Backward Byways <Foggy Swamp, Earth Kingdom>

[manju]

Sifting through her backpack brought no favorable results. Amidst the items in her bag, mainly clothing or weaponry, the only thing he found that remotely resembled food was a shriveled black thing that looked almost like a mushroom. But after sniffing it, she threw it behind her. Whatever it was, it wasn't likely to satiate her hunger at all, much less feed three people. She wore an exasperated look on her face as Nasrin and Muqali kept offering suggestions.

Manju peaked her pierced eyebrow as Muqali mentioned fishing. She had with her a pair of spears, which she could use for such a task quickly and effectively. Even back home on her island, she speared fish at the docks while waiting for her father and brothers to unload the latest shipments. Something had to be done during those extremely boring times.

Manju grabbed one of her spears and slid off the tree root. She then walked to Muqali, arms crossed as she spoke up. "Why not ask de girl wit' de spear, jerk?", she said while holding up her weapon. Before expecting a response, she immediately turned toward the nearest body of water and walked over to it. Even in the mud, she hoped to be able to find fish.

[nasrin]

A loud grumble from her stomach prompted Nasrin's hand to clutch at her gut reflexively, and at that point she realized that food was now their top priority. Leaving things to Manju alone wouldn't be enough. They had to start working smarter. So as she hoisted herself up from her seat on the root of the tree, tunic and pants still coated with mud, she announced to the others, "I'm going to look for some kindling." However, her soft-spoken words seemed to barely even carry over to the others, so she added slightly louder, "I'll be over there..."

The sandbender gave a final gesture to indicate her direction and then started at a slow pace, carefully picking her steps as she maneuvered around the tree roots and puddles along a fairly narrow stretch of land that wasn't submerged in water. Nasrin's eyes casually swept the ground and low branches for any sign of twigs or leaves that weren't completely soaked.

Every now and then, Nasrin afforded a glance over her shoulder to make sure she could still see the forms of her companions, but she was only moving in one direction and was fairly certain she wouldn't get lost. She eventually came across a tree with a low-hanging branch that had partially snapped at its base, leaving the limb to dry out and die. It was exactly what she was looking for.

Nasrin climbed up toward the branch, stepping on and over the tree's large roots as she made her way up the trunk. The sandbending woman shimmied around the base of the tree to get to the branch, but as soon as she reached it, she noticed a flicker of movement in a shallow pool down below. A long, coiling, dark figure was visible just under the water's surface for a moment before it went under too far to see. Nasrin stared at the lingering ripples in the water for a moment, convinced she'd just seen some strange breed of water snake.

There were plenty of snakes back in the Si Wong desert, and they were commonly eaten as meals. Fish, on the other hand, were quite the rarity in her part of the world, and she never really acquired a taste for them. Perhaps she'd be able to make her own catch that she'd enjoy more than some putrid swamp fish... With that thought in mind, Nasrin abandoned the branch and swiftly picked her way down to the edge of the pool where the ripples of the snake's movement underwater could still be seen.

Nasrin took an estimate of how long the creature might be, and then concentrated on the muddy earth beneath the surface of the water. With no small amount of effort, the sandbender managed to extend her will over the soaked earth and raise it up. She formed a small wall of mud in a six foot radius around the area she'd seen the snake, effectively cutting it off from the safety of deeper waters. Nasrin then lifted up a handful of dirt with her bending from the ground beside her, and condensed the loose earth into a solid, fist-shaped rock.

The shadow of the snake became visible under the surface of the water, and without hesitation she threw the rock down hard at its head. The water splashed, and for a moment the turbulent ripples made it hard for her to tell if she'd hit it. Nasrin leaned in a little closer to see, and suddenly she saw that something was wrong.

The water splashed once more as the snake burst out of the water and coiled itself lightning fast around her ankle. Nasrin let out a strange yelp of surprise as she tugged her foot away. The snake lifted somewhat from her action, it's body going taut and lifting right up through a section of her mud wall. It was at that point she realized that this thing was much longer than she'd anticipated. And what's more... it appeared to be not a scaly reptile, but a slick, smooth vine!

Nasrin had less than a heartbeat to try and comprehend why an inanimate piece of vegetation was assaulting her before the tug on her leg suddenly intensified and she found herself being dragged rapidly through the murky water. She let out a yell, but it was interrupted by the sound of gurgling as she suddenly had to fight to spit water out of her mouth. Everything seemed a blur for several terrifying seconds until she suddenly found herself being pulled right toward the roots of a massive tree. The roots looked almost like teeth the way they arced out of the ground and then sank back in, and the root on her foot seemed to be pulling her right into the dark shadows beneath them.

Nasrin let out one more yell for help and tried to grab onto the earth around her for support, but she simply couldn't resist the pull as she disappeared into the darkness.

[mulaqi]

Muqali leaned back in surprise as Manju yelled at him, blinking rapidly and with his mouth hanging dumbly. As Manju turned away to go fish, presumably, he reached back and scratched the back of his head, a beffudled look on his face. He hadn’t meant to offend her. Of course, it failed to occur to him that he was just being messed with again and that Manju wasn’t actually angry. Adding to the confusion, he was trying to think of how exactly the fact that she had spears fit into the equation.

After a moment of silence, it finally clicked, “You can fish with a spear?”

He turned to see what Nasrin though about this whole fishing business, but by then she was already walking off into the distance. He started to call after her, but then decided better of it and instead simply sighed. She really needed to work on this whole “cooperation” thing. Standing up from his seat, Muqali brushed some of the dirt off of his butt and made to follow Manju. He was curious to see exactly how fishing worked. He had just caught up to Manju when suddenly, he heard a yell. Not a screech like the bird he’d heard before, but a genuine, human yell. On top of that, it was female. Nasrin.

“Manju! We’ve got trouble!” he called to the islander before turning on his heel and dashing off at top speed.

As he ran with tonfa drawn, he heard another yell, but by the time he had reached where he thought it had come from, Nasrin was nowhere in sight. There was, however, a small wall of muddy earth. It was earthbending. Nasrin had been here for sure. Concentrating on his senses, Muqali looked around for any sign of the other Si Wong native. He didn’t find Nasrin, but fortunately for him, he managed to spot something green lashing out towards his leg. Hopping quickly out of the way, he spun his left tonfa and swing it downward. The green thing was torn apart where he hit it, with water gushing out of it. A vine? How was that possible?

For a moment, he just stood there, bewildered at what had just happened. The next moment, however, he was forced to leap to the side as more vines shot towards him from the swamp. Twirling his tonfa around, Muqali hacked away at the vines, the spinning of his tonfa turning his weapons into weed-wackers as he battled his strange aggressors. For a few moments, he was doing quite well, and it seemed like he had developed a genuine defense against the vines, but as he took a step back, he stepped awkwardly on a tree root. With a yelp of surprise, Muqali lost his balance and went plunging into the water with a loud splash.

This wasn’t the shallow water he’d encountered before. This was real, honest to goodness open water, at least eight feet deep and probably deeper as it left the shore. Thrashing wildly at the vines with his tonfa, Muqali tried to kick to the surface with his legs. He had barely managed to get his left hand above water before the vines finally got him, wrapping around his legs and dragging him backwards towards a strange formation of roots. Before they could darg him through, however, he hooked booth tonfa around two of the “teeth” in the formation, halting his progress. The vines, however, continued to pull at him putting great strain on his shoulders. With all his strength, Muqali pulled back with his legs, managing to bring his knees back to his abdomen. Unlathcing his right tonfa from the root, he spun it at the vines surrounding his feet, and after three hacks, he was free. However, the result was that he plunged once more into the water, and he was forced to scramble back up one of the “teeth” to stave off the oncoming vines. He was in a precarious position, but if the vines had pulled him that way, then they had probably done the same to Nasrin.

“Over here!” he called out to Manju as he swiped at the vines surrounding him, hoping the Igni was close enough to find him in time to help.

[manju]

After Muqali's display of ignorance, Manju was followed, but the sand nomad quickly called out to Manju and ran off. The Igni soon followed, wondering what this 'trouble' could be, in spite of the telltale scream of a woman. With her single spear in tow, she ran down the muddy path, but took a quick stop to grab her other spear from her traveling pack.

In the few seconds that Manju took to look down and grasp the shaft of her spear, Muqali had disappeared from view.

"Now where'd he go...?" Manju muttered to herself, looking around cautiously, spears by her side. Hearing a man call out, her honey-hued eyes flitting all around as she ran down the pathway, heart pounding, and eventually catching sight of a bizarrely hideous sight.

Her eyes widened like never before.

With her grip on the spears firm as ever, Manju's mouth lay agape, bottom jaw quivering as she stared at the creature. Like nothing she'd ever seen, it almost had an unearthly feel to it, like some malevolent spirit or something. And it was eating Muqali!

"DEMON TREE!!!"

Horrified, Manju took a few steps back, then turned and high-tailed it out of there. She was no fool. Muqali was being eaten, Nasrin was probably lodged in its bowels, and the Igni didn't want to be part of the creature's feast.

But Manju slowed after a while. For some reason, she felt like fighting valiantly to save the two, even if it meant her death. And if the sand nomads also died, that would be okay in her book, because she went out fighting. Trying to save her friends.

Her face contorting into a fierce, tigerdillo-like grin, Manju bolted back toward the demon tree. Then, with ardor and zeal, she leapt straight toward the creature's 'body' and began to hack at the vines. Cutting, slashing, jabbing, piercing, thrusting. Anything to kill it.

[nasrin]

Darkness surrounded the frightened sandbender. Even Nasrin's prepeually apathetic mind was racing with fear while her tried was trying to pound itself right out of her ribcage. She could hardly see a thing, with the only light being a meager ray or two that managed to find their way in from under the tree roots. Surprisingly, there was enough room for her to kneel on all fours, but Nasrin was beginning to feel claustrophobic. She was used to open deserts that stretched on for eternity with nothing but sky and stars over her head.

In this cramped space, she felt like the tree overhead was already beginning to press down on her. The only relief she felt was that the vine had apparently released her leg and she was no longer being dragged along out of control. Her breaths still came in rapid, shallow bursts, and she swallowed the lump in her throat in order to try and compose herself.

He hands were keeping her up, and they felt like they were wrist-deep in moist, foul-smelling soil. Her knees and feet felt much the same way, though she could still feel the solidity of a larger tree root snaking around in the ground beneath her. A few smaller tree roots dnagled from the cieling around her. After a few more seconds of trying to decipher exactly what was around her, Nasrin could feel herself slowly starting to calm down. She would think of a way out of here. All she had to do was stay calm...

The feeling of something with dozen of legs suddenly snaking its way up her forearm threw that plan right out the window.

"SON OF B****!" Nasrin screamed, pushing off hard with her hands in an attempt to sit up. SHe smacked the back of her head on the cieling of the crawlspace, both causing a bit of pain and jarring loose a large clump of dirt that fell on her back. More insects that were contained within that clod suddenly began squirming along her back and only added to her frenzy. She flailed her hands, trying to wipe off all the creatures that were suddenly crawling across every bit of exposed flesh they could find. Nasrin kicked and thrashed violently, putting all of her bending powers into those motions.

However, the water-logged earth was difficucult to move, and the tree roots did well to hold the dirt together. For all her efforts, she wasn't making much progress. And yet, in her panic, Nasrin really couldn't think of anything else and so she kept on pushing. Eventually she found that there was one side of the crawlspace that wasn't as sturdy and she put all her efforts into that direction. Dirt continued to be forced back, and she had to push aside smaller roots with her bare hands, but at long last there suddenly came a beam of light visible through the earth.

Dull as the mist-filtered light was, it was a beautiful sight to Nasrin. Sheclawed her way towards it, and after several seconds of frantic kicking and clawing she finally managed to slither out onto her belly, dragging herself onto open ground. She stood up in an instant and began furiously swatting at her clothes. It still felt as if there were a thousand bugs crawling across her skin and under her shirt.

For several moments she just stood there, spinning on the spot as she tried to rid the feeling of being swarmed, until she spotted the edge of a pool of water nearby. Nasrin bolted for it and waded right into the relatively shallow water. She dropped down to her knees and began rolling in the murky water, oblivious to the fact that there was a catfish-gator floating nearby. The massive reptile had been stalking a large fish that would have been its lunch, but the sandbender's flailing had scared it away. Irrate, but sensing an even more filling meal, the catfish-gator started swimming toward her.

Nasrin, on the other hand, had only just slowed down her frantic attempts to rid herself of insects. Her heart was pounding faster than ever, and she was preoccuppied with the task of staring down into her shirt to make sure no more insects were gnawing at her skin. She, nor the catfish-gator, seemed to be aware of the slight groaning noise of the tree that Nasrin had escape from. The base of the tree, without an even distribution of earth to keep it balanced, had started to lean toward the missing area that Nasrin had cleared in order to escape. Slowly at first, it was now significantly starting to tilt, and the roots on the other side were almost pulled free of the ground.

Nasrin finally allowed herself a shaky sigh of relief when she had determined that there were no more bugs around her. But her relative calm was quickly shattered. First, she heard the growling hiss of the creature in the water. It was now just six feet from her, and she was already starting to stand up to run. And as she turned, she suddenly noticed the tree behind her was starting to loom towards her. Her eyes widened even more, and for a split-second, she performed a double-take as she looked between the predator about to eat her and the tree about to flatten her.

The Si Wong woman quickly decided to get as far away as possible, and she ran straight off to the side. The tree came crashing down several seconds later, and the impact nearly flattened the catfish-gator. It also managed to get out of the way and retreated back to the water.

However, Nasrin didn't care. She simply kept running as fast as she could, tripping and stumbling for several minutes until she simply couldn't run anymore. She came across a rather large tree with roots that arced high up out of the ground and she climbed the nearest one to elevate her out of the muck. At that point, she simply curled up against the trunk of the tree, wrapped her arms around her knees, and slowly started rocking back and forth.

[mulaqi]

One would have to be deaf not have heard Manju’s yell, and so Muqali couldn’t help but turn his head in the direction the yell came from. Unfortunately, in doing this, he broke his concentration and left himself wide open. The attacking vines took full advantage of this, and before he could even get site of Manju, a vine was wrapped around his waist. He yelped as the vine yanked him back through the air, away from the tree, and before he could react, suddenly whipped him about in a semi circle and released him. Flying through the air, Muqali desperately tried to twist himself about and gain some bearing of where he was headed, but to no avail. He could only watch the scenery whip by helplessly, before finally landing into a body of water with a loud splash.

As it happened, Muqali was very fortunate. The water was deep enough to save him from major injury, but shallow enough for him to bob up and down from the bottom to the surface as he tried to make his way to shore. He was far too tired to attempt to swim again. After what felt like an eternity, he made it to shore, and flopped gratefully down into the mud. For a minute he lay there, trying to catch his breath, and even considered not moving. Quickly, he snapped himself out of it. This was no time to be resting! Nasrin and Manju were out there with that vine monster. He couldn’t just leave them. If they didn’t meet back up, they could all end up dead.

So, slowly, he rose to his feet, mud dripping from most of his body. He didn’t bother to wash it off. It would have probably taken hours at this point. Instead, he trudged onward, wearily stumbling into the mists of the swamp…

[manju]

Attacking was a bad idea. Though one couldn't expect the best of judgement from Manju's rage-clouded mine. In the midst of her cutting at the tree beast, vines wrapped around her body and pulled her backward. She held for dear life onto her spears as the vines tried to pull her away, but the spears gave way and were pulled out of the wooden trunk while still in Manju's ardent grip.

Instead of flinging her into the air immediately, the vines slung her forward and made her land face-first into dark, soft mud that bubbled with a horrendous stench. In less than a second, the snake-like vines ripped her from the muddy earth and catapulted the Igni high into the air.

The relatively petite, lithe young woman flew in a high arc through the air, her body limp and defeated while keeping a strong grip on her weapons, oddly enough. With her limited consciousness and strength, she still wasn't about to let go of her best defense against the evil vines and demon trees of this land.

She landed forcefully on her back, upon the thick muddy shore of yet another marsh. Manju groaned for a few seconds, then tried to raise herself before falling again. "Jus' five more minutes...", she said in a daze, her arms out to the side. Her spears were nearby, one landing pointy end-first a few feet to her right, while the one on her left another lay on its side even closer.

[nasrin]

It was nearly twenty minutes before Nasrin finally felt up to the task of moving from her little haven. Her heart had finally ceased its attempts to beat itself right out of her chest and her breathing had settled down into a rythmic pattern. The normally apathetic sandbender had calmed down and was thinking like her old self again. Without the panic of her life being in danger or the Swamp itself seeming like it wanted to eat her, she was able to try and reason her way through this.

The first thing Nasrin realized was that she would have to find Muqali and Manju. Whatever was trying to get them, they stood a better chance of getting out alive if they worked together. However, as she stood up on the root of the tree, peering around in every direction, her plan hit a bit of a snag.

She had no idea which direction to head in...

Ever since that vine grabbed her leg, she had lost all bearing of which direction was north, and there seemed to to me anywhere nearby that was high enough to see over the soaring canopy of trees. If she chose the wrong direction, not only would she miss her chance to reunite with her companions, but she'd have to trudge through even MORE of the swamp before she reached the edge. Still, she had to know if they were nearby.

"G-guys?" she said out loud, her voice barely carrying to the base of the tree in which she sat. Nasrin felt very foolish for some reason, almost embarassed at the tremble in her own words. "Muqali? ...Manju?" she called out a little louder. Nasrin listened for a short while, still looking out around her, though the exer-present mist seemed to limit her range.

"GUYS!" she shouted even louder, though she wasn't rewarded with so much as an echo. A sigh escaped her lips and Nasrin looked around her once more. She was too hesitant to risk looking for them on her own. She needed a new plan...

The tree?

Nasrin suddenly remembered the massive tree at the center of the swamp. Manju had wanted to see it, and their chosen route would have brought them right by it. Maye the others would simply continue on their way if they couldn't find her, and if so she could meet them further along the way. It was a long shot, but at this point the Si Wong native was willing to try anything.

She circled around the base of the tree she was on, peering up carefully at the canopy. After a few moment she thought she spied what she hoped with the shadow cast by the massive overhang of foliage that sprouted from the central tree of the swamp. Without anything else to guide her, and with a final cglance toward what she guessed was he last location of her companions, she started trudging through the swamp once more.

[mulaqi]

Exhaustion was beginning to overtake Muqali at last as he trudged wearily through the swamp, in no small part due to the fact that he hadn’t eaten in over half a day. His stomach growled at least once a minute at this point, and he decided he could no longer ignore it. He couldn’t do anyone any good if he starved. The question then remained about what exactly he was going to eat. Catching would either simply not work, or take too long, and he hadn’t seen any other animals he could try to hunt. That left him with scavenging, and just the thought of that made his stomach turn. The plants looked disgusting here, and he wasn’t about to eat bugs.

At this point he had no choice in the matter, so he began to scan the foliage around him as he walked. After a short period of looking, he spotted something that might work: a group of surprisingly clean looking purple mushrooms. Had he been less hungry and exhausted, Muqali might have stopped to think about a time when he was seven and had accidentally drank some “bad” cactus juice, but as it stood he was not thinking clearly enough to remember that lesson. So, without thinking twice, he plucked a mushroom from the ground and took a bite out of it.

“This doesn’t taste so bad…” he mumbled as he chewed.

Unfortunately, immediately after swallowing, his opinion of the fungi began to change. His stomach felt like it was being tossed around like a ball, and his face suddenly turned a little green. Moments later, he was throwing up into the swamp.

“Okay, no more scavenging…” he muttered weakly as he rose back to his feet. “Just find the others.”

Even more drained than before, Muqali slowly marched further into the swamp, unknowingly headed straight for the gigantic tree at the center. Silently, he prayed that he wouldn’t encounter any trouble like those vines again. He doubted he had the strength to resist at this point.

[manju]

Manju groaned loudly, still laying on her back in the thick, dark mud. Her amber eyes cracked open slowly, and she moved her head from side to side. She could see one spear, but the other was beyond her field of vision. One could only move one's head so far when stuck in mud. Manju rose herself slowly, forced to dig her hands into the mire to prop herself upward. She felt it smeared on her back, and the feeling would probably linger for hours, if not days. Manju didn't much care. She felt like her stomach was caving in, and she needed to find food quickly. She was beside a body of water, but did she have the energy to fish?

She grumbled again as she rose entirely from the mud, which covered the back end of her body from the tip of her head to the bottoms of her heels. She hobbled over to grab one of her spears, then dredged in the opposite direction to grab the other. Neither weapon was damaged, much to her contentment. The Igni could definitely catch some good fish using her weapons of choice.

Glancing at the body of water leading to the muddy shore, she headed to a few roots that stuck out of the ground that would make a suitable perch for fishing. That is, if she could be that patient without stabbing someone. Then again, there was no other person around to stab, so spearing the fish was the best bet. As she climbed atop a curved root, her stomach grumbled. She was frustrated, hungry, and seperated from her friends. Things were not looking up.

After only a minute of poring over the immediate watery area, she saw no fish other than schools of tiny minnows in the clear water. Seeing no fish large enough to satisfy her hunger, she hopped off the branch and walked to dry, non-muddy land. Manju headed down a path that she thought would lead her to the large tree in the middle of the swamp, which was her prime reason for coming to the place. But at the moment, she regretted not only that decision, but her decision to stay in the Earth Kingdom while her father and brothers sailed back home.

[nasrin]

An hour had passed and Nasrin was ready to thrown in the towel. Sixty minutes of traversing a landscape that varried between soggy dirt and waist-deep pools of water. Three-thousand six-hundred seconds of swatting mosquitoes and yanking leeches off her extremeties. Her feet hand long-sinced pruned up and her turbid skin was gathering quite the collection of scratches and abrasions from sticks littering the floor. The rest of her body was equally moist from grime and sweat, though her insides felt dehydrated and hollow.

After an eternity, she finally felt the bottom of the shallow pool she'd been wading through start to rise up on a slight incline. The stick she'd been using probe the waters ahead of her started hitting dirt that was more solid and at last she had some kind of hope of the land becoming more solid. The mist around her prevented her vision from piercing beyond a few yards, but suddenly she noticed something...

The mist suddenly began to fade into nothingness as she move forward and she noticed a coulumn of light beaming down ahead of her through some hole in the canopy. It illuminated the area ahead, dissipating the mist in order to reveal something sitting there.

Nasrin's eyes widened and she lost her grip on her walking stick. A wooden keg, branded with the label of the Si Wong desert's most famous brewer and with a tap that was leaking amber colored ale, was perched in the center of that beam of light. Nasrin, exhausted beyond reason, abandoned all sense of reason and charged wildly for the spirit-sent brew.

She splashed her way through the remaining water, scrambled onto the dry land and fell against the keg with a loving embrace. However, she wasted little time on the sentimental moment before standing up, tearing ther top of the keg clear off the barrel and dunked her face into the liquid. Nasrin practically inhaled the ale, taking several gulping mouthfuls before lifting her head back and taking the time to swallow and breath.

A deep feeling of relief passed over her as her stomach finally had something to digest other than itself, however that feeling was tempered by the strange after-taste. Nasrin smacked her lips a few times, running her tongue over her teeth as she tried to find out what was causing the strange taste. The sandbender lifted and hand to push aside the multiple strands of hair that were now clinging to her face, and in clearing her field of vision she realized something...

She was standing over a stump.

Nasrin stood up like she'd just sat on a tack. She looked around her, then back at the stump which was filled with rainwater, moss, algae, and a few things that seemed to be alive. Immediately she started to wretch, but she couldn't muster even the strength necessary to vomit. Instead she just spit multiple times, afraid to take a drink of anything else that might remove the sickening grimey feeling that pervaded her taste buds. The sandbender paced around futiliy, making grunts and grumbles of aggrivation and desperation until she finally managed to calm herself down.

She'd just fallen for something a Si Wong native should have recognized a mile away. Nasrin cursed silently at the mirage and used her bending to uproot the stump out of sheer spite. At the very least, her thirst had been somewhat sated. She could only hope that didn't come at the cost of some kind of sickness from whatever was in that water.

[mulaqi]

After what felt like ages, Muqali finally made it the giant tree in the center of the swamp. Normally, Muqali would be staring in awe, but instead he simply collapsed on one of its giant roots. It felt so much drier than the rest of the swamp, which really didn’t take much but was a blessing nonetheless. His stomach grumbled again. He was truly starving now, and overcome with exhaustion. He turned onto his back, and this time he was really awed. It was only a small sliver, but there was a gap in the tree line above, and through it he could see a clear blue sky. He smiled. You truly never know what you have until it’s gone.

All of a sudden, the water below the root he was on was abuzz with movement. As quickly as he could, Muqali rose to his feet and raised his tonfa feebly in defense. His jaw dropped in horror as he discerned what exactly was moving down there: vines. Lots and lots of vines. Several snaked up towards him, and he backpedaled away, swatting at them with his tonfa. He could handle this. He would just climb up the tree. There were a lot, but he could still escape from this number. Unfortunately, those vines turned out to be only the tip of the figurative iceberg. From the water below rose what could only be described as a monster; a huge mass of vines vaguely in the shape of a man with a wooden mask.

“Son of a buzzard-wasp…”

Vines shot towards him from what felt like all directions. Desperately, Muqali tried to hop from root to root as he fended them off, but with little grace. He nearly fell on several occasions. Panting heavily, he realized that unless something changed drastically fast, this was the end of the line. In all likelihood, he wasn’t making it out of this one alive…

[manju]

Manju's nerves were shot. She was ready to snap. Anyone or anything to walk by the Igni would be yelled at, or worse, unless they had some way of alleviating her multitude of discomforts. The gnawing pain had gotten to a point where she had stopped actually feeling hungry. The growling had stopped, but the weakness was still there. She hated it. Life was miserable. As she hung her head low and strode upon the soft ground, she mumbled to herself.

Stupid trees...

The Igni, of course, referred to the big tree in the center of the swamp, the allure of which drew her to lead her companions into this accursed damp dungeon of pain and misfortune. It could have also applied to the demon tree that ate her friends.

Her feet hurt. Her hips hurt. Her arms hurt. Being slammed in the mud does that to a person.

Though her amber orbs focused only three feet before her on the damp earth, she saw movement. She looked before her to see a small tapybara, a native creature of the Igni Island Chain, zooming around as if it were being chased. Manju raised her eyebrows and widened her eyes. As far as she knew, tapybara didn't live in the swamp, and she grew rather confused at this sight. Hearing the pitter-patter of another creature, she looked behind herself and saw another tapybara running directly toward her. Strange though, was the fact that the creatures made no footprints in the mud beneath them, though Manju was in too much of a daze to notice or care. As the creature ran at her, she turned around entirely and moved her feet further apart to let the small beast run through.

"Stupid t'ings..."

She sighed and turned around again to see a figure sitting on a log about twenty feet in the distance, shrouded by a thin cloud of mist. Just then, she saw another tapybara run out from the brush and jet toward the person on the log. Manju, though perturbed, thought she would at least ask the person if they had food with them before yelling.

Slouching with her spears in her hand, she approached the man or woman on the log, who had two tapybaras by his or her feet and another seated beside them. As she closed in, Manju, foregoing any formalities, shouted to the being. "Hey, joo! Got any food?"

The short-haired being stayed silent, but Manju grew increasingly concerned at how familiar the silent person looked. As she got closer, the haze surrounding the figure thinning, she came to a bizarre realization. It was no swamp-dweller. It was no stranger, even. In fact, the person would probably have no food. The person...was her!

Manju stopped dead in her tracks as she saw the apparition of herself, who sat with her legs crossed, clad in skimpy Igni clothes and patting a tapybara laying beside her. Her puffy hair was as short as the day she left for the Earth Kingdom.

"'Ey stranger...", the phantom Manju said.

Manju dropped her spears to her side. "Uh...'ey jourself."

Beads of sweat forming on her dirty brow, she pointed at herself, then back at the apparition. "Wha's going on? Are you...?"

The ghostly Igni nodded. "Yes. Where've joo been? What 'appened? Why'ja leave?"

Manju groaned. "I t'ought I would die of boredom. Ngai was bod'rin' me. De opportunity rose. I wanned to see de world. Want just one reason?"

Manju's spectre assumed a sardonic smile and narrowed her eyes. "So...joo left cuz of yourself? To seek jour own pleasure?"

The corporeal Manju, though still weak, crossed her arms and scowled. "I dun' need jour guff."

"What about mom? Little Mohan? Kiri? Ratree? Hoa? Friends an' family?", the mirage said with a clear vindictive quality to its voice. "Ever t'ought dey'd miss ya?"

Manju's face reddened as she growled. "Shut up..."

The mirage continued, being no comfort whatsoever, "No, a'course not. Now joo run 'round in de mud with two mummies!"

Manju growled again and raised her voice, "Shut...up...now..."

The spectre laughed derisively.

A vein bulging in Manju's neck, she reached into her deep pocket and grabbed her blowgun. She had kept it there in case she would be seperated from her traveling pack. Reaching in again as the wicked mirage howled in laughter, she grabbed a dart and loaded her bowgun, and, mustering all her strength, shot it at the apparition. Her eyelids fell inadvertantly, perhaps because of fatigue.

She opened her eyes a second later and saw nothing before her. Just a log, behind it a small sapling of a tree, which had a dark stuck in its side. No people, no tapybaras. Only a log and sapling. Manju dropped her bamboo segment of a blowgun and raised her hands to her temples. She thought she was going crazy. Her mind was playing tricks on her. Never did she stop to consider it may have been a different force, but instead, she ran over to look the log and sapling over. No signs of humans or large-ish creatures anywhere. Just the dark fletched with slender tufts of red feathers sticking out the side of the sapling.

Manju let out a scream of anguish and fell on the slime-and-moss-covered log.

Laying there for five minutes or so and sobbing quietly, she opened her eyes and, through the tears, saw a greenish-brown slug about the size of her fist crawling up the side of the log. Without hesitation, she grabbed the creature, shoved it into her mouth, and swallowed.

"Better dan not'ing...", she grumbled. The creature's slime numbed her mouth, but she felt no other ill effects. She knew that, at least in the Igni Islands, no slugs that weren't brightly-colored were poisonous. She hoped the same applied in this fog-laden swamp, else she may have ended her life. Or at the least, caused herself to vomit.

She rolled over onto her back and looked at the dense canopy. A few minutes later, she raised herself and strode over to where her weapons lay. No long feeling quite as weak as she did, she picked up her blowgun first, then slid it into her pocket, and immediately picked up her short spears. She plucked the dart from the sapling, and made her way down the path. Inwardly, she hoped the path would lead her to the large tree, but she also pondered how that slug tasted strangely like grilled tapybara.

[nasrin]

More time passes and the ground seemed to be getting just slightly drier. Small pools and puddles still littered the floor of the swamp, but at the very least there seemed to be an uninterrupted path of dirt for most of the walk. Nasrin's stomach still growled fiercely, but at the very least the water she'd drank (disgusting as it was) was keeping her stomach from dissolving itself with acid.

Eventually, the Si Wong woman came to a stop as she stepped around a rather large tree. Nasrin stared ahead for several long seconds, blinking her eyes to make sure she hadn't just imagined it. Standing atop a ridiculously large tree root was her former comrade and fellow sandbender from the Desert. He seemed perfectly at ease and his clothing was immaculate despite the mud and muck of the swamp. Nasrin rubbed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. This was just another mirage...

Allowing a sigh to escape her lips, Nasrin resumed walking forward and intended to simply ignore the vision. As she neared, however, she began to realize that the tip of the root her partner stood on seemed to lead on for quite a while in the direction she was heading. It dawned on her that a root that big must come from a tree equally massive in proportion. A momentary flicker of relief passed over her features as she decided to follow that root all the way to the giant tree.

"You look like sh*t," her former partner commented as she approached him. His tone was joking, and his mouth was curled into a smirk. Nasrin ignored the remark and started to follow alongside the root. Her partner watched her walk by with that grin still on his lips and he called after her, "Not even goin' to take a break for old friends?"

Nasrin didn't stop walking. She kept on going for several more seconds before finally pausing to turn around. Her eyes swept over the area where the vision had appeared, but she couldn't find him. She let out a small sigh, glad that she hadn't been side-tracked by a mere vision. Nasrin turned around, intent on resuming her march.

"Usually you're only this quiet when you haven't drank in days," said the vision of the other sandbender as he stood on the root beside her. Nasrin gave the slightest of starts at the voice, but she immediately resumed her passive expression as she looked at him.

"I don't usually talk to imaginary friends," she said, and started walking once more. The other sandbender started walking along with her, keeping pace as she trudged with easy, noiseless steps of his own.

"At least not without a shot of brandy," the vision remarked. "But I guess dehydration works just as well."

"This is all in my head," Nasrin reasoned. The other sandbender replied with a shrug.

"Possibly... but it does make for much better conversation than a gecko-frog." Nasrin kept on walking in silence. "Come on," the older man chided with a light-hearted voice, "I could practically read your thoughts when I was alive. Do you really want me reading them now that I am one of them? Could be quite embarassing."

"Go right ahead," Nasrin muttered, "None of this is real..."

Silence for several seconds save for the sound of footsteps.

"When you're out of this swamp, the first thing you're thinking of doing is taking the nearest man behind closed doors and-" Nasrin swiped a back-handed slap at the vision but it passed right through him. The other sandbender grinned widely in amusement as Nasrin narrowed her eyes slightly at him. "Up for conversation now?"

*****************************************************************************

Nasrin continued walking for a short while longer, following the path of the root while chatting with her imaginary friend. Or rather, she occasionally muttered responses while he recalled some better times. The tree root had grown nearly 10 feet tall and she had taken to simply walking along its top so she could see better.

"I have to ask something," Nasrin said afer they'd walked in silence for a short time. "Back in Omashu..."

"Please!" the sandbender said exhasperatedly, "Don't tell me you're caught up on that?" Nasrin just kept walking quietly. "Okay, I admit it hurt like hell, but really, there's nothing you could have done. I just didn't see it coming. Whether you were sober or not didn't make a difference in that one." Nasrin glanced over at him, a ghost of regret on her face. "I only knew you a little while, but I've been in this business much longer than I care to remember. Probably should died several times over the years... Don't blame yourself thinking I had so many years of life ahead of me. I was living on borrowed time already."

A slight smile tugged at Nasrin's lips, and she alowwed a quiet laugh to escape her. "There's one more thing..." she said, almost sheepishly, "What was your name again?"

At this point, the other sandbender stopped dead in his tracks, and Nasrin halted her walk as well. The vision looked at her for a few seconds, shock on his face, and then he burst into laughter. Nasrin simply looked at him, rubbing her arm a little in embarassment. "Oh that's just too great..." the sandbender replied, lifting up his goggles to rub a tear from his eye. "All this time and you forgot my name?" Nasrin shrugged helplessly and the two resumed walking.

"Well, this is your mind," the vision stated, "If I know my name it's because you know my name. But at the moment I think you have some more important matters to worry about."

"Like what?" Nasrin asked, to which the other sandbender simply stopped and pointed.

"Like that... Good luck!" and with that he vanished. Nasrin watched his form disappear for a moment before looking in the directionhe'd pointed and spotting a massive green creature rising from the water... And Muqali was right next to it. Her eyes widened and she immediately started forward in order to help.

[mulaqi]

As tired as he was, Muqali knew he needed to try and flee rather than fight somehow. The vines all seemed to be coming from the monster, so he just had to put as much distance between the monster and himself as possible. The easiest way to do that, he decided, was to climb up the tree. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. He made the leap up to a higher root cleanly enough, but a second leap fell short, and he found himself scrambling on the edge of the root to try and make it. He never got the chance, for this stall was all the vine monster needed to take Muqali in its tight grip. In moments, Muqali found himself bound and helpless, being dragged towards the vine monster.

The Sand Nomad’s vision began to get hazy he felt unbearably weak. This was it, this was the end. Looking down at the monster that would be his doom, Muqali noticed something. Behind it, through the thick mist, was the figure of a man. Squinting, Muqali suddenly realized that man was his father, Jebe. Muqali blinked, and the image was gone. An illusion caused by the mist and his weary condition. However, it didn’t matter, the message was clear. He’d promised his father he’d return to the Si Wong. He couldn’t die here, not like this. With a new burst of strength, Muqali fought the vines, gradually pushing them away, until finally he freed his right tonfa. Swinging it madly, the monster’s grip on him slackened, and he fell. Before he reached the ground, though, a vine slammed into his abdomen, and he was sent flying backwards, hitting a large puddle of mud that, as it happened, was right in front of the approaching Nasrin.

For a moment, he just stared, then, with a weak smile and a wave, “Hi there.”