Sweet dreams are made of this

Azu wasn't in the best mood, no sir. The whole day yesterday went awry after the appearance of this Michael, and the evening where she finally decided to confess her feelings to Ty Lee became... strange.

After their performance, she decided to take a walk, but specifically went in the other direction from the place where Ty Lee and Michael went. But after an hour of walking around the city, the city began to stir with action. Everywhere there were people with alcohol, sellers of all sorts of things, and even dancers from her troupe! When she asked the reason, people just shrugged their shoulders and muttered something about free drinks in a tavern.

Then there were splashes of paint: on houses, on the ground, Spirits, even on people! Azu couldn't believe her ears; someone had bought the paint on purpose just to cover the entire city with it. And then she came across a crowd of people, music and screams sounded from the depths of the crowd. Some made bets, some just shouted, and some served sake bottles to the center.

"Give me vodka, not this piss!" Someone was screaming, but the voice was so drunk that Azu didn't know who it could be. She didn't even know what vodka was. And abruptly the cries were replaced by glee and groans, no matter what was happening in the center of the crowd, it ended and people began to disperse.

"That was fun, wasn't it?" One woman asked her with a kind smile.

Azu didn't even look at her. "I don't even know what's going on..."

The woman laughed and patted her on the back. "You'll find out soon, Azu."

She immediately turned around. "How do you know-" But the woman had already disappeared. "my... name?"

The strangeness did not end there, there were even more of it. Small things began to disappear around the city and appeared in completely different places. In the armory all the weapons were broken, and what wasn't broken was scratched - she learned about this because of the general's screams, the whole city heard him. She heard talk of how the wall separating the public baths fell down, how the animals began to gather into pentagrams.

And birds. Don't even get her started about the birds.

But the strangest thing was that Ty Lee did not return to the circus. She always returned to the circus. And Azu couldn't stop worrying.

-=-=-=-=-=-

A seven-year-old boy sat in the back seat of the car and looked out the window. Bright streetlights flashed past and disappeared faster than he could blink. Moscow was the city that never sleeps, especially today. The New Year was a holiday for the whole country, and especially for the family of three, today they learned that soon there will be another child in their family.

The boy blinked and rubbed his eyes, trying to get rid of the black dots in the corners of his vision. His mother, who was sitting to his left, patted his head and smiled softly, for which she received a shy smile in return.

She never even hoped to get pregnant again, the first birth was too difficult, so the second pregnancy was a miracle for her. The boy suddenly frowned and looked at his mother. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't even make out the color of her hair. He slowly turned his head towards his father and frowned even more. If he even knew that his mother was sitting next to him, then he could not see his father at all.

"Mom?" The woman lowered her gaze to her son, the boy looked frightened and almost cried. "Something is wrong with my eyes."

The woman took his head in her hands and bent down to look into his eyes. "You've been staring at the lights too long sweetie; it'll all be over soon." She leaned over and kissed his forehead and the boy calmed down. If mom says so, then it must be true, but he still felt that something was wrong.

The boy closed his eyes and began to think, maybe he forgot something when they left the house. But he got ready and even checked his bag a couple of times... Wait, where are they going?

"... Mom?" He asked again. "Where are we going?" The woman looked at her son in surprise and frowned. She put her hand on his forehead to check if he had a fever?

"Boris, turn the car around, he's got a fever." She said and put her arm around her son's shoulders.

"That's bad. The nearest hospital isn't that far away, but on New Year's Eve there will be too many people and too few doctors." Boris looked in the side mirror and began to turn the car around.

The boy tried not to panic, knowing that he wouldn't help the situation at all. He was upset that he got sick on such a good day, but decided that he would apologize already in the hospital. He still ruined the day for the whole family, at least in his eyes.

Boris turned the car around and drove on, worried about his son. After a couple of minutes, the boy began to pant and sweat, more from panic than illness.

It even seemed to him that a bright light began to approach in the windshield, but he wrote it off as a trick of his eyes. In the next second, this light became dazzling and the grinding of tires was heard. A second, and the boy was thrown forward, only the seat belt saved him from flying. Something hit the right side of the car and the whole world turned black.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Michael didn't wake up with the start, he was already used to the games of his own mind for half a year of isolation in the temple. His memories sometimes came back to him in his dreams, but never before had they been so... personal.

Of course, sometimes he could remember the name of his gang, or remember the next successful robbery, but never something from his early life. A sad smile appeared on his face, he remembered the name of his father only along with the accident that took away his right arm and eye. And he still didn't remember his mother's name.

He sighed heavily and felt Ty Lee's hands tighten around his waist. Apparently, he fell asleep immediately after he closed his eyes. 'Huh... I just wanted to lie down for a couple of minutes.' Michael turned slowly so as not to wake the girl and looked into her face. 'She's cute.'

He returned her hug and pulled her to his chest. His headache was no longer painful as hell and was just a throbbing memory. 'I think I needed this nap.' Now he was confident that he could get down and not break his neck... Hopefully.

Michael closed his eyes again and began to wait for Ty Lee to wake up on her own, he just didn't want to wake the girl. And to be honest, in recent days, he hadn't had time to just stop and rest. This week was a real horror for his nerves.

First there was an abduction by the Spirit, due to which he was stuck in another world. The only good thing that came out of it was a conversation with Iroh. Then there was a long hike through the thicket of the forest, and Michael still wasn't sure if those animals were Spirits.

Spirits don't leave anything after their death, when those animals that he ate had flesh and bones. In the end, he decided that these were normal animals that slipped into the Spirit World through cracks in reality.

Then there was his swim in the sea. Three days of bright sunshine and water. So much water. And, of course, the island of the Air Spirits, how can he forget about the Air Spirits? It was they who told him about his new enemy, whom they were afraid to call by name. 'This is even worse than Voldemort. There it was a Taboo that caused fear, but here it's just pure fear. It's like the gods of this world just didn't have the imagination and stole the plot point from Harry Potter.'

The girl in his arms began to wake up and yawned loudly. Ty Lee also felt better than a couple of hours ago, but her thirst was simply killing her. Michael also had a hard time, but he had long been accustomed to the sensations of a hangover, so he could endure much longer.

"Water." Was the first thing she said. Ty Lee sat up on the hammock and slipped out of Michael's arms, he groaned, already feeling colder.

With a wave of his hand, water from the air gathered into a small ball that hovered in front of Ty Lee's mouth. She stupidly looked at him for a couple of seconds, but decided to roll with it and drank it greedily. Michael also got up and sat opposite the girl, moving carefully so as not to overturn the hammock.

Ty Lee smacked his lips a couple of times. "So... I was cuddling with a Waterbender." She paused, as if thinking about her own words. "Yep, that's on the list of things I didn't expect to do this week."

Michael winced. "Not sure if I'm a Waterbender." He created a ball of water for himself and swallowed it down. Seeing the unspoken question in Ty Lee's eyes, he decided to answer. "I was born outside of Tribes at the South or North Pole and trained without a master. And there are a couple of other signs that I'm definitely unique."

He did not know why he was telling this to a girl who might have to betray him and start hunting for the Avatar. The words poured out of his mouth and he didn't even think about the consequences.

"Huh. You know, I've never seen anyone talk about their uniqueness with such a sour face." Ty Lee said with a smile.

Michael laughed but said nothing. He knew that being unique isn't always a good thing. As the first Dual Bender, every country will try to get him one way or the other. First the army, because of his powers, then the scientists, because of his elements.

"Can you get down from here on your own?" He finally asked. "I'll untie the hammocks and throw them down. Oh, and take my bag with you, but try not to wake the fox."

Ty Lee nodded and climbed onto the nearest branch. She crept up to the second hammock and opened Michael's bag to take another look at the fox, but to her surprise, it wasn't there.

"Um... Mic? The fox is gone." Michael looked in her direction and Ty Lee showed him the open bag. Everything was in place, but on top of everything there was now a leather-bound book.

Michael balanced, as if was struck by lightning. 'This was no ordinary fox. It was one of the foxes in the Great Library! Mother of honor, how did it end up in my bag?!'

The foxes from the Great Library were not ordinary animals, whoever thought otherwise. They were little helpers for one huge misanthropic owl who adored new knowledge. While their master maintained the library, the Foxes traveled the world and exchanged knowledge with people.

The fact that Michael, a man, hated by the world itself, was visited by such an animal and left him a book for free was suspicious. Very suspicious. But Michael decided to leave this problem for later, because the owl fuck wouldn't be able to get him here.

"Okay, it probably woke up before us and left on its own." Michael guessed and also stepped onto the branch. "Then just toss the bag to me and help me untie the hammocks, it'll be faster."

"Oki-doki!" Michael didn't know where Ty Lee got her energy from, but he suspected that he would have to sacrifice someone to be as upbeat.

Together they packed up the hammocks and went down to the shallows. Michael decided to find the city first and went towards the river, knowing that sooner or later there would be people next to the river. They walked slowly and chatted about nothing. Ty Lee talked about the jokes that she did in the circus, and Michael in response gave her advice on how to improve some of her pranks.

When they reached the river, Michael was surprised to see a completely different forest on the other side. And this forest was familiar to both of them.

"Well then. We're not far from the city." He felt Ty Lee tug on his sleeve and looked at her. The girl only pointed towards the city with an expression of horror on her face. Huge black clouds of smoke rose above it. Something was on fire and that was bad news.