Juno was not having a great day.
From her position swinging upside-down inside a sticky cocoon of webs, she couldn't help but feel a little sorry for herself. Things hadn't exactly been going her way since she entered the spirit world two days prior, but this was getting ridiculous. Being chased by a flock of human sized vulture-flies and falling face-first into a bog of sticky spirit swamp water wasn't bad enough? Now she had to go and find herself on the wrong side of whatever spider-inspired spirit whose lair she currently found herself in.
All she could remember before waking was cautiously trying to cross a shallow gorge at the edge of the swamp-like territory she had been traveling through. She had been so relieved at finally making it out of there that she must have missed some sign of a trap. The map Wan Shi Tong had been persuaded to give her had a rough outline of the routes she would have to take to get from the hidden spirit-portal on the summit of Mount Mori all the way to Hurosai's lair, but it was trickier than she had anticipated to actually make heads or tails of it. He had warned her that the spirit world was notoriously tricky to navigate and that the landscape changed often to suit the whims of the spirits, but finding a whole swamp smack dab in the middle of what was supposed to be a vast plain was definitely a little more disorienting than she had expected.
The gorge she had to cross had looked innocent enough, and even lined up nicely with a line on the map which gave her a faint hope that she was actually headed in the right direction. Though, in hindsight, the log laying conveniently across it probably should have tipped her off to something suspicious going on. With the way her luck had been going, something as simple as a nice little natural bridge was obviously just an ambush point for some predatory spirit waiting for a witless victim to try and take an easy route across.
Now, swinging upside down in a dark, damp cave with an unknown sticky fluid slowly dripping down the side of her face that she maddeningly couldn't wipe off due to the fact that her arms were currently pinned to her sides, and desperately trying to shake off the groggy after effects of whatever venom she had been injected with, Juno could admit to herself that she was in a bit of a bad mood.
Her only consolation was that she couldn't see a clouded snubbed-nosed leopard-monkey shaped cocoon dangling anywhere within her vantage point. Hopefully that meant that Asa had evaded the spirit which had so easily captured her. She spared a thought to her faithful animal companion and hoped that he would eventually be able to return to the physical world if she wasn't able to get herself free from this. She had been so happy to discover that her best friend would be able to accompany her on this treacherous mission, but now she just hoped that he would have the sense to leave her behind and return to relative safety.
Turning her mind from worry over her dearest friend, Juno tried to look on the bright side. She supposed she should be grateful that whatever spirit that captured her appeared to prefer eating fresh food, otherwise it could have just as easily been her lifeless corpse that dangled in this dark cave as opposed to her alive-and-annoyed self. Though, for some reason, that thought didn't exactly lift her spirits much.
Another thing to appreciate was the fact that no-one she knew was around to see her clumsy blunders as she made her way through the spirit world. Her old spirit guru Pavarti in particular would have despaired at her current struggles. She was the Avatar! The bridge between the spirit world and the physical world! This was supposed to be easy for her!
She could picture the wrinkled prune now, face puckered like she had something smelly stuck under her nose, steely grey eyes twitching in annoyance at Juno's flaws.
Avatar Juno, you must focus your mind! Like a wandering stream, your thoughts flow and curve around every stone and branch, sliding around like a willy-nilly penguin seal pup. You must be like the stone which sits in the river, still and focused. FOCUS!
Ugh, even the Pavarti in her mind was annoying. And anyway, Juno would like to see her do better. It's all well and good to meditate, but where were the lessons in how to deal with spirit spiders and spontaneous bog appearances?
Even worse was that mind-Pavarti had a point. Here she was swinging around in a web-cocoon and all she could do was feel sorry for herself and pointlessly worry. Juno spared a mental grumble for Pavarti being so self-righteous even in the privacy of her own mind, before stopping, closing her eyes, and taking a few deep, centering breaths.
She emptied her mind of worry and fear, and reached for the tranquility the monks had taught her could always be found in her heart in even the most trying times. After a moment, she looked around the cave with new eyes.
It was small and dark, with a smattering of stalagmites and stalactites jutting through the dark stone like the jagged teeth of a giant beast. Nearly every surface of the cave was covered in the same sticky web-substance she found herself encased in, with a few bulbous sacks intermittently scattered around - likely containing the remains of the creature's other victims. The fact that she could see at all was due to a dim bioluminescence emanating from some of the stones around the cave.
Taking a deep breath, Juno crunched her powerful ab muscles and swung her torso up to take a quick look at the web tethering her to the cave ceiling. She only had a brief glimpse before she had to release her muscles and swing back upside down. It seemed whatever toxin she had been injected with was still weakening her body, as well as leaving lingering grogginess. Based on her quick look, the thread didn't seem all that thick, just a single strand securing her to the ceiling.
Maybe the spirit wasn't quite so used to hunting prey from the physical world? It seemed likely based on the fact that she had been able to wake up at all. Perhaps her sticky prison wasn't made to imprison wiggling live victims, relying on the toxin to keep them incompacitated. She could try to swing around enough for the thread to snap, and maybe loosen some of the strands keeping her arms and legs pinned together.
Only one problem, she thought darkly, looking toward the floor, and the jagged stones protruding menacingly upwards. It wouldn't do to free herself from the web cocoon only to be impaled by the stalagmites in the cave. Or was it stalactites? She could never remember which one was which.
Focus. Right, so either it was stay still and wait for the spider-spirit to return and eat her, or take her chances that freeing herself from the web-cocoon would result in her demise from an unlucky fall on the cave floor. No real choice there.
She took a moment to gather her strength and center her thoughts once more before she started to crunch her abs to sway back and forth. Gaining momentum, Juno could feel the strands encasing her pull and tug.
She soon started to tire, and the constant rocking was really turning her stomach. Then, suddenly, she heard it. A low rip followed by a loud snap! And suddenly she was falling. She only had a moment to feel scared and fought the instinct to tense her body for impact when she hit something with her belly, hard. She bounced off, breath knocked right out of her, and tumbled down before finally coming to a stop. Wheezing, she looked up and saw that she had, against almost all odds, just managed to bounce off the side of one of the giant stalagmites and roll one a flat section of the cave floor.
She was freed from the tether to the ceiling, but the effort left her totally bushed, and she was still wrapped tightly in the web cocoon. All the swinging and falling had managed to loosen the webs to a certain extent, but her arms were still stuck to her sides. Teeth gritted, she groaned in frustration.
Then, almost mocking her, Juno heard the sound she had been dreading. The distant clicks of a scuttling insectoid.
She started to panic, wiggling with all her remaining strength in a last ditch effort to loosen her arms. The scuttling stopped, briefly, then started up once again, getting louder, fast!
She was just about to resign herself to becoming bug dinner, when out of the corner of her eye, a faint blur moved in the dim cave.
She probably wouldn't have seen it if she hadn't desperately been looking for it.
"Asa!" She gasped out, relief making her sag. The blur moved quickly to her side, and she felt clever fingers begin to pull and tug at her restraints. Juno renewed her efforts, and together they managed to free her arms.
Not a moment too soon! Juno sat up and was pulling at the strands trapping her legs together when the spider-spirit came into view.
Okay, make that a giant scorpion-spider spirit.
It clacked at her with its giant mandibles and screeched menacingly before quickly launching itself towards her.
Her legs were still stuck together, but all a good bender needs is her arms to fight.
She punched out a few quick fire blasts, blindingly bright in the dark cave. The spirit screeched again, quickly diverting its course to scuttle behind a giant stalagmite. Taking advantage of the momentary reprieve, Juno returned her attention back to her trapped legs, and helped Asa to remove the remaining sticky strands of web.
She was free! Leaping to her feet, she only had a moment to feel elated before she had to quickly jump to the side to dodge a flying strand of web shot from the darkness. She blindly swept her arm in an arc in that direction, releasing a wide fire scythe. She heard another screech, and thrust a burst of air beneath her, launching herself into the air to perch on top of the tallest stalagmite.
Huffing, she glanced quickly around, trying to spy her foe in the dim light. She spared a thought towards Asa, who had still been close by when the scorpion-spider shot out its web. Before she had long to worry, she felt his familiar weight climbing onto the back of her right shoulder.
Back to business. She could still hear the beast scuttling and screeching on the cave floor, but the sound was echoing around the cave, making it hard to pin down. She closed her eyes, took a steadying breath, and reached out with her earthbending sense.
The eight-legged spirit was close, a stone's throw away to her right, its scuttling sending staccato tremors through her awareness. Just as Juno tensed to leap towards it and end this, she felt something else on the edges of her awareness, a wave of footfalls from the distant corridors of the cave system, getting stronger.
Dread dropped in the pit of her stomach.
It was a colony.
"Time to leave, Asa".
She felt his small hands grip her shirt tightly, then she was airbending a wind wheel to carry them swiftly toward where she sensed the entrance of the cave was. It was a challenge to navigate in the air, swerving sharply to avoid the stony teeth of the cave in near darkness, but time was of the essence. Juno didn't want to be here when the rest of the scorpion-spiders made an appearance.
They soon reached the mouth of a small tunnel on the far side of the cave, and Juno wasted no time running into it, quickly stomping a foot to the ground to earthbend the entrance shut behind them. During her earlier scan of the area, she knew that the labyrinthine cave had many other entrances and exits, but hopefully sealing this particular exit would buy them a bit of time. Reaching out once more with her earthbending sense through a hand trailing against the damp wall of the cave, Juno sprinted through the narrow passage, following the sharp twists and turns until, suddenly, they were out in the bright daylight.
Juno whooped, and with a strong burst of air, launched them directly away from the dark hole, which was on the side of a high, rocky hill. She felt Asa holding tightly to her back as she employed a wind-wheel to put some distance between them and the entrance to the spirit-infested cave.
At the foot of the hill, she changed direction and entered into a copse of giant trees. After she felt satisfied with the space between them and the cave, she selected one of the tallest trees, and used her airbending to propel herself into a vertical run along the side of the massive trunk, alighting on a thick high branch.
Catching her breath, Juno sat heavily down on the branch, leaning back against the solid mass of the tree. Asa crawled into her lap and they took a moment to cling to each other in a tight hug.
She breathed heavily into his thick fur, his warm weight in her lap going a long way to slow her still-racing heart. After a moment, she released her hug a little to sit back and look into his liquid-dark eyes.
"You really saved my bacon back there Asa, I thought I was a goner for sure that time."
He churrip-pured back at her, his small hands combing and fiddling with her hair and the loose flaps of her over-shirt. At some point during their scuffle in the cave, he had dropped his cloud-cover and so was completely visible, his stark-white fur broken by dark patches ringed with silver, shining in the light of the setting sun. His long bushy tail was wrapped securely around one of her legs, and after blinking at her, his dark face pressed against her neck in a soothing cuddle.
Juno sighed, and tugged at his fluffy pointed ears, feeling more grateful than ever that he was with her. It had been a gamble when she had decided to enter the spirit world physically in order to find the Spirit Hurosai, but the ability to navigate the landscape and defend herself using her bending made it too tempting. Not to mention, have Asa come with her. But her near brush with death in the cave of the scorpion-spiders was a sobering reminder that there was real risk involved.
Mainly, not knowing what would happen if she died here.
If she had died in that cave, what would have happened to the Avatar cycle? Would her spirit find its way back to the physical world to be reincarnated into one of the water tribes, or would it be lost forever, wandering the spirit realm as a ghost?
There was no way to know for sure, as very few Avatars beside herself had ever made the journey physically into the Spirit world. Her predecessor, Avatar Bohai, through a meditative trance had advised that the risk was worth the reward and pushed to have her make the gamble, despite nearly no one else in her inner-circle reaching the same conclusion. It was a hard decision, especially since Bohai had given her some questionable advice in the past, being the hot-head that he was. She blamed the fact that he had been murdered in his prime for his often brash council, though she found it hard to deny his desire for risk-taking when his time in the world of the living was so cruelly cut short.
Thinking of those she left behind in the physical world is what finally gave her the motivation to stand. She had had some heated conversations with her friends and advisors about her decision to use the little-known spirit gate at the summit of Mount Mori in order to enter the spirit world physically, and she hated the thought of the bad blood and agonized waiting that they had to do while she completed her task.
She also remembered what would happen if she should fail. She thought of the piles of bodies stacked outside village outskirts, and people afraid to leave their homes. Of the terror, and then tragic resignation as countless people fell ill to the mysterious disease that ran rampant across the earth kingdom.
It had started eight months prior. Juno was in the middle of touring the southern isles of the fire nation as a guest to Fire Lady Jia as a reward for completing her Avatar training. It had been an opportunity to relax and celebrate her nineteenth birthday surrounded by friends, while also visiting the noble families of the wealthy southern fire nation. The civil war of twenty years ago was still fresh in many peoples' memories, and a visit from the legitimate ruling dignitary backed by the presence of a fully-realized Avatar was a good reminder for any who still felt lingering resentment or rebellious inclinations. Despite the political work, it had been a relaxing summer, with many days spent playing fire-ball on the beach and drinking spore-berry wine around warm campfires.
Then the rumors started pouring in.
Rumours of whole Earth Kingdom villages disappearing from the map, of traveling merchants and civilians going missing. By the time legitimate reports reached her in the southern isles from the Earth Kingdom dignitary, the disease had become a pandemic. She had left immediately for Ba Sing Sei, arriving to a chaotic scene as the population of the Earth Kingdom capital began to panic. Riots, fear-mongering and looting was rampant across the city, and it had taken many public appearances from Juno and the aging Earth Kingdom Emperor, not to mention an unfortunate show of force from the Earth Kingdom soldiers, to settle the population somewhat.
Then the finest water bending healers arrived from the Northern and Southern water tribes. Alchemists and apothecaries from around the world put their heads together to come up with a cure, all to no avail.
Juno finally made the decision to venture into the vast library of Wan Shi Tong to see if she could find any information, and hint of the disease or a possible cure. The tempestuous spirit had granted her access to his precious library on one other occasion, so she had expected to be able to gain access to the desert palace. What she hadn't expected was help from the spirit himself.
He had been surprisingly sympathetic to her cause, despite being notoriously difficult to work with.
"Disease is a universal villain." He had told her. "And medicine the most noble of human pursuits. I will help you to find what I can."
They had spent what felt like weeks pouring over scroll after scroll for anything that could help. A hint of some precious herb, or surgical treatment that could help. Anything.
But there was nothing. It seemed as though the disease had come into the world with no hint, no trace of having ever existed before. Like a mysterious curse from the gods, sweeping across humanity to lay them low.
Juno was ready to cry, or pull her hair out with frustration. She was the Avatar! But there was no enemy here she could subdue, no one she could reason with. Only disease and death.
Finally Wan Shi Tong relented. "It seems this disease is outside of my knowledge." He sounded almost disgruntled. "But there is one other who may know. One other you may ask."
Juno had perked up, intrigued. "Why haven't you mentioned this before?"
"Because, unlike what you humans may believe, I do not actually desire your death." He shook his massive head. "This path will be treacherous, with no guarantee of success. And it will require you to physically enter the spirit world." He said, shocking her. She hadn't thought that was possible. "You will need to travel to the lair of Hurosai, the Spirit of Mirrors. He is the oldest spirit I know, and has vast knowledge. Though I must caution you," he warned, "Hurosai has less love for humans than even I, and will enjoy tricking, even killing you if he can."
Ultimately she had little choice. If there was even the slightest possibility that this spirit had information on how they could combat the disease, she would have to take the risk. The pandemic had been restricted to the central Earth Kingdom to this point, but it was only a matter of time before it spread. If she couldn't help find a cure, it could spell the end of humanity.
Wan Shi Tong prepared her as much as possible for her journey, providing a map based on his memories of the Spirit World she would have to traverse and giving her advice on how to deal with Hurosai once she made it to his lair. Then, it was just a matter of convincing her friends and advisors that this was the only clear path before making her way to the previously unknown spirit portal on the summit of Mount Mori, the location of which was also precious knowledge granted to her by Wan Shi Tong. Though, he had made it clear that the knowledge of said portal was information she should take with her to her grave.
At first, the solo journey had felt invigorating. It had been the first time she and Asa had been alone since she had been named as the Avatar almost seven years prior. It also felt so good to finally be doing something productive. Spending her days travelling at her own pace, though admittedly faster than a leisurely outing, and camping under the stars with her faithful leopard-monkey by her side had almost felt like a vacation. Once they finally made it to Mount Mori though, things started to change.
Climbing her way to the top of the mountain had taken two long days, slowed by the fact that she eventually lost the ability to airbend in the thin atmosphere. Earthbending was also something she tried to avoid doing too much of in an attempt to preserve her energy for when she eventually entered the spirit world. As a born airbender, Juno had always found it slightly more difficult to earthbend, her natural opposite.
She and Asa finally made it to the summit, and she had taken a moment to drink in the incredible view. Mount Mori was one of the highest peaks in the Caihong Mountain range. It also stood temptingly close to the Eastern Air Temple, and she had more than one passing thought to visit her childhood home and reconnect with some of her earliest mentors and friends.
After taking a moment to admire the view and drink in the cold, thin mountain air, the pair turned to search for the entrance to the spirit portal cave. It ended up being slightly tricky to find, as Wan Shi Tong had warned, the entrance to the cave being an inconspicuous gap between two jutting outcrops of stone.
But find it they eventually did, both squeezing through the gap into the cave.
What they found was a bit of a shock.
It was a lush, verdant garden. The cave opened up to the air above their heads, but the cold temperature and thin air she had gotten used to was missing. Instead, it was as if they had entered into the lush jungles of the eastern Fire Nation. Juno greedily breathed in the extra oxygen and the smell of growing things.
In the center of the cave stood a majestic cherry tree, in bloom despite the frigid cold outside. The blossom petals drifted sedately down in a lovely imitation of the snow coating the mountainside. The trunk of the tree split close to the base, forming a gateway that was faintly pulsing with light. No difficult guesses as to where in the cave the spirit portal was located.
Juno and Asa took a moment to rest in the shelter of the spirit portal cave, gathering their strength and munching on some nut mix. She still had a healthy store of provisions , but depending on how long the journey to Hurosai's lair took, she may have to start worrying about gathering some food inside the spirit world. She wasn't looking forward to that. There could be weird side-effects to eating food from the spirit world since she was from the physical world.
Now, sitting in a towering tree in the middle of nowhere after barely escaping with her skin intact from a horde of monstrous scorpion-spiders, Juno could almost laugh at herself. She had a pretty active imagination and tended to be a worrier, but even she couldn't have imagined the obstacles she would face almost as soon as she passed through the spirit portal.
Her pack of provisions and her precious airbending glider was probably lying at the bottom of the gorge where the scorpion-spider had ambushed her. That, or they were somewhere inside the cave she had just escaped from. Either way, no more tasty Earth Kingdom nut mixes or trail breads, no glider, and no all-too important spirit world map.
Almost as though summoned by her pessimistic thoughts, Juno's stomach let out a plaintive grumble. Asa, still tucked under her chin in a loose embrace, lifted his head and chirruped inquiringly at her.
"Ahh, don't worry about it boy. It won't kill me to go a little while without food. Anyway we should probably get moving soon. Maybe there's something around this tree you can scrounge up for us to eat while I go and get my bearings?"
Asa chirruped in assent, then leaped off her to scurry around to the other side of the trunk. Juno got to her feet, took a second to lift her arms in a full-body stretch, her spine cracking, then used a series of airbending jumps to get into the high canopy of the tree they were in.
Emerging out into the bright sunlight, Juno took a look around.
The forest they were in was dense, and spanned the width of a valley nestled between two mountain ranges. Juno assumed they were within the mountain range she and Asa had been heading towards when they tried to pass over the gorge that resulted in her unfortunate capture via scorpion-spider. It seemed unlikely that the creatures would hunt much further away from their lair then that. If that were the case, then it would be best if they headed north-east, continuing in the direction they had initially been heading in before they were interrupted.
Juno idly scratched at the back of her head, the sticky residue of the web flaking off in large chunks. She itched everywhere, and felt absolutely disgusting. After she and Asa ate something, she decided that they should take some time and find a river or a pond to wash up in, and then somewhere secure to spend the night. In the morning, they would continue into the mountains, and hopefully reach Hurosai's lair by late afternoon tomorrow.
That is, assuming her thoughts about where they were are correct, and that she didn't horribly mess up the orientation of the spirit world map in the first place...and that they didn't get captured by yet another horde of nightmarish spirits…
Juno sighed, feeling a bit sorry for herself once more, before leaping down from the canopy back to the branch where she had separated from Asa. He wasn't back yet, so she took the opportunity to rest more against the thick tree trunk.
She rested her eyes and drifted for a moment, trying to keep her thoughts from uselessly cycling through the many problems that could plague them in the next day or so. Fighting her worry, she took a few deep, centering breaths, and fell into a light meditation.
She felt a little better by the time Asa announced his return with a few chirruping trills. She opened her eyes and smiled to see him sit in front of her and delicately lay down a small collection of nuts and mushrooms onto the branch. Luckily, unlike the denizens of the spirit world, much of the flora in the area ended up resembling their counterparts in the physical world, so there were many familiar species of plants that they could forage to eat. Juno was also grateful that Asa was omnivorous, and that they didn't have to take the time to hunt, an activity Juno still felt conflicted about as a former vegetarian. Though she ate meat now as a result of her exposure to the different cultures and ways of living she had encountered during her Avatar training, the actual act of killing a living creature for food still made her feel a little guilty.
They finished their small meal in silence. Soon, after playfully squabbling over who got the last nut, Juno relented and relinquished it to Asa's grasping fingers, smiling when he grumbled at her through the crunches coming from his mouth. She then got to her feet and Asa scurried up her side to take his customary position sitting on her shoulder.
After a controlled fall down to the forest floor, Juno set off in a north-easterly direction. She was bone-tired after the ordeal of the day, and felt that it wouldn't be long before they stopped somewhere for the night.
About two hours or so passed in quiet travel, with Asa falling asleep draped across her shoulders after a while, his small snores chuffing quietly in her ears as she walked. Finally, just as she had resigned herself to sleeping in a sticky mess, she came across a small stream trickling between the branches of one of the giant trees. Juno gently lifted Asa from her shoulders and placed him on top of a soft pile of leaves before stripping as much of her outerwear as she was comfortable with and scrubbing them, and herself off in the cold water.
The sun had just about finished setting as she finished laying out her clothes against the roots of the tree. She shivered, chilled in the evening air, but grit her teeth and set to building an earth-bended shelter. With the giant roots of the tree acting as a basic frame, a few quick thrusts and firm foot stomps resulted in a secure place to sleep. She gathered some of the dried leaves and fallen dead branches as quickly as she could, the promise of a fire in her shelter motivating her through her exhaustion. After a while, she had a small fire going, quickly heating up the inside of her 'tent'. She went out briefly to gather Asa's sleeping form, then went inside her makeshift shelter, earthbending a door behind her. She settled on the soft detritus and leaf bed and tucked Asa under her chin, his soft body and the heat of the fire quickly warming her through.
After the stress of the day, it was no trouble to fall asleep, despite her many worries.