A/N: This is not the swamp that appeared in season 2 of canon. It is a different swamp. Maybe the canon swamp's brother. Who knows.

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They landed in the early afternoon outside a town nestled in a small swamp. It was warm and humid, but not overly so. The mangroves looked down over the town like watchful guardians. The town was not large, but the swamp had been cleared to settle it, so it had solid roads and decent buildings. There was no sign of Fire Nation activity, nor any reason why there would be. If they could keep the bugs away, it was a perfect place to stay.

Appa let out a loud yawn as they all got off his back, and he walked with his head hanging. Only Aang knew him well enough to recognize that Appa was tired. He wondered why. Had Katara asked him to speed up?

As they entered town, several passersby noticed him and scampered away. Aang stopped and set his staff on the ground. He knew what that meant by now. Sure enough, a group of older people soon came their way. They were what this little hamlet had for leaders. "Hello," said one of them, an old grandmother. Her face was covered in wrinkles, but she still stood tall with both of her hands resting on her walking stick in a regal manner. "It is an honor to meet you, young Avatar. I didn't expect to see you in such a peaceful, small town as this."

"Even the Avatar needs his rest," Aang said proudly. "Do you have someplace where Appa can stay? He's tired."

"I'm sure we can find someplace," the old grandmother said. "Come." An old man who was part of her group called out at a passing young man. They talked for a bit, then led Appa away. Aang and company followed the old grandmother. The other old people who had been with her steadily left, complaining of aching joints, until only she remained to lead them.

She led them on a tour of the hamlet, which turned out to be larger and more complex than it had looked at first. She led them to her own home, which was in the swamp on a clearing beneath tall trees. Swamp life crowded the edges of the clearing so thoroughly they might have been deliberately grown there as a fence. Her home wasn't the only one there; several ringed the edge of the clearing. She led them back along the swamp path to other swamp neighborhoods, which had much the same structure. How did the people who lived here tell their neighborhood from the others? Aang was glad when their guide led them back to the main street. "This is the civilized part that we present to visitors," she said with a chuckle. "Don't wander around the swamp road, especially not late at night. If you get lost…"

Aang gulped. The tall mangroves really did look like guardians. It was all too easy to imagine, in this swamp late at night, spirits lingering in the dark, watching…

"Nobody will be able to find us if we drown," Sokka said, finishing the old woman's sentence. "Got it."

The grandmother frowned. She didn't seem to like some upstart young kid finishing her sentences. Katara elbowed her brother and told him as much. Aang looked around at the trees. He should practice talking to spirits more, and this swamp might be a good place to do that. It gave him the creeps though. Maybe not.

"Do you have a place that serves fresh tea?" Iroh asked. "Ah, how I've been longing for a hot brew, made from fresh young sprouts…"

The grandmother giggled. "Old Man Hi Tung makes tea like that. He also tells stories of the swamp, which he used to explore in his boyhood days. He faced dozens of deadly supernatural foes among these very trees...or so he says."

"More likely giant swamp vipers," Sokka said.

In a flash, the old woman was leaning down to peer into his eyes. Sokka leaned backward and she leaned forward, the two of them face to face, on the edge of losing balance. "Do not question Hi Tung's stories," she said. "At least not to his face."

"Hey, I like swamp vipers as much as the next guy," Sokka said. "Where's this old man? Did he use a sword? Maybe he could teach me a thing or two."

She leaned back and smiled as if nothing had ever happened. "Oh, he's right this way." She walked three steps and pointed to a house with a front porch that faced the street. Several young boys were sitting there now, listening to an old man with a long, jagged scar across his face tell a story. Over his nose and mouth, it was joined by two parallel scars, smaller but no less jagged and vicious.

"Look at those scars, Sokka," Aang said. "I don't think he fought giant vipers."

"There are platypus bears in this swamp, too?" Sokka asked. "No wonder she told us not to wander around at night."

By some unspoken agreement, they all joined Hi Tung on his porch. Zuko needed a little prodding; he was looking back at the swamp road when everyone else started walking. Aang poked him with his staff. "Are you coming?'

Zuko turned and blinked. "What? Um...sure." He walked past Aang.

Aang looked into the mangroves where Zuko had been staring just moments before, and saw nothing.

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Zuko was not superstitious. He had grown up with no superstitions, he had picked up none, and if anyone tried to make him he would refuse. Superstitions were a waste of time and energy that he could not afford to sink a single minute into.

Nonetheless, he had grown up in a strange way, and that left him attuned to the strangeness of the world in ways that others might not be. He knew what a watchful guardian looked like from having seen one in his dreams all of his life. The watcher felt comfortable, safe. It was impossible to know for sure, but Zuko was sure that his intentions were benign or good.

The mangroves did not feel like that. They, too, did not interfere with human business and kept silently to themselves, but their business seemed very unfriendly. The swamp plants growing like fences… Did they keep the swamp out, or the people?

"I followed the howls in the night, slashing this way and that with my sword," said Old Man Hi Tung. "They sounded so painful, I couldn't bear to leave them. I thought they might be the howls of some maiden lost in the swamp. They grew louder and louder, and then… Silence. I cut through some more roots and found myself in front of a cabin."

"A cabin out in the swamp?" Sokka asked skeptically.

"Yes," Old Man Hi Tung said with fervor. "I saw it with my own eyes, right there in front of me. I ain't never seen it again in all my life, but I know it was there that one evening as sure as I know this scar across my face."

"But who would build a cabin out in the middle of a swamp?" Sokka protested. "You just said you'd been out there for a day and a half. Maybe it was a swamp fever hallucination."

Old Man Hi Tung growled. "If you're going to question my story, boy, you'd best leave."

Katara elbowed her brother. "He didn't mean to insult. Please, go on."

Hi Tung took another pull of his pipe. "I was as skeptical as this young fellow here when I first saw it. What was a cabin doing in the middle of the woods? Where had the howling maiden gone? I had had more than a few adventures in the swamp by this point, so I knew something was afoot. I sensed myself caught in a great and perilous trap. I turned and tried to run, but it was impenetrable. I couldn't find the path I'd hacked out."

The Avatar shivered. "You didn't go into the cabin, did you?"

Hi Tung shook his head. "I'm afraid I did. I had no choice."

"What did you find there?" Katara asked.

The old man's face softened, and for a moment he looked lost like he had been so long ago. "I'd...rather not say. It wasn't no maiden. I'll say that."

"How did you escape?" the Avatar asked.

"I don't remember. My mind had gone a little soft and wobbly after what I saw in there. I was found by someone gathering plants. They led me back here, got me a warm drink." Old Man Hi Tung took a sip of his tea. "And I added this one to the stories I tell, and I've kept on telling it to this day."

"I want to ask you something," Sokka began. The old man eyed him, but said nothing against it. "Why do you tell these stories? The first thing we learned when we stopped here is not to go into the swamp, especially after dark. You don't need spooky supernatural stories to warn people away. The danger of drowning out there is enough."

Hi Tung's eyebrows knitted together. "You're a lot less smart than you like to think, boy. I don't tell these stories to warn people to stay out. I don't tell them to make myself look good. I don't tell them for fun, or to reminisce about my younger days. I tell them for one reason and one reason only." He took his pipe from his mouth and put it on the ground before him. "I tell them to remind people that these trees hide a lot of things. Not all of them can be known. Most of them shouldn't be known. No matter what you think you know, remember that you don't know nearly enough."

Zuko's heart was beating fast. Just stories. There's no way he found an actual cabin out in the middle of a swamp. But maybe he found something just as dangerous… Every innocent glass of water he drank was a part of the water spirit, after all. Maybe there was something hiding in the trees, or maybe the trees were more than they looked. Trees had always seemed to resemble the air and earth in some indefinable way. Maybe there were tree spirits.

Wait a second! What was he doing? Sokka was right. The cabin could be explained by a case of fever. And there were no tree spirits. The trees themselves couldn't be angry at people. They were trees. They weren't watching over anything. They were just big plants. Zuko blushed faintly. He couldn't believe he'd been spooked by trees, or that he'd allowed that spooky feeling to lead him to believe an old man's scary stories. The mangrove swamp was very dangerous, for sure, but not because of anything mystical. It was just a place full of mud and water where it would be far too easy to drown and be eaten by giant swamp vipers.

But he thought of the trees, and hairs rose on the back of his neck. Just plants. They can't do anything. Someone probably did plant those things as fences. Really. The idea of a path through the roots vanishing, as though the roots had knitted together again to close him in… Preposterous.

The old man had moved on to another story, one of getting lost (again. Why did all of his stories begin with him getting lost?) and encountering some horrible beast. He was careful to specify that it wasn't the one that gave him his scar, thus ensuring that his spellbound audience would stick around for one more story, and one more, and one more, until they figured out that he was never going to tell them about the scar. Zuko felt antsy. He couldn't sit around for that long. He couldn't listen to any more stories. Quietly, he got to his feet and left.

It was strangely difficult to remember how many stories Hi Tung had told them. How long have we been in there? The sky was already dark blue, making the trees into nearly-black silhouettes. The swamp was solid black, a pitch darkness that nobody could find their way around in. The people who lived in those neighborhoods bordered by green fences must have holed up for the night hours ago. Zuko turned away from the swamp and went to find Appa.

The bison was still awake. That was a surprise. "Hi," Zuko greeted. "I didn't bring any treats. I'm not here to…" He trailed off as he noticed that the bison wasn't looking at him. Appa's gaze held steady, very steady, on something over Zuko's right shoulder. He knew before he turned to look. It was a tree that Appa was looking at.

"Gah!" He stamped his foot. "Even you have to go and make the swamp out to be this huge, scary thing? It's just trees! They. Are. Harmless." He turned away from Appa, who was still looking, and growled to himself. it's just a swamp. Just trees and mud and bugs. That's all it is. Trees and mud… Trees rooted in mud… An idea began to form.

No way. That's crazy. Completely crazy. Zuko shook his head. The water spirit is dangerous! But what harm could using it for navigation do? Being able to sense the position of nearby water at all times could have its advantages. Nobody would be hurt. He was very experienced with sneaking around at night amid hostile forces. He could go into the swamp, at night, when all the spooky ghosts or whatever were supposed to be about, find absolutely nothing, and come back with a branch or something as proof. Then everybody would stop pointing out how creepy the trees looked and making him feel spooked.

Appa snorted. He was looking at Zuko now with wide eyes, as if he could sense what Zuko was thinking. Zuko glared back at him. "Oh, shut up." He turned and walked out into the darkness.

He reconsidered his plan when he stood at the beginning of the swamp road. What am I doing? But as he went over his plan, he could find no faults in it. Nothing was wrong with his logic. The only thing that suggested he should go back was a sense of unease. But that was just a little bit of fright brought on by stories and darkness. He forged ahead. He walked to the other side of the swamp road and stepped off of it, into the swamp.

The pitch darkness made him feel as if he had closed his eyes. He hadn't, but it was that dark. He closed his eyes and concentrated on feeling out where the water spirit was. There. A pool of water, with interruptions in it. Those would be mangrove roots. Zuko walked where the feeling suggested mud and there were no interruptions. He kept a mental map as he went of trees and pools and other landmarks.

Eventually, he came to a large pool of water. It was filled with roots, but otherwise would qualify as a lake. That must be why they have so many stories about the trees, he realized. It's the trees that endanger people! He had yet to hear a single slither or pawstep, but everywhere there was water filled with tree roots. If he fell, and his foot happened to fall in the wrong place… The old man had spoken of finding himself trapped in the swamp. In that sense, he had been accurate.

I should go back. Zuko "looked" around. Water and roots. Nothing that would prove he had gone into the swamp. The lake didn't even have any water plants growing in it. There was nothing but the mangroves, as if they poisoned the water to keep everything else out. If I go back with nothing, this was a waste of time.

The water spirit leaped up, splashing the area with water. The wave broke over what felt like a small bush. Zuko didn't remember seeing one of those right off the path. He reached down, grabbed what felt like a good length of branch, and broke it off. The effort scratched his hands, but the old man would have to shut up when he saw that those were the only marks.

He turned back and walked the way he had come. For a while, all was as he remembered. But then… Wasn't that stretch of mud clear before? He felt around. There was no clear stretch of mud. I went to the right of that pool with the curved shape, then passed the tree with the pyramid of roots. I should be in the right place. But there was no clear stretch of mud.

It was confusing. Someone else would have thought of Old Man Hi Tung's stories and found reason to panic. Zuko thought of the old man's stories, but did not panic. There must be lots of trees like that. I passed the wrong one. I could go back and look for the right one, or… He wasn't panicking, but he was reminded of Old Man Hi Tung's stories, and his own feelings about the trees. No funny business.

Zuko stepped onto the water and walked past the tree that was blocking his way.

The water spirit had some abilities that human waterbenders couldn't quite match. The ability to hold water still and force it to carry weight was one of them. It normally kept the surface of the water closed. If Zuko wanted to wade in or go swimming, it opened the waters to him, but if he accidentally fell he would not end up underwater. He hated that. If he were to accidentally fall and roll across the surface, everyone would look at him like he was a monster. There would be no way to hide or deny that something blatantly unnatural had happened. For as long as he was on his ship, he had taken every safety precaution to avoid falling overboard out of fear of being rescued.

Now, though, in the pitch blackness that made him feel as if his eyes were closed when they were open, that nobody but he and the water spirit could see through… It was nice.

He returned to land and kept going. Strangely, the path that stretched before him now was the same as he remembered, which shouldn't be the case if he had taken a wrong turn. Whatever. A lot of the swamp must look basically identical. He kept going, expecting to find another strange obstacle, and he did. More roots. He walked over them again.

I just took a wrong turn somewhere. I'll have to wait until morning, climb a tree, and look for town. That's not a problem - if I walk out of here in the morning, having survived a whole night with not a scratch, that'll still prove what I want to prove. He stopped to calm his racing heart and too-fast breathing. That was why he told himself he stopped. If the path ahead was the same as he remembered (there was no reason why it should be if he had taken a wrong turn), then it was surrounded by trees. It was not bordered on any side by a pool of water.

If I'm going to be here until morning, he told himself, there's no reason to stick to some path. He felt for the nearest pool of water and went that way, leaving behind the landmarks he had committed to memory. He walked across that pool, and then another, and the fact that his mental map told him he had returned to his original path by using water to avoid the trees could not matter at all. Neither did the fact that he remembered no similar dry stretches for the remainder of the way back to town. There was no reason to feel relieved that he would always have water to one side. None.

Wasn't the water clearer…? There were interruptions poking up out of it now. Roots. He could not see above the surface of the water, so he could not tell how high they went. They might be high enough to step over, or they might not. It was impossible to know.

He was not panicking. He was not. Maybe I got the wrong pool. Not every one can be clear. Anyway, it didn't matter. He could firebend, burn the roots out of the way. But firebending would also make light, and the thought of being able to see what he might be surrounded by… I shouldn't ruin my night vision. I'll need it to get back to the others when I return to town. He hated to do it, but it seemed like he had no option. Roots or rock, nothing could stand against the power of the water spirit. Zhao's ship had demonstrated that well. Nobody would be hurt out here in the swamp. Nobody lived out here.

There was a distant sound. Finally. I was wondering when the platypus bears he mentioned would come out. I should get back before they find me. The vaguely sobbing-like nature of the sounds meant nothing. It might be an injured platypus bear. That was good.

Zuko shivered violently. The water froze in an instant. As ice, it shook back and forth, breaking the roots trapped in it. Then it turned back to water and let the roots sink beneath the surface. Zuko crawled across quickly.

He did that twice more, the roots becoming denser and denser. They really should have learned their lesson by now. Zuko stopped and gave himself a light slap on one cheek. What "they"? There's nobody around, remember? Just a bunch of trees. Trees can't be evil.

He was almost back now. The journey back semed a lot longer than the journey into the swamp had been, but he hadn't had to dodge roots on the way in. That would be something to think about later, after he crossed this one last pool and returned to the swamp road. Just one last pool.

Halfway across it, he sensed movement.

Something was moving in the water, not far to his right. Maybe a dozen feet. Zuko's breath rushed out of him, his legs tensing, preparing to run, but -

But those were human legs kicking back and forth.

He turned in that direction, his heart hammering in his chest. The source of the movement hadn't come any closer. There were underwater roots in that direction, and now that he strained to hear, there was a faint splashing. Zuko swallowed and crossed the water. He heard splashing, and choking. Occasionally, the splashing stopped, and then resumed with a great spluttering sound. He ran. He reached down and scooped the person there into his arms.

Whoever it was cried out in fear and fought him. He fell down, had to put a hand out to brace himself. They continued to fight him, and worse, he couldn't lift them. Zuko gritted his teeth. "Stop. Stop! I'm trying to help you!"

The person stopped fighting and started to cry. "Y - you're here to help?" It sounded like a young boy.

"Yes. Trust me." Zuko squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated. The water was moving wildly from the boy's kicking. "Keep your feet still. I can't see."

The boy stopped kicking. "Can't see? What -"

"Shh." What he felt became clearer. "Flex your foot up. Then twist it to the right. No, with your toes to the right. Work your heel up. And...that's it." He lifted the boy out of the water. "You're safe now."

"Wha - wh -" The boy was crying too hysterically to speak.

Zuko held him closer as he crossed the water, walked up a little slope, and stepped out onto the swamp road. Compared to the dark of the swamp, the road was lit with blinding light. He put the boy down and gave him a few minutes to stop crying. "Can you find your way home from here?"

The kid choked back his tears and nodded.

"Don't go into the swamp after dark."

He nodded again.

"Go home and stay home."

The boy turned and ran away.

Zuko sighed and turned toward the main street. That was when he realized he'd dropped his branch. He couldn't remember when. Had he dropped it the first time he'd had to crawl? The second or third time? He'd definitely dropped it by the time he ran to rescue the kid. The thought of going back into the swamp to retrieve it made him feel sick.

I won't get it. It's not worth it. Bringing back the branch was supposed to prove that the swamp was not monstrous, that it was perfectly normal. Zuko was no longer sure that was true. All those roots in places where there weren't roots the first time… And I must have been on the same path, because it led me right back to town. They started blocking the water. Maybe the trees are evil…

He went back to Old Man Hi Tung's house. The old man sat outside watching the sky. The porch was empty. "Where did they go?" Zuko asked.

The old man grunted. "They went that-a-way." He gave directions.

"Thank you." Zuko turned to go.

"What'd you find?"

He stopped. "What?"

"You smell like swamp."

Zuko's heart pounded. Not at the experience; at the thought of having to speak of it. "I'm not like you. I don't tell stories." He walked away quickly, found himself at the overly large house that doubled as a guesthouse when its owners wanted extra money, found himself inside with only a vague memory of having mumbled something at the owner, and collapsed into a bed.