The Blue Spirit: Prologue

Prologue

The Blue Spirit truly existed. He was not, as was long believed a demon of imagination of the people of Ba Sing Sei. No, he once existed in the flesh and the blood, although, he assumed the outward characteristics of a ghost.

When I began to pilfer through the historical records of the Ba Sing Sei University’s library, looking for accounts of the Avatar’s role in the fall of the Earth Kingdom known as Ba Sing Sei, I stumbled upon surprising records of a ghostly man called the Blue Spirit that had rained fear on to the upper rings of Ba Sing Sei; and I was soon led to think the mystery may be logically explained by the events leading up to the kidnapping of the Water Bending Princess of the Southern Water Tribe, the disappearance of a tea sever from the Jasmine Dragon of the Upper Ring, and the death of a Earth Kingdom Rebel Leader, who’s body was discovered on the banks of the Lake known as Laogai. However I have never found any creditable witnesses to these events until the day that I thought that there was no reason for connecting the events to the legendary figure of the Blue Spirit.

The truth was slow to enter my mind, I was puzzled by an enquiry that currently complicated the events which, at very first sign, may be looked upon as a super human creature; and more then once I was tempted on giving up on this mad man’s task which I have exhausted myself in the hopeless pursuit of a ghost. Finally, I found proof that all of my speculations had not lead to the deceive me; and I was rewarded for my efforts on the very day I came upon undeniably proof that the Blue Spirit was more than a simple old wise tale.

On that day, I had spent countless hours over the Memoirs of the former Grand Sectary Long Feng, who was ending his term of office understood the behaviors of the Avatar’s and his companion’s, in search of the Avatar’s missing Spirit Guide, the legendary white flying Bison.

I had left the library in despair, when I met the rather blunt Lady Bei Fong arguing with a young man that had blue arrow tattoos covering his body. He was introduced to me simply as Aang. Mr. Aang seemed to know all about my inquiries about the strange events that lead up to the tragedies in question and my search for the Avatar which nobody seemed to know what had become of him, dead  or alive; now I come to find out that he, I mean Mr. Aang was indeed the Avatar. Avatar Aang had spent the last couple of months in the Eastern Air Temple recovering from an injury that nearly killed him during the over through of the Earth King, all those months ago.

Avatar Aang and I spent a good deal of the evening together; and he told me about the time he fully did not understand, the secret cue to over through the Earth King’s rule, the treachery of Long Feng with his agents known as the Dai Li, and the crazed ramblings of Jet, the Rebel leader who was obsessed with the lovely Princess Katara and went into a jealous rage over her with the tea server Li, who was not a commoner as we were left to believe. When I mentioned the Blue Spirit, he simply laughed. He knew too well of the manifestations that seemed to point to the existence of a spirit walking among men, and he knew of a witness that knew the Spirit all too well. A man that at one time was called the ‘Dragon of the West’, and to this day some of the residents of Ba Sing Sei feared to even mutter his name, the famed retired Fire Nation General Iroh.

I was immensely intrigued about the stories of the Dragon of the West. I wondered if I would be able to track down this eccentric tea loving man. My luck greatly improved when I returned to my home and I met and elderly man waiting in front of my door, I no longer had any doubt that the Blue Spirit was not myth. Retired General Iroh handed me a beautifully crafted wood box and instructed me to open it, while he leaned back further into his cushioned chair and sipped his jasmine tea. Upon lifting the lid, I gasped as a weather beaten blue and white mask hauntedly grinned as it stared right back at me.