A long silence followed the teens at the campfire, one that Lee happily ignored as she chowed down on her food. The other two weren't sure what to make of the strange fruits she had gathered, but she seemed to be fine eating them. So they each took one she had been roasting, and hoped for the best.

Yun glanced at Rangi, wondering if she was brave enough to dig in next. She picked at the fruit instead, almost dissecting it. Wait, did the fruit have eyes?! And legs? Was this an animal not fruit? Did the Spirit world have animals? Yun shook his head, the Spirit World was way too strange.

Focusing his attention back at Rangi, he did see a light blush dance on her face as she focused on her food. She had been unable to meet Lee's eyes since they arrived at camp, but Yun had noticed Rangi stealing some glances at the taller girl when she wasn't looking.

Yun cleared his throat, deciding to break the silence.

"So you removed your makeup, why's that?" he tried to ask nonchalantly. Not that he had any complaints about the removal.

"It was itchy," Lee mumbled between bites.

I guess that's fair. "But, I thought you were trying to hide your identity?"

"Yeah, well, it was half off anyway. So why bother, right?" Lee shrugged. "Plus, in terms of physical clues, I'm already Spirits-Out-of-Luck in that department. I can totally see you putting out a hit on any almost seven foot tall girl when we get out anyway."

Well, yeah, that was a given. Yun sweat dropped. Well, at least he knew she really was around seven feet tall.

"How did you get a fire going?" Rangi asked Lee abruptly, pivoting the conversation.

Lee choked lightly on her food, before nervously answering. "Just some good old fashion survival skills!" She thumped her chest a few times, either trying to clear some loose food or to show bravado. "You know, sticks on sticks, elbow grease. Guess you could say I'm a firebender too!"

Lee laughed at her own joke, but neither Yun nor Rangi were amused for different reasons.

Lee pulled at her collar, trying to ventilate some air down her shirt, "C-c'mon don't look at me like that. It was a joke! A joke! Me? Bending two elements? That's just not natural. Haha."

Yun rolled his eyes, "Of course not, you aren't the Avatar." But his response was just met with a confused look from Lee.

Before Yun could question her about the look, Rangi continued her interrogation."Starting a fire that way takes a good amount of time to prepare." She looked Lee in the eyes with a piercing gaze.

"H-how would you even know anyway?" Lee sweated, trying to dismiss the firebender. "You just have to punch the air and fire will appear!"

"Time," Rangi continued, ignoring her diversion. "That you lacked." With every word the flame in front of her felt hotter, and her glare became more piercing. Yun was starting to sweat as well.

Is she trying to get her to admit she has flint or something? I guess it'd be good to have, but we have her. Yun scratched his head, confused why Rangi was digging into Lee. Then he realized, she was just probably venting her frustration out on the girl that's making her frazzled. He chuckled to himself. She really is childish sometimes.

"Well, I'm fast!"

"Ignoring the fact, that you were able to hunt for food on top of it-"

"So what? I'm a good hunter! Maybe I'm like Avatar Kuruk's reincarnation or something!" Lee threw her hands up in exasperation.

Rangi threw her food down and stood up, the fire in front of the trio expanding into an uncontrollable flame.

"HOW DARE YOU SAY SUCH A BLASPHEMOUS THING IN FRONT OF THE AVATAR!" she roared, actually angry now.

"Argh, it was a joke! Calm down!" Kyoshi still put her hands up in surrender. "I just know the guy was known for his hunting skills! He was the only one I could think of! I didn't mean anything deeper." She continued to list off various excuses to pacify the firebender. Her surrendering hands made a pushing motion, as if to signal the other girl to back off.

"Hunting?" Yun cocked an eyebrow, he was more confused than offended by Lee's comment. It was an odd thing to single out about Avatar Kuruk. He was more known for his Pai Sho skills, or his proclivity with various 'extracurricular' activities. Even his habit of challenging people to random feats of strength was more known than his 'hunting abilities.'

"Yeah, hunting!" Lee latched onto Yun's question, in hopes of steering the conversation away from Rangi's anger.

"No, it's just-" Yun tried to find the right words. He'd learn all he could about a bunch of past Avatars. He even had a team of people who used to work with Kuruk. Yun should've known everything about him. But hunting? "I really-I mean. He was good at hunting. His pelts say that much, but really? That's not the first compliment that'd come to mind for him."

"Maybe when he lived in the North?" Rangi suggested, aware of the pelts and teeth jewelry he was known to wear as trophies. Even she was completely perplexed by Lee's words as much as he was. She should know almost as much about Kuruk as Yun. Partially because of her mom being his companion, but also because of her own devotion to the Avatar mantle that bordered on fangirlism. She probably studied Avatar history nearly as much as he did.

Lee looked at them as if they'd grown extra heads, "His pelts? You're joking, right?"

Both Yun and Rangi glared at the girl, not exactly pleased with her tone. As if she was a school teacher who was disappointed in her students' lack of elementary level knowledge.

"No we aren't, we know everything about him," Yun furrowed his eyes at Lee in defiance.

"Then you should know that complimenting his hunting skills should be the first thing anyone compliments him on!"

"We know of his bouts of strength! He was a very strong and talented Avatar," Rangi defended. "It's just that…."

Due to her devotion she was not one to insinuate anything negative about the Avatar, past or present. Yun, however, could. "He just never showed it outside of silly competitions. And hunting animals isn't exactly that big of a deal when you're the Avatar…."

Lee just stared at them dumbfounded for a minute, then a smug smile slowly grew across her face. "Animals? You two really don't know anything do you? Not what he really hunted?"

Something in Yun snapped, he got up from his log and grabbed Lee by the lapel, "You think I don't know my past self?!"

He'd studied so much, spent so many sleepless nights researching. Yes he'd had a hard time communicating with his past selves, but with all the knowledge he had from his associates and his own research…. To have someone laugh in his face and say he didn't know anything? It was almost too much for him to bear.

"Calm down Lil' Avatar," Lee shifted on her log, not phased by Yun's sudden outburst. She raised her arms in the air in a mock reverence, "'The only true knowledge is in knowing you know nothing.' Or some bull shark like that. Don't let not knowing things stress you out so much!"

She was quoting an old Air Nomad phrase, a little high end for a run of the mill daofei to be familiar with. Was she someone high end? Or connected to someone high end? Some of the bosses of the bigger daofei organizations were more well rounded with their knowledge of the world. The first one that came to his mind was Xu Ping An, and the thought of Lee being connected to that monster put a pit in his stomach.

But if she really was connected to Xu….well, it was both a blessing and a curse. Maybe Yun would be able to take that man down once and for all. Avenging Jianzhu's failure of catching the slimy bastard.

"I'm not making fun of you, I'm just excited I know something you don't." She gave him a smug grin. "It just means I have leverage."

Yun let go of her lapel and took a step back. "What do you want in exchange for it?"

Lee hummed while Rangi protested to Yun. "I don't know, yet. It's just good to have, no?"

Yun glared warily at her, she was too free spirited. He didn't know if that made her more dangerous or not. But something in his gut told him he'd want whatever information she had.

"How do we know if it's even real?" Rangi asked in the middle of her protesting tirade. "She could just be lying! How did she even get this information? She wouldn't have known him when he was alive-for spirit's sakes Yun she looks our age!"

It was an unsurprising and normal question, which led to a horrifically surprising answer, "Huh? He told me himself. That Kuruk guy."

Rangi and Yun stood stock still, the air leaving their mouths in a puff, as if the wind had been knocked out of them. Their bodies began to numb into pins and needles as they tensed themselves from the blow they just heard.

Yun's heart began to quicken, the only thing moving in him at the moment. Every pump turned into an electrical shock radiating throughout his body.

When he finally gathered the strength, all he could say was, "What do you-how do you? You can talk to Kuruk? H-how?!"

Lee gave the two a worried look, surely because Yun looked as sick as he felt. "Yeah. Buff waterbender guy, right? I can talk to him through meditation. Why are you two acting like this? It's normal innit?"

Yun and Rangi blinked at Lee, then at each other, then at Lee again.

"No!" Yun threw his hands up in the air, "It's not just 'normal' to speak to a past Avatar! It's hard to do even when you are the current Avatar! Let alone some layman!"

It was Lee's turn to go stock still, "Oh."

The word hung heavy in the air. How was it that a random daofei of all people was able to spiritually connect with a past Avatar? What made her so special? It was almost laughable, as if the spirits were taunting him.

"M-my mom spoke to a past Avatar once," Lee suddenly spoke up, combing a nervous hand through her hair. "W-we were passing by one of her big statues, and my mom wanted to meditate. When she came to, she mentioned that she communicated with some Avatar lady."

"Lady?" Yun's thoughts swirled as he tried to think of a female Avatar who had a statue that a random person could come across. There was only one that fit the bill. " Avatar Yangchen?" Yun asked, bewildered but a little more hopeful for some reason. "Your mother spoke to Avatar Yangchen?"

Maybe this girl's family was just more spiritually inclined? She did say that her mother wanted to meditate. Sure some daofei leaders had a tendency to become megalomaniacs or religious fanatics, but maybe this one just happened to be a normal and slightly more spiritual person? As laughable as that may be.

Wait, was her mother even a daofei? What if she was raised in a normal spiritual household, and then ran away to become a daofei later? That made more sense. There's no way the most holy of the Avatars, Avatar Yangchen, would speak to a lowly daofei. Kuruk, maybe, he was a bit of a trickster. But surely not Yangchen!

"Yeah! Yangchen! Arrow Avatar!"

Yun cringed at the disrespectful names Lee kept coming up with for his past lives, but he kept pressing on. "What did she say?"

Lee scrunched her face up, confusion evident on it. "Something about…..auspicious winds?"

They sat there for a moment, unsure of what to make of such a cryptic phrase, if there was anything to glean from it at all. The air was tense for a moment until Yun broke it with a sigh. "I….think I recall non-Avatar people communing with the Avatar spirit on occasion." He sat back down. "It's not exactly common, but it does happen."

Yun rubbed his forehead, trying to recall the information. Was it a journal? Or was it mentioned in a passing conversation? If he could just remember, maybe it'd soothe his worry a bit more.

Lee let out a sigh of her own, but gagged when it was Rangi's turn to ask a question. "Do you have high spiritual awareness? Really? A criminal like you?"

Lee let out a nervous laugh, "Maybe I was a nun or monk in my past life?"

Rangi narrowed her eyes at Lee, and then walked away from the fire. "We should rest here, and then continue walking in the morning."

"Sounds good to me," Lee waved lazily.

The three teens trudged over to their sloppy earth bent beds. Yun noticed Lee pat herself down.

"These beds suck," he mused.

Lee waved her hand, annoyed. "Well then you do better Lil' Avatar. Should be easy, I know you're the better earthbender."

Yun fixed their sleeping arrangements, and they all went to bed.

"You know, I know we ate that food you found, but I feel like it didn't really do anything," Yun said, stretching his back. He may be an earthbender, but it still wasn't exactly pleasant to sleep on the ground. He missed his bed.

"Yeah, food's kinda just a fun thing around here. You don't gain any weight, but you don't lose any weight…. Which means you don't really feel full," Lee shrugged. She was patting herself down again as soon as they'd all woken up.

Then why did you let Rangi go off to forage-. Yun was about to dismiss the girl's train of thought, assuming it was another weird thing about her or the Spirit World. But then realized in a panic that maybe she'd wanted to be alone, separate from him and Rangi. Yun took in his surroundings and Lee, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He decided to ignore the nagging feeling for now.

"Maybe that's why there's no bathrooms in the Spirit World?" Yun questioned, mostly to himself.

"So where are we going now?" Rangi asked.

After spinning around in one spot, carefully looking in every direction, Lee decided on a path. "That way!" She pointed.

It was a forest, but as the three looked over the horizon, they saw it would turn from a welcoming lush forest, into a dark barren one the stuff of nightmare. Yun could've sworn he saw a very unfriendly mountain range in the far off distance, accompanied by lighting and everything. So welcoming. He thought sarcastically.

"Just say you're trying to kill us," Rangi turned to Lee, deadpan. "No need to insult our intelligence."

Lee blinked at them. "I'm not? This is the best way."

"The hell it is!" Rangi spread her arms out in exasperation, then moved her pointer fingers so they were both pointing at her eyes from the side. "Did your eyes suddenly stop working?!"

Lee walked over to Rangi and slapped her happily on the back. "Of course my eyes are working, silly! Are yours?"

Rangi smacked Lee's hand away, "Don't touch me!"

Lee rolled her eyes and mumbled. "Fine, fine. I was just trying to be friendly…."

"If that's not the way to Koh, then what is?" Yun asked, exasperated.

Lee scanned the area again, this time she cupped her ear as she did, and then she pointed in the opposite direction she planned to go in. "It's that way."

Yun and Rangi followed her finger, it pointed to a field that looked like it was filled with happiness and cotton candy. Of course.

"Screw this, I'm done with you messing with us!" Rangi started to charge off in that direction, not believing Lee's words for a second. Yun was about to follow her when Lee's hand shot out and grabbed Rangi by the back of her collar.

"I don't think so, Firecracker. You're too pretty to have your face stolen," she said as she started dragging Rangi from behind. Rangi's arms flailed behind her trying to free herself, she peppered her anger with curses and protests.

"How do you know that's the way to Koh?" Yun asked Lee, his eyebrow raised.

Lee looked back in the direction of Koh and shrugged nonchalantly. "Just follow the sound of Kuruk's cries and you'll get there eventually."

Just as Yun was about to bolt towards the field, he felt himself fall back. Lee was dragging him by his collar alongside Rangi.

"Oh no! You aren't going there either, pretty boy!"

"Bu! Bu-bu-bu….but Kuruk!" Yun whined. He had a chance to meet his past self!

"Uh uh, you want to get out of here? Then you're going to do what I say! I'm not pussyfooting around anymore!" Lee scolded, as she dragged the two smaller teens behind her.

To the world, Rangi was an exceptional person. She graduated not only top of her class, but early from the Fire Academy as well. Then she did the exact same thing at the Junior Corps. She'd been in many duels and Agni Kais but never got a mark on her once, let alone lost. Her combat prowess was almost second to none.

So why was it, she was being manhandled by a damn daofei like no one's business?!

"Let go of me," she said with an even whisper.

"No," Lee said, her tone commanding a finality and smugness to the conversation. But that only made Rangi's blood boil that much more.

Lee was holding Rangi by the waist, an ironclad grip on her hip. It didn't matter how much Rangi twisted and turned, she couldn't break free. Her heart was pounding abnormally fast, surely it was from all the strain from trying to break out. Nothing else would explain it.

"We can't get through if we don't kill it!" She yelled-whispered, hoping it would drive her point home. It didn't.

Lee just hugged her closer to her body, not caring about the contact in the slightest. This girl really had no boundaries.

"We shouldn't kill it," she whispered. Despite her grip on Rangi, the girl's eyes never left the creature that stood in their way. A tall, purple ghostly spirit, with strange yellow wisps of hair. It had a strange darker purple pattern on its body, and an even stranger red pattern on its head. It had spikes protruding from various parts, and had very long claws to accompany it. Oh yeah, don't kill it! Who would want to kill such a friendly looking creature? Rangi had to suppress an eye roll.

"Why?" Yun asked, his neck bent at an awkward angle from the way Lee had snarled his ponytail into her fist. He and Rangi had tried to make a break to start a fight with the monster despite Lee's protest. And now they were both victims of her manhandling. Thankfully she had the sense to not hold Rangi the same way she was holding Yun.

Though with how tight Lee was holding her, and the different curves she could feel pressed against her back- well…. Rangi wasn't sure which one of the two was in the worst position.

"We killed the weird fishy one, why can't we kill this one?" Yun continued

"We didn't kill that one."

"How do you know?" Rangi spat at her.

Lee finally looked down at Rangi, examining her. Rangi squirmed under her gaze. Once she was thoroughly looked over, she cocked an eyebrow and a smirk danced on her face, "Oh trust me, you'd be able to tell."

Rangi thrashed in Lee's arm again, she was getting sick of her weird, cryptic way of talking. "So we're just supposed to wait here?! It hasn't moved in twenty minutes!"

"Yes! …..or…." Lee trailed off.

"Or what?!"

"You two can calm down and we can walk past it!"

Rangi just stared at Lee dumbstruck, it was official. She was working with a certified idiot. "You want us to walk past it?!"

"Like it's just a neighbor in a village? 'Hey Jun! How's the crops? Did that boy propose to your daughter yet?'" Yun added in sarcastically.

Lee rolled her eyes, "I mean, if that's what you need to do to get in the zone! By all means!"

"WE AREN'T DOING THAT!" They yelled to Lee in unison, a bit too loud. The spirit turned its attention to their hiding spot.

Lee detangled her hand from Yun's hair and quickly clasped it over his mouth, then pulled his head down into a headlock. She adjusted her hand on Rangi slightly, before hoisting the girl up by the waist, lifting her off the ground. Then she started walking towards the spirit. "Great job, now you don't have a choice!" She muttered annoyed to her captives. "Now stay calm, hold your breath or something, just don't freak out!"

Lee walked up to the spirit while the other two tried to swallow their caged horror. The spirit looked down at the three menacingly, but it didn't move. It just observed. Its head slowly turned as they moved past it. When they were far enough away, Rangi saw the spirit slowly turn its head and body back to where it was looking before their outburst.

When the figure was out of sight, Lee dropped the two teens on the ground unceremoniously.

"Now are you going to listen to me? Or do I need to carry you like a misbehaving cat?" She chided them, annoyed.

Rangi sniffed and wiped her nose. Lee had been right about the spirit, all they needed to do was stay calm. They were the ones who were about to put them in undue harm.

"Sorry," they both mumbled.

Lee sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "It's fine. You two don't trust me, and you don't understand this place. I get it."

"But why didn't it attack us? I thought you said we should avoid the spirits?" Rangi asked.

Lee sighed. "This place and the creatures that inhabit it, can be…. changed by our emotions." She scratched the back of her head and looked at the other two teens wearily. "If we remain calm, we can usually skate by but….."

"But that dark spirit attacked us without warning, so why didn't this one?" Yun asked.

"The one that attacked us was dark, the one we snuck past wasn't. It was just scary looking, but it would've become a dark spirit if you freaked out!"

Rangi's head hurt. "But, why?"

"Like I said, this place and the creatures can change based on our emotions. Fear and anger can turn them dark, I wouldn't be surprised if the fishy spirit was turned because of our fighting," Lee sighed. Her face bore an expression of….shame? No that couldn't be. "Ninety-nine percent of spirits are normal as a default, not dark. Even the 'evil' ones like Koh or Father Glowworm…." She let out a shudder. "If we avoid both, it's safer for us and for them."

There was a long silence as the teens mulled over the information they got. Dark spirits were made because of them? Lee also mentioned the Spirit World itself too, and considering what happened to the fish spirit…. Rangi shuddered at what possibly could happen if the Spirit World itself turned dark.

"How did you survive? As a kid, the first time?" Yun asked, surprising the two girls. "It's just been bothering me. We're all barely getting by right now, so how'd you go a week as a little kid?"

Lee gnawed on her lip, despite the wound healing at a fast pace, each time she bit into it, it would open up again. "I had help."

The two stared at her wide-eyed. "Help? Did someone come in with you?" Yun asked.

"No, I ran into them here…."

"Any chance we'll come across them again?" Rangi asked.

Lee looked around and shrugged, it had a more defeated flavor to the action than her usual nonchalance. "I was hoping we would run into her, but so far….nothing."

Rangi looked away, somehow unable to look at Lee's downcasted expression. It was the first time she saw the daofei looking vulnerable. It set her on edge. She told herself it was because Lee was a fearsome daofei, so anything that made her worried should be worried about. Yes, that was it.

Lee sighed forlornly, resting her cheek in her hand. "I miss her. She was really cute too….."

Rangi scowled at the comment, an irrational side of her hoped they wouldn't run into the Spirit World guide anytime soon. Her scowl then turned into a deep pout, unsure why that comment annoyed her in particular, and unaware of Yun's watchful gaze on her.

A/N: Yun, the reason you can't remember a "Person who isn't the Avatar, speaking to an Avatar" is because that was a reference to the comic Suki Alone. :'D

The purple ghost spirits I took the design from when Korra first gets split up from Jinora in the creepy forest (which is also the same forest they are wandering in :'D)

Anyway, can't wait for the next chapter~! Chapters 2, 6, and 7 (this one I still need to finish writing) were the key chapters I REALLY wanted to write when I first came up with this idea.

Also sorry for taking so long to publish this. TT0TT I wanted to do a picture for this too and I was kinda sorta on the struggle bus with it.