Hmmm. I'm not sure what to say about this. It's a bit different from my usual style...erm, have fun, I guess? I don't really have anything to say.

1: Time

If you aren't careful, if you don't look close enough, if you don't pay attention, time will whip by. It works in funny ways; a brief instant can seem like an eternity, and a decade could go by in the blink of an eye.

Time knows what it's doing. It tries to help people. But every now and then, it can't help making them suffer.

There is a time in your life, that, when you look back on it, is the most important. It'll be the base for everything before or after. You'll say, "It was a few weeks after my father's funeral," or "It was two years before we were married.

For Sokka, it was the death of his beloved. It had been completely unexpected. Everyone thought she would go down fighting, that she'd be killed in some battle or from an assassin sent by one of her many foes.

No one suspected that a simple illness would wipe her from existence.

And now, remembering when she was alive, Sokka realized how evil time was. His years with her seemed such a short time compared to the millennia he was spending waiting to join her.

Time was Sokka's worst enemy. It had snatched her away before he had a chance to tell her how he felt. Time had given him ten years to admit his feelings. Ten years he had known her; through the war, through her child, through the treachery of her husband, through sickness and through health. And Sokka thought it was a normal sickness, the kind that would disappear within a week of rest.

Time had given him no warning. He had it all planned out; what he would say, when and where. Sokka even had the necklace carved out. He was going to propose to her the week after she died.

He truly loved her. The way she laughed. The way she taunted back when he teased. The way she was hopelessly devoted to all her friends. The way she would admit weakness only to him, then make him swear not to tell anyone. The way she brought up her daughter, standing alone when the father had the audacity to leave her.

But time had taken her away.

Now, each day he woke up and felt the pain all over again. Sokka could see no death in his future, no soothing relief; his job wasn't dangerous, there was no war, and he wasn't sick.

So time was playing the worst possible trick of all on him. It was making his days tick away slowly, torturing him with the fact that he couldn't see her, hear her, or walk to her house in the dead of night when he needed cheering up.

They say not to worry about the past, because you can't change it, and not to worry about the future, because you can't predict it. Sokka wasn't worried about either; he fretted about time in general. How much time was left before he joined her? And what of his family, Katara and Aang? How would they be without him? Would they turn into slaves of time as he had, only living an empty shell of a life, just waiting until it ended?

Sokka could see no happy ending. If he lived forever, he would never be content. If he died tomorrow, his friends would be devastated.

There was no winning. Time was a cheat, scamming even the best men of their lives.

Sokka wished he was the master of time. He would be able to turn back the clock and save her. Somehow, he would stop her from getting sick, keep her chest rising and falling with life. It had been too painful for him to watch her as her heart and lungs gradually stopped.

He wished with all his being, only wanting her to be alive.

Of course, it wasn't like he hadn't experienced death and loss before; his mother had passed away when he was little. That was the problem. He had forgotten his mother's face and replaced it with Katara's. He was terrified that, now that the woman he loved was gone, he would fail to remember her face. That possibility chilled him to the bone. Was it possible, after all those years of loving her, her image could just slide away?

On and on Sokka went like this. Days, weeks, months, years passed, and still he was stuck in turmoil. Each day, he felt more and more like a servant of time. He withdrew from his family, retiring early from his job as Councilman. As time wore on, he gave up. He didn't fall ill; slowly but surely, his body just stopped working. No doctor or healer, not even Katara, could tell what was wrong.

Fifty years old was a young age to die.

It had happened out of the blue. One day, Sokka had called his sister and stated, "It's time. I'm dying."

Everyone had rushed over in a heartbeat. Aang, Katara, their children, even Zuko, who happened to be in the area. And Lin. Lin Bei Fong.

Katara, the best healer the world had ever known, couldn't decide what was wrong with him. "I think he's lost the will to survive."

That was true. Sokka couldn't take it any longer. He had done his time; almost thirty years he had been waiting for this moment. Sokka said his goodbyes to his friends and family. Everyone was weeping silently, but Sokka wasn't tearful, for he was sure he would see them all again. He then turned to Lin, the girl who had basically been his daughter for most of her life. He pulled her face close to his, whispering, "I'll tell your mother how much you miss her."

The young woman nodded, tears in her eyes.

Then Sokka addressed the group gathered before him. They all looked completely distressed, so Sokka launched into his speech. "Promise me you won't become slaves of time." He could tell no one understood what he was getting at. "Don't sit around, thinking about my death. One day, you'll join me. And right now, I'm joining Toph.

Then he took his last breath.

Time was finally giving him a chance to tell Toph Bei Fong how much he loved her.