Having grown up in the unforgiving cold of the north pole, the only warmth that Yue had ever gotten to experience on a regular basis is that of the palace. She'd rarely get to spend time in the spirit oasis, and even the healing hut where she learned waterbending up until Zuko's arrival was always cold. Now, the warmth of the early spring sun against her skin, she's quickly falling in love with the earth kingdom's warm climate. Across from her, her husband and Aang are laying inside huge banana tree leaves floating along the river. Iroh is sitting beside her brewing a pot of tea while Katara practices with Zuko going through a new technique called the octopus form.

"Don't you think we should get moving? We told General Fong that we were heading straight to Omashu. King Bumi should be expecting us by now." Yue asks Iroh as he pours her a cup of tea.

"It's important to take a step back and look at the world around you, not dive headlong into your destination. Relaxation is just as important as training, without it the body cannot recover properly and it will cause tension and fatigue." Iroh responds before motioning to the others, "The tea is ready." He says as he lifts the tray of tea cups up so that the others can see it.

"Take a load off Yue, we won't get many more chances for moments like this. Once we get Bumi to join us, Zuko's gotta train night and day to master Earthbending, Waterbending and the rest of Firebending before we have to fight the firenation and we can't do that by ourselves. We need to go to Ba Sing Sei and try to get the earth king's support." Aang suggests before suddenly having to dodge an icicle that was caught by Zuko and thrown back towards Katara.

"Sorry." Zuko apologizes for almost impaling his mentor.

"If we were to infiltrate the firenation capital and defeat Ozai, all the men still loyal to him would still be against us. Even with the avatar, I don't think we'd be capable of defeating legions of highly trained firebenders. We'd need an army, and the perfect moment to strike the heart of the firenation." Iroh responds before seeing Zuko snatch Katara's leg with one of the water tentacles he's manipulating

"I could challenge my father to an Agni Kai, but those only allow for the use of one element." Zuko responds, "But I'm not nearly strong enough to be able to face him one on one like that, plus if I challenge him for the throne he could just refuse."

"Good Job Zuko, you make a pretty good octopus my pupil." Katara praises and also teases the firenation prince slightly

"Sounds like we're between a rock and a hard place." Aang bemoans. "Can't we just talk to him about this?" He asks, showing his childhood naivety.

"He's a genocidal tyrant, and burned his own son just for talking to him." Iroh says coldly, which shoots down Aang's idea. "I wish it were that simple my young friend, but some people just can't be reasoned with."

"So much for relaxing." Sokka says sarcastically, however the strumming of a stringed instrument begins echoing in through the nearby trees. "You guys hear that?"

"Duh Dah duh dah, Duh Dah duh dah, Don't fall in love with a travelin' girl, she'll leave you broke and broken heart-ted." The laid back, slightly stoned sounding voice of a man comes echoing through the trees before he walks through a bush followed by a couple other people all dressed in bright clothes with beads and instruments in their hands. "Woah... river people. Cool." He says as he sees the group.

"We're not river people." Katara says as she rings the water out of her hair.

"What kinda people are you?" The man asks.

"Just... people." Aang responds.

"Aren't we all, brother." The man says as he strums the pipa down each of the strings. "The name's chong, and this is my wife Lily and our friend Moku and we're nomads. Happy to go wherever the wind takes us."

"Hey! I'm a nomad!" Aang says cheerfully as he runs up to the group of musicians.

"Far out," Chong asks as he slings his pipa to his back. "What are you guys doing out here?"

"We're going to Omashu so that the avatar can find an earthbending teacher." Sokka answers before gesturing to Zuko behind him. "He needs to learn earthbending."

"So he's almost got all the elements then? That's wicked." Chong says in his, "What's your name friend?"

"Lee." Zuko responds, resorting to his allious. "Before you ask, yes I'm a firebender." Zuko says before taking a seat beside Appa, and the Nomads congregate around him with Lily and her sister starting to braid Appa's fur with the help of Katara.

"At least you're on our side Mr Avatar." Chong says, before pulling his papi instrument from his back. "If you're headed to Omashu, you're gonna have to travel through the cave of two lovers." He begins to strum alternating notes between low and high. "Two lovers... apart from one another. A war, di-vides their people, a mountain divides them a-part. Build a cave to be together..." He sings before pausing for a moment trying to remember the words to the song. "I don't remember the next lines but it does go... SECRET TUNNEL.... SECRET TUNNEL... THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN... Secret, secret, secret, secret TUNNEL." He declares with a sudden and loud crescendo causing Lily, and Moku to increase their volume to assist in the end of the song.

"That's nice but we can just fly on Appa, besides he hates going underground." Aang says as he throws the shirt portion of his robes over his shoulders then puts on a pair of pants. "What's the worst that could happen?" Aang, you poor naive boy, don't test fate like that because you fly directly into a firenation patrol that launches hundreds of fireballs at you and your gaang.

Fifteen minutes later, Aang, Iroh, Katara, Sokka, Yue and Zuko stumble and trudge their back to the nomads, singed covered in soot and with part of Iroh's beard on fire. "Secret love cave... let's go." Sokka grumbles, raising his hand and pointing in the direction of said cave that the nomads had spoken about when they arrived. Continuing their journey on foot, the gaang and their new nomad companions trek through the wilderness for a few miles before coming to the foot of a mountain. Ahead of them is a massive cave leading into and through the mountain, above it etched into the stone are the kanjis giving the cave its name. "The Cave of Two Lovers." Yue feels a tinge of fear looking into the black cave ahead of them, instinctively grabbing Sokka's hand despite being the stronger of the two.

"Any idea how we're gonna get through this?" Sokka asks, unconsciously intertwining his fingers with Yue's as he turns to address Chong and Lily.

"The lovers created a labyrinth to hide themselves from anyone who'd follow them," Lily begins explaining. "But, according to the legend, all you have to do is trust in love or you'll be cursed to explore the caves forever." This statement causes Sokka and Yue to stop moving as the other nomads walk past them into the cave.

"NNNnnnnnnnrrrrrrrrrr!!!" Sokka growls, clenching his free hand tightly and gesturing wildly with frustration. Beside him, Yue mimics this frustration doing similar gestures at the idea of the curse. "Cursed?! You didn't mention anything about some stupid curse. Great, just great, we're walking into a cursed maze tunnel and we're gonna die." Sokka moans with his usual sarcasm.

"He-hey... I remembered the last bit of the song." Chong suddenly remembers. He walks over to the mouth of the cave and then strums a minor chord and lowers his voice to say, "And Die..."

"Why can't we just fly over this stupid cave?" Zuko asks looking up the mountain, "Or climb it." He suggests, before turning to face the others behind him as he does so he notices something rising high above the valley.

"Because Appa can't handle this many people, and I don't wanna let Chong and his nomads go through this cave alone. If it is cursed they'll need our help to get through it." Aang says but Zuko doesn't respond, instead he follows Zuko's line of sight up to the trail of black smoke rising high into the air. "And that." Aang says, prompting the others to now turn and look at what he's seeing.

"Hey... someones building a campfire." Moku says, pointing at the black smoke rising above the valley.

"That's not a campfire..." Katara says, "Everyone into the tunnel! They followed us!" She shouts, prompting everyone to start running into the cave, Aang pulling hard on Appa's reins to coax the bison to enter the tunnel.

By the time they manage to get into the mouth of the tunnel and begin to fade from the view of the light outside, the firenation tanks get to the cave entrance. None of them can hear what the tank battalion leader says but moments later, the tanks fire their harpoons into the cliff face above the cave before pulling down a massive rockslide burying the entrance to the cave. The rockslide causing the ground around them to shake violently, dust and debris fill the air. Aang taking the opportunity to blow the debris back into the rocks stopping it from enveloping them but the damage was already done. They were buried alive in the labyrinth, and after a few of them cough and sputter from the finer dust that Aang didn't catch with his bending, they see the full scope of the gravity of their situation. "WE'RE GONNA DIE IN HERE!!!" Sokka shouts before being smacked by his sister.

"Sokka you idiot don't start screaming we're gonna die, you'll make everyone else panic." SHe scolds before turning to face Zuko. "Besides, Zuko knows a bit of earthbending, he can make us a way out through the rubble."

"We can't go back that way Katara, they'll be waiting for us, and we were already going to go through the cave to get to Omashu." Zuko responds before igniting a small flame to hold in his hand so that they have light. "Uncle and I can create light for a while, but we can't hold it forever."

"We do have torches, and each of them last for two hours so with all six of them we have," Lily says before striking all six torches simultaneously on the stony floor of the cave. "Twelve hours."

"It doesn't work like that if they're all lit at the same time!" Sokka shouts before stealing the torches from her, throwing them on the ground and stamping out the flames.

"Oh..." She whines in embarrassment, now understanding what Sokka had ment.

"I'm going to start making a map as we walk through this, then we solve it like a maze and we make our way out." Sokka says as he goes into his bag of cartography supplies to grab some blank parchment and a charcoal pencil. "Katara, Lee, Yue, I need you guys to mark the rocks every few dozen yards or so. We need to stop from getting turned around."

"Whatever you say." Zuko responds, pulling a bit of water from his waterskin and striking the stone floor with a large X shape to mark their starting point. "You want to take point first, holding the light or do you want me to?" Zuko asks Iroh.

"For right now, I'll hold it." Iroh responds before lifting a hand and creating a flame in his palm.

Hours and hours pass slowly as the gaang makes their way through the tunnel system beneath the mountain, and as time passes it's starting to become clear that the curse may be real. As they continue further and further into the tunnels, Iroh switches hands to hold the flame after a couple hours pass as his arm begins to get tired. Yue sticks close to Sokka as he continues to chart their path but she notices something alarming as they continue through the caves. "Stop." Zuko says suddenly at the front of the group, ahead of him is one of the marks that Katara had put down at a dead end they came across earlier. "We've double backed." He says catching the attention of Sokka. "Wait what?! That's impossible, I've been tracking where we're going." He says before pointing to a spot on his map.

"The mark is right here Sokka, we've either gotten turned around or we've been going in circles." Zuko responds, "Are you sure that the map is correct?"

"Yeah... I've tracked every way we've gone and all the forks in the road." He says before turning around and seeing three tunnel entrances behind him. "That doesn't make any sense. When we went through here earlier it was a single route for almost a mile."

"How are there three tunnels then?" Chong asks, pointing to each entrance.

"There's only one explanation..." Sokka trails off before turning to face the others with a serious expression on his face. "The tunnels are changing." This statement from Sokka causes their blood to run cold.

"WHAT?!" Everyone shouts when hearing this statement, and it causes Chong, Moku, Lily and the other nomads to begin to panic.

"Oh no... the tunnels are changing, we're cursed! We didn't trust in love and we're doomed to wander here forever!" Chong's panicked shouts echo off the cave walls.

"Calm down!" Iroh shouts, alerting everyone to his booming voice. "Panic leads to death, we need to keep our heads in this situation. My nephew knows a bit of earthbending, but we need to find a place where it won't cave in when he does it. " Iroh's words calm the group, as a lull of silence washes over them Momo's ears perk up causing the lemur to quickly dart to Zuko's back for safety.

Suddenly from within the darkness of the tunnels the group hears snarling at the flapping of wings headed straight towards them. Zuko creates a flame in his palm in order to illuminate further down the tunnels trying to see what's coming towards them. From the darkness he sees a pair of glowing green eyes heading towards them getting bigger and bigger before it comes into view. A singular wolf bat comes flying towards them snarling as it swoops down over Zuko. Reacting instinctively, he punches a fireball towards the beast trying to get it to run away but he isn't looking where he's aiming. The flames hit the roof above Appa causing embers to begin to float down on the sky bison startling him. The sky bison bellows in fear of the flames before bounding around adding to the chaos. He strikes the edges of the three tunnels causing the roof above them to start caving in. Left with mere seconds before the rocks bury them all, Zuko pulls his arms inwards then thrusts them out in both directions creating a massive gail towards the nomads and his allies. Aang and Katara end up getting pushed opposite of where Sokka, Yue, Iroh and the rest of the nomads had gone; luckily for them the two end up with two torches, one partially burned through. Zuko himself is almost buried under the rocks but manages to jump backwards out of the way as the cave in occurs.

Zuko finds himself in pitch blackness as the dust from the cave in begins to clear, coughing heavily before lifting a hand and swiping away all the dust with his airbending. As he wipes his mouth of the spittle that he coughed up he notices something strange in the darkness. Above him thousands of glowing gemstones embedded in the roof begin putting off enough light to see. Turning back towards the fallen rocks from the cave in, Zuko tries to shove them backwards using a bit of what Dong Jou had taught him. Shoving both arms forwards he tries to clear the rubble left by the cave in, more rocks fall from the ceiling giving Zuko a clear warning. However the rubble is laced with the glowing gemstones from the ceiling, and who is he to not grab some of those crystals? He grabs the empty coin purse from his hip and fills it to the brim with the glowing crystals before attaching it to his waist. "Might be worth a decent amount of money." He thinks before beginning to make his journey through the ancient cave system.

"Oh! Don't let the cave-in get you down... don't let the falling rocks turn your smile into a frown." Chong's jovial voice and song echoes off the cave walls as Sokka trudges forwards ahead of the group trying partially to escape their singing. Despite him being annoyed by the nomads, Yue and Iroh are both happily taking part in the festivities at the moment with Iroh even playing his tsungi horn which somehow ended up with them after the cave in. "When the tunnels are darkest that's when you need a clown, Hey!" Sokka cringes when Chong shouts beside him. "Don't let the cave-in get you down, Sokka!" Chong sings, continuing to hold out the note ending Sokka's name.

"Sokka, you need to relax. You're only going to tire yourself out." Yue's calming voice soothes Sokka's temper causing him to take a deep breath then stop his fast paced walk through the caves. "We need to make the best of a bad situation, just breathe and try to relax. Zuko will get us out of here, he has some earthbending and it should be enough to find us."

"I guess you're right." Sokka relents. "I just wish they would stop singing. I have a headache." He complains prompting Yue to pull his head into her chest and kiss the top of his forehead.

"Guys, can you all stop singing for a while please? Sokka is starting to feel unwell from all the noise." Yue asks, and almost immediately the singing stops. "All you had to do is ask nicely." Yue says with a voice as gentle as a snowflake. Sokka smiles softly from the affection before feeling water cover the side of his head as she begins healing his headache with her bending.

With the absence of the sun, Zuko has no way to tell just how much time has passed since the cave in. From his best guess it was probable an hour ago by this point, but for all he knows it could have only been five minutes. He does know that at the very least time has passed slightly since he's beginning to feel hungry, something that up until recently, was a feeling he rarely ever experienced growing up in the firenation palace. As he continues to walk alone through the cave, in the far distance, he sees the slight orange glow of a torch. Seeing this, Zuko starts running full speed through the caves trying to catch up with whoever is there. As he sprints down the cave the orange light from what he assumes is a torch begins to dim causing him to sprint faster down the cave towards whoever it is. The light goes out leaving him in pitch blackness once again, but after a few moments in the dark the crystals begin glowing again and Zuko is greeted with a sight he definitely isn't expecting causing his jaw to drop to the floor. At the exit of what looks to be a tomb, Aang and Katara are kissing each other in the dark, unaware of his presence until he speaks up.

"Uhhhhhhh..." The noise escapes Zuko's mouth startling the two causing Katara to separate from the kiss leaving Aang slightly confused and also saddened at her breaking off the kiss so soon. "I... I should go." Zuko says before turning and walking back into the darkness to try to avoid the awkwardness.

"Wait! Zuko! Come back! We need to get out of here!" Katara shouts, calling after him and running up to where Zuko had gone off to.

"No no. I'm gonna stay in the cave. You guys can kiss over there let me know when you're done." He says before he's suddenly frozen in place by Katara stopping his movement. "I hope you're not going to subject me to more PDA are you?"

"Katara! Look, the crystals are leading the path!" Aang calls out, after regaining his composure and running up to the two.

"I followed them here to you guys." Zuko responds, "I grabbed a bunch from the cave in, too. They might be valuable." He says before the ice around him melts. "Let's just keep following them and we should find the way out." Zuko says before walking off in the direction of the glowing crystals.

Following the crystals through the cave system, it isn't long until they finally see the light of day once again off in the distance. With hope reignited the trio runs towards the light and into the daylight after what felt like hours of aimless wandering. Once outside, Zuko runs up to the edge of the cliff face feeling the sun on his skin once again. The warmth of the afternoon sun fueling his inner flame once more he feels alive after their experience in the cave. "How are we gonna find the others?" Aang asks, and as if on queue two massive tunnels near the exit to the cave break away revealing a pair of giant badger moles with the nomads, Sokka, Yue and Iroh all in tow. "Sokka!" Katara shouts as she runs up to her brother after he gets off the badger mole, embracing him.

"How did you manage to find your way out?" Sokka asks returning his sister's hug.

"We let love lead the way." Aang responds.

"Glowing rocks." Zuko answers bluntly before showing the bag full of gems that he collected.

"Really? We let giant beasts lead our way." Sokka responds before helping Yue off the back of the badger mole.

"Are you guys gonna come with us to Omashu?" Aang asks, as he walks over to Chong and the nomads.

"No."

"Ok."

"Now, without further adieu... I present to you the earth kingdom city of Oh..." Sokka begins a grand introduction as he walks Yue up the side of a hill just after the exit of the cave. However the sight in front of him causes his voice to trail off as he sees it. Beside him Yue gasps in horror seeing what's across the ravine. "Oh no..." He says as the others make their way up the hill. In the distance, the once magnificent city of Omashu now bears the insignia of the firenation displayed over the front entrance with black plumes of smoke signifying the city's occupation by the firenation.