Sun Island

Flying through the blue skies, free from any pursuit thanks to the storm clouds of hours back, Sokka and Katara sat up in the saddle while Aang remained lounging on Appa's head.

As time flies, the sky changes to a darker, sunset-filled evening. Appa becomes more and more visibly tired, it may seem that crossing the whole world while flying is a quick thing, but it's not, just crossing from the south-western coast of the earth kingdom to this place has taken almost a full day, and they barely reached the first few isles in the huge archipelago of the Fire Nation.

Eventually, Momo bounces up and down in eager surprise, as Aang shouts excitedly "There it is!"

Sokka and Katara pop up in the saddle as Aang continued to explain "The island where Roku's dragon took me!"

Crescent Island is a volcanic isle, it's named that way due to its crescent moon shape, it is located in the easternmost part of the Fire Nation, and it houses the legendary shrine to Avatar Roku. There was a single huge smoking volcano that could be seen right in the middle of it, with lava gently pouring down from the top to the sea.

As they descend to the isle, they spot a stone mountain that connects to an elegant, multi-story Fire Temple. Lava flows beneath the bridge and the air is thick with steam. Aang stands by Appa's head after they land at the base of the stone bridge, Katara stands by Aang's side while Sokka is stretching further away.

"You did it buddy. Nice flying!" Aang says with a huge smile while rubbing against Appa's head, the bison bellowed in satisfaction, rolling to the side to wave his three legs into the air lazily, with his tongue out and preparing for a well-deserved rest.

"You must be tired," Says Katara while smiling sweetly and rubbing his belly.

"Nah, I'm good!" Shouts Sokka from behind without paying attention to the duo

"Refreshed and ready to fight some firebenders!" he shouts while he continues to work out and flex his body.

"I was talking to Appa," says Katara dryly, while propping her hands on her hip.

Halting his exercise, Sokka turns around to see what is really happening

"Well….and I was talking to Momo!" he points to the lemur, clinging to a dead tree's branch.

As they cross the bridge, Sokka's eyes narrow as he keeps scanning the place with his eyes.

"I don't see any guards." He speaks.

"The Fire Nation must have abandoned the temple when Avatar Roku died." Answered Katara, not as worried as her brother.

As they enter an enormous chamber with fire-décor columns, the Avatar Team is shocked to see a group of five elderly men, wearing red robes and tall red hats, that address them "We are the Fire Sages. Guardians of the temple of the Avatar."

Speaks the one in the middle

Aang beams a smile "Great! I am the Avatar!"

"We know." the man replies, and together with the other four sages, he takes a deep breath before releasing a blast of fire in the direction of the three kids.

…

In the middle of a small rocky isle, far away from any civilization, a big airship can be seen. It stays within a ravine, protected from any boat's line of sight.

Inside the black colored Airship, two people can be seen playing some cards.

"And it seems that you lose again Madara! Blackjack." Nari speaks, with a gentle smile while Madara keeps frowning while looking at the table.

"You sure you don't cheat?" he raises an eyebrow in dissatisfaction, this woman seems to have a sixth sense when it comes to card games, too! It's not even funny!

"I would never cheat Madara, especially you," she said softly as she grabbed the cards and started to shuffle again. "Another one?"

"Nah I am good" he shook his head "I am rather happy that you are on my side when it comes to gambling and whatnot… having someone like you as a customer would dry our coffers…"

She giggles while hiding her mouth with the sleeve of her robes "Don't underestimate the clients, some of them are rather smart and tried to count cards many times, some succeeded many times."

"Yeah… but you succeed every time!" he replies while grabbing some sake and pouring it into a cup for himself, he would never offer it to Nari, as she doesn't drink.

"How long do you think she will take to wake up?" Ask Nari as she leans back, sipping her tea.

"I would say… eight to twelve hours… that's how long she takes after we…. Well….. you know…" he says while articulating with his free hand, which makes Nari giggle even more.

"Ahh, and I am sure that the level of exhaustion is the same…" she speaks sarcastically "How good it is to be young" she spoke with a motherly tone, which made Madara rather embarrassed, feeling like he was speaking about weird topics with his own mother.

A comfortable silence remained within the airship for several minutes, as cricket sounds echoes from outside, making it a rather relaxing evening on the inhabited island, far from the world.

"He might have reached there already…" speaks Madara as he lights up his kiseru, looking through the window.

"The Avatar? Where do you think he went?"

"The Avatar Roku Temple, most likely" Madara answers without looking at her "It's Winter Solstice and such events are heavily linked to the spiritual presence in our world, if I was a clueless Avatar Kid, in a world where everyone that I've ever known is long gone, I would seek counsel with the former Avatar, in this case… Roku…"

"It's rather interesting to know that spirits are in fact real… " Said Nari.

"Real… Scary… and Dangerous…" replied Madara with a solemn tone.

"Why is that?"

"Some spirits are good-natured, the Northern Water Tribe spirits are good, even Wan Shi Tong is nice if you know how to talk to them and have the patience… but some… some are not as much…"

"I always thought that the spirits exist for the sake of balance and co-existence." Said Nari with a rather thoughtful expression.

"Spirits are just like us humans, so obviously they have the good, the bad and the ugly… It's only natural."

"Lei told me that you mentioned the spirit world once, is it true that it exists?"

Don't look at Nari as if she was just a dutiful wife and a master at her work, she is one of the most studious and intelligent people that Madara had ever met in his two lives. 'If she was seventy years old I don't doubt for one second that she would be part of the White Lotus.. heh..'

"It does exist, it's just rather… complicated… to enter there."

"Will you ever let us know about it?"

"When the time comes… yes…" replied Madara with a tone of finality, he didn't even want to think about the spirits and their world right now, honestly, he is rather scared of the spirits… give him an army to solo and he will jump with a smile on his face, even if he loses, he will have no fear at all! But pit him against a spirit and he will be scared as hell.

The sky slowly gets darker and darker as the duo retired to their respective bedrooms.

As the dawn finally comes, the Airship soars in the skies once more, as it is rather a cloudy day, Kaliya doesn't really need to suffer such pressure again, they simply fly above the cloudy sea with no one to spot their location.

Madara requested that they really burn fuel to travel faster today, spending two days to reach their destination is the limit of his acceptance, and with a seven-day deadline he obviously didn't want to spend 90% of it just on travel, it would be a massive waste of time, and it's not like they lack fuel, the airship is stacked to the brim.

As the sun of the second day finally begins to set, the Red Cloud team finally spots the right island, it's not a huge island but rather far away from the Fire

Nation mainland.

From above everyone can see a vast ancient city right at the heart of the island, the architecture is something out of this world for both Kaliya and Nari, for Madara though… the city resembles ancient Mesopotamia, taking special influence from the Ziggurats, or "Tiered Pyramids" that takes inspiration from Mayan ruins in his old world.

"The city seems to be deserted, Boss." Speaks Kaliya as they scout the place from above.

"I doubt that, try to find a huge stairway leading to a platform that connects two mountains through a bridge…" his eyes narrow as he tries his best to remember the scenes from Avatar the Last Airbender.

"There!" Nari said loudly as she turned the ship westwards, it's rather easy to spot things from above considering that the whole place isn't that vast, and the description was very on point and stood out easily.

As the Airship lands a respectful distance from the connected twin mountains, Madara, Kaliya, and Nari walk down from their Airship to be greeted by a group of men and women dressed in very unique garments, sporting some tribal face paintings.

'They really have some heavy Aztec, Incan, and Mayan style… and their hairstyles are strikingly similar to Firecracker's current one… how curious…. Never made that connection before.' Thought Madara as he was approached by one man, who seemed to have more decoration, half of his face was painted in red, his black beard tied, and his head garments had some fluffy light-yellow fur spiked upwards, almost as if looking like a knock-off Super Saiyan.

"It's not every day that someone comes to our sacred land." The large man speaks, using a solemn tone to mask his true personality, everyone that watched the show would know that he is a rather polite and goofy person.

"Oh?" Madara smiled, he liked this man very much in the shows "It seems you all rather live in secrecy…" his tone was as solemn as the large man in front of him, making the tension even more intense, as everyone narrowed their eyes, especially the large man in front of him.

"Don't worry, I swear we won't tell anyone" Concluded Madara while nodding, still holding to his solemn tone.

There was an awkward pause in the air, the large man in the lead could only cough to disguise his awkwardness "We… appreciate your discretion..."

Madara's solemn face instantly morphed into a happy beaming smile as he walked forward and extended his hand while laughing "Hahaha, don't worry… it's nice to meet actual decent fellow firebenders! Name is Madara Uchiha by the way!"

The large man took a second to compose himself after feeling the instant shift in tone and beamed back, extending his large hand and shaking Madara's "The name is Song, I am the Chief of the Sun Warriors!"

The atmosphere became rather friendly after their introduction, and both Kaliya and Nari were also well received, the friendliness of these people is otherworldly, they don't care who you are or where you are from, as long as you respect them and treat them well, they treat you as honored guests, they even prepared a feast!

Both Madara and Sun Warrior Chief Song were drinking comfortably, Madara brought a lot of things to share with them after all, while most of the other Sun Warriors were dancing around a huge bonfire.

"Hahahaha, Chief Song, thank you very much for such a warm reception!" Said Madara while refilling his sake cup.

"I am the one to thank you!" Said the Chief with a huge goofy smile "You even brought some really good stuff for us!" He stood up and shouted, "From today onwards, I declare Madara and his team as friends of the Sun Warriors!"

"HURRAAAAAAAAAAAY!" everyone shouted as they drank expensive booze.

As the party went on, both Madara and Song became pals, drinking and joking around, laughing like there was no tomorrow.

"I am really happy to have come here! Look even Kaliya found herself a friend!"

He said while pointing towards one specific table where two women were having an arm-wrestling contest. On one end it was Kaliya, an exotic woman that actually got more attention from these men than she was comfortable with, and on the other, it was a tall sun-tanned beauty with long brown hair tied in a high ponytail and striking yellow eyes that matched her red and gold garments perfectly.

[Image Here, she is a somewhat canon character]

"Aye! That's my niece, Xi, good lass I tell you!" said Chief Song with a huge smile.

Nari on the other hand, stood in the midst of some mature women, all drinking tea instead of sake, it seemed that they all shared similar values, this place really screamed 'Harmony' like no other.

"Tell me my friend, what brought you to our isolated land?"

Taking a sip of his sake, Madara decided that it was time to say their goal "I came here to talk to the masters…"

Instantly the party went silent.