Disclaimer: Don't own.

Prologue

Before there are benders, and when the most advancement in the world is the knowledge of how to create a bow and an arrow, or the best way to wield a wooden weapon, there is, as always, war; the one infamous defining quality humankind holds, engraved on and staining the pages of its history, like a horrible splash of red blood thrown on pages of white. And along with every war, there is always a source that starts it, fueled with rage, hatred and bloodlust, taking lives and hurting others, but also, along with every war, there is a source which ends it, like a white counter part to black, there is love, the other, overlooked defining human quality, standing out in times of war, which exists in all of us, although some may choose not to acknowledge it.

So as you peer over all the wars that have occurred, you will see a person who hates love, perhaps because he has never experienced it, or perhaps because he has, and the memory is too painful to relive, and so he starts the war, hoping to eradicate love. And you will also see a person who ends it, and that person is often the spawn of love itself. But what the starters of war do not understand is that love cannot be eradicated, and where there is war, love sticks out all the brighter, like the North Star guiding a lost ship at sea. This is so in the story of Oma and Shu, where love shows the two a way and they end the war and the killing.

And so, our story takes us to a time when before there are benders, they are Oma and Shu, the ones chosen to end the war tearing apart their existence as lovers, for once again war, and the hatred and misery that comes along with it is prosecuting love, hoping to diminish it, as one side of the human soul battles the other for dominance.

As lovers tend to do, these two fall in love, and as war tends to add complications, it does so in this case as well, and Oma and Shu are born on different sides of war, and again, as love tends to do, it shows them a way.

They meet in secret tunnels, and quietly, away from the war, they rejoice in love, and for a few secret hours, they escape reality. The two lovers had learnt Earth Bending together, from the badger moles that resided in the area, and as they help each other learn, they become the first human Earth Benders, and for a few short years, in their eyes everything is perfect.

But one day, Shu does not arrive in the secret tunnels they have built together, for he has died in the fighting between the two villages. For the moment, it seems that war has won over, but the power of love prevails. For when Oma discovers the loss of her lover, in her rage, she almost gives in to war itself; fearing to love again and she lets out a terrible display of her Earth Bending, and watches the people cower in fear. She makes all of them scream and cry under the power of her fury, for in her eyes they are both fighters, both contributing to his death, and thus, she makes both sides cling to each other in their fear, noting how when afraid, they choose the language of love to flee to, rather than hate, as she pulls up pillars of rock from the very earth itself, and creates the city of Omashu as a tribute to their love, that in the end, never resulted to anything.

From then on, she shouts to the world, to the skies and the heavens, there will be no more war, and love will prevail. And for some time, there is peace. And when Oma herself dies, a peaceful death after living an old age, she is reunited with Shu in the spirit world, and she is happy, for they are together, and now nothing can tear them apart, and for some time, there was a golden age, and both sides had peace.

But then, as the years melt away, and love slowly dies out, war creeps out of the shadows and slowly begins to consume the world once more. The elder spirits see this, and they ask the worst of Oma and Shu. And before the war begins, the two lovers, united after so long, for what they thought was an eternity, are separated again, born once more to different sides of the war that is approaching, and the spirits up above pray that they would be able to accomplish the impossible once more.

Their identities as Oma and Shu are now forgotten, for now they know each other as Kuzon, prince of the Fire Nation, whose personality holds surprising humility for his title, and Kya, one of the many powerful benders residing in the South Pole.

This is their story.

A/N: Comments or suggestions? Review!