Shadows and Embers

The Avatar State

Aang's POV:

On a windy mountain summit, Aang, walks into a temple. In it he sees, what could only be described as his worst nightmare himself, the avatar, in the avatar state, with no control over himself. The other him slowly turns to face him, making him flinch.

In that same moment, the other avatar, surrounds himself in an air bubble and releases a powerful gust of wind, which knocks Aang back, but not before he notices Katara and Sokka's cowering form, hunched behind a pile of rocks, looking up at the avatar with looks of horror on their faces.

Now in a different room, Aang breathes in relief, only for the other avatar to burst into the room. He screams and fire comes billowing out of his mouth, the avatar slashes his arm in a diagonal arc, which creates a rift in the floor which Aang falls through screaming.

Now on what seems to be a Fire Nation battle ship, Aang barely has time to look up in horror at the glowing form of his Ocean spirit merged form, before it and the other avatar attack the ship in union.

He gets up startled, before going up to the deck of the water tribe ship, they were sailing on to the Earth kingdom, he thought of his dream, how scary he'd looked. Is that how Katara felt when she saw him in the avatar state, what about the solidiers on those Fire Nation ships? We're they all as terrified as he was? The last thing they'd ever felt was fear, because of him. Aang felt ashamed of himself, and he told Katara as much when she walked up to him a few moments later.

He looked on with pride at Katara the next morning as Pakku told him, he'd still need a master to teach him waterbending, despite the scrolls he'd been gifted. He hopped into Appa and they flew off towards an Earth Kingdom base, Katara with her spirit water, Aang with his scrolls and Sokka with Pakku's words of farewell.

Soza's POV:

Soza and Azula descend from their palanquin and walk through a row of soldiers kneeling before them. Soza addresses them, "Our brother and uncle have disgraced the Fire Lord, and brought shame on all of us. I know you might have mixed feelings about attacking members of the royal family, but if you hesitate..." Azula interjects, gesturing between the two of them, "We won't hesitate to remove your hesitation... permanently. Dismissed."

All the soldiers quickly get up and scamper off, as the captain approaches them. He addresses Azula first as she is older, "Princesses, I'm afraid the tides will not allow us to bring the ship into port before nightfall." Azula turns and strides to the sides of the deck and says in a deathly calm tone, "I'm sorry, Captain, but I do not know much about the tide. Can you explain something to me?"

The captain quickly responds, "Of course, your highness." Azula asks, "Do the tides command this ship?" Soza immediately knows where her sister is going with this and wonders how long it would take the foolish captain to catch on. "I'm afraid I don't understand," he replies.

Azula takes his stupidity in stride and continues, "You said the tides would not allow us to bring the ship in. Do the tides command this ship?" The fool finally catches on and replies, "No, Princess." Azula takes it a step further and asks, "And if I were to have you thrown overboard, would the tides think twice before smashing you against the rocky shore?" "N-no, Princess," responds the captain in defeat.

Soza decides to step in and stop the captain's pathetic flailing. "Well then, maybe you should worry less about the tides, who've already made up their minds about killing you, and worry more about her who's still mulling it over," she says, gesturing to Azula. The captain looks scared for a moment before saying, "Alright then, I'll pull us in," and leaves to do just that.

A/N: cool so now we're getting into the story, for real. The fun stuff. Because i won't really be writing from the gaangs pov a lot, this is where the canon divergence really begins, well more like adding stuff to fill in gaps of time. I won't spoil where the plot will shift from the show. Also i didn't put ship tags, cause i feel like they spoil the story, but a few favs will be a thing and a few other might not lol. I'm sure you guys will figure out some of the pairings soon enough.