Author's Notes: This story is getting some work done, this is for personal taste but any insight into the story in the form of a review would still be much appreciated. I'm updating all chapters right now but I'd still appreciate knowing what you think. I mean it about teh updating thing. he complete revision will be up within five minutes of me posting this.
An Ember Amongst Shadow
Pathetic: Coron's whole world seemed to be summed up in that one word. Everything that made his world pathetic began and ended with the Spirit Doctor. The fact that he was bad natured and unnecessarily mean to Coron and all around ill natured, his parent's ignorance to his true nature, and Coron's loss of speech (which he was pretty sure was also the Spirit Doctor's fault, even if he couldn't prove it.), and his failing health which is what brought the evil man into his home in the first place. Even now he could hear him telling his parents that he wouldn't last the night and the best thing he could do for him was give him a sedative to ease his passing. Ha! What a load of... well, he was probably right actually.
Coron had fallen sick a month and a half ago and it had all gone downhill from there. He had been sent home from school with a record breaking fever and his parents had immediately called the local doctor who had told them he had never seen anything like it before and that he couldn't help them. They had then called in the scum from a pig's hoof, or as he was known to the rest of the world, the Spirit Doctor from the newly formed Health Ministry of Ba-Sing-Se. The only reason they could afford to bring in a specialist was because of whom Coron's parents are. His mother ran the Am-Tim Day Spa which was known throughout the country. His father ran the Ba-Sing-Se zoo which was always packed because of his nation famous Jack-a-Roo shows. Suffice to say money wasn't an issue for them so long as they didn't become exorbitant.
Coron had just disliked the spirit doctor when he first came in. He had only started to hate his guts after he had first tasted the medicine he gave him. In Coron's opinion it tasted like all the sewage in Omashu compressed down into a little glass. The first time he had tried to take it he had switched to a one track mind that said 'get this stuff out of your mouth!' At that point the medicine was still a ways from his throat so he spit it back out and hit the spirit doctor full in the face with it. Although the spitting was unintentional Coron now wished it wasn't.
A little later he tried to ask if the spirit doctor could make the sewage taste any better to which he caught the spittle spraying response, "No, you ungrateful little maggot!" Next he had tried to improve the taste by going through his parents which got the same result. He resigned himself to the fact he would be taking the foul tasting crap until he died, which at the rate he was going it wouldn't be very long. He couldn't figure out if that was bad or not. Coron finely settled on the routine of trying to dim down the medicines earthy flavours of various manures by shutting off as many of his senses as he could. He closed his eyes, plugged his nose and launched the crud to the back of his throat like he was in a drinking contest. Not that he normally participated in that sort of thing; he was only eight. At any rate, the fact that he was getting a sedative tonight could only mean that it would taste better than the regular medicine. As it turned out, he was wrong again and it tasted even worse. The sedative added yet another question to his growing list: what would make him go unconscious, the drug or the taste?
Within seconds of that Coron began to feel sleepy and he nodded off immediately. He realized as he was closing his eyes that he was probably going to die and for a reason that escaped him, that didn't bother him at all. As soon as his eyes closed they snapped open. His brain was moving sluggishly so it told him he was trying to stay awake. About a second after that he realized this wasn't possible because it felt like he had coffee in his veins. Soon after that he realized he actually had the strength to use that energy. Happiness surged up in him like bile sometimes did after he took his medicine. Using every grain of will power in his body he didn't jump out of bed and sprint around his room to flaunt his new health in the spirit doctor's face. The question of why he suddenly felt better never crossed his mind either. What did pop into his head was an act that was both childish and inane.
He sat bolt upright in his bed and began, "You call that a sedative!? More like über coffee with a pound of sugar thrown in for an extra KICK!! One problem with that though: there's no way it could be, because it tasted like something toxic sludge wouldn't go near!! What's in it, extract of YOU!!"
He then turned on his parents so he could tell them that this guy was by far the worst thing they had ever put in his life, worse than Aunt Mwu's 'hello' pinches that left blood blisters, but before he could his mom said something that threw him completely off his game, "He looks so peaceful when he's sleeping." When Coron heard that he simply stopped and stared. He waved his hand in front of their faces which produced no reaction what so ever and he thought to himself 'nothing?' It took a minute for him to actually realize what he meant when he thought that (wrap your mind around that one). What he was thinking was that his hand had turned see through and was tinted blue. The realization hit him like a physical blow and he stumbled backwards and looked down to see another , more solid him laying in bed with his translucent leg going through a head that looked far more solid.
That was the last straw for his sanity and it went on vacation. Coron dashed straight through his bedroom wall and out onto the field behind his house where he could see the great walls of Ba-Sing–Se rising up in the distance. His sanity was still on vacation because standing by the road that led to his house stood a penguin-seal. His sanity got tired of the chaos all around it and came back. As his mind started processing things the factual part started up first: penguin-seals live at the poles. His next thought was that he must be dead. Coron was again astounded by the fact that this didn't bother him at all and it sent a trickle of pride through him. Coron sat down on the ground and began to ask himself questions, very few of which he was able to answer: If I can walk through walls then why am I not falling through the ground right now, is this the afterlife, why is there a penguin-seal here, am I supposed to do something, etc. The answers that came back were mostly 'not a clue' or 'I don't know'. The intelligible answers left him with a list of options: haunt the spirit doctor, travel the world, or try to find out more about what the heck is going on.
He would have gone on contemplating all this if the penguin-seal hadn't waddled up right in front of him and bopped him with its head. Immediately, his vision shot down to a narrow point with darkness all around him, then the narrow point at the end of his tunnel vision started to radiate colour and he noticed he had the sensation he was falling. The point at the end of his vision started to expand back to normal, and when it was he was launched through the bottom of a lake kicking screaming 50 feet into the air.
As he reached the top of his fall he hung motionless in the air for a second and saw that a tree was right in front of him. He reached out and grabbed a branch to stop a downward descent. It broke and he continued to fall. Three branches later and he was successfully hanging about ten feet off the ground. As he hung limply from the branch he began to take in his surroundings. He was in a bog now with giant trees, like the one he was hanging from jutted out of the ground were in wasn't wet, which wasn't often. Where there was water, rocks came out of the water and they looked like they were perfect for stepping stones, some were even big lay down on. The bog wasn't a huge place either, if you looked to the horizons you could see it got dryer and the root systems of the trees began to shoot up to form an intricate web that could probably be used as a walk way if you were careful about it so you didn't break your ankles. The trees formed a canopy father up, which billowed across like it was made of balloons. Satisfied with his reconnoitring Coron began to swing so he could land on a large rock a short distance from him.
The branch he was on didn't like that and decided to go into the trunk. As Coron fell he managed to twist his body and grab another branch and swing again so he wouldn't land in the water. This would have worked except that when he let go his foot hit another branch that tipped him forward.
He still partially missed the water with his front half landing in the soft mud around the base of the tree and his legs landing in the water. He began to try and ease himself out because his feet had become stuck in the mud under the water. With a loud squelch they came out and he noticed that he had his regular shoes on his feet despite not wearing them when he died. Coron slowly got to his feet and started wiping the mud from himself and caught sight of his reflection in the water. This gave a mixed feeling of relief and disdain.
He hadn't seen himself since he had been sick and his appearance shocked him a little. He was pale now because he hadn't been out of bed for a month and a half. His hair had also grown longer and now ended slightly lower than his shoulders. He silently cursed himself for having such fast growing hair; he looked like a girl! The rest of him had remained the same though and made him feel all right. He still had the sturdy looking shoulders, his dark green eyes, and rounded nose. As he continued to inspect his body for deficiencies the water around his reflection began to ripple. By the time the water was calm again there was a completely different reflection where Coron's had been. In response to this Coron had climbed four feet up the nearest tree.
As he looked down he saw someone who was a foot and a half taller than Coron which was saying something, or so Coron thought, he was tall for his age! The reflection also had eyes that shifted from blue to green with the light and jet black hair that ended in a ragged line around his shoulders. This new reflection confused Coron because he didn't have the rugged look most farmers had and didn't where the fancy clothes that man of the court wore. The answer hit him suddenly and he became a little mad at himself for not realizing it sooner. The man was from the Water Tribes. What had actually tipped Coron off was all the blue the man was wearing. He was wearing blue pants and vest. The vest was rimmed with white fur that had become matted in places. The vest was held together with bone buttons in the shape of runes that must have some significance, but it escaped Coron. He was also wearing a black shirt under the vest. The water began to ripple again which prompted Coron to climb to six feet. The rippling became more and more intense and suddenly the water erupted from the bog by which point Coron was eight feet up the tree. Moments later the jet of water stood still like a picture of a fountain. Coron decided that as an extra precaution he would move to ten feet above this strange acting water.
He took his attention off the water for a moment so that he could plot out an escape route should the branch he was now sitting on decide that the trunk was cosier like the one before had. Normally he'd have been curious about why the branches moved and the numerous other oddities that had occurred, but he thought it'd be better to react to things and not think until he could ask questions. When he had mapped out his escape route he looked back down where the dysfunctional water was and where the water had been the reflection now stood in full three dimensional glory!
The man looked up at Coron and questioned him with a rough voice, "Coron Am-Tim, do you know why you're here?"
"I'm here because I died, and-hey wait! How do you know my name?"
"Come down and I'll tell you. I prefer conversation to shouting!" The man continued in a rather bothered voice.
"No way! If there is one thing I know about this place it's that it's weird. The trees hate me and you took over my reflection. For all I know you want to replace me by sending me down into the water forever! Besides, you can't get me down from here any way!" The man took in Coron's last response and his face suddenly changed into a playful one that scared Coron a little. The man snapped his fingers and Coron felt the branch shift. Before he even started to snap Coron was moving. He felt the branch start to retreat into the tree and he jumped and swung off another branch and continued to do so until he was on the opposite side of the tree and another six feet up. Again, his ability to do this escaped him, but he was grateful it was possible. When he went to jump to another tree and make good his getaway another branch blazed down from out of nowhere and smashed him downwards. As he plummeted he couldn't help but feel angered by the fact that he was going to die twice in one day. The only thing that stopped him from unleashing his awesome arsenal of eight year old profanities (mostly bathroom based) on the world was that the root systems of the surrounding trees had risen up to form a safety net over the ground so his death wouldn't be because of his horrible luck. When he landed he used the roots as a spring and bounced off of them, all the while getting ready to make a run for it. He never got the chance though because as he got off the root system and turned to run he bumped into the reflection and fell back onto them.
The man bowed then seemed to address thin air, "Thank you Gredeer, even more so if you could keep him here a little longer." At that, the root system rose up around Coron and formed a hanging net with his head poking through a hole in the bottom. Coron began trying to set himself free by wiggling around in the roots to try and loosen them enough for him to slip through. This backfired however because the roots were obviously not going to move and he was left swinging between the trees like a piñata.
The man simply stood in front and addressed Coron this time instead of the air, "If you would please...No actually carry on, you look absolutely hilarious!" Coron stopped wriggling around in his vane grab for freedom and stared at that man that was now having quite a laugh at Coron's situation. Although Coron really didn't want to talk to his captor he knew he would now have no hope of escaping if he didn't and that if he was ever going to get out of this root net he was going to have to do it by talking. He also decided that he would have to convince this tree bender to let him down instead of trying to tell the trees to let him go like his captor did.
"When you're done laughing could you let me down? I don't think I can get away with you bending the roots around here."
The man stopped laughing and looked at Coron sceptically and replied, "Okay, but before I do I have a question, and a fact for you." He paused and looked at Coron for an answer, realized he didn't need one and continued, "First, the fact: I'm not making these trees move, I'm asking them to move. Now the question: Does the name Argent Baguan mean anything to you?"
Coron skimmed through what he remembered from his history lessons until he remembered, "Yeah, he was the last avatar. Didn't like studying him very much, my friends started teasing me because he died on my birthday, said I was bad luck or something." As Coron ended his answer a vague picture drifted into his vision of the last avatar. He narrowed his eyes and stared at his captor as he began to realize who he was. Only his desensitization of what was going on around him stopped this from shocking him.
Instead, he decided this was a good time to start asking questions, "Why do you go to the spirit world when you die?"
Argent's answer was short and blunt, "You don't." His face lost all its joviality and became a mask of deep thought. In the same moment the root system suddenly loosened and Coron fell onto the ground head first.
Maybe it was some part of Argent that needed to fill the awkward silence that came after Coron's fall or something else. In any case Argent continued his answer, "There are only two groups of people to ever be able to go to the spirit world: the Water Tribe Shamans and the avatars. Water Tribe Shamans are a new group and have to train most of their lives before they can make the journey and since you are only a child..." Argent paused to let the implications of his statement sink in. Instead of doing something modest or noble, Coron decided on breaking into the biggest laugh riot ever and rolling around until his sides hurt so much he was crying as well.
Argent gave him a disapproving look and went on to reprimand him, "You know, when I was told I was the avatar, I was shocked into silence not into laughter."
Coron slowly got to his feet, still holding his aching sides and began an explanation, "I can't bend! I've tried but I can't even make a pebble budge! Besides, it doesn't matter because I'm already dead!"
"You're totally wrong. Most kids from the middle class live sheltered lives. Don't ask, I don't know why, I'm no sociologist."
"What's a..."
"Never mind, all I meant was that you were never put into a situation where you could discover your bending. Will power doesn't allow you to bend on its own. Sheer will power is mostly saved for bending metal, if you get that far and I only know of one person who could and that was Toph Bei-Fong! And again: you don't go to the spirit world when you die! When the avatar dies he goes to the spirit world to council the next avatar should he need to. When the new avatar dies the old one moves on to the next life. The mere fact that I'm still here proves you haven't died!"
"So if I'm not dead, couldn't you just teach me how to bend and then send me back?" Who better to teach Coron bending than a past avatar.
"No, unfortunately you can't bend in the spirit world and only you ca..."
"Why did the trees move then?"
"Because I moved them." This statement had not come from Argent, but from behind Coron. As he spun around to see who had that melodious voice he saw something materialize from a tree directly behind him. The smell of pollen accompanied this new being and it made Coron want to sneeze. Although it had the general shape of a human it was obvious it wasn't because it didn't have any lower body and it was floating. She (Coron concluded this since it clearly wasn't male) had a round head that was snow white and in place of eyes it had the center of flowers. In place of ears it had large flower petals with earrings made of small roots. She had a flowing gown made of vermillion coloured leaves with branches coming out which bore a disconcerting resemblance to arms and hands. She floated through the air until it was hovering next to Argent.
"Coron, meet Gredeer, the bog tree spirit."
Gredeer didn't have a mouth but her voice seemed to come from everywhere around you whenever she spoke, "I'm very sorry about the branch to the back, but you caught me off guard when you jumped. Since you're from the Earth Kingdoms I assumed you would go for the ground." Coron's response to Gredeer's appearance was for his mouth to drop open and hang their stupidly until he got his wits about him again. He had just got his wits about him and now this! All it added was more questions.
Argent looked from the recovering Coron to the placid looking Gredeer with a miffed look before continuing, "Now that the introductions are out of the way I'd like to continue. Now then, I can't send you back, only you can do that for yourself or your guide could. Unfortunately your guide is the first thing you meet and that was me and I'm not as strong as a spirit so you're on your own until you learn how to send yourself back." Gredeer rolled her eyes at Argent's unneeded complexity and drifted off back into the tree behind her. She felt mildly sorry for the boy, he was going to be here for awhile.
Oblivious to this Argent went on, "The really unfortunate part is that to go to the spirit world you have to want to. My guess is the only thing that stopped your spirit from being ripped apart on the way here was the avatar spirit. It must be dormant right now because if it wasn't you would have appeared as an orb of light then got your human form back. Instead you had that awkward entrance."
Coron's mind had been burning with a question for a while now and he took advantage of Argent's slight pause to interject, "Why would anyone want me dea-in this state?"
Argent didn't see this as an interruption and his face took on a sincerely sad look as he answered Coron's question, "In my time here I've looked at the loose ends I left back in the mortal world. Assuming I haven't gravely misjudged anything and what I've learned is correct, you being sent to the spirit world wasn't ordered by anyone. You're just another face in the crowd to the group that did this to you. It was probably part of some plan that was laid by the shadow organization known as Fallen Fire. They're the only group with the audacity to try and pull this off. They're primarily based in the Fire Nation and could be part of a larger group for all I know. They're incredibly hard to watch from here for some reason. What I do know is that the organization was formed almost 200 years ago, shortly after Fire Lord Ozai fell. You wouldn't have been taught this in school, but right after the invasion on the day of 'Black Sun', most of the royal family was hunted down and eradicated. The few who survived the purge came together and formed the core of Fallen Fire. They have sway almost everywhere, even in the Water Tribes, and Earth Kingdoms, though it is limited abroad.
"They were small for awhile but their membership started to grow after the Fire Nation had heavy penalties laid on it after the war, even though the populous had been against the monarchy near the end. They had a population limit set on them so they wouldn't have the man power needed to start another war, severe fines for the same reason, and a new government put onto the throne to push a more peaceful view on the populous.
"Fallen Fire's been lazy for awhile now but I've started to see evidence that they've set a large plan into motion. Out of all the smaller ones that have popped up over the past century, they're the only ones I'm keeping tabs on because they really see a bigger picture." A quizzical look from Coron forced him to give another explanation, "Most shadow organizations popped up in the past 75 to 100 years. Shadow organizations started to come about as more fanatically minded people realized that violence could get them what they wanted. Any newer ones don't have enough clout to be any threat to anyone. Fallen Fire probably infiltrated Ba-Sing-Se's health ministry and you had the misfortune of having one of theirs sent to you, though why they would want bodies in that state I don't have a clue at all. It would just be a hollow shell."
Coron couldn't contain another question any longer which was lucky because Argent abated at that very moment, "How do you spy on Fallen Fire?"
This prompted Argent to give an approving grin, "I use my communal animal. Every person has one and the avatars can use theirs to look onto the mortal plain from the spirit world. If we can find yours, you can use it to keep tabs on your body so you'll know where it is when you go back. I think we'll see if it's the shrew worm first." With that he motioned Coron to follow him and they walked to the root system Coron had seen when he was hanging from the tree branch. That seemed eons before this.
As they got closer Gredeer reappeared and guided them to a hole that Coron never would have seen on his own. They walked through the low tunnel deeper and deeper until Argent was crawling and Coron was hunched over so far he looked like a frog. The tunnel abruptly ended and when they walked out Coron saw open sky and plains that ran toward the horizons. He turned around and saw the tunnel they had just come as a little mound on the side of a hill with the roots nowhere in sight.
Coron got a slight case of vertigo for a second and asked more out of awe than curiosity, "Is this place ever normal?"
Argent answered with his second short answer, "What do you think?" while he rolled his eyes.