For Demona SaDiablo: I was going to write a ditty about the erotica collection in Wan Shi Tong's library, but this is what I came up with instead.

Overdue Fines

Sokka had never been one for girly scrolls. They hadn't had them in the South Pole when he had lived there, after all. Besides, the guy had girls flocking around him after the war. He could easily have had any woman he wanted. That said, what did he need with pictures of naked women, anyhow?

Of course, when he actually discovered the…er, artistic value or such pieces of…uh…graphic literature, he couldn't help but secret one away now and again when he found the renderings particularly…how should I put this…stylistic. The Fire Nation was, after all, a cultural hub that, after the war, encouraged all…um…art forms. I suppose, in his defense, that I could say Sokka was just another patron of the arts. But I didn't know at the time just how generous a patron he was.

I didn't confirm the existence of his unique and rather discriminating collection until one day, when I found him frantically searching through his room, digging under the futon, emptying his closet, even rolling up the large rugs.

"Sokka?"

He looked up from the ground, narrowing icy blue eyes. "It was you, wasn't it?" The look he sent me was dirtier than the one he'd given me when I had declared my intentions to date his sister. "You had the servants clean out my collection!"

"I've no idea what you're talking about." I did, but I wasn't about to play into his accusation.

He continued tearing through his ramshackle room. "Every week for the past two months, someone has been coming into my room and stealing my…my…" His face turned a becoming shade of anger- and embarrassment-induced vermillion.

I insisted he calm down and promised to do everything in my power to help (to shut him up). Of course, theft in the palace—my palace—was intolerable, and I was determined to discover the identity of Sokka's…er, porn thief.

With my help, we set a trap using a rare and rather titillating scroll from the palace library's special collection, endeavoring to find out who this bawdy bandit was. At nightfall, we hid in the large armoire and waited with bated breath.

"This is ridiculous," the Water Tribe warrior hissed after an hour in the dark. "No one's stupid enough to fall for this!"

I refrained from pointing out that he had been the idea guy behind the operation, but before I could even respond with a derisive snort, the sproing! of the spring mechanism releasing and the swish of the net dropping upon the would-be robber distracted us, and we pounced from the closet to confront our foe.

But no black-clad burglar did we find. Instead, a silvery vixen sat serenely on her haunches beneath the net, the scroll held delicately in her mouth, her bushy tail flicking irately back and forth. The fox was not panicking or struggling or entangling herself in the fine webbing of waxed hemp draped over her—she simply looked irritated. Sokka peered closely.

"It's…that's…" He stiffened, indignation writ large across his face. "So HE'S got my stuff?"

The fox shrugged her hackles and let out a tired sigh, seeming to roll her eyes as she tossed her head. I almost followed suit. Katara's brother spread his mixture of righteous anger, sarcasm and resentment around as easily and copiously as Appa's drool over a cartful of cabbages, and I was not about to support him this time by inciting him with questions better asked of his more pleasant-looking and level-headed sibling.

The vixen turned dark eyes upon me and whined, dropping her sleek head in submission and gently putting the scroll down on the floor in defeat. Satisfied by the animal's honorable surrender, I moved in to release the beautiful canine.

"Hold on." Sokka stayed my hand and bent to speak with the creature.

Now, I have seen this young man in conversation with other animals, including a six-legged flying bison and a flying lemur, but that he was actually bargaining with the fox made me question whether that boomerang to the head he'd accidentally taken during training sessions earlier hadn't affected his mind.

I watched, perplexed, as he carefully pulled the net off the fox and rose, going to his desk, the silvery creature following a pace behind. Sokka took out an old canvas satchel and began pulling old maps, diagrams and other assorted paraphernalia from a number of drawers and files, carefully stuffing them into the sack. I recognized some of the pieces as ones he'd had since before the end of the war, and asked him what he was doing with those prized mementos.

"I have overdue fines to pay," he said grimly and slung the bag around the vixen's body, securing the bulk of it comfortably around her torso. He handfed the fox a piece of jerky from his cold dinner plate and stroked her head, and I heard him say lowly to her: "Remember, I want them all back. Especially the Girls of the North Gone Wild scroll. Got it?"

The fox shuddered and sprang to her feet, leaping out the open balcony and galloping away into the night. Sokka watched her go, then closed the glass doors with a click.

"The moral of the story," Sokka declared wryly to me as I tried to sidle out, "is never piss a librarian off."

I politely agreed and recommended, in the meantime, that he visit a tavern where he could observe his Girls Gone Wild somewhere where I would not have to hear about it ever again.