"You know, I never thought a spirit would be so... friendly," Sokka said cautiously as he watched the spirit cat hold a letter in its mouth as it pierced the 'air' and disappeared just like that.

"Why that reaction? I know some spirits are dangerous, but a lot of them are just mischievous or playful," Aang said curiously, holding a fishing rod.

The three young gathered in front of a large hole in the ice, where the three of them set their hooks. Sure, Katara could easily catch fish, and even Sokka could use his spear to hunt some sea creature, but it was the fact that they were just waiting that made this moment rather quiet and peaceful.

"Because Sokka and I almost died a year ago because of a very strange spirit," Katara said with a hint of fear in her words, it was more than obvious that this experience had not been very pleasant for her.

"Yes, it seemed strange, it emitted a strange black energy that I found unpleasant to watch," Sokka pointed out, causing Aang to narrow his eyes and take the story more seriously.

"Where is it, is it still around?" asked Aang urgently, knowing the danger such an entity could bring.

For Raava's sake! It was a spirit corrupted by Vaatu, and it was his duty as Avatar to purify it, to free it from the suffering it would suffer under the chaotic influence of that great spirit.

Wan and some Avatars like Kuruk told him about this kind of situation and about Vaatu. They had done it much more thoroughly than when they had explained the same subject to Shisui.

They told him about the close relationship between the two spirits, Raava and Vaatu. Even why he could use the four elements, why the 'Avatar State' existed, and some secrets from the past.

"Don't worry, I got rid of him," Katara said with pride in her voice, but Sokka shook his head.

"No, you just made the water glow around it and then he ran away, even though it didn't have the black energy in its body anymore, but the best thing that could have happened to us is that it didn't decide to go near the tribe," Sokka commented, causing Katara to give him an angry look.

She had just wanted to show off in front of Aang and her brother had ruined it; embarrassed, she looked at Aang who just gave her a thumbs up as he nodded.

"That's great! What you did is called Spiritual Purification, from what I understand, any Elemental bender can do that," Aang said, causing both siblings to look at the Avatar with interest.

"I... I just remembered a song Gran Gran used to sing to us when we were kids, where there was a figure of a woman who could calm restless spirits by waving her hands in a certain way, the song is followed by these movements, you know?" said Katara, blushing slightly as she spoke of the lullabies she listened to in her childhood.

"As I recall, my caretakers also sang songs with strange meanings. I remember one about how an Airbender could fly by themselves, or create clouds to step on to fly," Aang told his new friends, remembering some things from his past.

"Do the nursery rhymes of every nation hold hidden secrets? A good theme, if true, but flying alone? Ha! I believe your Flying Bison can fly, but humans flying alone? Impossible!" Sokka replied uncomfortably, but Katara just shook her head.

"Don't mind him, Aang, he's only like this because his ex-girlfriend discovered a new continent and traces of Airbenders in those lands, even pointing out that there are records from millennia ago of an Airbender who could fly and may have left documents in that far away place," Katara revealed Sokka's deep wounds as revenge against her brother for ruining her moment of bravado.

"Oh, you have an adventurous ex-girlfriend, tell me!" Aang, restless and free as the wind, was thrilled to learn of this juicy tidbit of gossip.

"She's not my ex-girlfriend! We only dated for a few days... but we didn't hit it off," Sokka said quietly, focusing his attention on the hole in the ice.

"Didn't you tell him, 'We're sons of our leaders, shouldn't we go out to bond,' and well, they went out, you and she kissed, and she rejected you!" Katara burst out laughing, and Aang joined in.

"How do you know...? Ah, you were spying on me," Sokka quickly came to that conclusion, wrinkling his face in annoyance at the realization that his sister was revealing his dark past.

"You were cocky that day, you know? Like any hormonal young man full of the desire to show off, you did a lot of 'cool' things, but they were rather funny. While Yue was silent or laughing, but not with you, but at you," Katara pointed out, causing Sokka to look visibly annoyed, but then he stopped.

"She's too sophisticated for me, she told me that her father was pressuring her to get married, but that she would find an active solution to it. I never thought it would be something as simple as a trip to another damn new continent," Sokka muttered in annoyance, glad it wasn't night or he would have had to remember her.

Remembering his first love, Yue.

Fortunately, on his occasional travels, he had begun to contact a certain leader of a group from a remote island outside the jurisdiction of the Earth Kingdom, they were simple flirtations, but he saw it as more promising, but for now, he wouldn't tell his sister.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Tell me more about these stories. They're interesting," Aang said, making Katara's eyes sparkle with excitement.

"Fine! I'll tell you about the time Dad and Sokka fought the penguins over a fish," Katara began to tell some stories from her past, many of which she had already told Aang while he was frozen, but this time he was able to answer her.

On the other hand, Musu traveled through the spirit world, shortening the distances between the long distances of the earthly world, and suddenly appeared very close to Azula, who was in a tent and seemed to be packing some things.

"Oh? Musu, come here!" Azula called to the orange cat, seeing that there was an untouched letter in the creature's mouth.

"Shisui, there is a letter for you," Azula called to Shisui, who was standing nearby.

Soon Shisui entered the tent and approached Azula with his naked torso covered in water droplets. The man had finished his bath when he heard the princess calling to him.

With a few flicks of his fingers, the droplets on Shisui's body turned to steam and dissipated into the atmosphere, leaving Shisui completely dry. Azula saw Shisui's bare chest and a blush came to her face.

It was only when she saw Shisui like this that her body reacted in such a 'cheesy' way, and she made no effort to hide or soften it. Shisui trusted her enough to show himself vulnerable, why couldn't she be a little more... flirtatious in his presence?

"A letter? I guess Aang decided to respond?" Shisui said, taking the letter from Azula's hands, and before opening it, he gave Azula a quick kiss on her flushed cheeks.

"I'll give you space!" Azula grabbed Musu before running off, making Shisui giggle.

"I don't know how she can be so shy even when we sleep together," Shisui muttered before opening the letter and reading it several times to understand and memorize its contents.

Small drops of water appeared from Shisui's surroundings with a gesture from his side, and then those drops turned into a water balloon. Then Shisui crumpled the letter in his hand and put it inside the balloon before waving his hands, causing the water balloon to spin.

"So Zhao's 'actions against piracy' have earned him an enemy at the South Pole, that makes things easier," Shisui muttered as he watched the paper inside the water balloon turn into an unreadable pulp.

"We can work with that. But... Is this some kind of team bonding? Team Avatar and... what should I call my team?" If the others knew the strange names he planned to give to their 'team', they would quickly stop him from choosing a lousy name.

Shisui then pulled out a bottle of ink and several sheets of paper and unfolded them on a small folding table. With the smooth movements of a waterbender, he scooped the ink from the bottle and threw it onto the papers.

Soon, dense letters, sentences, and paragraphs appeared on the sheets. This was Shisui's way of writing quickly, something that saved him a lot of tedious homework in school when he discovered that he could control the ink with waterbending.

It was a happy moment when he accidentally covered one of his reading reports with an ugly ink stain, and to blow off steam, he started practicing the basic movements of a waterbender.

He just didn't think he would feel the ink close to him, and after a few tries, he was able to control it with some difficulty. After that, it was just a matter of practice to be able to absorb the liquid ink that stained the objects.

When he developed fine control, he tried writing letters, drawings, and anything else he could ink, with terrible results at first, but improving over time.

He had become a sort of humanoid printer. His idea quickly spread around the world, and now the South Pole had a good business related to literature.

Many writers come from this nation. Since they can write what they think, a lot of weird things come out of the waterbenders, like a lot of strange stories floating around.

Shisui even found fanfics of himself, some of which made him laugh, some of which caught his attention, and some of which made him look like a mess because they painted him almost like the people painted Dumbledore in Harry Potter fanfics in his past life.

One thing to note is that he was able to 'learn' the true limits of elemental bending by talking to the Avatars, who dismissed the idea he had as a child of turning energy into matter, at least with all the elements except fire.

What he was able to discern through all these years of learning, experimentation, and experience was that the line between the 'elements' was quite blurry, something he had confirmed before, but was interested in exploring further.

Could an Earthbender control the minerals in the human body? Or if they could do metal bending, could they do the same with the iron in the blood as Jojo's stand did? Interesting questions for him, but now was not the time to think about them.

After writing his letter, he sorted the papers and put them into an envelope. All that remained was for Musu to bring the envelope to the Avatar, but since it was night and they were about to make a trip to the harbor where Zhao's fleet was docked and there wasn't much to do, an idea slowly crept into Shisui's mind.

'And yes... Do I try to take this step with Azula?' Shisui wondered, letting hot thoughts flood his usually calm mind for the first time in 20 years.

"I'm thankful that enlightenment didn't turn me into an ascetic who abstains from everything," Shisui clasped his hands and prayed to the Avatars before chuckling as he imagined Aang receiving his strange prayer.

Shisui then waited for Azula, knowing she would return soon. As he waited, he mentally rehearsed the words he would say to the princess. He didn't know why something as simple as proposing sex to his fiancée was so difficult for him.

"Come on, Shisui, you've done more complicated things than this - you've taught an Avatar and teased a couple of them! Why does something like this feel so hard?" Shisui muttered before feeling Azula's closeness.

For the first time outside of a situation that didn't require fighting, Shisui's heart raced as his hands began to sweat a little. When Azula entered the shop with Musu, Shisui quickly handed the envelope to the cat, who glared at him.

"I'll get you a better quality salmon-grouper fish, caught by myself," Shisui said, coaxing the greedy cat to take the letter.

"Bring it to Aang, you can stay here for a while, you should walk more to lose weight," Shisui touched the orange cat's belly, making it meow before disappearing into thin air.

"What's the hurry?" Azula asked curiously, watching Shisui's strange behavior.

She saw that he was nervous, Shisui rarely got that way. So she went over and put her hand on his face, making Shisui stare at her. Both pairs of golden eyes remained fixed on each other, sharing an intimate moment of silence.

No words were needed, all of Shisui's plans and speeches were thrown away as he closed his eyes before kissing Azula on the lips, which she returned.

Soon they parted, and before they could do anything else, Shisui closed the tent completely, just to look at Azula....now he had his tent to deal with!