Update 8/20/10: Authorial Note: You know, I just realized where I got this story. It was from here: s/4710941/17/Spinning_Whispers. It's weird how stuff gets into you and bleeds into your work without you even knowing it. Some of it infects our body of work, but some, like literary vitamins, strengthens and fortifies our stories. So go read some health food!

Ravening oceans of fire flowed as an unabated tide over the stony courtyards, vaporizing intrusive tufts of crabgrass, throwing the hay from the bison pens up as moth-like cinders. Fingers of exuberant flame waved and raked at the sky and climbed the spires, pulled down turrets and swarmed the fallen wreckage, growing endlessly.

Gyatso had managed to gather some of the children in one of the squat grain stores perched outside the Southern Air Temple's perimeter.

"Now children," he cooed to the young Airbender boys in his perpetually cheery voice, "I want you to hide here just like you do when it's time for your lessons with stuffy old Tashi. But, you have to be quieter, because these bad men hear much better. No giggling." The Elder Monk smiled down at the youngest. Their petite forms shivered, pale faces soot-stained and cut with sticky trails from frightened tears. "Not a sound."

"But Gyatso," the oldest boy pleaded, "I can help you fight."

The old monk's half-shut eyes closed completely as he shook his head reproachfully. "No. What kind of teacher would I be if I let you harm another soul, and in so doing, harm your own soul? Remember that there is no cause, ever, to induce suffering on another being. It is hard for you young ones to understand, I know, but when you get to be as old as I am, you'll realize what it takes, what it means, to live in peace."

"But we learned Airbending to defend ourselves. We-"

"You don't need to. I'm here." The wind from the nearby inferno was sweltering as it leaked into the building, but Gyatso's partially toothed smile gave off warmth even more profound. Beyond heat, beyond what could be felt with flesh. Something indescribable and, for that, more beautiful than all the poetry of all the feelings of all the earth. "Stay hidden. You'll be safe."

The cellar door squeaked shut and the old Airbender felt mild relief when he heard the lock on the other side clunk. He rushed from the room, a feat that was hampered by his excessively flowing robes and his dusty joints.

"So then, Gyatso," a voice thrummed like the shaking tail of a two-headed rat-viper. "Are you prepared to practice what you preach or will you give in to hypocrisy?" The aged man wiped soot from his pressed citrine robe and stroked his long white beard with a satisfied sneer lining his angular countenance.

"Afiko, if you're asking whether or not I'll sink to your level, then no." Gyatso There is no hypocrisy, no unforgivable immorality, in defending love and life. Even in sacrificing ones own soul."

"Honorable sentiment. How noble, how sweet. You have the effulgent sensibilities of a Firebender. Such a sense of honor, unshakable. But, color it how you may, fighting goes against our order, against that sacred reverence for life that we so peacefully, so… apathetically accept."

"You would know better than anyone about hypocrisy, and I assume Firebenders now, too."

"Don't bring my allegiances into this," Afiko sighed wearily. "It doesn't matter anymore, anyway. I'd ask you to join the Fire Nation too, but I'd rather not have to put up with your sentimental whimperings a second time."

Gyatso laughed jollily, knowing that it agitated the other Airbender. "I'm sorry if you thought I'd just squat and let you slowly chide me to death. It makes it difficult for you, but…" - a snide squint adorned his face - "life is difficult. I suppose you'll just have to suck it up."

Afiko whipped one of his baggy sleeves around his arm and slashed a miniature tornado sidelong at Gyatso, who responded in an astounding blur of motion, more like a flash of lightning than a bender. There was no way a man carrying the bulk of generations on his shoulders could bend like that, but time proved too light to slow the master Airbender. He limboed under the swirl and when he spun up, all the air in the room, all the air in the world it seemed, followed his rheumatic fingers and crashed into the traitorous Afiko, smashing him between a wall of stone and a sheet of air that might as well have been stone. Gyatso's merciful nature got the better of him, though, weakening the strike to do little more than knock the wind out of his opponent and cause him to pass out from the impact.

The sound of Afiko's limp body slumping to the ground was overwhelmed by battle cries. Armored Firebenders and pike-men spilled through the door way and charged Gyatso. The Airbender swatted them away like mayflies, breaking and squashing as they hit the walls of the room so hard that the smooth stone cracked.

Lightning, real lightning, shot from Sozin's pointed fingertips. The air exploded with titanic thunder and all in the path of the white-hot surge of indifferent energy were seized with mind splitting agony and swift death.

Gyatso's lifeless body fell against the wall, buried in a mound of smoldering Fire Nation soldiers. Afiko roused and followed a blank faced Sozin out of the room.

It is a shame that we have to war. It would be pleasant to be pleasant to one another and revel in absolute peace, but how boring would that be? No despair, no tears, no mischief, no laughter? No life. What a boring world, where no sorrow is spent to buy bushels of bliss. I'm glad I didn't live in that world. I'm glad I lived in a world where I could love enough to lose even the purity of my immortal soul. Of course, that is a silly thing for purity is nothing without grime about it and I never was any good at tidying up. I suppose I'll have some cleaning to do when I come back.