Title: the way of legends
Disclaimer: not my characters; just for fun.
Warnings: AU future!fic; character deaths
Pairings: none stated
Rating: R
Wordcount: 510
Point of view: third
He dies in fire and he does not scream. That is what the legends say.
He is the last, all his companions dead, singed to ash. He is the last, defiant to the end, mumbling out a witty comment even as his vocal cords are severed by a fireblade.
The Fire Lord is his executioner, unmerciful and agonizingly slow. The Fire Lord lists his crimes as dark skin burns inch by torturous inch.
All his companions—the pretty little waterbender, the too-young Avatar, the blind earthbender—are dead and dismembered, their heads mounted on the Fire Lord's wall, for all the court to see. But his head, the last rebel of them all, will not be so accorded. He will not be allowed the honor.
He is nothing and no one. So why, all those who will hear his tale will wonder, why does the Fire Lord himself kill the least of them? Why not leave him to the basest of soldiers, to the weakest? Why show the final rebel(who was the first rebel) such respect as to kill him himself?
Because, the teller of the tale will explain in hushed whispers in back rooms, because once they had been friends, the Fire Lord and the rebels. Once, they had been companions. Once, oh so very long ago, they had been family.
And the least of them, the weakest, the one who was not a 'bender, he had been a warrior.
And so, the teller of the tale will say, looking around to make sure only those he meant to hear the story hear it, so, the Fire Lord granted him the greatest of all honors: to be killed by one who respected him.
He died in fire, all the legends say. And he did not scream.
The legends do not say that tears leaked from his eyes, and slid down his face, and that his sister was not there to 'bend them away. The legends do not say how the blind earthbender died sobbing, or that the too-young Avatar was consumed by his own power, burnt from within by his own fire, because he lost control as the pretty waterbender suffocated beneath two dozen coordinated attacks.
No, the legends make it seem so civilized, and the teller of the tale was not even there to see it.
The legends do not tell of how the least of all the rebels, the one with no special gift of magic, surrendered after the rest fell.
He was the planner, they say, the strategic thinker, the one who got them all the way into the palace. And if only more had come with them, if only the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe had sent warriors to their aid, had answered their call to arms, the teller of the tale whispers, they would have succeeded.
They came so close, the teller murmurs, with furtive glances around the room. They came so very close.
But he dies in fire, no matter how many times the tale is told. And he does not scream.