Because I'm looking for an excuse to not do my homework…Honestly, its like the teachers think we have no lives or something…--;

Death and Life

I remember back at the North Pole, watching warriors run into battle with their clubs, and kissing their wives goodbye. I watched Sokka as he tried to follow dad into a war he did not greatly understand as a child.

And I watched Mother draw her last breath.

I always wondered what it would be like to die, what it would be like to take one last breath and never see my family again, never see Aang's smiling face. Never see Appa and his gods forbid shedding form of spring. Never see Sokka hand me a baby and say 'look sis! I can make babies!'

Was there something or someone missing?

Yes, there always was.

Zuko.

He never did so any compassion around us, I found it quite hard to believe that he, and a traitor to the last could so any compassion. He told me once that he was banished.

But we are not truly banished by another.

We only banish ourselves.

To not be near home, to not recognize anything there. And come back to a different home, one where there was no snow, no laughing children.

Just a barren wasteland where people choked on sand and were stung by scorpions as they too, wanted nothing more than to live.

I always wondered whether this war would kill me, whether I would find that beloved Bender Madame Wu told me about. Or whether I would die young, and try my best to hang on and live.

And have someone cry for me, cry out to me and tell me I will forever be in their hearts, in their dreams.

But what's the use of dreaming about a dead body?

Gran Gran told me once, that our physical being was a shell for the soul inside. That's what she told me when I was little I didn't understand that, she told me soon after Mother was sent down the river.

But now, I think I do.

Because I know it is not the body people weep about, it is the fact they cannot physically understand that you aren't there anymore.

They fear what they cannot see; it is human nature to fear.

I wondered if Yue felt pain when she died, when she gave her self for the koi fish…for the moon spirit.

Do you think she did?

Possibly, possibly not.

But even now, as I lie here, drenched in someone else's blood, someone I never knew, but physically understood.

I can see, that even with her black locks that fall down her face, her red lips that curl into an aggravated frown.

I see it is the soul that is not in pain, it is the body.

And a hand comes and grasps my shoulder lightly.

And he speaks. The dragon speaks into the wolf's ear, breathing down her neck with its fiery, golden gaze.

"Death is always just a beginning, Katara. But Azula feared what could destroy her. She destroyed herself out of fear."

But why then,

Why do I still cry for the enemy?

We are not so different.

What is it like to die?

It is freedom.

What about the ones who love you?

It is learning.

And the one who is in love with you?

He'll never know you've gone.

Don't…ask…Somehow, I wanted to make Azula seem more…human, don't know if this gave her any justice, but I'm sure theres some moral message in there. Not really Zutara is it…TT