Prologue: The Discovery
We live in an old world. It was ten thousand years ago that the era of the Avatar began with a great clash between harmony and chaos, and both humans and spirits are even older than that. Across that time, countless generations have lived and died, nations have risen and fallen, and Avatars come, gone and been born to start the cycle again. And yet so much of our history is unknown to us or obscured by the fog of myth. Ten thousand years, after all, is a very long time, at least to humans. It's not so long for spirits, of course, but most spirits don't pay much attention to the doings of the mortal world – and not all of those who do are friendly. I know that from personal experience.
I don't say this to be dramatic, but to provide some context for what you are about to read. I first found the scrolls several years ago, about five years after the battle for Republic City that saw the defeat of Kuvira and the Earth Empire. I was guided to a small, secret chamber deep beneath the Eastern Air Temple by one of the dragonfly-bunny spirits that are common in the area, and found a collection of ancient scrolls – apparently copies of even older scrolls – that had been overlooked by the Fire Nation and the Air Acolytes. They were written using an old form of the language in ancient characters, but with help from my father, who has spent his life studying the history of the Air Nomads, my aunt, who has traveled the world, and a certain spirit who had once been a very wise old man who asked only that his services be paid in the gift of rare teas, I was able to translate them.
I don't know if the story the scrolls tell is history, myth, or some combination of two; Wan Shi Tong may know the truth, but he and my family never did get along. It takes place more than five thousand years ago, long after the time of spirits had ended but long before the world we know. It was a time before the bending nations were founded, and before the Si Wong was a desert. It was the time of the Five Demon Kings. Despite their name, these tyrants were not dark spirits but powerful human benders, though it was said that they had visited the Spirit World through some secret path and gained dangerous knowledge there. When they returned, they began to gather followers and made plans for conquest. The Avatar in those days was a very great and renowned firebender, but he was old and past the peak of his powers. He called the Demons to meet with him to negotiate peace, but they killed him by treachery and there was no one left to oppose them.
Though they worked together to gain power, each of the Demons had their own kingdom and ambitions, and they were often at odds with one another. There was Lady Anzu, the Fire Demon of the Western Isles; Chief Kiriama, the Water Demon of the Northern Seas; Guru Samten, the Wind Demon of the Eastern Mountains; King Zhiqiang, the Earth Demon of the Southern Badlands, and Emperor Herekti, the mysterious Masked Demon of the Central Plains, most terrible of the five. Together, they threw the world into an age of conflict and chaos.
But a time of conflict is also a time for heroes. This, then, is their story, as told on the ancient scrolls…
Translator's Preface from Jinora of the Air Nation