him, then bringing her fingers up in the air, as if touching an invisible string, and finally rubbing it between her two fingers. "It's stronger, your tether, and it practically glows."

"I still don't know what it means," Zuko pointed out to her while watching her guardedly.

Yue laughed while shaking her head. "Truly I knew you were going to resist this, but I didn't think you'd be this…obtuse about it."

Zuko stared back at her, unimpressed. Toph had said that it was her duty to know what the red string was, and that though it would be amusing for her, she was going to enlighten him one way or the other.

"How was the trip to your uncle?" Yue asked conversationally making a flicking motion with her fingers, like testing a harp string's tone. Zuko felt small vibrations along his little finger and then a heaviness on his chest.

Zuko knew there was a different question underneath the voiced one, but he couldn't parse it. Not yet. "Flame has been banked, there is rain and the hail has stopped."

"Hmmm…" she paused then shook her head. "Why are you here, flame god? You are recently married."

Zuko narrowed his eyes. "I thought I was here to get my godhood back."

She walked towards him closing her eyes and breathing in the scent of her garden. "No, you're not ready for my token yet, flame god. But you have a newly acquired bride and you're neglecting her. In the Water Kingdom, we give a bride's moon. You've waited years for your godhood, Zuko. I think you can spare your bride this month. She is after all, mortal."

oOo

Gods are watchers by nature and meddlers in spirit. Therefore, Zuko watched in silence as his wife explored her boundaries. Boundaries which, due to his exile, he was not permitted to touch with her. She was drawn to his Sacred Flame, she brought up her hand reaching out to the fire that did not emit heat before Zuko materialized into the physical plane and pulled her away.

"Don't touch that," he warned her, his voice deep and gravelly, smoky as a fire that always burns and of rocks tumbling off his deep well. "That is the central core of this Shrine, and it burns with this Shrine's power. You are mortal, even though a Bride of Flame, you might burn and this fire is eternal."

"You scared me, Zuko." She gave him a tentative smile as she looked around the room. "It's the first time I've ever been inside; you've been keeping secrets."

"It is the divide of the divine and the mortals. It is not so much a secret but something you could not imagine before being welcomed into the shrine." Zuko shrugged as he led Mai down into one of the cushions that adorned the room. They were newly acquired since he had suddenly found himself with a human wife. "I'm glad you're awake now."

She smiled at him, from her it was the small twitch of the lips, but Zuko had been around her long enough that he'd learned her and he felt her underlying unease, her fingers twitching on the soft cloth of her dress. "How long was I out?"

"The Breath of Fire knocked you out for two days." He noted another twitch of her fingers, like she was looking for the comfort of her steel. "You're missing your blades."

She covered her fidgeting under her clothes, slightly embarrassed and probably taking the observation as censure. "They don't exactly fit you for combat when they sacrifice you to a god."

There was a significant pause after that. Zuko leaned down and pulled a strand of her hair loose from the bun on her head. They had piled most of her hair on the top and adorned it with red flowers and finished it with ribbons of gold when she had been offered. "But they change your hairstyle and they burn you."

She brushed the strand away tucking it neatly behind the elaborate hairstyle. "I'm married now. It wouldn't do to show off my hair to advertise."

Zuko dropped his hand and leaned back. Yes, married, it wouldn't do to forget it. "Mai, this is the Sacred Flame, the power well, it is the heart of a flame god's power." The fire was burning a clear orange now. When he had been thrown into the earth it had been a just visible red, with his Uncle's favor, it burned a full cherry. But he needed a blue flame, and that was not going to happen without air nor water. Behind his sacred flame was the warded door to the Heavens, closed because of his exile. "The incomplete bridge to the heavens lie beyond that door. It's another room you cannot enter."

"Yeah, just my luck. Married to a god and chained to a room with nothing to do," Mai said forlornly.

Zuko had married a noblewoman used to attendants; it was unseemly that he could only offer a few rooms of his home and two swords. "I'm sorry, Mai, truly. We are a decrepit shrine, powerless. Do you want to… do you want to leave?"

"I offered myself, Zuko, it was a sacrifice the townspeople made, but I was willing up to the point that I was staring at death. I'm willing to learn how to become an impoverished god's wife."

Zuko nodded slowly before helping her up. There was heat in this central chamber. "Your temporary chambers until Jiang and I can build a more appropriate one, the room to the left is for bathing." He skirted around the fire and walked to the room opposite. "This is the kitchen, it's recently built and rudimentary but would have to do. I cannot enter these rooms; I am forbidden except for where the flame burns. But the Dao can accompany you where I cannot."

"The… Dao?" Mai asked as she looked at the two swords that were laid before the flame.

"Ah, sorry." Zuko brought his hand out, as if to draw the two sabers before whispering a word of power, "wield."

The two swords flashed before appearing grasped between his palms. Then another word of power, "attend." Another flash of light before the two swords were in human guise and kneeling in front of him in obeisance. "Meifeng and Jiang are the only other spirits left in this shrine. They are conserving the power well, and therefore are mostly swords, but they have human forms and will see to your needs."

She looked surprised for a while but inclined her head, recovering quickly. She had known she was entering into a contract with a god, and she was made of steel and fire, she would adapt as a steel tempered, Zuko mused.

"I will build a room where you can rest in the gardens. The Water Goddess has given me this month for your needs." Zuko nodded at both his manservants.

"What about my parents, Zuko?" Mai asked, "they will be grieving me."

Zuko shook his head. "I can send word that you are safe, Mai, but your feet are half planted in the spirit world and half in the mortal one. As long as the bridge of power is not complete, as the god's bride, the mortals will not be able to see or touch you. At the same time, the spirit world now can see you and its darker hearts can find and harm you if you leave the protection of the shrine."

Mai grimaced at the dire news, but she didn't protest. Before Zuko left, he bowed deeply to Mai before starting off to do what he had promised her.

oOo

Mai hadn't expected to live, death was after all the point of being made into a sacrifice for the flame god, and so she had no plan for after they fed her to the flame. But her days rapidly bled into each other and she filled them by trying to learn how to at least feed her companions while waiting for the her husband from his errand of 'building his bridge' to come and meet his bride. The rest of the time was spent idly exploring the rooms that had once been the God of Perseverance's shrine.

Zuko had warned her off the older sections of the shrine saying that they were mostly unkempt and with little spirit holding what she saw into the human world. After he had rescued her from certain death from the fire, he had seen to her needs but was mostly busy with the construction work, leaving her alone with Meifeng.

They found an easy existence together, with Mai attempting to help around the shrine and Zuko building her a safer room to stay in, She managed to cook for them, with the rudimentary kitchen that they had been able to cobble up. It did not have an oven and wasn't a proper kitchen as was at her former home, but it had the warmth of fire and a deep pot that she could put food in. Jiang brought her mortal food from hunting in the forest and spices if there were offerings. They ate in the open air of the gardens together using rocks as stools and a table Zuko fashioned. Though Mai knew her food was more burnt than not, Zuko and the Dao swords did not say a word against her skill.

While Jiang and Zuko built her a fully solid room anchored fully in the mortal realm, they left her alone. Meifeng was usually not far behind, a dutiful, if mostly silent, handmaiden. If she was not cooking or cleaning or exploring Mai resumed honing her skills with the knife. But mostly she enjoyed exploring the Spirit realm. Though limited in the shrine, it was both new and fascinating. She was amazed with the sights inside the Shrine. If she looked out a window, she saw a river of fire, molten rock but when she closed it and opened it again the scene had become a meadow with the sun shining brightly over a field of fire trees.

The rooms also changed at will and once she entered, she sometimes couldn't fathom a way out until she took "up" and "down" as exits rather than just right or left. Sometimes, it was difficult, because though there was an exit from above or below, there were certainly no stairs. Meifeng was helpful during these times, by holding her hand as they stepped between one room and the next. Meifeng was her anchor as they moved across her husband's home.

She could see the ghost of what it once was, the splendor of the old rooms that had once been. Once she asked if she could just clean and sleep in one of the rooms so that Zuko and Jiang would not be troubled with creating a mortal space but Meifeng shook her head replying, "We are in a flame god's hearth, my lady, and your flesh is water with only the Breath of Fire as flame. Even the central room is unsafe if we left you too long in it. You will not be able to survive a night in the other rooms. Besides, the rooms are not fully present in this realm, though we can see it and trod on it its boundaries are weak. Best to wait 'til the bridge is complete."

There were also doors which were sealed, the dark places, as Meifeng called them, without the flame fully present its darkness could not be dispelled. So Mai moved on from the rooms. What was always constant was the center room, its expanse filled with fire, and when the Dao rested they were swords, reflecting the fire's eternal glow. Behind it was a door, barred which when opened, led to an unfinished bridge. Once she had tried to step over onto the bridge, but Zuko had been there in an instant, catching her before her steps fell between its rocks.

"I did tell you about the bridge," he'd warned in his dire and gravelly voice that reminded her of rocks tumbling off a mountain, and a fire burning. "The god of perseverance is trying to rebuild a bridge to the realm of the gods and your world. It's so that he can answer petitions again. If you step into it, you might fall into another realm – or worse an in-between space. I wouldn't know where to pick you up again."

So she left it alone, there were a multitude of other rooms to explore. As long as she kept within the boundaries of the shrine and within the good rooms, Zuko didn't bother her explorations. As long as she didn't touch the sacred fire and the tree, he barely bothered her at all, but they did have lunch together and that was sometimes more than enough.

oOo

"How does it feel to be married, nephew?" Iroh asked as Zuko pounded on the wooden slats for his bride's room. It was half-way done, and his month had already bled into weeks. The room progressed faster than a mortal could have built it, but still slower than a god's realm could have provided.

And his uncle decided now to visit. Zuko ignored the question, as with most of Iroh's questions that were inevitable irritating to him. Zuko treated Iroh as a father, but sometimes Iroh did know how to exasperate Zuko's most irritating peeves.

"How goes the town and spring?" Iroh asked lightly, stroking his beard expectantly.

He could ignore the question about his marriage, but he couldn't ignore the question about the town, not when it was Iroh's power that had been used to free it from the cold. Zuko stopped his hammering and laid his hand to the warm earth of his shrine. The village surrounding his shrine was a tropical one, one that was not used to cold and ice. And while his shrine had lost its heat the cold of the North had slowly crept in and set a stronghold on his islands, it chilled longer and it blew in cold air faster.

Though it was not snow, it brought in the storms and the unnatural hail beating down the old and the infirm. It had spoiled crops and brought in disease that was normally dispelled in the warm heat. The villagers were of the sun; they did not have warm coats against the cold nor thick furs to line their windows against the frost. It had been what had forced the village's hand with Mai. Especially since they had thought it a sign of a god's displeasure.

Zuko dusted his hands against his leg and withdrew his power from the land before nodding at his uncle. "Your power has stoked the flames enough for my fire to heat some of the land again, uncle. Thank you."

Iroh waived away the thanks, but before he could get a word edgewise, Mai came out of the Shrine holding a pot of soup and rice, stopping short when she saw Iroh. Iroh gave her a smile and a nod in acknowledgement, and Meifeng who had been carrying another tray filled with food bowed deep in veneration. Mai stopped, looked at Jiang, who was also bowed in respect for Iroh and gave a deep bow herself.

Zuko jumped down the flooring he was building, took Mai's tray from her and laid an arm on her for support. "Uncle, Wife of the God of Perseverance. My Lady, The God of Tea."

A strangled sound escaped Mai's throat when she was introduced and Iroh clucked his teeth and shook his head at Zuko. "Nephew, we are family, you could stand to be a little less formal. My name is Iroh, lady."

Another true name bequeathed to a mortal. Zuko sighed, truly, his uncle was not careful with his gifts. "Mai, my lord."

Iroh clapped as he took in the food. "Ah, lunch time."

Mai flushed the bright red. "Meifeng, please fetch us another set of utensils for our guest?"

Iroh waved it away with his fan and snapped, the next moment an entire low table with four small futons surrounding it was laid in the middle of the garden. "No need, my lady, I am the one who turned up suddenly, and I shall arrange for my inconvenience."

When Mai didn't move from her shell-shocked form, he nudged her lightly to a pillow before he served the dish that she had prepared. It was simple in its fare, soup and a small cup of rice for everyone. Recovering from the shock of effortless power, she took over the duties of serving and Zuko sat beside her for support.

He resolved to watch her from the corner of his eye, all the while giving his attention to his uncle's first bite of Mai's food. His uncle paused after the first sip, almost imperceptible, if you have not known him long, you would not have noticed it, but Zuko did. And though his uncle was not callous nor malicious, Zuko still tensed for a verbal let down.

"The spices here are lovely, Mai, what did you use for them?" Iroh commented.

"I could hardly take credit, my lord, it is just what the supplicants have left in the shrine," Mai answered demurely.

"Ah, a very resourceful wife, fit for our shrine." Iroh nodded.

"I'm sorry for the overly crisp rice, my lord," Mai murmured.

Iroh waved it away. "Nonsense, we are flame gods, we burn our food here on purpose."

They burned food for offering, that was true, but no one actually needed to eat in the shrine, other than to taste what the mortals were offering. No one that is, but Mai. Zuko squeezed Mai's hand under the table and she looked up from her clasped hands on her lap, she hadn't been eating for the worry of it. "What uncle says is true, Mai, now go on and eat. You haven't touched anything, and the spices truly are lovely."

Assured that Mai was going to eat, Zuko turned to his uncle, who had been observing them together. Iroh nodded, then raised his bowl of rice, and Zuko breathed more lightly.

oOo

While Zuko trimmed the small shrubs that grew inside the shrine, Mai helped him put away the branches by felling it over one of the windows that overlooked molten lava. Zuko seemed amused but had left her to do it, seeing that there was little to do inside the Fire Nation spirit domicile. He had wanted to tell her that there would be spirits aides to tend to those soon, but he knew that with his task for the water goddess still unfulfilled and the god of air's capriciousness, it might take a while.

"Hey, Zuko," she asked curiously once. He grunted to tell her he was listening while keeping his focus on a branch in front of him. "Am I ever going to see my husband?" Mai spent her nights alone, Meifeng sleeping as a sword near the hearth and Jiang guarding the physical gates into the shrine. A wife without a visitation and it was bound to raise the question sooner or later.

He had wondered when it was going to come up. She had probably decided to finally ask about it now, in one of the rare moments that Jiang was building the room and Meifeng was away on some errand for her. Zuko had decided to take a break from the room and fix the shrubbery because it was already dragging against the windows and it wouldn't do if it caught flame once it passed a boundary.

"He might burn your eyes."

"What?" she looked appalled that he would even suggest such a thing to her. And it was true, she was well loved. Devoted to the shine, its god would never hurt her.

"He's a flame god, Mai," Zuko reminded her, pulling the shears again and trimming the planters. Although in truth, it was mostly because he was used to talking to her as Zuko, the spirit instead of Zuko, Flame God, God of Perseverance.

She walked beside him and poked his shoulder. "Doesn't he have a human form?"

Sure, the one that she was looking at right now. Which would work wonderfully. "He's cursed. He can only take form in the night. And you can't see him," Zuko made up.

"Why not?" Honestly, it was amazing that it had taken Mai that long to ask about her husband.

Zuko sighed in exasperation. He wondered if this was going to be the norm between the two of them. "I thought between the two of us, you had more faith, Mai. Why all the questions?" It effectively silenced her. "Come here."

He put down the shears as she stepped closer and looked at her critically. They stood staring at each other for a moment before Zuko bent towards her, she was almost the same height and it was not long before he was eye to eye with her. But there was uncertainty in her eyes while they were close enough that he could see his reflection in hers.

"What are you doing?" she hissed, but she'd involuntarily looked at his mouth before she returned his gaze. Her eyes were blazing, the hot flare of a fire that has just been tindered.

"Your flame is burning out. You need another breath," Zuko said as he held her shoulder. She hesitated, and though Zuko was deceiving her about his identity, he was not lying to her about this. A mortal's vessel was water, and that quenched the fire so he needed to give her his own if she was to live in his shrine. Something wholly between the mortal's world but half within the heavens. "I won't force you, Mai."

Zuko saw the moment she decided, and she didn't give in to the decision, she took. She leaned towards him before she could second-guess herself and pressed her lips into his. Between one moment and the next, the Breath of Fire was shared, and hers was rekindled. The kiss lingered until Zuko broke off and he looked at her, her pale cheeks red with the fire and breathing labored.

She stumbled back then turned abruptly and went inside the shrine, leaving a puzzled Zuko in her wake.

oOo

Their interactions became stilted after that, jagged as the lightning that breaks sky, whereas before it had been the smooth steady fire that warms the hearth. Zuko noticed as well that his fire was more unstable when near her, as if his bending quickened in response to her presence and stoked the unsteady and incomplete fire.

But the bride's moon was almost over, and he worried about what she would do alone in his decrepit shrine that had once been fit for any bride that could have been offered. He gave her the Breath twice more before the end of the Water Goddess' reprieve and the giving of it did not become any lighter, but Mai accepted it and always looked unsettled after, as if struggling with something large but unknowable.

On the last day of their bride's moon she had packed him a bag for his travel. He did not need it since his two braids of power were enough to travel to Yue within the day, but it was appreciated. She had given him a fire stone, warmed in his eternal fire and another set of heavy skins that would keep the snow and chill away.

He smiled at her thoughtfulness, because though he was a god, travelling to the Water Goddess' realms always weakened him. It was a power at the opposite end of the spectrum and not adjacent to his, something that naturally hindered fire, and so his already weakened bending was more hindered.

"Will you be gone long?" Mai asked when he secured her offering to his back.

Zuko cupped her face in reassurance, and she frowned at him but did not step back. "The Dao will keep you safe and keep you company."

"I can keep myself safe," Mai protested but agreed to the company, because it was lonely in the shrine, and if there was one thing that Zuko had learned of her sacrifice, Mai did not seem to have friends who would visit her anyway, no one aside from her parents had visited the shrine to mourn her 'passing.'

"Don't wander too far into the Shrine, Mai," he warned her again. "Not to the places that look old where the god's magic has most assuredly faded. Even with Meifeng as your protector there are things that she cannot protect you from."

"I know, Zuko."

And with that their bride's moon was over.

oOo

When he returned to Yue, he was surprised that he was approached on his first vigil over the supplicants. The couple that had managed to request an audience was an old one. The woman clutched a baby in their midst and laid him down, bathing its head with the oasis' waters, before the old woman knelt within the waters in prayer.

"Moon goddess," she said in entreaty, with no preamble. "Please extend my daughter's life."

Zuko wondered if after the miraculous recovery of Yue when she had been younger, the springs became a pilgrimage of sorts for people asking for life extensions. It seemed the case. He wondered how often they were granted.

The old man gripped his wife's hands linking all three of them together. "The healers say that my daughter has only this week to live, that there is no hope. We have been childless these many years and have only wanted one child in our dotage."

Zuko took a second look at the couple. Because of his relative agelessness and the harsh winters of the Water Tribe, he had mistaken the couple to be more in the twilight of their years when in fact they were probably just shy of a couple of few years after marriage.

Yue appeared beside him as they watched the couple bathe their child in water once again, before leaving the springs in desolation.

"They come here in desperation," Zuko noted, his eyes never leaving the couple that had come briefly to state their request in their goddess' presence. "This is their last ditch effort for the life that they've always wanted."

Yue stood up to wade in the pools, dipping her toes in the shallows without stirring its calm nor dampening her flowing robes. "Have you learned nothing from being here? A god's request has always been their last ditch effort for anything." She turned back at him and tipped her head. "Now for your task, flame god, should I grant this request?"

"Without knowing who these people are?" Zuko cast a wide look around the oasis, but there were no clues as to the identities of the supplicants, no visions to be had of their requests. "Without knowing who this child is going to become?"

Yue smiled as she turned to him. "Do you look into all the requests that pass through your doors with that much dedication, flame god?"

"I am a God of Perseverance. I can be nothing else."

"Yes, they told me that about you. You have three days to ponder this, God of Perseverance, and another three to heal this child with my waters." With that she sank into the deep pools of her waters.

oOo

In the days that passed, Zuko decided to try to heal the child and extend her life. He tried with the waters, he even tried with the limited amount of healing that he had in his flames, but no matter what he did, when he looked through the waters and the supplicants arrived, the girl was no more healed than the previous day.

On the last day of his allotted time, he gently takes the child from her parents and he wept. He wept for the could have beens and the might haves. He shed a single tear for the parents' quiet suffering and dashed hopes. "I'm sorry," Zuko whispered as he returned the baby, unnaturally silent but breathing still. "I could do no more for you."

The parents accepted this pronouncement and embraced each other hopelessly. They nodded their thanks and left. Yue appeared next to Zuko, watching them go and he turned his eyes on her. "You should have told me from the beginning that it couldn't be done."

"Oh, it could have been, and that child could have lived," Yue said dispassionately. "But she was only given this year to live. The god of luck had only bestowed her this year, and so I might have extended her life for five or a hundred years, but she would have been terribly unlucky, maybe even sickly. She would have been miserable her friends would have left her. The family that had so eagerly prayed for her would have betrayed her."

"Then I would have petitioned the god of luck!" Zuko protested, wiping his tears furiously.

"That is not in the realm of what we can do, Perseverance," Yue said softly, even sadly. "We can only grant what they ask us, and only that which is in our realm. You know this. Do you think it's better to live miserably or to die sweetly in oblivion?"

Yue herself was bathed in these waters and was healed in this oasis. "Do you regret that you live?" Zuko demanded.

Yue looked to the waters, and from the corner of his eye, Zuko saw a glimmer of some mortal that he did not know, in Water tribe blue but not of the winter in these waters. "I do not yet know, my fire prince. I do not yet know."

Author's Notes:

It's been so long. I know. I know, I got carried away with the supernatural fandom. Blame Destiel. *glares at my 3600 to read pile*

I thought I didn't have anything to write and was stuck and... then I looked at my notes, and then... well this happened. I started writing this 2011 (yeah I know) and then the 2017 hiatus after posting the 3rd book... and I thought I didn't have enough anything to go on with this chapter... but then I sat down for three hours... and this came out.

Improved through the wonderful work of my readers. Thank you so much for your support. It's not long now. On to the last chapter. Now... what would Aang ask for... hmmm...

Again, thanks for the support. Have a Happy new year