Raava was recovering.
Victory always took something from her, even when it was decisive. Light did not emerge from conflict unchanged, no matter how many times it prevailed. I could feel the residual turbulence in her essence—subtle, but present—like ripples lingering long after a stone had sunk beneath still water.
We stood together in a calm region of the Spirit World, far from where her clash with Vaatu had scarred the currents. The light here was gentle, stable, responding softly to her presence rather than reacting to it.
She did not look at me at first.
Neither of us felt the need to rush.
We were not close—not in the way mortals defined closeness—but we were familiar. Ancient. Aware of one another's contours. We had existed alongside each other since near the beginning, shaped by different principles, moving along parallel trajectories.
I was a little older than her.
Not enough to matter.
"You intervened less this time," I observed calmly.
Raava's light pulsed faintly, something that might have been acknowledgment.
"Balance required it," she replied. Her voice was steady, but quieter than usual. "Vaatu overextended."
He always did.
That was his nature.
I nodded slightly, my chosen form still and composed. "He learns slowly."
"Or not at all," Raava said. "Chaos does not value memory."
I allowed myself the faintest smile.
"That," I said, "is why it keeps losing."
We stood in silence for a while longer, watching the Spirit World slowly reassert its equilibrium. Places of instability were already smoothing out. Spirits displaced by the conflict would return, eventually, or be replaced by new ones shaped by the aftermath.
This was how reality healed.
Raava turned toward me then, her attention focused but not intense. There was no suspicion there—only assessment.
"You've been watching humanity," she said.
It was not a question.
"Yes."
"You gave them awareness."
I inclined my head. "Enough to ask questions. Not enough to answer them."
Raava considered that. She always did. She was not impulsive, despite what some spirits believed. Light was not naïve—it was patient.
"They will struggle," she said.
"They were always going to," I replied evenly. "Struggle is how intelligence sharpens. Without it, knowledge stagnates."
She did not disagree.
That alone spoke volumes.
"You remain distant," Raava noted. "Many spirits wish to guide them. Control them."
"I am not a guide," I said. "I am a record. An observer. A correction only when imbalance becomes catastrophic."
Her light brightened slightly—not approval, but recognition.
"You walk a narrow line," she said.
"So do you," I replied. "You simply walk it louder."
That earned me a pause.
Then, something rare.
Amusement.
"You have not changed," Raava said.
"I have," I answered honestly. "Just not in ways that require announcement."
She accepted that.
We were not allies in the way Wan would one day become her partner. We were not opposites like her and Vaatu. We were something subtler—two constants occupying different vectors of the same equation.
Light.
Knowledge.
Balance.
All necessary.
All dangerous when unchecked.
"Vaatu will return," Raava said eventually.
"He always does," I replied. "And when he does, the world will once again require correction."
Her gaze lingered on me for a moment longer than before.
"When that time comes," she said, "will you intervene?"
I thought of my library. Of energybending recorded but unused. Of humanity still scratching symbols into stone, unaware of the forces that would one day revolve around them.
"I will do," I said carefully, "what balance requires."
Raava nodded.
That was enough.
We parted without ceremony—no promises, no oaths. Primordial spirits did not need them. We would exist. We would observe. And when history demanded our presence—
We would act.
Somewhere far below, humanity continued its slow ascent.
And the Avatar's future quietly took shape.