Epilogue

The Old Man stood up off the rock, and motioned at it. "We came back, years later, and sunk this rock here as a memorial to the ones who died. This is about where the Freedom Fighters had their base. Roughly."

The children all looked at the rock with new reverence. Of course, even that didn't completely satisfy them. One little boy turned back to the Old Man. "What happened to them all?"

"Hm? Well, Jet, Smellerbee, and Longshot all found a home for the kids. A farming community at, oh, I guess it's around Mut Jjin Jali. There were families there willing to take the kids in. Which is probably what Jet should have done with them in the first place. That area rode out the rest of the war well enough.

"Then the three Freedom Fighters went to Ba Sing Se, and had more adventures. Jet died fighting the corrupt forces of the Dai Li, and made peace with the Avatar and his followers. Longshot and Smellerbee survived the war, and wound up on a lotus farm, of all places, for a while. But they were always read to help and fight whenever the peace was threatened. And Sneers... hm. Well, even I can't know the whole story about some things."

He adjusted the helmet he wore on his head, pushing it back from his wrinkled face, before continuing. "The other two former Freedom Fighters got by as best they could, and then happened to find the Avatar themselves, after he got out of Ba Sing Se. They had their own adventures, helping him in the final battles of the war. The Duke even got to meet the new Fire Lord, the good one, Zuko."

The children all gave that varying expressions of credulity. The same little girl who first noticed the rock gave the Old Man an especially narrow-eyed stare. "You know more about The Duke's adventures?"

"Oh, yes. I guess you could say I'm an expert on him."

The children looked at him like he was trying to pull a joke on them, but if he noticed, he didn't say. "Any more questions?"

One girl in the back of the group raised a little hand. "What about Oni? Did you kill him?"

The Old Man sighed. "No. The Freedom Fighters completely lost track of him, actually. It was only a few years after the war ended that The Duke thought to ask. Fire Lord Zuko had answers, though. The injury that Jet gave Oni actually kept him out of the rest of the war, recuperating and fighting a lung infection. He was eventually sent back to the Fire Nation. Zuko started prosecuting the war criminals, and Oni was going to be one of the first trials, but he challenged Zuko to a fire duel over his right to even do such a thing against his own people. Zuko won the duel, and Oni was sent to a Fire Nation prison called the Boiling Rock. I hear it's a very nasty place. He tried to escape, and fell to his death in the boiling lake that surrounds it."

The Old Man smiled grimly. "That's actually my favorite part of the story, now that I think about it."

The first little girl spoke up again. "What's a war criminal?"

Little heads nodded support for the question.

The Old Man waved his hands. "Come on, we can't keep sitting here all day, if we're going to get back by nightfall. Stand up, and I'll answer one last question."

The children got to their feet, some attempting to brush dirt of their pants, most not bothering. The fell into a comfortable line behind their guide, as he began speaking again. "Even in war, there are rules. Not everyone thinks so. Mostly, it's because good people make decisions about what is and isn't necessary to win a war, and they expect bad people to break them. Mostly, good people have a little trouble with the rules. But that's war for you."

The line meandered on into what was once a great forest. In due time, it might become one again. Even now, saplings were rising up out of the old, ash-fertilized ground. At the back of this procession, a boy in a battered rice hat decided that his opinion had to be heard. "I don't like that story. I like stories with real good guys who win."

The Old Man nodded. "Yes. Me, too."

END

Author's Note: Special Thanks to Lavanya Six for generously serving as a beta reader for this story. Without her, it would have been a much weaker tale.