Young Writers Society

Lee stared at the winged man.

He had been convinced this was the Spirit World before, but this was starting to get too crazy for even that. He couldn't help but stand there with the fire still in the palm of his hand. He knew he needed to extinguish the flame soon, but no one seemed scared of him.

Yet.

Maybe the shock of the whole experience just hadn't kicked in. The smell of smoke lingered in the air even after he stopped bending; that always took some time to go away.

He shoved his bending hand behind his back as he turned to look at the woman he had rescued.

"I'm Lee," he offered. He wasn't sure who he was introducing himself to. It was clear that the woman didn't want anything to do with him. His stomach twisted and turned at the thought of her having somehow realized he looked like he was from the Fire Nation. Earth Kingdom clothes and a generic Earth Kingdom name could only do so much to hide that.

And the firebending definitely hadn't helped.

"I think we're in the Spirit World," he softly said. "It's the only place I've ever seen that looks anything like this."

Chudnofsky frowned at the man. "You're welcome. Honestly, mortals these days, can't even thank someone that saves their life."

"At any rate, you believe we're in a place you call the spirit world?" said Chudnofsky, walking over to the three of them. "I have a feeling we have very different definitions of the word spirit if you think they have a whole world to themselves. But at any rate, are you positive about that Lee because while this brief holiday would be nice, I would love to get back to my work reasonably quickly and if you know where we are it would be helpful to find a way to leave. And before I forget, My name is Maliachisinsky, Chudnofsky Maliachisinsky. I know you're Lee, what about you two although judging by the surface thoughts of the one on the ground, she isn't in a trusting mood and is having a bit of a crisis. Oh also, I doubt your pyrokinesis is scaring anyone although why you would call it bending baffles me."

Peanut stared at the now named winged guy, but his name was a bit too long for her to truly process in one sitting. Maliachi will be what his name was for the time being.

Wow, a lot had happened in just a short amount of time. But, she still didn't know the poor woman's name. Peanut was not going to resort to asking a third time, so maybe if she stayed quiet, she would eventually answer her previously asked questions.

"Well, I'm impressed by the both of you, fire magic thingy and wings in all!" Peanut waved a hand in the air. "I am a bit more human and regular and, er, squishy than either of you, so I don't think I'll be too helpful in fighting crazy weird plants, but after that, maybe I can help more."

Everything was happening so fast, and Evaline's mind was seconds behind everything and everyone else.

Her hands shook underneath her as she looked up with pleading wide eyes at the woman next to her, then glanced at the awfully chatty and smiley Mali-something Chud-something winged man, then at Lee, the fire power man. Somehow, his fire powers were the most normal thing to have happened so far, but he was wearing odd clothes, and he babbled about something called the Spirit World, so it was a win and a loss.

"The Spirit World," she quietly repeated with a shaky breath, staring back at the ground underneath her.

She felt herself shutting down, refusing to admit that she had fully gone insane. She knew this day would come. Why wasn't she more prepared? Why did she do nothing but delay the inevitable?

Evaline didn't want to show weakness.

"I don't..." she began quietly, swallowing the panic and anxiety as she concentrated looking at the tufts of grass around her fingers. "I don't know where that is."

"Humans are known to be rather squishy," said Chudnofsky, nodding, "Its always been fascinating how determined your species is despite how... we...I mean...evolutionarily challenged you folks are." He gave them a small smile.

"At any rate, don't worry about the crazy weird plants, you're looking at General Maliachisinsky, former head of the Hydranian Armed Forces, I doubt there's too many things out here that could cause any major issues." He gave a quick salute.

"I'm sure you've got plenty of other skills. So if you don't mind sharing, what's your name?"

He turned to the other girl there. "I would like yours too, although you still don't look like you trust us much and don't get me wrong, I wouldn't blame you, I believe we all have lives to get back to and we're going to have to work together to get back and to do that, trust is very important."

For a moment, Lee almost replied.

He opened his mouth and started to speak. He knew what he was going to say. He was going to explain everything he knew about the Spirit World: how strange it was compared to the four three nations, how it was best to avoid the mist that hid below unstable cliff faces, and how you never knew who or what you'd encounter in the wilderness there. He would express his confusion over Maliachisinsky Chudnofsky's ability to read his mind and know his name - and over the origin of the apparent mindreader's name. He would even explain that he didn't understand what Peanut meant when she called his bending fire magic.

But then the conversation continued without him.

He closed his mouth.

He tried to waft away the little bit of smoke that remained from his bending away from his face. He glanced down at his leg, hoping that he hadn't strained it too much running around. The injury still hurt when he put some pressure on it, but it wasn't too bad.

He sniffled.

And then the realization that he had sniffled hit him.

Oh no, he thought. Not again. Being in the Spirit World the first time was bad enough. It shouldn't have been a surprise that his allergies would start acting up, but he had been too high on adrenaline to notice the warning signs.

He sniffled again, trying to withhold the urge that was itching to break free. He was going to listen and let this play itself out. He would figure out what was going on eventually; that's what he had done the last time-

He sneezed.

Loudly.

"Sorry," he whispered. "Allergies."

Evaline slowly looked up at this Chud-Malia winged man with a blank face. Although he was obviously a hallucination, his appearance stopped fazing her. She felt too detached from reality to panic anymore. She just wanted it to be over at this point.

His words felt so casual and so strange, like something written from a book. It was not exactly grounding with her state of mind, and she couldn't help but blankly stare at him with each passing word.

Trust.

As if she trusted anyone right now.

Her weak train of thought was interrupted when Lee sneezed, but she only looked back at the ground with a wistful look.

"...Evaline," she finally said, not bothering to muster up the courage to say anything more.

If she had lost her mind, there was no point in trying to hide her identity.

"Evaline, that helps," said Chudnofsky nodding. He turned towards Lee who has started to sneeze and grimaced. Humans, honestly. How did they do it day in and day out?

"Allergies, you say," said Chudnofsky, "I'm no expert but I know some basic healing magic, you want me to give it a shot. Might be able to at least reduce your symptoms if not deal with them completely?"

Lee knew that waterbenders could use their bending to heal injuries, but he had no idea if that extended to allergies. He had never considered allergies to be a sickness. They just were a thing that everyone had to ignore in order to get work done.

...Then again, maybe that was more of a Fire Nation philosophy. He was still trying to rid himself of the more toxic ones.

"Thank you for the offer," Lee said, raising his hands almost as if surrendering, "but I'm okay. I just need to make myself a cup of tea and I should be good."

It wouldn't really help with the allergies in the long run, but he knew better than to trust strange things in the Spirit World.

Peanut tried to hold in her laughter at hearing Lee sneeze. Of all the things that made this crazy time seem somewhat real, seeing someone who literally set something on fire somehow was sneezing like a normal person.

Nothing could be normal. She had a feeling her laughter might sound a lot similar to hysteria and she didn't want to make the world anymore wild and weird if she could.

So she tried to choke and laugh discretly.

"Suit yourself," said Chudnofsky, shrugging, "I'd offer to conjure a tea but then I don't think my magic is quite good enough to trust with edible things. At any rate, I believe we need to do something now, we can't exactly stand here all day?"

Lee looked around.

Maliachisinsky was right. Even though Lee was very much confused about what was going on right now, he had experience being in the Spirit World. Even more so, he had experience traveling around the regular world. He doubted that this part of the Spirit World would follow every single rule of the world he was much more used to, but it wasn't good to stay out at night.

He glanced up at the sky.

Not that he could tell how close it was to night right now.

His gaze fell back to the forest.

"We should probably look for some kind of shelter," Lee said. "It's hard to tell how long we have until nightfall. If we're lucky, we still have most of the day. If not, we'll want somewhere warm and dry to stay tonight in case the weather suddenly turns bad."

He glanced at the remnants of the carnivorous flowers.

...Or if the woods around them decided to attack them again.

He took a step forward and winced as the pressure raced through his leg. Besides needing a place to stay the night, he needed a place to sit down. Straining his leg today hadn't been the best idea. It had been even less of a good idea when he had first injured it, but he couldn't do much about that injury now.

Evaline took several deep breaths in and out, trying to ease the anxiety away. So she had gone insane. Okay. Fine. At least she wasn't dead. At least she could still control her actions. At least no one seemed to be too aggressive.

Except those plants... but she still wasn't certain if that was real or if that was a hallucination.

She numbed the dread as her face slow turned stoic. She slowly turned to face everyone, lingering her gaze at each person for a few seconds as none of them seemed to give her much attention. There may not be a lot she could do now, but she could do one thing: protect herself. And that meant she had to be wary and keep her eye out on the others.

They weren't trustworthy.

She slowly stood up, and dusted herself off, although her white dress was already dirtied from soot and dirt. Trivialities. It didn't matter.

"I agree," she said blankly, trying to dust off the dirt anyways to distract her running mind. "There's no telling what other creatures are nearby. Safe shelter is a priority."

She didn't give anyone a second glance as she looked off the distance. They were in a strange forest, but there was no path but one forward or backwards.

Without asking or waiting for anyone else, Evaline started to walk forwards.

"You have about fifty two minutes, sixteen point four three two seconds," supplied Chudnofsky, "that is in Earth hours, I'm assuming you all are human...I apologize if that's wrong."

He offered them rest of them a smile as Evaline stalked off in her own direction. "I personally don't mind bad weather but I suppose it would be inconvenient for some of you. And I am too lazy right now to be fighting monsters...so why don't we all follow her? Wouldn't do to split up right now and I have a feeling that one isn't going to change her mind about where she's going?"

Lee gave a nod.

He was starting to feel a twinge of familiarity with how Evaline was acting, but he knew that dealing with a distant adult was different than dealing with a distant teenager. And there was also a noticeable lack of a missing zoo, suspicious people following them, and a building with an unstable floor.

...When he thought back on how he had gotten closer with the younger Lee, it was a miracle that things had turned out as well as they did.

Lee followed Evaline. He kept some distance from her; he hadn't forgotten how quickly she had run away from him earlier. But he didn't want to lose track of her after she had almost gotten eaten by a plant, so he took a gamble and stayed relatively close.

After a moment of silence passed, he took another risk and looked over at her.

"So," he hesitantly started, "where are you from? I'm from the Earth Kingdom."

...Said the firebender. He resisted the urge to sigh. It wasn't like he could hide the firebending bit anymore. Why try to hide where he was really from? And while the Fire Nation had certainly changed since he was last there, it wasn't like the Fire Nation of the present was horribly worse than the past one. Both had their flaws.