1st entry, Spring
What am I doing here?
I've been tossed into a cold iron room at the bottom of the steamer while we make our way down river, but that isn't what makes me uncomfortable. Firstly, Samaset, the foreign affairs representative from the Northern Water Tribe, has left his smelly white leopard-hare down here in a corner to room with me, as he tends to be a menace to the control-operators above. He is, however, no less a threat to me, and even now I've barricaded my position on my cot and pillow by arranging my bags in an arch before me, like a salt ring against witches. Luckily the stupid animal has grown lethargic in the increasing temperature of the swamp, and he hasn't dug his teeth into my leg for a few hours, now. But no, that still isn't the worst worry on my mind.
What am I doing here, in the presence of this hunting company, this group of officials to whom I have so little relation? Why has father sent me with this notebook and my pens? I mean, I have been training under General Delun, who is above deck representing our Earth Kingdom, so I suppose that a separation between us was unadvised, but I can do nothing other than write and write and write in this silly brown book. Is this supposed to culture me? Am I supposed to be worldly after this? I, who have only just finished my university education? I am still a young man, and intellectually I feel that I bear no more weight than a child.
Next to me is a little card that I am to present to shippers in order that my reports arrive home free of charge. What am I supposed to say? Honestly I've been growing doubtful; the Avatar should have been found only a few years after Avatar Aang died, but almost seventeen years have passed with no sign. There have been countless expeditions to the Water Tribes in search of the waterbending Avatar, but none have been successful. Not one infant has chosen the toys of the Avatar child, no toddler has exhibited an exceptional skill. There have been searches of every young member of the Water Tribes under the age of sixteen, everyone born after the year of Avatar Aang's passing. Again, none appeared.
So when a Fire Nation intellectual, a woman aboard named Kanta, began researching texts on the Earth Kingdom sub-states, no one really cared. Until she came across a peculiar history regarding a region called the Foggy Swamp, where the Avatar himself had cooperated with a hidden village of waterbenders to defeat the Fire Lord so many years ago. Waterbenders being born and dying in the Earth Kingdom. Kanta's hypothesis spread until this exposition was paid for at last, and now my father, the chancellor of the Earth Kingdom under the King, has sent me to record the progress and bring a special honor to my country. If an Avatar is found in these swamps, that is.
No one has any further theories beyond this location. The swamp people have developed under the leadership of Avatar Aang since their discovery, but they are still hundreds of years behind the technology of our present world. Searching through their ranks will be difficult, but Kanta is certain of success.
The next Avatar will be a waterbender born sixteen years ago in the swamps of the Earth Kingdom.