Author's Note: This chapter is a bit shorter than the last, but the next will be a bit longer!

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Particles of soft light danced around the massive creature, her songs echoing into the clear night. The lake, once still, rippled as the endless stars fell like rain. Gently, as any mother would a precious child, the Orca lifted Ayaan with her fin. He could feel her warmth, soothing his heart and mind.

With a powerful beat of her tail, she dived into the depths of the starlit lake. Deeper into its depths did she swim, Ayaan was shocked he could breathe just fine. Maybe it was because of this strange place he'd been taken to. Or maybe... he'd never had to hold his breath at all, even in the mortal world.

"Whoa..." Fascinated, he took big gulps of water, blowing bubbles in the sparkling lake. He was like a curious child again, fueled with a sense of innocent wonder. "This is amazing..."

A humorous bell of clicks sounded at his side. Belinay's intelligent eyes were full of mirth and undisguised love. Just like before, just like always, her charge was cute.

Ayaan quickly moved his gaze, remembering when his mother would give him that same look. He wasn't a kid anymore. He needed to focus on why she was taking him here.

However, he couldn't hide his red ears. He instinctively knew that Belinay was amused by his childishness.

"Little One." Her voice was the sweetest, softest song on gentle currents. "As much as I'd love to swim with you more, it will have to wait. Time is not with us."

"How come?" Ayaan floated around her. Swimming was as easy as breathing. He hardly had to do anything to go where he wanted to. It was convenient and very, very quick. It was like he was flying, but in the water. Had he always been able to do this?

What else did he not know about himself?

"Danger lurks even in the most sacred of places now, Dear One." Belinay whistled. "You are in a fragile state because you are not whole."

"Hei Bai mentioned something like that, but what do you both mean?" He patted his body down, but didn't find anything strange. Well, stranger. He... didn't understand these spirit shenanigans. This was Aang's area of expertise. He was the monk and Avatar, not him.

Belinay laughed again, but it was more somber, "This."

Her body glowed, a beacon in the water. With a powerful flex of her tail, she began to swim. Faster and faster, she guided the water around them. A vortex of starlit water quickly formed, dragging Ayaan within its current. All the lights within it began converging at the bottom, pulling Ayaan towards it.

"What's happening?!" No matter what he did he couldn't stop the pull. His body was being dragged down towards the light. Deeper, and deeper. His mind was falling into that haze again, he lost sense of what was up or down. That feeling of lost control scared him to no end.

"Do not fear." Belinay bellowed, she balanced herself in the center of the whirlpool. With her snout, she gently pushed a terrified Ayaan down towards the light. "This light belongs to you. Let it return, little one."

She watched as he was enveloped in the light, still confused. But he would understand soon. Bit by bit. This was her mission, after all. It was her duty to protect him, and she hadn't been able to since her betrayal. But now, he'd returned. It was fate, her Masters' will.

Belinay would not fail again.

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Aang sat at the base of a random tree, horror etched on his face. The moments just before replaying in his mind.

The minute Hei Bai snatched Ayaan, the airbender gave chase. Aang pushed all the air he could into his glider's wings. The wind whipped through his clothes as he weaved waving tree branches and debris. He didn't care for the various cuts his skin suffered.

"Aang...?" The young man couldn't comprehend the situation he was in. Freeing his hand, Ayaan reached for Aang, the band in his hair breaking from the wind's intensity.

"Ayaan!" An expression Aang had never seen before was etched on the warrior's face. Was it confusion? Was it fear? Aang didn't know, he didn't have the time to think about it.

He reached as much as he could for Ayaan. He needed to grab that hand. He couldn't fail him like this! But the moment his hand could almost reach him, they both vanished, Aang crashing to the ground as all the wind disappeared.

His body crumbled into a roll, the world spinning before being forcefully stopped by the tree he sat under now. He'd lost him. He'd lost Ayaan to Hei Bai. What was he going to tell Sokka and Katara? What about all of the other people Hei Bai had already taken? What was he going to do? What could he do?!

The answer was simple: Nothing. There was nothing he could do. So, with a heaviness in his heart that wanted to push him into the ground, he made his way back to the waiting village of Senlin.

Seconds felt like hours as he walked, the town's gate coming into view. And with it, Katara and Sokka. The siblings were anxiously waiting at the entrance.

The young warrior was pacing, undisguised panic dancing in his blue eyes. Katara walked over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. He took it, doing his best to be stronger. The girl was just as worried as her brother, trying to hold on to hope.

"Katara... Sokka... I-I lost him." Aang couldn't look at them, so he didn't notice at first that they didn't hear him. The sun began to rise, symbolizing how long he'd been in the forest.

Kay-fon came up to the siblings. The older man understood their pain. "The sun is rising. Perhaps he will return soon."

That is when Aang noticed the strangeness, but not yet his own appearance. "What? No, I'm right here!"

Waving his hand in the old man's face was when he finally saw it. He was blue. Transparent and blue. There was only one way and reason that was. "I'm in the spirit world...!"

He'd actually managed to follow Hei Bai to the other side! Maybe... Maybe he could still fix this! He turned to the siblings with a new hope in his eyes, "I'll figure this out, guys. I promise. Like they said, I'm the "bridge between the worlds", right? All I have to do is... figure out what I have to do. Once I do that, no problem!"

He tried his best to sound confident. He really did.

Appa then walked toward them. The giant bison's eyes were searching around, six legs gently stomping the ground. His flying friend was alert, no, alarmed. His ears flicked as he turned his head, which was where Momo was sitting. The little lemur was just as tense. His larger ears flitted every which way.

They were looking for Ayaan, too. They were just as worried, Aang could see it clear as day. The two made their way to the siblings, one nudging while the other landed on an open shoulder.

"It's okay Appa, don't worry. I'm sure they're on their way back." Katara let her hands glide through Appa's groomed fur, the feel reminded her how much her brother cared for the bison.

"Yeah, they might have even found some moon peaches for a treat, Momo!" The lemur let out a whine, curling around Sokka's neck and folding his ears down. He didn't want peaches. He wanted his humans.

As Aang watches them all leave, Aang is left with his doubts. He was here now, but "What am I supposed to do? Avatar Roku, how can I talk to you?!"

He needed guidance. He desperately needed help right now, but he had no leads! He turned in disappointment, ready to return to the last place he'd seen Hei Bai take Ayaan. Maybe there he'd find something.

That's when he hears an odd sound, a whistle in the air. Hopeful, he looked up. But what he found was a serpentine mass of scales speeding towards him. "That's definitely not Ayaan!"

He needed to get out of here! But the moment he tries to airbend, he discovers the last, most startling fact about the spiritual world.

"I can't airbend in the spirit world." No wonder the wind suddenly died on him when he was flying after Hei Bai and Ayaan. He'd entered the spirit world at that point, thus his bending was voided.

Within moments, the dragon, yes, dragon, landed in front of him. There was nowhere for him to go, and so out of his element, no way for him to escape. Even if Ayaan had trained them to think without their bending for moments like this... it was a dragon! Fire breathing, razor teeth, claw-having, flying dragon.

He was cooked, literally.

"Uh... you don't know where Ayaan is, do you?" While he was saying that, he was internally praying to not be eaten. He needed to find his family before becoming dragon food!

The dragon, surprisingly not eating him, leans down slightly. One of his whiskers glides down to him, connecting with his arrow. The moment it does, visions pass through the young monk's mind. When the images cleared away, all of Aang's fear vanished.

"You're Avatar Roku's animal guide! Like Appa is to me!" His pleads for help had been answered! "I need to save my friend, and I don't know how! Is there some way for me to talk to Roku?" The dragon curls down to the ground, allowing him to climb on. The boy does, taking one last look at the others.

"I'll be back, guys." Securing himself on the dragon guide, Fang, he steels his resolve, "Take me to Roku!" The dragon, obeying his wish, flies away. His path to answers was finally opening up.

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The Orca symbolizes strength and adaptability. Her pod, which grew in her many years, became a paragon of harmony and community. Ferociously, they protected their own, guarding the many secrets the ocean kept.

She was born with the sole purpose of being a guide to one precious soul; Belinay, her name means a "reflection of the moon upon the lake". She was the eyes of the sea, the fins of the moon. Since her beginning, her joy was being the prince's caretaker when the great ones could not physically hold him.

The Little Prince was one of them, a precious son of the sea. She and her loyal family took pride in their role as his guide and guardians... Until the dark ones came and did something none should have.

Desperate to reconnect with the spiritual world, they forwent their most ancient and inviolable vow. Stumbling upon the sacred catacombs of wisdom, they manufactured a cursed way of disrupting spiritual bonds. The Pearl Of Divinity, they call it.

It was a vile mockery of true ascension. A tool that sucks out the spirit of the blessed and fuels its user with their power. They created the abomination in a crazed effort to regain what they'd lost, stumbling upon the then-unprepared little prince.

Using that pearl, they stripped him of his immortality, of his blessings, of his life. What should have been unending became reincarnations, every cycle taking something from his original being. Each time, withering away.

Five times did this happen, and five times did he 'die'.

The first time, he was known as the blessed firstborn son of the ancients. The second, the little prince beloved by those who revered the moon and sea. The third, a young man who loved and protected a brother. The fourth, a boy full of trust in a time of budding war. The fifth, an isolated warrior who found an unlikely friend in a foe.

But even if they took his lives, they could not hold his soul's shards. They fought and clawed, destroying the ones who tried to covet them. Scattered around the world, steeping in the darkness that tainted them, they wait for their next incarnation to find them. They carved it into his soul before they died, the same message.

"Please, find me again."

They still wander where their bonds were broken.

They wait to be found.

They wait to be whole.