Jinora in the Past

Chapter 4

The previous night

Jinora stared at the people in front of her. Avatar Aang, and teenage Katara, Chief Beifong, Lord Zuko, Chief Sokka, and even someone she guessed was Suki. Aang turned around for a second and Jinora ducked. That's why everything feels different, she thought. After a moment she dared to look up again, to see the group had moved on. She followed them to a house that she knew used to belong to Fire Lord Ozai. She remembered this part of the story. They must have just seen a play about themselves, and they were here to train Aang.

Jinora silently walked through the woods, careful to Airbend her feet off the ground so that Chief Beifong couldn't see her. She knelt in the woods outside the house, watching and listening as they went to bed. She sat down and watched Aang's window for quite a while until her eyelids started to droop. She laid down, figuring she could finish solving this mystery when she woke up.

The sun blinded her as she sat up the next morning. She was still on Ember Island, still sitting outside Fire Lord Ozai's house, and still in the past. She looked around, looking for anything that could help her when she decided to go into the spirit world for answers.

She crossed her legs and was about to start meditating when she remembered the hood. She felt bad about it, but she tugged it down over her arrow. She straightened her back and put her fists together, closing her eyes. She took a deep breath and went into the spirit world.

She looked around, grateful to be in a familiar place. She wandered through the fields of flowers, passing spirits that gave her odd looks. When she came up to one, she pushed her hood back and looked closer at the spirit.

"Bum-Ju?" she said. The dragonfly-rabbit just stared blankly back at her.

"Oh, I guess you don't know me yet." She sighed and kept walking. There were mountains to the left and trees to the right. The flowers were colors that she had never seen in the natural world, all and all, the closest to home she had been in the longest 12 hours of her life.

She came across an unfamiliar spirit and gasped at the sight. It was a white fox-dove. Not only that, but it had three heads. Somehow she knew that this was the spirit of time. Each head represented one of the three parts of time. Past, Present, and Future. They were fighting. Jinora watched as Past clamped its jaws down on Present's neck. She felt herself flicker.

Republic City was a wasteland. She was back in the present, though not permanently. Everything had been razed to the ground. She saw her father lying on the ground near her.

"Jinora?" he said weakly.

"Dad," she breathed, falling to her knees next to him. He took her hand and looked into her eyes.

"My beautiful girl," he whispered. "You came back." His eyes were now so full of hope, where they had been empty with sadness.

"What happened here?" she asked him.

"The spirits... their fight is wreaking havoc on the world. When the time spirit is not at peace, neither is the delicate balance. If you can calm them, then everything will be as it was." Tenzin started to fade, his eyes closing. Jinora reached out for him, but she was thrown back into the spirit world, watching as Past let go, then back into her body as she shouted for her father.

"Daddy!" She was sitting in the woods again, but now she wasn't alone. She saw Aang sitting in front of her, with the rest of his friends prepared to fight. She pulled her knees up to her chest and cried.

"Oh my... what's wrong?" Aang asked, putting his arm around her. Jinora shook her head, not knowing what to say or do. She had just watched her dad die. Now, she had to figure out how to calm the time spirit and get him back, while being alone in a world that she wasn't used to.

Katara knelt in front of her, resting her hand on Jinora's shoulder.

"Hey, can you at least tell us your name?" Her voice was gentle and kind.

"J-Jinora," she whispered.

"Well Jinora, can you tell us what you're doing here?"

"I don't know." She hugged her knees tighter and hid her face even more from her grandparents.

"How do you not know what you're doing-"

"Were you in the spirit world?" Aang asked, cutting a now annoyed Earthbender off.

"I don't want to talk about it," Jinora whispered, her lack of desire to speak not coming from how strange things were right now, but the inescapable images of her father dying in front of her flashing in her mind.

"Aang, maybe you should see if there's anything in the spirit world that could have caused her to be upset." Katara said.

"No!" Jinora said, looking up.

Confused, Aang asked, "Why not?"

"Because... you shouldn't." She paused for a moment. "You might see things that you're not supposed to see."

"So you were in the spirit world. I knew it!" Aang looked excited. "Wait, how were you in the spirit world?"

Jinora looked away. She didn't want to talk. She just wanted her family. She even whispered aloud, "I just want my family back."

Just then, a spirit came bounding through the trees and into her arms.

"Bum-Ju?" she whispered. Aang looked more confused than a sloth-fly in a spiderweb. The rest of the teenagers looked startled for a second, then relaxed.

Jinora hugged the spirit tight to her, hoping that maybe if she hugged him tight enough, she would end up back in her time. It didn't work.

"How?" Aang asked. In response, Bum-Ju's ears went up, but they caught Jinora's hood and pushed it off of her head. The other teenagers gasped and looked at Aang. The Avatar's jaw hit the ground as he stared at the Airbender tattoo on her forehead.

"Why do you have A-Airbender tattoos?" he asked, confusion causing him to stumble over his words.

Jinora buried her face into Bum-Ju's coat, hoping to avoid answering.

"Jinora," Katara said. Even though she was a teenager, Jinora still felt compelled to respond to her grandmother.

"I..." she looked away again.

"Why are you here?" Chief Beifong asked.

"Because," she hugged Bum-Ju tighter "Because something happened and I don't know how I'm going to fix it. I don't know if I can fix it and I'm the only one who's supposed to. Not even the Avatar is supposed to do it." she said quickly.

The Avatar and his friends looked around at each other in confusion.

"Why can't I do it?" Aang asked.

"You might see things you shouldn't see." As if on cue, Jinora felt her body being thrown into the past.