Zhao

Even with it standing directly in front of us, towering hundreds of feet into the now-clear sky, it was still impossible to discern just what it was we were looking at.

An obelisk of sandstone, standing erect from the desert floor, it was clear beyond all reason that it wasn't meant to be there, but there could be no denying as I placed the palm of my hand against it that it was, indeed, right in front of me.

I hadn't had any expectations in touching it, but to the touch, it felt cold, unnervingly so for its position in the middle of the desert, as though whatever laws it adhered to were clearly not those of our own world. This is it. This has to be it.

"Zhao?" I heard Harzek's voice form behind me call. "Is this-is this-"

"This is it," I finished for him, an irresistible smile of satisfaction and relief coming to my face. "We found it," It was real. It was actually real. I knew it. I knew it had to be real. I knew it couldn't have been a lie. It was real!

My knees wanted to give out from under me, to allow me to collapse into the sand, having finally reached the end of the line.

No. Not the end. Not yet. This structure, this library if that's what it truly was. It's only a piece of the puzzle. It's what's inside that will make all the difference.

I turned to Shilo, my knees still week, hand on the spire to support myself, "Did you know this was here?"

"N-no. It wasn't. I've been here hundreds of times. It was only more desert here. This. It has to be the work of the spirits."

"Which means we've found what we've been looking for."

"What are you looking for?"

"Knowledge. Lessons of the past to safeguard the future." This is it. This is everything.

"We should," Shilo started, apparently still in awe of what was before him. "We should get the others. Bring them over here. Make sure we're all in the same place. Zhao, Harzek, stay here. Don't go in. We have no idea what to expect."

With that, he bent the sand beneath his feet into a wave of sorts that carried him back the way we had come, following only the direction that the fox had come from, as no footsteps had remained in the sand. None of this is normal.

My eyes only followed him for the single moment that he turned away from us. From that point on, my eyes hadn't left the tower, myself simply looking up the height of its majesty, following it up as it pierced the sky, wondering just what lay within.

"It's smaller than I expected," I heard Harzek's voice from behind me say.

"This. This is only part of it. The rest is beneath the sand. This is only the beginning," I said, looking back up at the entry point that the fox had gone through, myself unable to see any opening, but given how the fox had disappeared, likely housed an entrance into the structure. "We'll need climbing gear to get up there."

"We should wait for Shilo to get back, Zhao."

I was already digging through my bag for the climbing pitons and rope. "No time. We should get up there and get a better understanding of what we're dealing with. Care to lend a hand?"

He was tired. I could see that much. We'd been fighting for our lives for nearly most of the day and just now was the only breather we'd had in a long while. I could still see the mist of the sandstorm retreating away from us, thankful to the spirits that it was moving away from us rather than towards us this time, but still sat there, inching across the desert, a reminder of the pain and loss we'd gone through. Despite that, however, Harzek simply shrugged his shoulders and neared my side, digging through his own bag for climbing gear-something we'd expected to use in the incident of approaching a rock mesa such as the ones some Sandbending tribes resided in. We hadn't at all expected to use it for something like this. Notwithstanding, however, we were all the gladder for including it among our gear.

Shilo returned by the time we were already halfway up, the vague cry of "Need any help there?" almost causing me to slip with a hammer strike, threatened to assault my own thumb rather than the nail, hesitating just in time, centimeters away. I saw Zaik onboard the skiff alongside an injured, but by the looks of him, still breathing Gani. I found myself hoping he'd live to tell the tale about this to his family, a sentiment I hadn't expected to feel for an earthbender. The two of them were simply gazing up in awe at the structure before them. If my visions were correct, this was only a small portion of a much greater monolith that slept beneath the earth. "Just keep an eye on things!" I yelled back. "Could do without another ambush!"

Soon enough, and by that, I mean around 30 minutes, we had dug the last climbing spike into the tower, the rope running all the way to the top. I shambled eagerly onto the platform above, desperate to be the first one to set put, and sure enough, on the floor of the platform lay a gaping hole, one shrouded in darkness, but beneath it, light, lots of it, illuminating hundreds upon hundreds of stories, no end to the layered abyss, no floor to behold, simply a bottomless structure, hundreds of stories worth of, what looked to be bookshelves, to behold.

Harzek was already at my side, looking down, his eyes wide.

"It's. It's real," Harzek mumbled, approaching closer, his words given him the sound of one who still didn't quite believe what was right in front of him. Could I blame him? I myself was still locked in a rather strong state of disbelief.

"Of course it is," I responded with, attempting to banish the awe in my own voice, something I believe he may have seen through judging by the grin on his face that faded shortly afterward into something grimmer.

"At the very least, the people we lost, their deaths weren't-"

"We're not done here yet," I retorted. While it was of some solace to hear the words coming from him, not outright opposing me in the wake of so many casualties, I couldn't allow him to fall into the false belief that our work was done. We had no idea what lay ahead. For all we knew, the library could have been occupied by scores of hostile sandbenders ready to kill us on sight. We had to be ready for anything.

I looked down again, still finding it hard to believe what rested below me.

This is only the spire. Even here, in a room such as this, it only made up a fraction of what likely was the true extent of this structure. Platforms lined the walls, decorated in rows of bookshelves, connected by walkways spanning the abyss. It was…beautiful.

"You said this was only a part of it?"

"That's right," I said as I measured out what I thought would be enough rope to reach the first walkway below, figuring I may as well get it secured now. "The answers we're looking for are somewhere in here."

"The place is enormous. It could take us weeks to find what we're looking for."

"Months," I corrected, still remembering the scale of it in my dream, knowing weeks would hardly be even close to enough for us to explore the extent of this place.

"Should call in reinforcements. Clean this place dry. Can get through this much quicker with them than without."

"Can't be sure this place will still be here when we come back," I said, shaking my head. "Shilo himself didn't know this was here. We leave, can't guarantee it'll be here when we come back with a search party. We need to do this now.

"What's it going to do? Stand up and walk away?"

"I'd be lying if I said that wasn't a very real possibility."

He went silent for a moment, thinking to himself. "Can't very well just split our forces. Not in this desert. Well then. Guess we better get started."

I turned to him, surprised by his willingness to so easily go along with that. He seemed to register the expression on my face, responding to my nonverbal question with a shrug, simply saying, "Besides. What are the odds that the Fire Nation will believe what we have to say? They'll be more inclined to believe we'd desert mad rather than that we've found a magic library dwarfing even the royal palace."

I nodded. He wasn't wrong, and I found myself looking back into the innards of the library, taking in its enormity. I'd only been to the Royal Palace once. And that had been decades ago when I'd graduated from the academy. Azulon himself had spoken to us, congratulating us for our perseverance in graduating, and spurring us into battle against an enemy we'd, insofar, only knew of through what we were taught. Back then, the Royal Palace had been the peak of it all, the pinnacle of the world. I'd left on my assigned vessel, the FNS Revanchist, knowing that I'd be back, that I'd come full circle and return to the Royal Palace, but not as a bright-eyed student, but an esteemed commander of the Fire Nation's forces. Now, looking at what awaited below, knowing as reference what I'd seen in my dreams, it didn't seem quite so big.

Harzek seemed to be readying to descend down the rope when Shilo's figure appeared to us beyond the ledge of the sandstone pillar, carried by a torrent of sand that kept him levitating in the air, one simple step all it took for him to join us, the sandnadoe dying behind him.

In the only obvious thing to do atop here, his eyes drifted to the gaping hole in the floor, into the empty abyss of the library below, and he stood there, unlike us, in complete and total silence, new life brought to his old and weathered eyes, disbelief granting a new air of youth to him.

Soon enough, with Shilo still caught in a trance, Zaik ascended as well, haphazardly bumping past Shilo, looking into the hole as well. "Well son of a bitch!" he cried out, breaking the fragile silence that had prevailed only moments before. "So it is real after all."

Irritated expressions followed him, prompting a look of embarrassed defensiveness from him. Perhaps I couldn't blame him. He was only saying what we all were thinking. Nonetheless, the lack of subtlety wasn't the most appropriate for the moment.

"Maybe somebody should stay behind to watch Gani," I offered, non-stealthily attempting to rid ourselves of him.

"Gani will be fine," Zaik retorted. "He can leave if things get too hot."

"Was that supposed to be a pun?" Harzek asked, seemingly half-amused.

"We shouldn't be here," came Shilo's voice, breaching the levity that had been momentarily established.

"What?" I asked in response, wondering just what the hell he was on about. What was this? A sudden lack of willingness to assist us? Second thoughts? "What do you mean?"

"This place. We're not meant to be here."

"Having second thoughts now, Shilo?" I asked, frustration no doubt present in my voice.

He turned to me, a new darkness in his eyes where life had been only moments before. "We shouldn't go inside."

"We're going to go inside." I countered, leaving no room for discussion. We came here for this, and we already lost too many people for it. We're not turning back now."

"Zhao!" he called to no avail as I secured the rope we'd used to descend into the library. He saw he would make no progress to me, and turned to Harzek instead. "Lieutenant. You have to stop him."

"Sorry, Shilo. I'm with Zhao on this one. We've lost too many for this to be worth nothing."

"Going in there will prove a danger to us all."

"Then stay out here!" I retorted. "Keep an eye on Gani if you're afraid to enter.

In that moment, he somehow seemed to manage to grow even older in how he held himself, shaking his head before saying, "Gani can take care of himself. I'll go with you. If anything to ensure that you two don't get hurt."

I nodded to him, the rope now in place, personally glad that he'd come around to see our view. The more, the merrier after all. "Very well, then. Shall we?"