Windows and Poor Unfortunate Souls
Author: Eternity in Seconds
Rating: T, but this chapter is M at the beginning.
Pairings: Zutara. (Oma and Shu implied)… Eventually.
Summary: The eyes are the windows to the soul. Koh has stolen thousands of Faces. But, every theft has a story. Every face hides a Doorway… Zutara, through the eyes of Koh The Face Stealer…
Authors Note: So. Koh… The Face Stealer. Greatly, heavily, completely inspired by T S Elliot's The Hollow Men. Ending inspired by Greek Mythology (Orpheus and Eurydice, anyone?). And some good ol' Disney!
Disclaimer: Bryke own EVERYTHING. I may own the story herein this FanFiction and I may own some of the Original Characters, but the original idea belongs to them. All lyrics herein belong to Walt Disney and the poem, The Hollow Men, belongs to T S Elliot.

(A penny for the Old Guy)

The Spirits were here first. Long before anything else, before Time was born, there were the Five: He of Destiny, She of Death, That of Desire, He of Destruction and She of Dream. Then Destiny and Death gave birth to Time and Dream created Moon (Tui), Sun (Agni) and Stars (Silaest). Then came Ocean and Earth. Then the Other Spirits came about. Then, the First People woke from their slumber as the Moon and Sun meet for the first time.

The spirits know the future almost as well as they know the Past; they know that all that will come to be has gone already. They know that what might happen has already occurred. They know that Everything was decided long ago and that nothing else could happen, because otherwise, they would know.

There is Then and Now.

{My dear, sweet child. That's what I do. It's what I live for. Poor souls with no one else to turn to}

Rage

He is beautiful in his rage.

The Man-boy's eyes blaze brightly with the fire of a thousand different lives. They stare, equal parts passion and equal parts cold. Koh can't help but be enchanted by his glowing eyes and inner fire.

Koh has never seen a soul like his. It pulses and flickers brilliantly with each emotion, with each passing thought. His eyes are the perfect windows to his soul. Never has he seen such a soul.

Koh is bewitched by his two sided face: Flickering with so much emotion that Koh struggles to keep up.

It's beautiful. Its feeling.

{It's sad but true If you want to cross a bridge, my sweet You've got to pay the toll Take a gulp and take a breath And go ahead and sign the scroll}

~ I ~
Shadows

Koh is tired. So very, very tired. The buds on his tree have bloomed bright and are starting to turn gold and brown - brown like everything else in this Death forsaken realm.

(Those who have crossed, with direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom).

The few flowers that managed to find their place on the wasted, dusty ground have long since shrivelled and died, blowing away to nothing in the hot, dry wind.

No matter how many faces he takes, no matter how many souls he locks away, that hollow place inside him is never filled. It remains dark and destitute, just like his realm. It is cold and empty and leaves him with an ache so raw it hurts and bleeds him dry.

(In our dry cellar)

There is another hollow place inside him that is slowly filling with the souls he's taken. They sometimes whisper to him, remind him of the chances he's taken and the dreams he's broken and the love he's shattered. They remind him of their regrets.

(We are the hollow men we are the stuffed men)

"...give..."

"...couldn't..."

"...help me..."

"...you said – you promised..."

"...Avatar."

The shades of every person to die in his realm during the past millennia-more years slowly descend around him; inky shadows and swirling mists. They are not ghosts, because a ghost still holds possession of their own soul. Koh possess all their souls.

Sometimes they escape the prison he made for them. Sometimes he lets them go when it becomes too much. Koh's realm is travelled by the spectres of the Faceless as they search for their lost dreams and loves and faces. Koh can feel very little but guilt and disgust. Guilt for himself, disgust of them.

"...Avatar..."

"...lost, I can't see..."

"...dark here..."

"...Spirits above, the trees are..."

"… you said… loved me… why did you lie?..."

"… killed him, I…"

"…Avatar… you promised… you failed…"

"...mamma? Mamma? Mummy!"

(Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men.)

It was cold - so cold – and lonely – so lonely. No one would find her. No one would bother. She was a burden, a thing no one wanted. She would die and everyone would be better for it. No one would miss her because no one cared for her. She was just another girl, no one grand or important enough. Her eyes burned. She couldn't breathe.

No one would remember her. No one would mourn. No one would come to her grave and lay flowers by her tomb, because no one would care enough to grant her one. No breath. So cold. So dark. Please, someone, SAVE HER –

(Remember us – if at all – not as lost)

Koh shakes of the memories that aren't his. Her face had come at a price he hadn't known needed to be paid. Her emotions - so deep and so strong, so pure - had overcome him completely. He had been her, living her life, for a very long time – so long.

She had looked beautiful without her face.

They had to run. Run. They had to get away, before he killed her – his life, his soul. His great love since he was old enough to feel love. She was his everything – his reason, his breathe, his smile, his joy, his every thought. And his father was trying to take her away from him. Just like how he'd taken their mother.

He didn't want to leave her. He couldn't leave her. He would rather cease completely… he would rather die than see her hurt or unhappy or sad. Or even in love with someone else.

He always knew that his jealously would be his undoing. His love for her the catalyst.

"YOU WILL NEVER HURT HER – OR US – EVER AGAIN."

Blood gushed.

The tree looked strange. Twisted and rotten and lifeless and strong and imposing. The creature before him was just as twisted and rotten and strong and imposing… and lifeless.

"Help me, brother! Please, help me! You said you loved me! HELP ME!"

The hollow place inside him was filled by his love for her. And she was gone. He had nothing left. Except for the deep, dark hollow place where he loved her. I'm sorry I couldn't protect you, sister. I'm sorry that I loved you when I –

(Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!)

No!

He is not the boy who loved his sister too much.

(Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion)

"...leave me to die..."

"...he loves me, he loves me not. When will he love me… with all he's got?..."

"...are you? I'm scared, mu..."

"...stay here. I'll come back for you, I prom..."

"...all guilty..."

"...no one came..."

"...I'm scared, help me, oh I..."

"...he left me. He left me..."

"…does anyone remember me…"

"… Avatar, save our souls…"

Koh will never escape his self-made Purgatory.

(Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats feet over broken glass)

Disgust

"Are you Koh, He-Of-A-Thousand-Faces?" Child. Female. Black Hair. Brown Eyes. Earth Kingdom. Bowing low.

"Yes I am, my child."

Body turns away. Face twisted in disgust and fear.

She'll do.

{And don't underestimate the importance of body language, ha!}

~ II ~
Masquerade

He can want, but he cannot have. And the day is coming when he will run out of time, and that is the way of the Spirit. They cease. But…

Koh is so very old and he remembers the Starting Of Days. He was there before Time, but long after He of Destiny, She of Death, That of Desire, He of Destruction and She of Dream.

(There, the eyes are)

Shiver. Change.

Ah. His eyes speak of the triumph and loss that a lifetime of bloodshed and vengeance bought. He slipped between the folds of battle and found his way here, but when his brother and fellow soldier followed it was far too late. Koh was already wearing his war-scarred face with pride and hunger.

(Let me be no nearer In death's dream kingdom)

Koh feels the shift. This one is strong. She is one of the oldest in his collection. She wandered for years. He can feel her wandering inside him, still looking for a way out. She still seeks her lover, her long lost lover. Long lost, because he left her in the dead of night for another, and she wandered until she found him again, curled around his new love.

She is beautiful. Her hair is long and a strange golden colour that Koh has not seen since. Her eyes were the gold of the first era of the Fire Nation after the Sun Warriors had started to fade. Her skin is pale and creamy and Koh loves to wear her face.

Her faceless soul travels the dusty, lifeless plains of his realm day in and day out, searching for her long lost love. Her beautiful white dress has been dyed red with the blood of her lost lover, because she found him entwined around another and was filled with such a hatred that she took his life with his own blade and ripped his limbs apart and off his body.

She doesn't remember that though. She remembers a perfect summer's day. A gold and pink sunset over jade hills. She remembers a swing and being pushed; up and down, up and down. She remembers singing as her lover stood behind her pushing. She remembers the trickling creek, the bell-like calls of birds.

(Sunlight on a broken column There is a tree, swinging And voices are In the wind's singing)

She doesn't remember the blood. The dead stare of her lover and his new wife on their wedding night.

(More distant and more solemn Then a fading star)

Koh feels the shift again. This one, That one. She was supposed to be a queen. He was the one who didn't learn how to scream. He hit his wife every day and night. She was hit by her husband and was foolish enough to think it right. She was a kind-heart; a bleeding-heart. He was unwillingly to part from his love. She wasted a promising life, searching for the man who killed her best friend. He could have had it all.

Change. Shift. Replace. Move. Girl. Boy. Man. Animal. Woman. Baby. Liar. Fighter. Thinker. Thief. Healer. Husband. Wife. Mother. Sister. Soldier. Hag. Father. Brother. Crazy. Drunk. Rapist. Murderer. Teacher. Leader. Sailor. Runner. Coward. Hero. Loser. Winner. Cheater. Betrayer. Girl. Boy. Man. Animal. Woman. Baby. Liar. Fighter. Thinker. Thief. Healer. Husband. Wife. Mother. Sister. Soldier. Hag. Father. Brother. Crazy. Drunk. Rapist. Murderer. Teacher. Leader. Sailor. Runner. Coward. Hero. Loser. Winner. Cheater. Betrayer. Protector. Lover.

Lover.

(Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death's dream kingdom)

He has been them all. He has worn all their faces once, twice, a thousand times over. Their eyes told him who they were. Their eyes, filled with sorrow or joy, pride or shame, love or hate.

He wears their faces like disguises, to express what he can't, to pretend what he can't feel.

(Let me also wear Such deliberate disguises Rat's coat, crow skin, crossed staves)

In his Kingdom of the Damned, he pretends to be someone else. He pretends to be Maria, who spent long days dancing to the rivers tunes and the chorus of the birds.

He feels what Daisuke felt when he looked upon the face of his baby girl minutes after her mother had been killed bringing her into the world. He remembers choosing her life over her death, instead of claiming recompense for his wife's early and bloody end.

He smiles as Hina, a girl of ten, as she watches her family laugh and sing and play together during her mother's birthday celebration. He tastes the cake and sweet fruit juice as she drinks; sees the look of absolute happiness as Aunt Sakura dances wit– no, her husband; touches the tiny little babies soft and squishy head as he lays sleeping in Aunt Maya's arms; feels the tickle of his fathers – no… Hina's fathers – beard as he kisses her goodnight,

He laughs with the girls, Reiko and Sai, as they sit in a field of a hundred flowers and talk of their hopes, their dreams, their desires. He kisses Reiko's lips with Sai's and forgets the consequences of such an action. He feels the burning flames as the pyre is lit by an Earth King long past, and he spends his last breathe calling out to Sai beside her new husband. He feels burning, anger and rage. No matter what she did to him, he still loves Sai. This feeling - fragile, beautiful, delicate, desperate love. He loved her. Even thought it was wrong to do so. Why did she pretend to love him – Reiko – when she really loved men? Why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why…

This fragile, beautiful, delicate, desperate love.

(In a field Behaving as the wind behaves No nearer -)

If he hadn't stolen Reiko's eyes, she would have found Sai again. The Wheel of Life; the Ring of Reincarnation. All those destined will meet again. And he can't wait for that day. The day where he will see her again and feel her warm skin, see the flush in her cheeks and feel her searing lips as she trails kisses down, down, down –

He is not Reiko.

(Not the final meeting In the twilight kingdom)

He opens strange, new eyes with a start and sees his Kingdom through the eyes of the little girl he stole from her mother.

Inside, that hollow place grows bigger.

(These do not appear)

Desire

She stretches one elegant hand out towards him, and all her desires and all her love come to the surface of her skin, flickering through her eyes like wild fire.

"I finally found you."

He smiles and takes her pretty little face before she can stop looking so very happy.

He wears the face of her lover.

{And I fortunately know a little magic It's a talent that I always have possessed And here lately, please don't laugh I use it on behalf Of the miserable, lonely and depressed (pathetic)}

~ III ~
Blood, Bone and Water

(This is the dead land This is cactus land)

He had a sister.

Koh is one of the oldest. He was there before Time and he remembers being there at the same moment as Earth and Ocean, but long after He of Destiny, She of Death, That of Desire, He of Destruction and She of Dream. He doesn't know the number of years (Time hadn't been born), but he knows that Sun, Moon and the Star siblings were older than he. But still…

He is old.

For a long time, he didn't steal faces. He helped the lost find their true face. He helped them discover their proper path. He was Koh-Of-The-Travellers or Koh-Of-The-Lost-Souls. He helped them find their path, gave them the life they deserved and aided them on their greatest journeys.

He used to be able to feel his own emotions. He used to be able to love. He even loved someone once upon a time. He gave them everything.

And they took away everything from him.

Koh retreats to the cool, damp cave he calls a home, shuffles through his collection, and shivers. He changes faces. His bones creak and croak with an age he shouldn't be feeling. The shuffling continues, so fast – to fast – that no one would be able to see individual faces.

Finally, it stops. Koh hates it when a 'pulse overcomes him and he shuffles against his will through the hundreds of faces he's stolen. Some souls are just too old or too strong to fight against. Human will is an incredible thing.

He goes still.

This is the one face he never wears.

It is the first face

(Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive)

He loved people once. Three very different types of love. The first love was for his sister, Bo. Bo, the Body Snatcher. She had been Bo-Of-Beauty-And-Young-Lovers, once. She would lend torches for their revels and cast shadows so they could hide.

She was beautiful, with hair of the midnight sky, eyes of pale-moonlight and skin of cream.

She had loved him dearly, once.

Koh-Of-The-Lost-Souls and Bo-Of-Young Lovers.

While Earth had still been young and the people of Men had just woken from their long sleep, they worshipped the brother and sister. They held them almost as highly as Agni-Of-The-Sun, Tui-Of-The-Moon and La-Of-The-Ocean.

Koh tries to shift away, to stop the memories with no emotion but despair, but She keeps her face immovable.

Bo would dance under Tui's radiant beams and enchant all those who watched. He would sometimes join in and dance with her, twirling and laughing in gaiety and joy.

When La-Of-The-Ocean first saw his sister, Koh had gotten a feeling, deep inside him. It was a twisting black mess of a thousand tentacles, churning, writhing and withering. It was a warning he should have followed.

(The supplication of a dead man's hand)

Tui-Of-The-Moon was a cold and proud spirit. Koh had always thought her beautiful, but never tried to pursue her. Agni-Of-The-Sun and La-Of-The-Ocean had always been the two who held her interest.

But, no matter how many trysts she had with Agni, she loved La.

Koh knew this. He knew that the Moon was a jealous woman at heart. He tried to warn his beloved Bo, tried to stop her from dancing for La, but she never listened. Bo was in love with the bearded Ocean Spirit.

And La had noticed Bo.

For a long time, Koh managed to keep the two apart. But then, he met the second person he would ever love. The brightest star in the Night Sky.

Nara-Of-The-Evening-And-Morning-Light.

(Under the twinkle of a fading star)

Nara was beautiful. She had hair of spun silver, eyes of purple-fire and skin of pulsing, beautiful bright light. Tall and lean, elegant in appearance and speech, Koh had never seen another like her.

She was the Evening Star, the most beloved of man, and Tui's favourite.

Koh courted her, to the delight of his people. He pursued her through the brilliant night skies, over mountains and rivers. He broke a few hearts in his quest for her - both Spirit and girl – and he fought her other suitors and defeated them all, his love was so powerful.

Nara had noticed and she accepted his praises and gifts and love. And, in her way, she returned it. For a long time, he and Nara were happy. But, like all her sister-stars, Nara was passion and cold.

When his sister came to him, broken-hearted and unhappy, Koh had no choice but to leave his beautiful star to help his sweet sister. Tui-Of-The-Moon, in her jealousy, was being cruel and unkind towards Bo.

Tui, in the dead of night, had stolen away Bo's child with La.

Koh came to earth and started his search for the child. He spent a year in the cold of the South Pole and another in the tundra of the North. He took five years to search the islands of the Fire people and nearly eleven to scour the Earth Nation. One day, during his travels, he came upon a beautiful human girl.

She had hair as black as a moonless night sky in the middle of the Earth Kingdom desert, skin as white as the snow from the Northern Pole and lips as red as a Fire Nation rose. Her eyes gleamed with a soul like he'd never seen before, all kindness and forgiveness like the Air Monks of the Nomad humans. She was every Nation and none.

The third time Koh felt love would be his last.

Mana was the daughter of two nations: half fire, half earth. She was perfect. Her laugh was like bells and it was the sweetest sound Koh had ever heard. When she smiled, it was brighter then Tui or Nara's light. Whenever he saw her, she seemed more beautiful than the day before. She took his breath away.

He forgot all about his search and stayed with her for a ninety-nine days and nights.

(Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss)

While he stayed with her, Nara Of The Evening And Morning Light, watched. She grew bitterer and bitterer by the minute. She was not alone in her bitterness. Because at that time, unbeknownst to Koh, Mana was Bo's daughter.

Tui, angry that her lover's bastard child was happy with the spirit who had broken her favourite's heart, started planning her revenge.

On the hundredth day, Mana told Koh that she was carrying his child within her. He summoned Bo, his beloved, to meet her. When Bo arrived, she wept tears of happiness and joy.

With a happy shout, Koh declared Mana the most beautiful woman in all the worlds – more beautiful than even the Moon, with her midnight hair and luminous skin.

The sky turned purple. The heavens above split apart in a mighty boom of thunder. The Moon in all her anger turned red. The heavens split apart in two, with mighty strikes of red lightning.

Tui and Nara appeared.

(Form prayers to broken stone)

Tui and Nara, using their combined power, cursed him. His face – the face that had captured and broken a hundred hearts - started to melt off in burning pieces of flesh. His body twisted and every bone in it broke with a snap. Amongst his screams of pain, Koh noticed the change as he morphed into something… else.

The Evening and Morning Star and the Moon continued their curse. He would be terrifying to behold, a monster with no face. He would never feel love again.

He would be cursed to wander the earth and the Spirit Realm, in search of his face. He would have a gluttonise, unsatisfying hunger for the faces of any creature that showed emotion which he could not.

And his beautiful, loving sister; who's graceful dancing and seductive body had entrapped the attention of La-Of-The-Ocean, would lose her body. She would be a Screaming Soul, who would steal the body of beautiful young women in search of her own.

Koh and Bo ran. The people who had worshipped them turned away in fear and disgust. La-Of-The-Ocean would not spare another glance for Bo. They were shunned.

(In death's other kingdom Waking alone At the hour we are)

In his misery, Koh created a realm where he and his sister could hide in peace, away from the scorn and judgment of their fellow Spirits and humans.

The first soul to enter Koh's new land was Mana. She promised not to laugh or shy away in fear of his new body. She promised to still love him, no matter what he looked like – for the sake of their baby and because she loved him for what was inside.

Koh came out into the sunlight and faced his love. She did not cower in fright or spit in anger. Instead, she smiled benevolently and whispered her love. Then the hunger possessed him. The need. The ache.

And Koh took his lover's face as his first.

When Bo returned, she was horrified. She screamed and cried and called Koh terrible, terrible names. She cursed him and hit him.

And then she left him alone. Never to return.

And Koh became the Face Stealer.

(Is it like this?)

(In death's other kingdom)

He could love once. The first love was for his sister, Bo. His second love was for Nara-Of-The-Morning-and-Evening-Light. His last love was for the mortal daughter of his sister, Mana.

He used to be able to feel his own emotions. He used to be able to love. He even loved someone once upon a time. He gave them everything.

And they took everything away from him.

Koh retreats to the cool, damp cave he calls a home, shuffles through his collection, and shivers. He changes faces. His bones creak and croak with an age he shouldn't be feeling. The shuffling continues, so fast – to fast – that no one would be able to see individual faces.

Finally, it stops. Koh hates it when a 'pulse overcomes him and he shuffles against his will through the hundreds of faces he's stolen. Some souls are just too old or too strong to fight against. Human will is an incredible thing.

He goes still.

This is the one face he never wears.

It is the first face.

Mana's beautiful face.

And he is overcome by anguish and betrayal as Mana's soul remembers him. He hates himself, for what he did. For what SHE made him do.

But, no matter what he feels, he will keep taking. He will keep destroying. Until he has what was once his.

(Waking alone)

He doesn't want this.

Betrayal.

"Where in the hells are we, Taka? Where have you led us too?"

"Yeah! Why are we here?"

"Where is here?"

"It's so cold and dark. But, I also feel like I'm in the middle of the desert. How is it possible that I'm both hot and cold?"

"Shhhhh, it's going to be alright, babe, I promise."

"Screw this shit, I want answers, dammit!"

"Shut up!"

"Why should I?"

"Because all that's coming out of your mouth is fuc-"

"Something's moving out there."

Koh stirred in his tree. Two girls, seven boys. All invaders save one soul he recognised. It pulsed dully and the wind carried its stench on its dry breeze. Fear. Koh unravelled and greeted them.

Nine new faces. Green Eyes. Black Hair. Brown Skin. Bald Head. Red lips. Fear. Always Fear.

"You've done well, Taka."

The only boy left nodded in a jerky movement. He was trying so hard to be blank. But, Koh could smell his fear. "Yes, Master Koh. Just like I promised… can you release my sister now? She's all I have left."

This little piggy…

Koh shivered and changed. Grey eyes, brown hair, dainty mouth. Taka's precious little sister was such fun. "You promised me ten. I only have nine."

Bloodless face. Emotion flickers as his eyes widen in fear. "No! The wolf killed the other. She wasn't supposed to die coming here. Your pet killed her. I had ten."

He never makes bargains with the living. He never lets a soul get away.

"It was a pleasure doing business with you, Taka."

Ten little piggy's led away to slaughter.

{Now it's happened once or twice Someone couldn't pay the price And I'm afraid I had to rake 'em 'cross the coals Yes I've had the odd complaint But on whole I've been a saint}

~ IV~
Ash, Fog and Smoke

(Gathered on this beach of the tumid river)

It's lonely in his Realm. No Bo. Nothing. So, he teaches them – his shades - about futility, and fate, because he knows more about the future then he does about the past (the past is such a fickle thing, because depending on whom you talk to depends on what story you receive). He teaches them about pain and pleasure; he educates them on the fantasy that is truth and the reality that is lies. He teaches them about the Old Time and the current time. He teaches them about empty spaces, and about the one thing that can fill it. And the things that can't.

He hopes that they'll be able to teach him how to fill his Hollow Place. But, he's never met anyone who can. They all end up consumed by their own Hollow Places. He uses the grotto in his tree to stare at his faces. He flickers through them, seeing nothing similar but the emptiness to their eyes. The emptiness that is in him.

(The eyes are not here There are no eyes here)

Koh knows the moment that someone enters his kingdom. Usually, he sends his pet – Nagami – to meet them. Especially if he isn't in the mood to play or too educate.

So, he is surprised when two living human souls enter his Dying Realm. His Lost Place. It feels like an intrusion, but, he wants the company. Because sometimes, he doesn't take their faces straight away - he talks to them. He asks them about the New World, the world that he has seen in his grotto and in his ashy sky. The New World he will never enter. Not 'till the Redemption.

Ah, the Redemption is not here yet. The people don't need to worry about the Spirits like him, who wait in their prisons for the moment the Sun is in line with the other planets. The moments when the Five - He of Destiny, She of Death, That of Desire, He of Destruction and She of Dream – decided that the world needs to be reborn. It's only happened once before. He was still whole, back then.

"Why are you doing this? What purpose does this have? Why me?" She has a voice that sounds like rain; soft and gentle and full of life. He wonders if her face will be like rain – soft, graceful - if her voice is this beautiful.

The sound of flesh hitting flesh echoes through his realm and Koh shivers as he smells the fear, disgust and uncertainty alongside the sadistic pleasure and anger and lust. He follows the scent.

Koh travels specific areas; doubling back and taking short-cuts to avoid clusters of rocks or the lightning-blasted trunks of dead trees, anything that could get in his way. The cold-and-hot, acrid-feeling air that crept around the edges of his Realm was enough to make even the bravest quicken their pace and keep quiet. It was the shadows of the Spirit World.

He finally arrives at a huge, flat rock that stretches across the ground like a round festival gazebo. The trees that grow around it seem to lean over and tangle their branches with one another, so that they create a canopy above. It lies flush against the side of a single lonely mountain.

Koh knows that his shades liked to come here. He could see why people once trudged through the thick trees to get to this place. It was beautiful. Colourful streaks of paint still clung to some of the stonework. A small spring trickled from the open doorway, where it fed into a wide, leaf-strewn pool. Steps that led directly into it were carved into the rock.

Sometimes he would leave his Place and search his Realm, watching the faceless soul's mournful marches and wanderings. They always ended up at the edge of this pool. Koh could understand why. The pool was a looking glass, allowing the viewer to watch the outside Realms. To watch what they have left behind.

Or what he has taken.

(In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech)

"Foolish girl. Are you that dull - that stupid - that you don't even know your own worth? Don't even understand how much power you hold over the world? Stupid, mud blooded girl. Ah, ah, ah – no fighting. You won't win anyway."

Koh hears the male voice grunt in pain and then hears the hurried and light footsteps of the girl on the dead and dry leaves of his Realm's floor. The Looking Glass Pool is the only area of his Realm that has some semblance of greenery; of life.

He twists around the tree, insect body twining around the huge trunk again and again.

"You can't run from me, you little bitch! You have none of your sorcery or bending in this place!"

Koh switches to the face of an Owl and uses his new eyes to try and see who would be foolish enough – or brave enough - to enter his Realm in such a way.

"Stupid. Tainted. Weak. You are nothing but someone bitch. Never remembered as yourself, but as someone's something. Lover. Partner. Beloved. Daughter. You are nothing and you will never be anything. "

There's a shout and suddenly the girl bursts through the dead, sickly thicket to the east of the Looking Glass Pool. A curtain of dark, shining hair announces her. It falls low enough that the ends fan out on the dusty ground as she crawls on all fours away from the man.

A shout of rage startles her and she grabs a low and dying vine - hanging from one of the huge willows that guard the entrance to the pool – and hoists herself up amid hisses and sobs. Her dress - once as white as the snow that falls in the South Pole (back in the days of starlight and mist) - is streaked with blood both fresh and old.

It clings to the curves and angles of her body, hugging it like a second skin. Her body is breathtaking, even drenched in dripping sunlight blood. Another breeze; Koh's new hawk eyes look at her, calculating and examining her in detail. Her legs are criss-crossed with no more than seven small scars. She was nearly perfect.

"Please don't do this, my love. I'll promise to be kinder – I promise not to raise a hand to you… unless, of course, you make me angry again," silence reigns in Koh's sanctuary, "please lovely, please don't hide from me."

Her long hair is acting like a silk mask, covering her face and keeping it a secret from him. Koh always loved a good secret. They're his favourite faces to collect.

(Sightless, unless The eyes reappear)

"My love? Can I tell you a secret?"

She's sitting under a blooming cheery-blossom tree, her stomach bulging with a small, little life. If he listens hard enough, he can hear a tiny heart-beat. Thump thump thumpity thump thump.

"Of course." Staring at her, he speaks. A face as beautiful as the moon. Lips as plump and red as a rose.

"I can't tell you." A smile, so bright that it could scorch the sky above.

"Why not?"

A laugh that would stop the sun. "It's a secret."

The rustling of branches makes her freeze. She's as still as a statue, and Koh can't see her chest rise and fall like it should when she's breathing.

Dead leaves crackle and snap and a small, furry body hops out. "Just a jackrabbit." The girl relaxes; her chest starts moving rhythmically again. Up down up down up down up down up down.

Koh makes a low whistling noise and the animal turns around. The girl stumbles backwards, her face flinching in fear. Shiver. Shift. Koh wears the face of the animal, noise twitching and smiles with its small mouth. Emotion.

Then, Koh sees her face.

"There you are!" the girl swings around, her sky eyes disappearing. Somewhere, deep inside of Koh – so deep that he doesn't even realise it's there until it's gone – recognition and despair flicker to life and fade out in the same half-heartbeat.

The man reminds Koh of a face he took two hundred years ago. It's rough and jagged, uncared for. It looks lost and desperate, but at the same time strong and disdainful. Koh shifts to the face.

The soul behind the eyes has long since fallen silent.

"I've been looking everywhere for you! You shouldn't run away like that my child – the master of this house may not appreciate the disturbance." Koh, in fact, did want today's disturbance.

Entertainment was hard to come by these days.

"Now…" he lunged at the girl before she could run. She howls in pain as he grabs her arm. Koh hadn't noticed before –but the lower arm was broken, the bone snapped in two and protruding, "…dearest. Be a good little peasant and stop squirming."

The girl faces him and glares.

"I'll never listen to you. You are the weak one – the coward." Voice like rain with eyes to match.

"We'll see."

Her skin is the colour of the chestnuts that bloom in the Earth Kingdom summer. She's tall, and her chin has a proud tilt to it. She couldn't be very old, nineteen at most. Just past marrying age in the Water Poles.

The girl stayed true to her word. The man held an iron chain in both hands and was swinging one end around lazily, staring into her cerulean eyes. Koh tilts his head in curiosity. The man plays an interesting game of run and go catch. Similar to what a lion-tabby does to a possum-mouse. Terrorise and menace.

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way, lovely." Lovely was said with dripping poison-menace. "But, either way, I win and you end up in chains. How much blood is spilt in the process is entirely up to you. Please, choose wisely. I believe the hard way is the better of the two options, personally."

The girl's eyes narrow. "How about the third option: you in chains and me back home?"

"Why you little bitch! The hard way it is."

He started and she retreated. Cradling her arm to her chest, the girl quickly dodged his attacks with the practised grace that the once-airbenders had. Light on her feet and like a leaf in the wind, she swayed and ducked, twisted and turned. It was like watching an intricate dance.

"Look at me, brother! Look at me!"

She quickly twisted and swung her arms in an arc above her head. She dipped and jumped into the wind, twisting in mid-air and tumbling down to somersault and land on the balls of her feet. Flourish. She was upright again, bending and twisting.

She stopped her movements and, breathing heavily, turned vibrant glowing eyes on him.

"So! So! So!"

Pushing off the doorway he was leaning against, he walked towards her, smiling brightly. Crouching down in front of her, he gave her a thoughtful look before ruffling her hair.

"Incredible. Just like the wind."

Koh gives a dark chuckle and the girl freezes mid dodge and collapses in a tangle of limbs. Koh heard a hiss as she landed on her broken arm. The man lurched and clipped the iron cuff around her unbroken wrist.

Slowly and languidly, Koh unravelled from around the tree stump, deliberately shifting to the perfectly painted mask of a geisha girls face. The girl's face became suddenly blank. She knew of him.

Good.

"I, Koh the Face Stealer, want to know why I shouldn't rip off your faces and throw your lifeless body's away right this moment. You interrupted a very important thought, and, as all wise humans know, very important thoughts are hard to come by and equally hard to be though about."

It was the girl who answered first. "Hello Koh."

He couldn't help but laugh again. She shivered, but her face remained impassive. Koh wondered what she heard when he laughed. The little girl who had the high-pitched gull squawk? The hyena-stag's guttural and delusional giggle?

"Such nonchalance. I expected more, after the performance you just gave." Quick as a cheetah-dragonfly, he changes his face into a gorilla, with sagging jowls and yellow eyes. He spat and shrieked at her, but she calmly closed her eyes without moving another muscle.

When she opened them again, he slowly transformed into the old-man who had lost his face searching for his fortune. "Hn. Clever girl. Have we met before?"

The man interrupted. "Enough of this! Spirit, I am Firelord Ozai of the third dynasty of the Fire Nation. The girl is nothing but a water tribe peasant and you should have no reason to-"

Too quickly for Ozai's pathetic human eyes to follow, Koh twists around him like a viper-huntsman. He lifts one of his multi-segmented legs and holds it in front of Ozai's face. It was as sharp as a Sun Warrior dagger. The man fell silent.

"My reasons could be private or personal, Once-King, but no matter which, I have no reason to share them with you. You know nothing of my motivation, nor will you ever have the right to order me around like some pathetic little frightened child. You are in my Realm, thus will follow my rule and my orders. If you do try and command me again, I will have no problem summoning my pet to rip you apart slowly and tortuously until you die. And, in my Realm, you do not die unless I wish you too.

"Now, what brings you here to my home? If you are not here to relinquish your faces – and, by your impassive looks and dulled eyes, I would say you are well-informed of the way to keep your faces - and you have no questions for me about what lies in one of your countless futures of either luxury and poverty, we can do no business and I have no reason to allow you anymore time here."

Before Ozai could answer, the Looking Glass Pool started bubbling and spitting. Steam rose from the surface, adding more mist to the shadowy grotto. The Once-King's voice was the only window to the rage he was feeling as he swung at the water-woman's face. His palm connected with a fleshy thuank. She tumbled over into the grotto, chains clinking like broken glass on metal, and fell in. Sprawled, her upper half in the water and her silky hair dripping water down her body, tears fell down her muddy and dirt-stained cheeks like raindrops down a glass pane.

Koh breathed in and then exhaled, thinning the thick mist.

A very thin woman with ragged, long hair wearing a pale-purple cloth stood on top of the water, steam rising off her like fog in the dawn. The tips of her long, knife-like nails were bloody and covered in grit. Her gold eyes glinted in the sickly sun. Her head rolled from one side to the other, like a ball perched on an uneven board. Her midnight hair fell in front of her face, cut un-evenly and harshly. Koh knew who she was, in the same way he knew the man had been Once-King Ozai before he'd said he was. Azula, the princess of the Fire Nation and its once-king, locked away four-and-a-half years ago by her brother, the exiled traitor-prince.

The fire princess stared at the waterbender – Katara, beloved of the Avatar - out of one half-closed eye and stretched her lips into a twisted reflection of a smile. Koh went to steal her face, but something held him back. He looked up at the princess and she snarled a smile at him.

"Greetings from an old friend, Koh."

"What have you done Koh?"

The voice was like wind through dried, dead grass. Koh twists around from his position around Mana's faceless body. He doesn't allow himself to look directly at his oldest friends face, but instead uses a pool of old rainwater.

"I didn't mean to, Harae. It was Nara and that bitch of a spirit, Tui-"

Harae, King of the Earth, screams. It sounds like a hundred-thousand dying children, a thousand mourning mothers and a hundred tortured souls. Its agony and pain and suffering and anger and rage and despair.

"I loved her Koh! You knew that when you took her away from me! No! Mana, my heart – my joy – my life! What have you done, Koh! I forgave you for taking her because I trusted you to keep my heart safe! You blame others for your mistakes! Mana, oh! My love! What have you done!?"

"It was an accident. I – "

The earth beneath him cracks and dies. The Home he'd built for Bo crumbled away. The trees turned to smoke; the grass flickered away to ashes and ruin. A huge, jagged spire launched itself from the ground and came towards the empty place where Koh's heart should have been. It shattered his twisted and deformed body, plunging through his chest like a knife through water.

"Heartless! You shall never again step foot on my land! You shall never again see the trees or the skies. You shall never again be able to destroy me. You shall never again be able to experience life and energy. The moment you step foot onto my ground, I shall strike you down like I should do now. Only the feelings of a dead girl save you now. But, if you leave this place, I shall let forth my full vengeance. You have taken my heart; I am nothing but smoke and bones now. I am empty. Just like you. Just like you'll always be. "

Harae flickered away like sand in the wind. And Koh was left alone, with a small tree that marked a tomb.

(Of death's twilight kingdom)

"Perhaps I was too hasty. Why are you here, Azula of the Firenation?"

"I'd like to make a bargain, Koh," Azula's voice cracked across the silent grotto like a whip.

"If you're here to get the one you both hate and love the most from my collection, then you'll be terribly disappointed to know that I rather like having her in my collection. She is the only one I can think of who is important enough to warrant a deal with me. I have watched you scheme and plan and torture your way through life, ever playing the part of the monster your father wanted. Why should I trust you and you're so called bargains? Unless, of course, you have another even more valuable and important face for me to take instead, and then I may consider taking up your offer… I do so love a good bargain. A good bet as well. They present the most entertainment for me to pass the time until the Reckoning and are also rather intellectually stimulating. Unlike your dear father – and I daresay, you yourself, once-king - I don't find the use of brute strength applicable. But you, dearest, you have brute strength, power and cleverness. I do so love cleverness and power in my visitors. It makes for the most interesting combination of personality. But, even I am wary of you, dearest Azula."

Azula's head rolled and her hair twisted again. "Are you finished so that I may present my bargain?"

Koh nodded and untwisted from around Ozai. The tension in Azula's hands lessened and her face relaxed. "My bargain is this, Spirit: hold the watertribe peasant, here in your Realm of dust and mist, and I will give you the soul of the most powerful bender in the world. Simple, really." Her lips curled upwards in a twisted smile.

Koh shifted and shivered and chose the face of an old crone. "They say that the mad and the mystic have the easiest access to the worlds of Spirit. You are certainly not mystic, Azula of the Firenation… so does that make you mad?"

Azula cackled and Ozai snarled.

"Madness is madness only if the beholder deems it so. Do you deem me mad, Spirit?"

"You have my full and undivided attention, once-king."

Azula smiled. "Excellent. Now, as I told you before, my bargain is simple: hold the watertribe creature here and I shall deliver you the Avatar. He will come for her - that I promise you - because he loves her…"

The lost princess's voice twisted love around so that it was distorted and spiteful. Something in her eyes glistened. Cracked lips pulled back in a sadistic smile as Azula turned to face Katara. She walked across the water, her steps barely disturbing it, and came to stand in front of the kneeling girl. Titling her head, Azula crouched down in front of the girl and used her talon-nails to grasp the girls chin and force it up her.

"… not that the Avatars feelings are requited, or anything, right little water peasant?" Cerulean orbs widened in comprehension and fear, but the face stayed impassive.

"Oh?"

The fireprincess didn't break eye contact, but her twisted smile broadened. "Don't worry. It'll be our little secret. Swear it." Cold, golden eyes turned hard. "Right? No one else knows, do they?"

"I promise that no one else knows. It will be our little secret, Azula – but only if you keep it."

"Oh, you promise do you? That's nice of you." Thoughtful. Azula looked like a cat determining the best way to attack. "I can understand why you haven't told anyone though. Dreadful, terrible, fearful things would happen if someone were to find out. Because the little spoilt Avatar would throw an awful tantrum, wouldn't he? He may even try and kill the one who you love…"

Fire came to life in the water-girls eyes and she launched herself, chains and all, at the lost princess. The girls tumbled into the water in a mess of dead leaves, muck and water. "You can't tell him! I'll kill you before I let you ruin everything! I'll rip out your trachea and slit your throat and cut out your tongue! I'll – "

Ozai jerked the chain and the watertribe girl tumbled backwards, hissing as pain blossomed in her arm. Azula just looked ecstatically happy. "I love secrets that are worth killing for! They're my favourite type of secret. Much better than the ones worth dying for! It's not worth anything unless you'll kill for it, after all!" She threw back her head and laughed and laughed and laughed. He couldn't help but be interested in the twisted triangle before him, and the allure of the princesses' deal was as powerful as a moth's obsession to burn itself on a flame.

The princess finally stopped laughing and her head rolled on her shoulders again. "I promise to keep our little secret, peasant. I won't tell your Avatar."

Relief blossomed in the girls face. Koh wondered why he hadn't stolen any of the faces in front of him yet.

"Now," Azula turned her attention back to Koh, "that that matter is sorted out, what say you to my deal? Yes?"

Shift. Nomadic air monk. "Let me just sort this out, dearie, quite a bit of excitement is occurring and this old spirit wants to be clear. I become jailor to this girl's prisoner and you deliver me the Air bending Avatar, Aang, and then you leave here with the girl so that she may go on her merry way to this unnamed gentlemen – or, gentlewomen, as I am open-minded to such things?"

Hope lights up the waterbenders face before it vanishes behind a blank mask. Koh could smell her happiness and her guilt; her anger and frustration. Feel her love. She is mesmerising. Just like Mana.

"I'd get to leave this place? I'd get to go home?" whispered quietly, in awe, thinking no one could hear her voice like rain. "I'd get to be with him? Finally be able to love him?"

(The hope only)

Koh always heard, though.

Koh-Of-The-Lost-Souls always heard their pleas.

"Yes." The fireprincess is a snake. Smell the pride and sadism. Feel the deceit and vengeance in the air.

Shift. Earth kingdom king. "Is there anything you've forgotten, dearie?"

Distrust and disappointment. Defeat and slyness. The once-king answers. "You help us crush the so called peace my traitor brother created and take away everything he loves bit by painstakingly, torturous bit. And the Avatars face may be a little… damaged," she considered a long, bloody nail, "apologises. But it couldn't be helped."

Koh thinks. "We shall iron out the rest of the details after I have secured the prisoner."

Victory. Azula turns to the water girl. "Did you hear that? You will be the face that launched a thousand ships to their death! You will be the reason a hundred-thousand lose their loves!"

Face crumbles. Will shattered. Fire dies out.

(Of empty men)

Even shackled, she is beautiful.

(Multifoliate rose)

"You are now my prisoner."

She doesn't move a muscle. She stares blankly at the tree that is her prison. The land around is burned and jagged from Harae's rage. Not with all his power could Koh fix the ruin. A small part of him doesn't want to fix it, because he wants to be reminded of all that feeling. He wished he could feel like that. That rawly. That powerfully.

A single, dark stalactite dominates the centre of his hollow tree, and the cavern itself is riddled with nooks that lead to both shadow and light. He dons a face that has a white mask with high black dots for eyes and bright red lips. She doesn't even flinch. The hollow tree towers around them, the vastness impossible in anything but his Realm. Old bones of fallen bodies lay littered throughout. Outside the ground is cracked and broken, dead and uncared for.

Home, sweet home.

When he'd first created this Realm for himself and Bo, it had been made to look like the golden era of time, where spirit and man had lived in harmony and peace. The ground had flourished emerald green, the skies were crystalline blue – brilliant, vibrant, alive. The time of the Sun Warriors; the Air Gypsies; the Water Sirens and the Earth Workers was brilliant - cities of white marble, towers of crystal and diamond, towns of waterfalls and bridges…

Then, man had destroyed it. Broken it.

(In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms)

"When the Avatar arrives, I shall take his face and you shall be mine to keep for eternity."

No response. Koh scuttles around and heads for the dying sunlight. He is so far away that he nearly misses her next words. "He'll come for me. He'll come and fire will reign down, burning everything and destroying this Hell you created. He'll save us all and you will become nothing but ashes and mist in the wind."

"Isn't that the point of this whole charade? To bring the Avatar here?"

"Not Aang. But Him and he'll bring burning and ash and smoke."

"What makes you think this person will come for you?"

"Because he always finds me."

Koh considers her. He moves to be in front of her. She stares boldly back at him, even though he wears the once-kings face. "Why do you say that?"

"Because it's true."

"Enough of this game. If you won't give me answers then I will take them from you."

He steals her face. And sees everything.

… Katara lay beside the cherry blossom tree in the Fire Lady's gardens. Even though the firelady herself was still missing, the firelord insisted that her garden be tended to and stay the same. She was watching a group of crows flutter brazenly along the grass besides her. She reached out to pet one and it hopped away, just the right amount of distance to be teasing her. It regarded her suspiciously out of one golden eye.

"I won't hurt you. Promise."

Cawing at her, it ruffled the feathers of its chest and wings before fluttering to its five companions. "Wasn't that a song Gran Gran sung to me? One for sorrow,three for a girl, five for silver…"

"Six for gold." Spinning around she faces Zuko. "Gold is the colour of a firenation wedding." He leaves her.

Fade to black, burn away…

… "Aang and I are back together. We talked and settled things." Zuko studied her and she shifted uncomfortably. He had a way of looking at a person and making it seem like he could read their heart.

"That's good. He really wasn't the same without you. Always moping and brooding around my palace… and you seemed quieter, more withdrawn. You must have missed him as well."

"I did. Everyone says that we are destined to be with each other and it must seem like it, by the way he was acting. Even Aunt Wu, the fortune-teller, saw me and him together in my future. She told me that the spirits have everything planned out…"

"I can't believe that something Else has determined our lives. I have to believe that every action has a thousand different reactions and not one reaction already set in stone. That you are supposed to suffer hardship and pain and keep on suffering and suffering until the day you die, and not just because it's been set in stone… I don't want to believe that you can't help who you fall in love with. I have to believe that it's your choice, your feelings that dictate who you love…"

Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posy…

… "Zuko! Look at this!" She watches Zuko as he watches Toph perform some new metal-bending move from her position in her moon-peach tree.

He smiled, not a full smile, but the closest he could ever come to one, considering that the comet grew closer with each passing day. "That's incredible, champ. You're incredible."

Toph flew at him and started talking a mile a minute. Katara can't help but watch them- watch him and fall more in love…

We Live. We Die. We all fall down…

… "Zuko, don't do this! Don't turn your back on everything we've created!" Aang was pleading with him.

"This isn't what I want Aang. It's what you want and what you are trying to create. I don't want any part in this. I don't want to be responsible for ripping apart innocent family's, destroying livelihoods and turning brother against brother - sister against mother - the way I was turned against Azula. I want peace. And this creation of yours isn't going to bring it."

Katara wanted to go stand beside him. She believed in what he said and in what he planned to do. It was right and just and something only Zuko would think of. But, she was the Avatars girlfriend. Not his. She wasn't his anything. So she went to stand behind Aang. Not his. And that broke her piece by little piece every single day…

The dead are lying broken, the women crying tears

… tree's bark digs into her skin. Strong and calloused hands, summer and sun scent, hot and warm breathe. He'd tied her up against the tree and taunted her with her mother's necklace.

"I'll save you from the pirates…"

Ring around a rosy, a pocket full of posy…

… burning. Azula's mad laughter fills the air and Zuko is on the ground so far away – too far away – she can't get to him – too far... She wants to scream and shout and wail. The tingling feeling in the air that announces lightning begins, and she turns away from his dying form to look at her; the bitch that caused this. The bitch that hurt him.

Azula will pay.

Pay for what she has created. Pay for what she has done to Zuko. Pay for what she has taken. Pay for the lives she has destroyed. Pay for the pain she's caused her friends. Pay because Katara cannot do this without him. Never. Pay because she's trying to take him from her.

Don't leave me alone, Zuko!

Scream. Shout. Her lover shall die.

She places a hand on his chest, right over his beating heart. Beating heart. Over a star-shaped scar that now – always and forever – marks his sister's betrayal. His death. Because, he died, right there. Right in front of me.

And the spite of the woman she both hated and loved had saved him.

Bloodbending.

Hand reaches out to tangle in messy, bloody hair. She doesn't care, because he's alive and she's alive and they're together. Her heart is a drum beat, a constant he's-ah-live he's-ah-live he's-ah-live he's-ah-live he's-ah-live

"'tara," he says.

Erratic rabbiroo heartbeat stutters. Eyes drift shut.

"'tara…"

"Sleep, Zuko," she finally whispers. "Sleep."

What she should have said was

I Love You.

Fade to black, burn away…

(As the perpetual star)

She will not burn out. Not as long as she has this love inside her.

"He always finds me…"

She loves the Firelord.

And she can never be with him in the world that Is.

Despair

"Why did you take him?"

This one he's already met in her lovers memories. She has a smile like the moon – all illumination and mystery – and a face like the sun – all golden beauty and light. She has a temper like a flame, dangerous while it burns but it doesn't burn for long. She has eyes that can make even the strongest weak.

"I took him because he thought it was a good day to die when you were away from him and his grey skies."

She rips at her hair, cries tears that taste of salt and metal and yells and shouts at him to stop lying.

"He wasn't happy. He didn't want to live, but he didn't want to die, so I gave him the option of an escape without life or death."

"No. No. No. No. No. I tried and tried and tried! Why, why, why! Why are you so selfish that you take what isn't yours and destroy what good is left!? You are nothing but lies and deceit and chaos and pain and suffering!"

Silence.

"Death. Judgement. Fate. Heaven. Hell. Punishment. Torment. Agony. Peace. Dream. Nightmare. I shall tell you the hidden truths, the revelations your kind have so long tried to hide behind. He was not happy. Nor would he ever be happy. In death, there are no lies. I will tear all your half-truths and white-lies apart and lay them before you, so that you won't be able to ignore what you have done to the world… and to me." She is no longer a human, but Tui and Bo and Nara and everyone who ever betrayed him. "I am the breathing evidence that everything you do will have a price. I am the one your ancestors tried to forget, the crime you hoped no one would remember. I was the one you committed to purgatory, and now I stand before you as your judge, jury and executioner."

He doesn't take her soul. He takes her life and condemns her to the place of In-between.

All she was guilty of was being a selfish, little child who couldn't see that her so-called love was an empty shell where life had once been.

{I admit that in the past I've been nasty They weren't kidding when they called me well a witch But you'll find that nowadays I've mended all my ways Repented, seen the light, and made a switch To this}

~ V ~
Love, Death, Birth

(Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At five o'clock in the morning)

She's slowly burning out. It's been five moon cycles, and Koh's Realm still holds her prisoner. He hasn't worn her face again. After the first and only time, he gave it straight back. Something felt… different. Wrong even, when he wore her face. He's never given a face back, but then again, he didn't actually wear it properly. He hasn't properly stolen her face. She still wears it.

To get a reaction from her empty shell, he lets her watch her world from the Looking Glass Pool. It's bleeding, dying, burning and fading. The Avatar has turned against the Firelord, believing that he always wanted his father and sister to escape. Believing that he is as dark and cruel as his forefathers were. Her brother still mourns the loss of his sweetheart… his second sweetheart. Koh wonders which Spirit cursed him with this, and then knows immediately that it's La, because the new moon, Tui-Yue, still loves her wolf-warrior. Her best friend, the metal bending protégé, is lost without her father. The Avatar made her choose between the Firelord and her friends, and she chose her friends – but only after the Firelord shut her out. When your father - even your adoptive father – does that, love turns to despair and hate. The Firelord knew that when he did what he did. He did what he did because he wanted her to be with her friends. Not with him and his dying dreams.

The Firelord fights against both the supporters of his father and the supporters of the Avatar's ideals and ideas. And he actually fights - he doesn't sit behind a table and dictate who dies and who lives, but he fights alongside his men and tries to prevent their deaths and save their lives.

The lost princess had been right when she'd been possessed by Harae. You will be the face that launched a thousand ships to their death! You will be the reason a hundred-thousand lose their loves!

Katara of the Southern Watertribe helped start a war.

"He'll come for me."

Yet, even though she slowly fades away to a shadow of her former self, the part that remains strong willed and vibrant clings to the thought that her prince will come save her. She doesn't want the Avatar to come – he can't anyway, his love for her blocks his passage into Koh's Realm – because she doesn't want to owe him – Aang the Last Airbending Avatar - anymore.

"He always finds me."

(Between the idea)

Koh watches her world through the Looking Glass Pool while she sleeps.

He knows that the Firelord is up to something. He knows that the once-king and his possessed, lost daughter plot and plan. He knows the Avatar is slowly slipping; slipping deep into a darkness that will eventually consume and control him. He knows their hearts desires and their dreams, because the whole world is lost and deep down, he is still Koh-Of-The-Lost-Souls.

Another moon passes, and still she waits. Koh watches her carefully, making sure that her fire doesn't burn out. It still splutters and flickers on, more weakly as the days in his Hollow Kingdom bleed together and pass. She came to him in her world's autumn, and the seasons have turned and changed and shifted just like his faces. The sun turned cold and the leaves changed colour and fell.

"He'll come for me."

It is her mantra; as constant as her heartbeat or the changing of the day to the night. Her Firelord is always on her mind, she whispers his name in her sleep the way a religious man whispers the name of his God in prayer.

Reverance. Blind-love. Faith. Truth.

Koh wonders just how long reverence, blind-love, faith and a believed-truth can last. But deep down in a place that takes a human lifetime to fill and a human second to drain, he knows that reverence, blind-love, faith and a believed-truth last as long as the winter months.

And the winter is starting to turn to spring.

(And the reality)

Whenever the pseudo-moon is full in his Realm, the girl stirs and her fire re-ignites just a little bit. She'll stand up and search for the highest place in his home so she can stare at the moon – the bitch that killed his Everything – and start to move. She thinks that she slips out unnoticed, but Koh knows All in his Realm. His Faceless shades whisper to him through the creeping shadows, telling him what they know and what they believe.

She slips out into the darkness and climbs the tree, delicately moving upwards like flowing water. As the days and nights have come and gone, as the sun has turned colder and colder and began to warm again, she has waned and so has her fire. It gets so low that Koh convinces himself that it's gone, but then she sees the ash-sky and the full-moon and her strength returns.

(Between the motion)

When she sees the full-moon, she takes a deep breath and starts to move. It's slow at first, exact and controlled. She drops and curls, shifting her weight from her front foot to her back. Hands curve and draw imaginary circles and waves. Wrists make revolutions and joints pop and crack. Her eyes watch the moon and her mouth moves in voiceless speech. Koh can't help but wonder what she says. What she wants to say, but can't find the courage too.

Eventually her eyes become hooded and close, her face slips and she looks relatively peaceful. She leaves this world – his Realm – and abandons her body. Her movements become wild and untamed. Hands move quickly, movements flow like the water she aches to bend.

Light on her feet and like a leaf in the wind.

She quickly twists and shivers, hands twirl in an arc above her head. She twists and curves, her body moving like it has no solidity. Boneless, thoughtless and unpossessed, she moves rapidly. Chest heaves from the work. She rocks up on to the toes of one foot and her other leg moves, spinning her by using the toe as a point. Pirouette. Her body is liquid and the moon makes her uninhibited.

Lost in her art, the girl never notices him watching. Observing, as she moves to her exotic and imaginary beat. The Shades watch alongside him, just as captivated. Koh still doesn't understand how they can still see when he holds their eyes, but it's just one of the many things he leaves be. One of the many mysterious of the universe.

As she moves, shifting and twisting, Koh can see another dancing by the light of the moon to the water's seductive beat. Koh can only image what she'd look like, leading a ribbon of water behind her and twisting it around her body like a gecko-snake around a tree branch. The water would catch the light of the moon, sending rainbow prisms in every which direction. Her body would glisten with the droplets of liquid, as if her skin was made of tiny glinting diamonds. The rivulets clinging to her body…

The moon passes its apex and her body slows. The fervour that consumes her starts to diminish and slip away. The Shades depart into the mist, bleeding into the darkness like shadows into the night. Koh watches her come back to herself, and sees the same look of ecstasy and wonder that always adorned his beloved Bo's face after she danced.

Then the wonder vanishes and the ecstasy fades and the morbid grief and despair re-appear. The little waterbender falls to her knees and brings her legs up into her body, hugging herself as she shakes with sobs. He listens as her voice like summer-rain breaks as she utters her prayer again.

"He will come for me. He always finds me." Koh knows that the only reason her fire burns is because it lives of her trust in her prayer.

But then, so quietly that he always thinks he imagines it: "Where are you?"

(And the act)

Koh watches her world through the Looking Glass Pool while she sleeps.

He knows that the once-king's lost-daughter fights against the Spirit that holds her fragile, delicate mind hostage every single day that this bloody, icy war rages on. He knows that one of the once-kings schemes is about to be put into effect. He knows that the Firelord's plans are coming closer into being. He sees the two-faced fire-king converse with his Zen – his Lovely – and he sees him agonize over the death and destruction that this Winter War is bringing. The Firelord wants peace and a bittersweet outcome. And Koh can't see if he'll get it. This Winter War was always the possibility that was least likely to come to fruition, because it needed the Avatar to slip, deep down into a darkness that will consume and control him. He doesn't know how this story will end and he's worried that it's because of the Reckoning. But, he does know their hearts desires and their dreams, because the whole world is lost and deep down, he is still Koh-Of-The-Lost-Souls.

(Falls the Shadow)

Is the end of the Second World – the Reckoning – coming?

(For Thine is the Kingdom)

As she sleeps, she whispers his name with reverence.

Zuko.

Another moon passes, and still she waits. Koh watches her carefully, making sure that her fire doesn't burn out. It still splutters and flickers on, more weakly as the days in his Hollow Kingdom bleed together and pass. She came to him in her world's autumn, and the seasons have turned and changed and shifted just like his faces. The sun turned cold and the leaves changed colour and fell.

"He'll come for me."

She's watching her world through the Looking Glass Pool when her breath stops and her body goes cold. The once-Firelord Ozai of the third dynasty of the Fire Nation managed to buy the allegiance of one of his sons supposedly-loyal Yu Yang Archers.

(Between the emotion)

It was in the middle of a parlay, between the Allied Forces of the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes and the Royal Army of the Fire Nation and her colonies. The third party was the Followers of Enlightenment, led by the once-king Ozai.

The Allied Forces were made up of soldiers from the Southern Islands, the Southern and Northern Water Tribes, the southern and south-east parts of the Earth Kingdom and the people of Omashu. The Fire Nation and colonies were primarily loyal Fire Nation soldiers to the Firelord and the colonies in the north-western parts of the Earth Kingdom. The Enlightened were all those loyal to Ozai. Koh is surprised by the number of soldiers loyal to the once-king.

The parlay took place on the plain of rock that stretched between Spirit Hei Bei's forest and the Trading Village. As the sun rises, it illuminates once-king Ozai, once again stylized as the Phoenix King, making shadows that shifted in the grass. Some distance behind him a small guard of no more than ten bowmen and ten benders stood at attention, arrows drawn and notched. Behind the airbending Avatar Aang and his generals – the metal bending master and the wolf-warrior – a guard of nearly twenty benders, earth and water alike, did the same.

The Firelord arrived just as the last rays of the rising sun peaked over the eastern sky. The Firelord had only six Yu Yang archers and a party of just four men – the Dragon of the West, the Deserter, another Commander and the Swordsmaster.

The Firelord begs for peace and the Avatar refuses. The once-king makes his proposition and the Avatar refuses. The once-kings archers step down, as do the Avatars, and then the Firelord signalled his men to disengage. Then, an arrow was in his back.

Pandemonium. Glorious Chaos.

(And the response)

The girl screams with an anguish that rips through her body violently. Her cry rings out, eerie and solitary through Koh's Hollow Realm, as one of the two-faced prince's archers shots an arrow through his back. She doesn't stop screaming even after the five loyal Yu Yang archers strike the traitor down.

She screams and screams and screams and she doesn't stop screaming until the Firelord is being tended to by a physician. And even then, tears stream down her face and he feels her fire flickering dangerously low.

Koh drags her away as she kicks and screams and tries to return. He doesn't want her to waste away staring through the Looking Glass Pool like so many others have. Some place, deep inside him and so long-lost he thought it gone, Koh doesn't want the girl to die.

Like her Firelord has died.

Deep down in a place that takes a human lifetime to fill and a human second to drain, he knows that her flame grows dimmer and dimmer with each passing day; that even her very heartbeat – zoo-koh zoo-koh zoo-koh zoo-koh zoo-koh – is growing slower. Her faith is dying as the winter is dying around them

Spring is coming. And so is her end.

(Falls the Shadow)

In Koh's Hollow Place, another part of him whispers the ultimate question, the question that puzzles Koh. The one he cannot answer.

What will happen to the girl if her prince dies?

(Life is very long)

Koh remembers them well.

(Between the conception)

They met on top of the mountain that divided their two villages. The villages were enemies, so they could not be together, but their love was strong and they found a way.

The two lovers learned earthbending from the bagermoles; they became the first earthbenders. They built elaborate tunnels, so they could meet secretly. Anyone who tried to follow them would be forever in the labyrinth. But, one day, the man didn't come - he'd died in the war between the two villages.

Devastated, the woman unleashed a terrible display of her earthbending power - she could have destroyed them all... but, instead, she declared the war over. Both villages helped her build a new city where they would live together in peace. The woman's name was Oma and the man's name was Shu.

The great city was named Omashu as a monument to their love.

Yes. Koh remembers them well. He remembers when Shu fell, how the very Earth shook and the Spirit World trembled as Oma's grief and despair overcame the barrier between worlds. Earthbending had never been seen before and even Harae was left in the dust with the rest. Some though it the Reckoning. Koh thought it revenge.

He wonders if his little waterbenders grief and rage and despair will be anywhere near as powerful. As earth-shattering as it was for Oma when she lost her prince to a war that he just wanted to end?

He wonders if she will just cease.

Will she will fade and become one of his Lost Ones? One of his shades forever trapped in his Realm?

Oma and Shu had been Ouron and Rimi before. Ouron and Rimi had been Ishida and Kol. Ishida and Kol had been Yumi and Jai. Yumi and Jai had been…

It goes on and on and on. Always repeating: Birth, Childhood, First love, War, Death. Every few hundred decades (or was it few decades?), the same thing - the great creation (the only creation) that He of Destiny and That of Desire made.

Koh wonders if the scarred-prince and the little waterbender are the new point on the Wheel of Life… the Ring of Reincarnation. Are these the two destined to love and then die?

Koh feels something strange stir within him: pity.

She really can't be with him in the world that Is.

(And the creation)

Koh doesn't let her use the Looking Glass Pool again.

(Between the essence)

Her fire is almost done.

Koh knows it.

He sees it.

Feels it.

He feels something strange enter his realm on the last day of winter. The last day the girl has before her fire burns itself out. Before she gives up hope. It's been twelve days since he forbade her from using the Looking Glass Pool. Twelve days in her self-imposed Hell of anguish, despair, loathing, hatred, guilt, anger, sadness, grief, pain, suffering and emptiness.

Koh has never felt something like it before. Even when Harae entered and destroyed everything with his feeling. Koh still remembers his scream. It is the sound of the wind.

It is the sound of a hundred-thousand dying children, a thousand mourning mothers and a hundred tortured souls. It is agony and pain and suffering and anger and rage and despair. It's the mournful cacophony that his Faceless sing every time a new soul joins their ranks.

Her screams were a thousand times more broken.

He felt it. Magic, perhaps?

The same magic-way that Koh knows the moment that someone enters his kingdom of the damned. When intruders arrive, Nagami greets them with teeth and claw and death. He is always surprised when a living, breathing souls enters his Dying Realm. His Lost Place. It's always an intrusion. He always wants the company and another, smaller, darker, better part of him doesn't want another soul to enter his Realm again – doesn't want to steal another face, another soul.

He also knows when another Spirit enters his Realm.

This presence is neither Spirit nor human. Koh has never felt anything like it before. He rustles from his position entwined around the single stalactite that dominates his Hollow Cave. The girl notices his unease and the fire inside her splutters. Her eyes are glassy and Koh knows that she is slipping away.

"Be a dear and stay here. I have some business to attend to and I don't think it's the kind you would want to see, precious."

No reply. Only haunted silence.

Koh leaves. He follows the paths of the Shades as they migrate towards the strange energy that they feel as well. His whole Realm feels the force and his whole Realm feels his unease. They were like hound-tigers scenting the fear of their prey.

Nagami, his pet, also knows. Also feels.

Something is not right in Koh's Realm.

He travels through the ash and smoke and rubble of his ruined kingdom and the Faceless run alongside run with him just like the wood nymphs that used to run alongside Kiara-Of-The-Hunt, back in the Old Times, when he had still been whole.

Koh comes to a stop. A figure kneels by the Looking Glass Pool, stirring the water with a hand. A red tunic etched in gold, red pants and black pointed-boots. A top knot pulled up and long, shoulder-length ebony hair. Pale skin.

(And the descent)

"Koh." Greetings of ice and heat.

Koh turns and feels the stranger approach. "Follow me. Your travels are not over yet."

(Between the potency)

Koh leads the Descended through his Realm. Through the guarding willows where the Faceless play in the shadows. They watch the man with interest. They press up against him, pointed chins press against his body; hands with claw-like nails grip and grab at his hair, skin and clothing. An especially interesting Shade, bone-thin with too many joints, was both vulgar and beautiful at the same time. Koh snorted as she drifted with the wind towards the Descender. Koh did nothing, but let his shells be.

Koh takes him past the Black Wood, where his pet prowled amongst the dead and poisonous trees, watching the intruder with hungry eyes and leering mouth. Past the dead plains and twisted groves, the Descender followed him.

The Grave Stone appeared ahead and the Descender finally betrayed his impassive coolness.

They stopped just before the rocks that led to Koh's tree. It sat on the crest of a spire of earth that jutted out of a sea of fog like a broken bone. Koh heard the Descender's heartbeat quicken, felt his breathes become shallow and smelt his expectation. His worry, hopefulness, desperateness and fear. It was a tantalising mixture, one that Koh felt very rarely.

It was the smell of someone here to Claim. The feel of someone so consumed that there was nothing else.

This Descender was a potent, addictive mixture.

Koh nods to himself, slithers inside and the man follows. Water drips from the cavernous roof, a soothing and anxious pattern. Koh feels everything the Descender feels and knows that the moment of reckoning comes.

"Wait here."

Koh leaves before the stranger can reply, abandoning him to the hordes of Shades. The moon had risen a while before, full and beautiful even in his kingdom. The new moon, Tui-Yue, is benevolent and has nowhere near the same coldness as her predecessor. But Koh still hates her for the legacy she inherits.

The girl has already left for her midnight dance.

Koh returns to the Descender, surrounded by the damned, and his presence causes them to scatter.

"I am Koh. But, you already know that. You are here to make a bargain, are you not? For the face of the one who abandoned and loved you all in the same breathe? The one who came here, lost and alone, to escape the man she'd once loved with all her heart? Well, speak up Descender, because the night is not as young as it used to be and the Worlds are dangerously unstable at the current time."

(And the existence)

Koh watches him control his face as the words that he has spoken sink into his soul and bury themselves deep. Koh felt the young man's anguish as the truth finally came out – Koh felt him break in two.

"You know that She is not the reason I'm here…"

A decision is made and Koh knows that the future has changed again when it was never supposed to. The world is unravelling thread by thread.

(Between the desire)

"You are the debitor who is always paid, no matter the position or rank. We are yours forever and forever. Since before we were made, it had been decreed so. But I seek one who came to you too soon; a bud that was plucked before the flower bloomed. I tried to bear my loss. I could not bear it and now the world lies in ruins because she is not there." *

He heard his own claws click hollowly on the wooden floor. He curled around the man like a snake around its prey. The Descender made no move. "You will follow me now."

As Koh and the man climbed higher up his tree, Koh felt a sensation reminisces to something he'd long forgotten. The feeling that someone was calling, yet there was no one around.

In some broken part of his Hollow Place, Koh realised that he'd felt when he'd been searching for Bo's…

Koh felt her fire burn away at the same time they arrived at her podium.

She still wore the ratty white and blood dress that she had arrived in. She still wore the thin silk-like web that Koh had used as her chains. As thin as spider-silk and as strong as the purest metal, the web was the ultimate bond. Koh felt his face shift in surprise when he saw her fluid dance stop with a violent shudder.

The Descender watched as she fell and Koh felt pain as a heart broke.

(Falls the Shadow)

"KATARA."

She didn't answer. He ran to her and began to cut at the bonds, starting with the ones that adorned her neck like a necklace. She lay limp as he worked, the steel of one of his duo swords slicing easily through the ropes that had immobilized her for weeks. Koh couldn't find his voice to tell the Descender that that should have been impossible if she was still alive. Free of her bonds, the girl started to tumble towards the ground. He caught her and gently lowered her down the remaining distance. Her head lolled like a woollen dolls.

"Katara, it's time to wake up."

No response. The girl lay still, unmoving.

"Katara. Wake up."

Koh felt the last few walls fall away.

"Katara, don't do this. Not now. Please, Katara, I'm here now. You don't have to do this. Katara?"

Her spark blew out like a candle in the wind. Then, her soul started to rise from her body. The Descender sees it happen at the same time Koh does.

History repeats itself.

He screams. It sounds like a million dying children, a hundred-thousand mourning mothers, a thousand tortured souls and a hundred dying men. Its agony and pain and suffering and anger and rage and despair.

"No, Katara, NO! You can't be dead, you can't be dead. My heart is still beating and that means that yours should be too. You can't be dead, Katara, you can't be! You told me that the fortune-teller saw you living until you were as old as the mountains and the river! You told me that you still had years and years of life left. You've never lied to me, Katara. You aren't a liar, so you can't be dead. No, no, no, no, no no no no no no no no no – Katara!"

Vengeful eyes turn to Koh.

"I loved her Koh! You knew that when you took her away from me! That's why they told you to take her away! What have you done, Koh! Koh you son of a bitch, answer me! Why? You used to be something good. You used to help people, not destroy lives! Koh…"

Somehow the Descender firebends. The flames illuminate his patch-work face of bruises, cuts and scars. His face is hard and his eyes burn with an inner fire the likes of which Koh has never seen. The rage burns through him like a wild fire, pulsing and blazing with the strength of ten thousand men.

He is beautiful in his rage.

The Man-boy's eyes blaze brightly with the glow of a thousand different lives. They stare, equal parts passion and equal parts cold. Koh can't help but be enchanted by his glowing eyes and inner fire.

Koh has never seen a soul like his. It pulses and flickers brilliantly with each emotion, with each passing thought. His eyes are the perfect windows to his soul. Never has he seen such a soul.

Koh is bewitched by his two sided face: Flickering with so much emotion that Koh struggles to keep up.

It's beautiful. Its feeling.

Its memory.

(And the spasm)

Koh came out into the sunlight and faced his love. She did not cower in fright or spit in anger. Instead, she smiled benevolently and whispered his name. Then the hunger possessed him. The need. The ache.

And Koh took his lover's face as his first.

Mana is dying before him. (He doesn't yet know how to take a soul and keep the body). Her body is shaking wildly – violently – as spasms overcome her. She withers on the cool, green grass. Blood pours from her ears and from under her finger nails. She tears at the ground, ripping off nail.

Then she stopped. And Koh felt his heart disappear and a huge, never-ending emptiness take its place.

Koh screams and yells and curses every deity he can name. He swears an oath, to the Mother-Chaos and the Father-Order, that he will spend his life helping the lost and keeping them from his Thing that consumes him.

"What have you done Koh?"

The voice was like wind through dried, dead grass…

(For Thine is the Kingdom)

Koh remembers the love, the horror, the rage, the joy.

The passion and the pain.

He remembers everything.

And Koh makes a decision that was never foretold to be made.

(For Thine is Life is For Thine is)

Koh slithers over to the heartbroken man-boy and his dead love. The man-boy doesn't make a move, doesn't make a sound. His loves body is lying down as if she was merely sleeping. Her hair fans around her, creating a halo. Her eyes – wide open – are glassy and distant.

Long gone.

The man-boy sits on the edge of the podium, so close that even the slightest breeze would send him tumbling over and into oblivion. Koh knows that the two-faced man desperately wants to do just that. Koh also knows that the two-faced man can't bring himself to do it.

From his bleeding feelings, Koh understands that the man can't willingly leave his people behind to the World Above.

The Firelord knows something that Koh knows as well.

"You can never be together… the Three Weavers will not allow it. Harae will not allow it. He of Destiny, She of Dream and Time will not allow it…"

He makes no reply.

"Oma and Shu had nothing on you… I have nothing on you…"

Now he looks up. Koh is entranced by the boy's strange face.

"I lost my Everything too, once upon a time. It was indescribable – too painful to bear. I wanted the pain though, because I wanted reassurance that I still lived. I inadvertently killed my Heart, just like you. I know what you are feeling – I can feel it too, just like I can feel everything else in my Realm – and I want it to end. Once upon a time, I made an Everlasting Vow to Order and Chaos. I swore that I would do everything in my power to prevent another from feeling my pain. I had forgotten it… until you arrived, bringing your pain and suffering and wrath. I remembered the midsummers day when I first looked at her and realised that I loved her. I remembered the dry autumn night when I lost her. Just like how you feel, losing your love on this Autumn night."

The Firelord watches Koh and Koh watches the Firelord. "Do you love her enough to let her go?"

The Firelord doesn't hesitate before answering: "Yes."

"Then, I shall honour my long-forgotten vow…"

The Firelord's eyes roll back and he starts to fall.

Koh lunges forward, twisting around the falling boy and bringing him back safely to lie besides his dead lover. The strange presence in Koh's realm suddenly explodes. A shining, golden light erupts from the boy's mouth and eyes and fingertips. It rockets into the air, twisting and turning until it starts to form a floating, golden image in the shape of a woman.

It is Mana.

"… Koh…?" Her voice is not her voice. It's the voice of Tohru, Asari, Yumi, Ishida, Ouron, Oma and every other woman who has died of love. It is the voice of Yuki, Jai, Kol, Rimi, Shu and everyother man who has died of love.

"Mana!" He whispers her name like a prayer and tries to slither towards her. He trips and falls onto hands and feet in a field of fire lilies and dragon roses.

"Mana?"

"… Thank you Koh…"

He reaches out and his hand slips through her.

"… Love determines everything in existence…"

He feels tears fall from his eyes, trickle over his nose and run down his tanned skin.

"…. Remember Koh…."

He blinks.

Shift, Change, Shiver…

The Firelord is stirring and groggily searching. Koh twists forwards, over his prone figure and hovers besides the little waterbender. The firebender is immediately alert. Flame comes to life in his palms and the fire burns in his eyes.

"You can never be together…"

Koh moves so quickly he knows that the Firelord's eyes will miss him. He presses Mana's lips to the waterbenders and exhales once. When there is nothing more inside him, Koh breaks the kiss and slithers away.

"You are to lead her to the Looking Glass Pool. No one will stop you, the shades will leave you be and Nagami will stay away. If you look back at her, I will steal her face and she will be forever out of your reach. If you return to my kind, I will talk her. Do I have your word?"

"Yes."

The girl's clouded eyes blink and she gasps painfully, body spasming as she tries to get breathe. "I never want to see your face again."

Koh feels it in the air. Koh feels it in his soul. Fate, Destiny… it is no more.

(This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper)

Love

The man's eyes blaze brightly with the fire of a thousand different lives. They stare, equal parts passion and equal content. Koh can't help but be enchanted by his glowing eyes and inner fire.

Koh has never seen a soul like his. It pulses and flickers brilliantly with each emotion, with each passing thought. His eyes are the perfect windows to his soul. Never has he seen such a soul.

Koh is bewitched by his two sided face: Flickering with so much emotion that Koh struggles to keep up.

It's beautiful. Its feeling. It's Love.

{Poor unfortunate souls In pain, in need}

He holds her tight and whispers words of comfort and love in her ear, peppering her face and neck and flesh with adoring kisses and burning caresses. She cries tears that taste of salt and rain, and he kisses them away before they fall.

Turning and leaving, the fire lord grasps her hand so tightly Koh wouldn't be surprised if he crushed it. He doesn't look back, but quietly leads the way out. Her tears escape freely now, and when it greets the cold, dead ground, a clump of greenery – flowers and grass – explode through from the ground.

Koh follows them as they leave his Realm, making sure that the Firelord doesn't look back as he leads her out of Hell, even though Koh has no intention of stealing her face back if he does. He just wants to know if the scarred-man keeps his word. Koh isn't surprised when the two-faced king stays true to his honour and single-mindedly follows the trails of the shades. They brush against the king and the queen of his heart, touching and caressing, giggling and laughing. The girl hurries her steps and presses herself into his back. She had been strong when she'd arrived here, but the Hollow Land he has created breaks even the strongest.

They've arrived at the Looking Glass Pool and stand in solitude staring at it, neither moving. She still stands behind him, as part of the deal. Images of their companions ripple across the surface, dancing and withering; the Avatar, the metal bender and the wolf-warrior. Aang, Toph, Sokka.

The Avatar is solemn and angry, yelling and screaming at his companions. Demanding that they let him go find her – go fight in the war he's started against the firenation and Ozai and Azula. He is still such a child even though he is a hundred and seventeen – nearly a hundred and eighteen - years old.

The metal bender is frustrated and angry. She's always been divided, ever since she admitted her feelings for the boy-avatar and the warrior. Both have been unavailable. She confided in the Firelord and now, he's left her too.

The warrior just wants his sister back. He doesn't want the war the once-king and his lost daughter have started. He wants peace. He wants the dead to come back to life. He wants his first love to return from the heavens. He wants his now-love to come back to herself and find him again.

Katara releases the Firelords hand and steps away as the images fade to something else.

{Those poor unfortunate souls So sad, so true}

"What are you doing? Katara, stop being an idiot and take my hand. Katarta? Katara?" He panics, but doesn't look back. She takes another step and Koh can feel her pain. It reminds him of the memories of the boy who drowned. The waterbender is drowning. "Katara? Please, Katara, don't do this! Take my hand – Katara! Katara!"

Koh wonders why the girl would kill her heart even more by staying silent.

"Katara! Talk to me; tell me what's going on. Is it the Face Stealer? Is he holding you? Has he gone back on our deal? Talk to me!"

She's in so much pain, but still see stays silent. Koh can see her heart cracking and falling to crumbled, broken pieces around her.

"Katara, please, don't make me turn around. Don't make me lose you again."

What is she waiting for? Insecure. Worry. Love. Hope. Despair. Need.

"Katara." Broken.

He understands. Tell her you love her.

"Koh let her go. Please. I love her so much that it hurts to be away from her."

Happiness. Joy. Love. Victory. Hope. Wonder. Awe. Pleasure.

She takes his hand.

"I love you to, Zuko. Always and forever."

They step into the pool and vanish from his realm.

{Come on you poor unfortunate soul Go ahead! Make your choice!}

The Spirits were here first. Long before anything else – long before even Time was born.

There were the Five: He of Destiny, She of Death, That of Desire, He of Destruction and She of Dream. Then Destiny and Death gave birth to Time and Dream created Moon (Tui), Sun (Agni) and Stars (Silaest). Then came Ocean and Earth. Then the Other Spirits came about. Then, the First People woke from their slumber as the Moon and Sun meet for the first time.

The spirits know the future almost as well as they know the Past; they know that all that will come to be has gone already. They know that what might happen has already occurred. They know that Everything was decided long ago and that nothing else could happen, because otherwise, they would know. Koh knows this best of all.

There is Then and Now.