The Story of Koh
He was born from the hearts and souls of men, through their cries and desire to feel numb. A fleeting common wish to block out all emotion and feel nothing when overwhelmed by a raw world.
'Take it, take it, take it away,' so he did, Koh took it all away, your emotion and a face to feel it with.
That was near the beginning, when the fresh minds of humans created the spirits and demons from stories and beliefs that spread fierce with telling. A time when the world was so full of energy and magic that the wonder of the lion turtles could flourish and that life was so fresh and bold. Elements were unnamed and untamed and people had the strength of heart to bend the energy around and inside them. But it was not to last, the humans had too much strength that bred a need for power, through the confusion that raged the world was separated. It was split by a war so savage that it changed everything, the world was torn in two: an immortal spirit world fed by a mortal world for the humans. Koh remembers it without fondness: the way the humans pushed away the spirits and demons they had created into a world which was a mere shadow compared to their own.
The mortal earth now cracked and broken, it's land forced apart and it's people divided, and in their struggle to gain the upper hand over each other the elements were named along with the new nations. As a last desperate gift to the humans the spirits created the Avatar: a guardian of both worlds and a bridge between them.
Koh has ten thousand faces, his collection so he calls it, each one captured in a moment of dizzying emotion expressed by the now previous owner. He holds no preference in beauty or grace just variety, each face relaying a flavour- a lingering scent of feeling from the moment of theft. If Koh could feel anything first hand it would be the longing of a great and rare collector nursing a collection that could never be complete.
Why is he a face stealer? because it was demanded of him from stories told to children 'behave of Koh the face stealer will come through your mirror and snatch your face', he became a false fear turned real. There is nothing callous in him nor anything resembling love, the distinction between good and evil are just words, labels given to changing sides. But he understands the balance the push and pull but lives outside it, the fate of the human world superfluous to him. He only requires it to feel and express to feed of the faces of the unsuspecting, deserving or pious. And right now the mortal world roared with voices ravaged by war, Koh blinks his inner eye and sees faces twisted in agony crashed against mouths agape midst a battle cry. 'The front line' he muses 'always full of such primal delicacies, but today I hunger for something more bitter', and his mind drifting flitting through mirrors and water. Koh's portals to the mortal realm are reflective and he is able to break through in places where a persons emotion is so great that he can cross the barrier.
'Ah, here's something promising,' through clear ice he spies a girl, no, almost a woman. He focuses on her face, dark youthful skin with deep blue eyes that show more than her age. 'The war' Koh sighs 'it destroys the sweet tasting nectar of innocence in these children, turning boys in men and girls into women and both into warriors'. The girl's face shows a mixture or worry and hope, and Koh inhales deeply, 'hmm hope, always strongest in times of desperation.' as he prepares to cross over into the earthly world he hears footsteps approaching his domain. 'A visitor, hmm a soul I know quite well.'
Koh's twisted tree house is dark and crooked, Koh being a creature hatched from shadows and fear it is his nature to skulk to catch you unaware. He glides out of the shadows and confronts the young boy who has so boldly entered.
'Welcome,' to Koh all faces are welcome.
'Thank you.' The boy bows respectfully keeping his expression carefully blank, Roku's warning fresh in his mind.
'My old friend the Avatar, it's been a long time.' haha Avatar Kuruk and your pretty little love. The spirit twisting his long segmented body around the space of the young Avatar.
'You know me?' I know you. The smell of your rage, the echo of your loss and heart break and yes I know the power of a fully realised Avatar.
'How could I forget you? One of your previous incarnations tried to slay me. Be it eight or nine hundred years ago.' What's that, curiosity I smell? But his face remains clear of any sign of it.
'I didn't know that, why did he or I try to kill you?' he struggles with his words trying to keep calm under Koh's hungry stare.
'Oh it was something about stealing the face of someone you loved,' Koh summons the face of Ummi and he remembers the taste of the expression she held when he snatched it. The sweet and spiced taste of love with a hint of nervousness at her wedding ceremony. 'ha ha ha,' and the beautifully haunting face of a young woman is replaced with that of a snarling baboon. 'Of course that's all behind us, why should I hold a grudge against you for something in a past life? After all you're a different person now, you've come to me with a new face.' he is behind the boy and searches his soul for traces of fear.
'It's been a long time since I added a child's face to my collection... So how may I help you?' The spirits obey the rules, honesty and promises, they are bound to serve the Avatar, Koh creaks with the years he has known and it is his duty to give wisdom to those who seek him.
'I need to find the moon and the ocean.' The spirits who sought the love of their people. So many sacrifices are made for love. Something he'll never feel nor comprehend.
'Their spirit names are Tui and La, push and pull, and that has been the nature of their relationship for all time.'
'Please help me find them. An entire culture could be destroyed if I don't get their help.'
'Oh, you think that you need their help, actually it's quite the other way around,' he opens his inner eye and senses the human world briefly basking in the turmoil at the Northern Water Tribe, the Admiral 's pride is a beckon to him amongst the battle. 'Someone is going to kill them.' Koh's eyes bore into the young Avatar's face searching, always searching.
'What do you mean? How can I find them and protect them?'
'You've already met them actually, Tui and La, your moon and ocean have always circled each other in an eternal dance. They balance each other. Push and pull, life and death, good and evil, yin and yang.' Their fate is written, as is yours... as is mine. And in an instant he sees the shape of time, musing without humour at the destiny those that have the choice give themselves. My fate, past and future. To collect emotions without being able to experience them, to steal faces because I was created without one. Almost lost in the sound of his own voice and thoughts he heard the young boy let out a slight gasp.
'The koi fish!' Excitement, realisation. Delicious like fresh wine.
'I must be going now.' His face becoming as blank as it was when he first arrived despite the closeness of Koh. The hunger is gone from his eyes and is replaced with something that suggests that he has enjoyed this game, after all it's not fun if you win all the time.
'We'll meet again,' he whispers as he returns to the shadows embrace and watches the Avatar go with mild interest. He blinks in the darkness and surveys the show at the North Pole knowing that the Avatar was only his first visitor of the day and that fate was busy with it's pawns.
Koh lets his meditations settle on the spirit oasis, the pride and triumph of the admiral is thick in the air as he holds the moon spirit in front of him. The world is basked in red and the spirit world shakes at the unbalance. For Koh he only sees the chaos and only hears the pounding of the hearts of those mortals around the oasis.
A deafening silence.
The roar of a flame, the intense heat.
The night turns an empty black and the spirits the the ocean and sun weep for the sister they've lost.
A voice rings out clear across both worlds.
'It's not over.' Koh retreats further into the shadows as the spirit world trembles at the power of the Avatar. Tui uses himself as a channel for the Avatar State and infuses it with the fury of the ocean, a force and strength like none seen before. But even with all that power Avatar you cannot save them all and you can not cheat death.
A surge of sadness returns Koh's attention to the spirit oasis where a young woman blessed and cursed by the moon gives her life to restore balance and hope. Koh shuts his inner eye, disinterested by the scene before him and with a slight headache caused by the emotional echo of the battle. 'Too many people,' he sighs 'too much inside their heads and hearts.' he slinks into a more comfortable position his headache easing off and waits for his next visitor.
Never anger the spirits, not many are forgiving and Tui is as unforgiving as the ocean he controls.
Zhao is dragged into inky black water, his vision blurred as all lights are extinguished, his chest constricts with cold, getting tighter the deeper he goes. A voice deep and undulating reverberates around him, 'Know me, for what you have taken. Know my sister, for the balance you and your kind seek to destroy and know this human, the spirits will know justice. The spirits play fair.' The downward struggle stops and Zhao feels himself washed up on a strange land and gasping for breathe that he can't quite find. After the darkness of the water it takes him a moment to adjust to the strange light of the place, he turns and sees that he has been deposited at the opening of a large and crooked tree.
'Show no emotion at all. The spirits play fair.' A wave of water urges him through the doorway and again he has to adjust to the change of atmosphere.
'Where am I?' his voice as unafraid and commanding as ever.
'You are in the Spirit World, welcome, you are currently in my domain. I am Koh and I will judge your soul as I see it.' Koh's voice comes from the higher crevices of his home as he makes a start to scuttle slowly down.
'This is ridiculous,' Zhao mutters and turns to leave only to find there is no longer an exit. From above Koh scans the admiral's soul, 'there is much uncontrolled violence in you, your blood courses with it.'
'Show yourself!' his voice is gruff.
'In good time, oh, and I'd calm myself if I were you,' 'hmm quick to anger, I wonder how high that can reach.
'I've just had my greatest victory snatched away from, I've no patience for being calm.'
'No, I expect you rarely do. Though do indulge me and play my little game.' 'How far can you be pushed?'
'Game?! What next? Are you going to offer me some soothing tea?'
'I have jasmine, or camomile if you prefer.' Zhao's left eyebrow twitches and a smirk plays its way across Koh's lips.
'Grr, this is the spirits idea of judgement? I'll show you judgement,' and he moves into a stance to firebend at the source of Koh's voice and scuttling. Koh remains quite still and listens to the admiral's futile attempts to burn him into a crispy delicious treat, his anger building to a crescendo.
'You desire judgement?' His voice suddenly serious and extremely close, 'Then turn and face me.' Zhao spun round ready to kill this thing with his bare hands if he needed to, his teeth are gritted and his forehead is creased and drawn. The last thing he sees is a hulking segmented creature with a gaping abyss where his face should be, the last thing he hears is his own scream ringing in his ears and the last thing he feels is all the rage he has ever experienced being torn from his soul. Koh rides this giddying wave of fury and for a brief moment believes that he can experience it too but knows it won't last. He blinks, the transition complete and the admiral collapses to his knees and tries to speak. Koh watches with the admirals own eyes as his hands hesitantly grope his face and finds nothing.
'Don't worry, I'll take good care of your sideburns.'
Koh has ten thousand faces, he treasures them: they are all he has. Koh has ten thousand emotions, he's memorised them all by taste and smell, but he'll never know them like you and I. Koh has ten thousand faces and he'll welcome ten thousand more and he's looking at yours now.
Don't wear a mask to face him, he'll creep inside your breath and snatch it off, he knows the rules and expects you to play fair too. People don't seek Koh without knowing his reputation first, he'll welcome you his eyes only betraying a hunger, you'll live and walk away unscathed if your eyes betray less than that.
(A/N: um hope you enjoyed it, reviews are welcomed so is your face.)