The sun stood at its peak, indicating that the time was around noon when I had finished his breakfast and his morning training routine. I've been keeping time rather loosely, and at this point, it's more of a guess when I say it's been around six months since I was dropped into this place. The best indicator of this was the length of my hair, which was beginning to get in the way. Instead of cutting it off, I decided to tie as much as possible of it up and hold it in place with waterbending. I tried using ice, but quickly found out how uncomfortable it was, and using water can also serve as a form of training. I think.
Between my new clothes, which are honestly closer to rags, and my hair that is just barely long enough to be mostly tied up, calling me a vagabond has never been more accurate. Luckily there isn't anything around to criticize my appearance, at least as far as I know.
I erase my camp with a quick movement of my hand and soon fall into a boring repetition. It turns out that walking is boring no matter if it is up a mountain or on a straight flatlands.
I had a bad feeling about the mountains when I looked at them from across the lake, but so far, after hours of walking and not encountering something, it turns out to be a lot less exciting than I'd hoped. At least for now, but it being boring won't stop me from being vigilant, and even if there isn't anything here I still need to cross the mountains.
---
"What exactly am I looking at here?"
Lu Ten have been traveling for months at this point and was certainly excited for something new to happen, but having been pulled out from his bed at 4 in the morning had been a less than pleasant experience, and he struggled to keep his voice anything but flat and tired.
"Sir Joru have identified it as a Luminous titan Stingray, normally they dwell deep underwater in the ocean, and don't interact with anything above like our ships, so we don't know very much about them."
"And why isn't he the one making this repo-actually nevermind, he's already over and inspecting that things corpse right?"
Having already gained the answer from his guards' expression, Lu Ten didn't waste any more time and began shouting orders to his men.
"I WANT THAT STINGRAY, AND THE AREA AROUND IT SECURED, THE FASTER THE BETTER, AND SOMEONE SEND WORD TO JORU AND GET HIS ASS TO REPORT DIRECTLY TO ME!"
As his men orderly began fulfilling their orders, Lu Ten couldn't help but pinch the bridge of his nose as he thought of Joru. He'd come along for this journey as an expert on marine life, something very uncommon among the fire nation, and he wasn't very used to protocol.
The man was both loyal and brilliant, but he often let his strange passion take priority over his rational mind, so commanding him was a nightmare. It isn't just once that the entire ship was forced to stop when he issued the order to study one thing or the other.
The time it took for his men to force Joru to make his report, was the same time an early breakfast was ready. Just as Lu Ten had sat down and was about to begin, he was interrupted by the door to his room opening and an unhappy man entering.
"Morning Prince, heard you wanted a report."
Giving the rough-looking man a glare to indicate that he was unhappy about the casual disrespect to his station, Lu Ten answered, having long learned that it was pointless to argue with this man, and they needed his knowledge.
"Joru, give me a quick explanation of the terrain, and a more in-depth explanation of this so-called Luminous Titan Stingray."
"From was I've seen, nothing weird about the terrain besides unusually dry air, haven't found a reason for that one yet."
The implication of that is that either a fire bender or much more likely a very proficient water bender has been active in the area recently. Having spent months with nothing to show for it, Lu Ten felt like they were finally on the right track.
"As for the Stingray, we don't know much about them. The one on shore have been killed recently, by what seems like a group of water benders, though I'm very interested in how they did it. Normally they dwell at least 500 meters below the surface, and it isn't unusual for them to be as far down as a kilometer. The buggers are very strong, the exact numbers are unknown, but they swim very fast when they want to, and their tails can move at supersonic speeds. Their blood is venomous, and the spike-looking things on the tail excrete a very potent neurotoxin. For all intent and purposes, these things are very hard to harm due to how far below water they are, even for waterbenders you'd need to be a master to fight at those depths."
"Any idea why it was here? The lake shouldn't be that deep."
"None, but it hasn't been long since whoever killed it left, heard a team got their boots scared off em from an ice status of a polar bear dog. From what I've heard on the way here, it seems they left toward the mountains."
Letting Joru get back to his passion with a lazy dismissal, Lu Ten called in other members of his crew to lay anchor and organize a search team. It seems they finally had some kind of trail to follow.
---
"I'm beginning to hate spirits, they are experts at taking the fun out of things."
After some days of hiking, I'd finally caught a glimpse of the first summit but as I moved toward it, heavy mist surrounded me before I could make any move to avoid it.
Backtracking and bending didn't help me and led me to the conclusion that the mist has a spiritual origin. Luckily I haven't passed over to the spirit world, since I'm still able to bend though the little amount of water in the surrounding doesn't really make me feel safe.
As backtracking didn't work and no matter which way I go, the ground is even, I ended up just walking in a random direction. Since I was surrounded by mist, it became very hard to tell the time, and senses like hunger and tiredness seem to have been heavily dulled so I force myself to eat even when I feel full. Not becoming sleepy has helped with not falling asleep though, no way I'm sleeping in this suspicious place.
At some point, I discover a clearing, that while surrounded by mist, isn't engulfed in it like the rest of this place. There doesn't seem to be anything in the area, so I end up using it as a resting place because I have a suspicion that while you can't feel your body's needs, they're still there, and I have no idea how long ago it has been since I last slept.
I try to build some fortifications, but end up giving up since there simply isn't enough water. I made sure to always keep a decent amount on me, which I could use to fight, but I don't have enough so I try to hide between my ice cube freezer and a boulder to get some needed sleep.
While falling asleep I saw some strange light flicker around my vision and tried to get up again, but it was already too late and my body forcefully took consciousness from me, with the last thing I saw being a black and white light in the shape of fish.
Being in a dream, and being fully aware it's a dream is a very weird feeling, not bad just weird. My surroundings change to whatever I want, but no matter what I try, I can't seem to forcefully wake myself up.
"The realm of dreams and the spirit world are very similar-"
This is all I manage to hear before I instinctually throw water and ice in the direction of the voice, only to be baffled as it isn't just water being pulled, but it seems the entire world bends to my will and is thrown toward the voice.
Oddly enough that seems to be what I needed to do to wake up, as in the next moment I shoot up from my sleeping place with cold sweat all over me. Looking around I find a middle-aged man in clothes very reminiscent of my own. Clean-shaven face and oddly looking silver eyes aside, the most noticeable thing about him is a missing arm, and tattoos which cover the same places as they would on an Air Nomad but in different twisted and fragmented shapes.
The man looked toward me with a slight frown, and with a single movement of his hand, pushes mist away in all directions. The mist hid away tens of different statues, some of humans, others of spirits, and some even display dragons. The same for all of them is that they all look toward the middle of the clearing, a place the middle-aged man and I find ourselves in.
"Welcome to the hall of eternity little anomaly, I'm Lieben, a former avatar and the current guardian of this place, and I've been tasked by the moon spirit to guide you."
He introduces himself while giving me a feral grin.