Title: 'Til They Are Seasoned
Summary: Jinora had been told that she may face spirits and powers beyond all her thoughts and meditations, but she'd never imagined this.
Genre: General
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,000
Spoilers: for information regarding Jinora released at SDCC 2013

'Til They Are Seasoned

"You there!"

Jinora spins. The library is silent, of course, but she'd definitely heard something, and it was definitely a voice, and it was definitely male. And definitely not Korra.

Her grandparents hadn't mentioned any spirits beyond Wan Shi Tong living in the library, unless one counted the Knowledge-Seekers – but she hadn't seen hide nor hair of them either. Which was weird, wasn't it, because weren't you meant to announce yourself when you entered a spirit's domain? She'd heard the legends, of course, that the great owl spirit wouldn't allow entry to humans unless a tribute was paid, but he hadn't appeared to welcome her. And when she'd woken up on that huge stone bridge inside a library that stretched miles below, into the belly of the earth - woken up without Korra or her father, wondering if they'd made it through, panicking that she'd done something wrong and ended up in the spirit world alone –

"Miss!"

She starts, jerking around again. Definitely a man. Definitely coming from the row of bookshelves on her left.

Jinora peers down the aisle; it's as quiet as its neighbors, stuffed to the brim with tomes and scrolls. She takes two gentle steps inside, scanning the rows of books, and –

The airbending sigil. Her curiosity for the man's voice evaporates the moment she sees the small insignia of her people, faded from disuse and barely recognizable on the clasp of a large copper book, a few inches above her eye's level. The cover had turned rusty with time, but the information must surely be just as priceless, so she struggles to heave it down, pulling several scrolls that she also recognizes with the three tiny spirals on their handles. These are – she's holding – these are –

And then she sees it – him – and she drops the scrolls, stumbling back and gasping as the parchment rolls clatter to the floor and roll away. The sounds echo throughout the halls.

"Little girl!" the face inside the wood says, "Don't be alarmed! May I ask you a few questions?"

Two tiny oval holes with crinkles around the edges (Eyes, she realizes, eyes!) are pointed, if she wouldn't know any better, firmly in her direction. And that – the line below, it could be a mouth, those could be lips, and a nose, and that could be, indeed, the bumps and shapes of a face and shoulders, of possibly a whole man merged inside the bookcase.

Is this – is this Wan Shi Tong, the spirit of the library? This spirit (this man) who lives in the structure of bookcase, whose eyes and features she hadn't been able to see without first removing the books from their shelf – is he the one she's meant to offer knowledge to?

No, she realizes, the guardian of the library is definitely an owl, definitely a spirit. Not a…

"Your clothing," the bookcase says, and yes, its "mouth" is opening, and closing, and sound is coming out, "where on earth did you acquire it, child?"

She almost yelps when a large branch of wood cracks from the bookcase, splitting like a bolt of lightening has struck its core, and it reaches toward her to brush against her shawl, like an sea creature's tendril. (Like an arm, she thinks wildly, but pushes that thought away, because no, that's not possible – )

"The… acolytes who live with me made them, as instructed by my grandfather," she replies, and her voice doesn't waver because that's how her parents raised her, to be polite, even when one is conversing with a being who has fused with the wood of a bookcase.

"Your grandfather? What is your name, dear?"

"Jinora… sir. Pleased to meet you."

"Not as pleased as I am to meet you, Jinora," the bookcase says, and the branches are growing further – another arm snaps out from the bookcase, creeps up the aisle, and picks up a book from a shelf seven rows above it, flipping through pages. "Am I correct in guessing your attire means you are a descendant of the Air Nomads?"

"Ah – erm," she says, "yes, sir – "

"Wonderful," he breathes. "My word. Dear girl, do you know how long I've searched for one such as yourself?"

"No," she says, because she isn't sure what else to say, and it sounds politer than Sir, did you know – your body's become a part of the library.

Korra and her father had mentioned she may face spirits and powers beyond all her thoughts and meditations, but she'd never expected…

"It says here," the face says, eyes now fixed on the book the branch had brought down for him, "it says here that the Air Nomads had no military forces whatsoever – no battlements, no weapons in case of an attack – and such unpreparedness is what led to their quick downfall in the war. A severe miscalculation on their part, if you ask me, but clearly they're capable of surviving even that if a young airbender is now browsing this library so freely! Shame, you show no sign of the blue tattoos… it is said the Avatar from the Air Nomads would have already mastered airbending by the time he returns to end the war…"

Jinora feels pinpricks of unease tingling in the back of her mind. "Sir – who are you?"

"Oh excuse me, Jinora, my name is Zei," the face tells her, and its eyes settle back onto her again, dark and alien, animal-like. "Head of the Anthropology Department at Ba Sing Se University. It's a real privilege to meet you, it truly is."

Except Ba Sing Se University was destroyed in Princess Azula's reign, immediately following the coup that led to the fall of the Earth Kingdom during the Hundred-Year War. Ba Sing Se University was demolished. Ba Sing Se University hasn't had an anthropology department – much less a campus, much less students and books and professors – in over seventy years.

"S – Professor Zei," she says, because she must be polite, and suddenly the airbending tome she's holding feels its weight, and she puts it carefully down on the ground to rest her arms because putting it back over his face would seem rude, "I really must speak with the owl spirit. Could you please – um – point me in his direction?"

"Oh, the bird? He's probably flapping around the seventeenth level huffing at the foxes," Zei says, eyes still on the book, and it's clearl she's lost his attention. The branches begin to snap back to the bookcase, fitting into place like a well-oiled machine, and roots slither across her feet, picking up the airbending scrolls she'd dropped and returning them to their proper place.

"Right, I… thank you," Jinora says, stumbling back. She leaves him there and hurries to the end of the aisle and back into the main chamber, suddenly desperate to escape his company and leave these books behind, to find Wan Shi Tong, to find Korra, to go back home –

"Fascinating," she hears him repeat to himself, the echo in the quiet library, the only voice for miles around. Without looking back she can still imagine him gone again, lost to the pages as the bookshelf's wood curls up his face and pushes him further into the library and its tomes, back into the knowledge itself. "Fascinating…"