"Uncle, it's time to leave," Zuko calls out as he walks through the bamboo. Ryoko follows him in pursuit of their teacher. "Where are you? Uncle Iroh." 

"Over here." Ryoko notices the retired general's clothing hanging on the branch in front of the water and turns to see Iroh in the springs. She lets out a giggle as Zuko grows confused.

"Uncle?" He moves closer as Ryoko stands beside him, looking everywhere else. "We need to move on. We're closing in on the Avatar's trial, and I don't want to lose him." After finding Katara's necklace, there was a hope that they would get closer and find the Avatar again. 

"You look tired, Prince Zuko. And you have passed on your stress to Ryoko. Look at the poor girl. Why don't you join each other in the hot springs and soak away your troubles?" 

"I have to respectfully decline, Iroh," Ryoko says as she chuckles. Zuko glares at his uncle.

"My troubles cannot be soaked away. It's time to go!" 

"You should take your teacher's advice and relax a little. The temperature's just right. I heated it myself." Zuko's uncle put his hands together and blew steam through his nose. Zuko heard Ryoko laugh beside him and he sighed. 

"Enough," he says as he swats away the steam, "we need to leave now. Get out of the water!" 

"Very well." Ryoko who had already turned to the side, turns around more due to Zuko pushing her away. 

"On second thought, why don't you take another few minutes?" He grabs Ryoko by the shoulders and guides her away. "Be back at the ship in half an hour. Or I'm leaving without you." 

As the two walk away Ryoko smiles lightly.Times like this helped her feel lighter, like the weight on her shoulders were not so heavy and that being the soldier was only needed sometimes. 

She took her thoughts off of the event on Kyoshi Island and focused solely on constructing herself, keeping her control. She would need it to capture the Avatar. She would ignore all the thoughts that would prevent her from achieving the goal and showing that she can be powerful too.

---

Half an hour turned into hours as it started to get dark. "Uncle! Uncle where are you?"

"Iroh?!" Ryoko called out looking all around. She figured he would be late, but not so late where they would have to look for him. Ryoko felt her chest tighten. They came upon the springs where they left him to find the earth lifted up. 

"Sir, maybe he thought you left without him," a soldier suggests. 

"Something's not right here." 

"I have a bad feeling about this, Prince Zuko. Look at the rocks, it wasn't like that before." Ryoko grimaced thinking about what could have happened to Iroh. The four of them approach the springs to examine the rocks.

"It looks like there's been a landslide, sir." 

"Land doesn't slide uphill. Those rocks didn't move naturally."

"Earthbenders," Ryoko whispers in fear of what they could do to Iroh. Iroh was a strong firebender, but she worried what a group of them could do to him. 

"My uncle's been captured by earthbenders."

As they got back to the ship, Zuko remained quiet. He had planned to search for his Uncle alone and track him. He started packing his things when Ryoko appeared in his room. She leaned on the door frame watching his stance. He was rigid and cross. 

"I'm coming with you," she states with her arms crossed. Zuko picks up his head to see Ryoko. Her gold eyes were filled with determination.

"You don't have to. I'll find him and I'll bring him back." Ryoko sighs and travels further into the room. 

"And you don't have to do this alone. I want to come with you." Zuko looks up from his bag with softened eyes. "To find Iroh. I don't want to see him get hurt." His eyes then flutter down to his bag and he continues packing. He huffed out and nodded.

"Fine, get ready. We're leaving." 

---

Aang sat at the village in the spirit world. With no one to see him he sat in confusion about what to do next. From far away, a light sparks, Aang giving it attention. "Sokka?" The excitement on Aang turns to fear as dragon flies towards him. "That's definitely not Sokka." He takes off on his glider, but fails. He repeats his bending movements but to no avail, he failed. "What? I can't airbend in the spirit world." 

He faces the dragon with no defense and looks up as the dragon stands tall above him. "You don't know where Sokka is, do you?" He backs away as the dragon starts to communicate with him. Aang sees a flash and a vision of Avatar Roku on a dragon with similar eyes to someone he knows. Ryoko. 

"You're Avatar Roku's animal guide, like Appa is to me. I need to save my friend and I don't know how. Is there someway for me to talk to Roku?" The dragon, Fang, sinks his head and neck for Aang to get on as they ride off to the temple with Roku's statue. 

Aang stares up at the golden statue with confusion.

"I don't understand. This is just a statue of Roku." Fang communicates with Aang again, showing him a comet and then Ryoko bending.

"Is that what Roku wants to talk to me about? And what does Ryoko have to do with any of this? When can I talk to him?" Fang growls dipping his head as the light shines on Roku's statue. Aang lets Fang communicate with him as he sees the days pass along as the light grows closer to the middle of the statue. "It's a calendar, and the light will reach Roku on the solstice." He turns to Fang. "So that's when I'll be able to speak to Roku?" Fang growls in response much to Aang's disappointment. "But I can't wait that long, I need to save Sokka now!" Fang made no other move but takes Aang out of the temple and back to his body.

---

Ryoko and Zuko had gone along the trails and had already found Iroh's stinking sandal, now they were following the footprints of the earthbenders transportation. The heavy steps of the rhinos walks on the prints in the dirt and each moment Ryoko felt more nervous. What if they would be too late to find him? 

Ryoko rode on his left observing how long the trail went on for as Zuko yells, "the Avatar!" Ryoko whips her head around to where Zuko was looking to see Appa flying away. She sees as he's about to turn around when she speaks lightly. 

"But Zuko..." she trails off as they both look at the trail. "If you want to go find him then do it, but I'm going to keep looking for Iroh." She let her rhino continue on as she just looked at the trail. She followed what Iroh would have wanted, letting him choose his own path. She was determined not to look back and see his decision, one that would possibly be him riding away. Ryoko heard the steps of another creature and felt Zuko's presence beside her. She smiled at him. "You're making the right decision. Let's go find your uncle." 

It had turned to night when they got close. "These dangerous hands must be crushed." Ryoko hears one of the earthbenders say. Zuko rushes forward, kicking the rock as Ryoko breaks the chain on Iroh's hands.

"Excellent form, Prince Zuko." 

"You taught me well." 

"We can talk nice later," Ryoko says, her hands at the ready facing two of the soldiers, while Iroh faced the captain. 

"Surrender yourselves. It's 5 against 3. You're clearly outnumbered," the Captain tells them smirking.

"Uh, that's true, but you are clearly outmatched."

"I'm liking our odds." Ryoko avoids a rock as she throws a fire ball at one of them and swings her leg protruding flames from them and sending it towards the other soldier. She dips below rocks being thrown at her and swipes the ground, the flames coming from her finger tips and escape the ground. The fire reaches the earthbender who falls to the ground. The other one bends a large boulder and flings it at Ryoko causing her to bump into Zuko's back and taps him as they both duck below, the rock hitting another bender. 

They faced the final earthbender who then got crushed by his own bending thanks to Iroh. Ryoko smiles at her mentor and gives him a side hug while Zuko pats his uncle's shoulder. 

"Now, would you please put on some clothes?"

"Yes please, this is so awkward." 

---

As Aang tells his friends about getting help, the thought of the dragon eyed firebender comes to his mind. "And there's something else," he tells Katara and Sokka.

"What is it?"

"I need to talk to Roku, and I think I found a way to contact his spirit." 

"That's great," Katara says with joy.

"Creepy, but great." 

Aang continues to explain to his friends where they need to go. "There's a temple on a crescent shaped island and if I go there on the solstice, I'll be able to speak with him."

"But the solstice is tomorrow." 

Aang looked away in . "Yeah, and there's one more problem. The island is in the fire nation." The water tribe siblings look at Aang with wide eyes at the thought of going to the fire nation, the place that wants Aang dead. "And there's one more thing."

"What else could there be? What's worse than going to the fire nation?" Sokka asks. 

"I was shown something. Somebody. Ryoko."

Katara looks at Aang with a grimace as Sokka continues to stutter in response. "Ryoko? What do you mean, Ryoko? The girl with Zuko who wants to capture you?! The very dangerous fire bender who hurt Suki and I?" Aang sighs at seeing Sokka getting worked up. 

"I know, but there's something about her. She was shown to me in a vision and I need to know what it means and what she means to me. I don't know what though."

"Maybe because she wants to capture you and you should stay away from her!" Katara's face remains neutral as she tries to calm her brother down with a hand on his arm. 

"But that's the thing. She always hesitated when she could have stopped me." Aang pauses before speaking again, deciding to tell his friends the whole truth. "And there's something about her eyes." 

Katara speaks up this time. "What about her eyes? They're gold, so what?" she asks quickly.

"To you guys they are just that, but when I see her eyes, I see the eyes of a dragon." The siblings continue to stare at their Avatar friend in confusion over a fire nation girl who has some connection to him  yet is on the opposite side.