A/N: Man, was this a b1ytch to write. Seriously, half of it's been festering on my laptop since when I posted the prologue, and the other half… eh, well, it's not too much good. Sorry. If it wasn't for and the lovely reviews and tips I got on the last chapter, I'm not sure whether I'd even have finished it. So thank you, reviewers! Thank you very, very much!

I don't own Avatar, any characters or settings in this.

Also, I tried the show-characters'-feelings-not-tell thing, but… this sounds stupid… I'm not entirely sure whether I'm doing it right ;-- It'd be nice to say, if you know. Thanks.

The Second Lesson

Where to go next? Iroh strode through the marshes. Thick, straw-like grass bent beneath his heavy boots; sometimes he had to wade through boggy water, thick with mud and dead insects. It stank and seeped into his clothing, freezing him, but he didn't care. The whole of his mind, every particle of him, was focused on one thing and one thing only – Lu Ten.

After an hour, the taste of the jasmine tea on the insides of his lips was fading; he didn't seem to be getting anywhere. The swamp was a bland, unchanging landscape – he might as well be going nowhere, and he had not seen another living being since the monkey. He clenched his fists so hard his knuckles went white.

"Hello?" he called, although he knew now that it didn't change anything. "Hello?" and then, in a softer voice that spoke of years of tucking him in at night, of smiling at him from across the dinner table, of hugging him, "Lu Ten?"

No reply. Of course.

But then, from the direction of a great tree with a knotted, twisted trunk that ten men holding hands would not have been able to circle, there came a groan – a deep, moaning rumble that spoke of infinite age and tiredness, a groan that reverberated deep inside Iroh's stomach and sent shivers up his spine.

It sounded like something was in pain. Iroh glanced around, searching for the movement of another creature, but didn't spot anything: the noise must be coming from behind the tree.

"Hello? Are you all right? Hello?" What does it matter anyway? Iroh thought. I need to find my son.

But, he reasoned, he had all the time in the world for that. And this thing, whatever it was that was making such a terrible noise, might be able to give him some directions.

He approached the tree. "Who's there?" he called, knocking on the trunk – and was surprised to find that it was hollow. How could something that looked so sturdy on the outside really have only air within?

There was another moan – it was definitely coming from behind the tree, so Iroh waded through the thick, stinking mud around its base to get there. "Hello?" There was nobody there, but he found a door-sized hole in the back of the tree, leading into the hollow interior. It was just his height; he took this as an omen, and stepped confidently inside.

"Hello?" he asked again, in a lower voice. The interior of the tree was quiet and muggy and damp, with the smell of wet bark hanging in the air, the smell which he associated with walking in a forest the morning after a rainy night. "Is anybody in here?"

"No," came a deep voice, a voice that was so low and solid that it could have been coming from the very center of the earth. Iroh spun around. His eyes were adjusting to the gloom now – he searched for the source of the voice. "There is nobody in here."

"But –" Iroh glanced around the gloomy interior to make sure he couldn't see anybody. "But then, where are you?"

The voice laughed – it was a chuckle that shook the earth and made the bones in Iroh's ear knock against each other painfully. "You should know," it said, "considering that you are inside of me."

"But I'm not –" Iroh's voice trailed off as realization dawned in his eyes. "You're the tree?"

"Yes," said the great oak. "I am."

"Do you, um," Iroh tried to think of a way to put it without sounding too mad, "do you want me to get out of you?"

"Oh, no." The olds tree chuckled warmly. "It is quite a comfortable feeling, actually."

"Oh." Iroh wasn't sure how to respond to that. "Are you… are you in pain at all?" He sat slowly down – the floor consisted of hard, dry mud, carpeted by myriad wet, half-decomposed leaves.

"No, I am not in pain. I was moaning because I was bored."

"Bored?" Iroh shook his head at the craziness of this conversation. "Well, if you're not in pain, I need some help – desperately –" His eyes started to sting, so he shut them. How could he have forgotten, even for a second? "My son… my son – Lu Ten –" He gritted his teeth. "I need directions."

"Directions?" asked the tree, amused. "They would do you no good. The Spirit World is different for everybody. Would you have me draw a map of it for you?"

Iroh tried to work out the logistics of that – how exactly could a tree draw a map? – but, abandoning the thought, he shook his head. "No, but I want… I need… help. Please," he added quickly.

"Help," repeated the old tree. "But I am helping you. I'm giving you shelter – which, by the way, I do not lend to everybody. And in return, you are helping me."

"But I'm not doing anything," replied Iroh, puzzled.

"You are relieving my boredom," the tree told him, and it moaned. "Ever since I was forced to come down here, hundreds of years ago, I have longed for company… and when I finally get it, all you want is to move on…"

"But I need to find my son," pressed Iroh. The tree didn't reply, and as Iroh processed the tree's little speech in his head, he realized he had not given the appropriate response. "I mean… I'm sorry you were so bored." He paused for a second before continuing, his manners conflicting with his curiosity. Curiosity won in the end. "Why were you forced to come down here?"

"Oh, circumstances, circumstances…" mumbled the tree. "Nothing you need to know." But he was pleased at the attention, Iroh could tell.

"What were you before? Were you a tree in the real world?" Iroh thought that maybe, if he kept showing interest, the old tree would warm to him and give him directions. It might seem mad to be talking to an oak, but anything was better than nothing; and nothing was what he had had before, wandering through the swamp.

"I was an Earth Kingdom noble," the tree told him.

"Earth Kingdom?" Iroh shook his head. "You can't have been."

"Why not?" the tree asked. There was no aggression in the question, just intense curiosity, born out of years of solitude and boredom.

"Well, because…" Iroh paused. "I'm trying to put this as tactfully as I can. You seem too… well, too wise to be from the Earth Kingdom."

The tree laughed again; the sound throbbed through the air like the beat of a drum. "Is that the reason?" Iroh, stiffly, nodded. He remembered sitting on the back of a rhinoceros, staring up at the great wall of Ba Sing Se for the first time. He remembered the expressions of the Earth Kingdom soldiers, brutal, twisted, murderous. And, most painfully of all, he remembered Lu Ten, pale and motionless on the battlefield, an Earth Kingdom sword in his chest and a thin line of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

"There are plenty of wise people in the Earth Kingdom, child," the tree told him sternly. "Hmm," he pondered, more to himself than to Iroh. "Then again, there are plenty of stupid people too… But on the other hand…"

"I'm not a child, I'm fifty-one. My son… my son was still a child –"

"Fifty-one!" roared the tree mirthfully. "And you claim not to be a child!"

The tree's ability to find humour in Iroh's every sentence was testing his nerves. Patience, he reminded himself, but it was hard; Lu Ten, lying on the battlefield, was drowning his mind and a great wave of pure sadness hit him and almost washed him away. "I need help!" Iroh shouted. "Are you going to give me it or should I just leave?" He stood up, but regretted his outburst as soon as the last word had left his lips.

There was silence for what must have been a minute – Iroh was sure the tree had decided to ignore him. He couldn't let that happen. Forcing himself to sit down again and unclench his fists, wishing he had some more jasmine tea, he muttered a brief 'sorry'.

"I can see you need help, Iroh," said the tree eventually. It did not surprise Iroh that the oak knew his name. "You have a very restricted view of the world around you."

"What? What does that mean?"

"You must learn to respect your fellow man," the tree replied solemnly. Iroh tried to remain calm.

"I can't respect the Earth Kingdom troops. Not after what they did to my son. And – and anyway, that isn't the sort of help I need! I need you to tell me where I can find my son – er – please."

"The Earth Kingdom soldiers were protecting their own sons from the same unfortunate fate that yours met," said the tree gently, with the air of talking to somebody so emotionally unstable that they might try to hurt him at any time. "Do not blame them."

"Then who should I blame?" Iroh looked around at the inside of the tree, wishing there was some sort of face for him to fix his gaze upon, so that he could glare at the great oak. Maybe if he saw his face, the tree would realize just how much Lu Ten meant to him, and just how much he wanted – no, needed – him back. "Who?"

"Blaming somebody will not bring your son back," the tree told Iroh sadly. "You know that."

"I do – but I know what will bring him back! Don't you see? I need you to help me to find him!"

"I cannot help you to find your son; not, at least, until I have helped you to understand."

"Understand what?" If he played along, and pretended to learn a lesson, the tree would tell him what he should do to find Lu Ten. Lu Ten…

"You can work that out for yourself," replied the kindly oak, "once I have shown you."

"Shown me what?" Iroh waited for an answer, but it didn't come. "Show me wha – oh!"

A man had just walked into the tree. He was taller than Iroh, with broad shoulders and a strong face, but he looked so weary he could barely stand, and, though his face showed no emotion, there was grief glinting in his eyes. None of those things would be remarkable, however, in these troubled times – what surprised Iroh most about him was not the fact that he was here, but that he was wearing the clothing of a Water Tribe Warrior. He was carrying a spear in his hand, but the head had been snapped in half, rendering it blunt and useless. Iroh was glad of that; he was sure the man would stab him if he had the chance, just as Iroh was getting ready, surreptitiously of course, to blast the man into oblivion at the first sign of trouble. To his surprise, however, the warrior sat down on the ground before him.

"You cannot hurt each other while you are inside me," rumbled the tree. "Put down your weapons. Sit." Both Iroh and the warrior obeyed. What else could they do? The tree seemed to possess the ability to control the actions of the people inside it, albeit with wise words and gentle persuasion.

"Now," commanded the tree. "Talk."

Iroh glared at the warrior opposite him, undisguised hatred burning through his eyes. "I don't want to talk to him."

The tree did not reply but, to Iroh's puzzlement, the warrior did. "Please," he said. "I don't want to hurt you."

Iroh laughed. "Of course you want to hurt me. That's all the Water Tribe Warriors ever do – you're savages, the lot of you."

The warrior shook his head, and then looked down at the leafy floor. "If you think so."

"I do think so." But something about his demeanour prevented Iroh from elaborating. Instead, he just sat there, watching the warrior as he fiddled with the furry edge of his cloak. The silence in the air was almost tangible. They sat like that for almost ten minutes, and the only one of them who seemed contented with the quiet was the tree, who exuded an aura of calm, solid patience. Iroh thought it was a pleasant sort of aura to have, and tried to do that himself; to sit back, and simply enjoy the peace. After all, he had never been able to share such a small space with a Water Tribe person without fighting with them, and that was something.

Eventually, the warrior sighed and spoke. "Who are you?"

Iroh replied on instinct: "General Iroh of the Fire Nation." He paused. "Iroh."

"Ayak," replied the Water Tribe man. "Master Ayak."

"I've heard about you!" Iroh stood up. "You're famous – you're a barbarian – you killed a Fire Nation ship full of families!" He remembered Lu Ten bringing him the news. Lu Ten, whose eyes had been bright with grief for the families he never even knew; Lu Ten, who was always so kind, so gentle, yet so brave, willing to die for his country; Lu Ten, who was dead now, lying cold in the slimy mud with a blank face and blank eyes.

"It was a mistake," replied the man glumly. He didn't sound like he was jumping to his own defence; he seemed genuinely sorry, and was trying just to explain fairly. "We had intelligence reports… A Fire Nation army ship… And we attacked without thinking." He looked up at Iroh, and each of them saw their own expression – grieving, racked with guilt for something that was not their fault – on the other's face. Understanding, hot and strong, passed between them.

"I know what it's like," mumbled Iroh, sitting back down. "I was responsible for many deaths in my time as a general." For the first time, he did not think of Lu Ten, but of the countless broken bodies of Earth Kingdom soldiers – the ones he had never cared about before.

"It's hard."

"I know."

The Water Tribe warrior left, without another word. He seemed to melt into the mist more quickly than he should have done. Iroh stared at the place where the warrior had been for minutes on end, thinking about the soldiers he had killed, however indirectly; thinking of their bodies, of their faces (which he couldn't put a name to), and of their families; of their wives, their children, their fathers.

The meeting had disturbed him. Ayak, who was the monster in children's' storybooks, was no less human than he himself was. "You are unsettled," stated the tree. "I can feel you shaking through my floor."

Iroh gritted his teeth. "Nonsense." And then he remembered something else: Ayak had died a year ago.

"Wouldn't you like to meet somebody else?"

"No –" But it was too late. A woman had walked in. She was very small, with a neat face, but with dishevelled hair and muddy streaks on her skin. She might have been a farmer's wife; her hands were rubbed red and raw, and her face and arms were sprinkled with many brown freckles, like ink splattered from a brush. Her eyes, when she looked at Iroh nervously, were a deep moss-green. Her simple clothes were brown and green – she was from the Earth Kingdom.

She took in his ragged red robes, and her eyes widened; she stepped back. "Don't hurt me," she whispered.

"I can't." Iroh shrugged. "You might as well sit down." And then, to the tree: "What are you expecting me to get out of this?" But the tree, once again, had fallen silent.

The woman sat as far away from him as possible. She shot him a glance full of hatred – and to Iroh's surprise, that hurt. "I told you – I'm not going to harm you. You don't have to be afraid." If he had expected the same immediate understanding that he'd got from Ayak, he was mistaken.

"I'm not afraid," spat the woman. "I'm angry. You're a terrible person, you know that? You try to defeat everyone you meet – you kill people – and for what? Why do you hurt people so much? Do you enjoy it?" Now she knew he couldn't hurt her, she seemed determined to speak her mind.

Iroh reeled backwards as though physically hit. "Of course I don't enjoy it." He'd always thought of himself as a kind person – ruthless, it was true, when the job called for it – but he had always given beggars money, and been polite to people, and smiled at children. Fire Nation children, naturally. "It's just something that has to be done."

"Why?" The woman clenched her fists. "Who does it help?"

Iroh looked down at the ground. The truth was, he had no answer. "It's a war. People get hurt - that's just what happens."

"But it's hardly a war, is it? It's slaughter."

"The Earth Kingdom fights back. If they didn't fight –"

"Then we'd be under occupation. Are you saying that the Fire Nation would stop, if only our soldiers were nice and meek and submissive? Is that what you're saying?"

Iroh shook his head. He didn't know.

"I had a son," said the woman, her voice shaking. "I had a son, and he went off to fight." She paused, and a shadow stained her face. "He never came back."

Iroh secured her gaze. "That's something we have in common. My son died in battle; I'm here to find him."

She shook her head. "Your son died trying to attack. Mine died to defend. You should never, ever be proud of him – not ever. And you say we're the barbarians," she spat, her voice full of so much venom that it was hard for Iroh to pretend it wasn't there.

"Go away," he told her.

"I will." The woman walked out of the tree, disappearing into the distance unnaturally quickly.

"How was that?" asked the tree kindly.

Iroh paused. "It… it wasn't nice," he admitted, immediately regretting his words. "But she's wrong! The Fire Nation is great and glorious, and those peasants are fools for not trying to be enlightened!"

The tree chuckled gently. "Iroh, the Fire Nation makes just as many mistakes as any other."

Iroh snorted. "If you say so."

"Would you like to –"

"NO!" Even Iroh was surprised by the force with which his words came out – they seemed to shake the very ground. He didn't want to face any more truth, any more hatred, any more death. Please, he thought, just let me go back to yesterday. Let me go back to when Lu Ten was alive, and everything was simple…

A little girl tiptoed into the tree – and the sight of her shocked Iroh into silence. She had very long, black hair. Her face was birdlike, and her eyes were full of the freedom of the sky; every one of her movements spoke of grace, of freedom, of air.

She wore orange-and-yellow robes.

Iroh shut his eyes.

"Hello?" she said in a mellow, kind tone. The sound of her voice was unreal, because how could she be real? This little girl couldn't exist, and yet she was here, standing opposite him, talking to him. I won't look at her. Please make her go away. "Sir? Hello?" Iroh felt a small, gentle hand on his shoulder, and, reluctantly, he opened his eyes. She was standing before him, her honest, open face mere inches from his own. "Are you feeling unwell?"

Yes, was what Iroh wanted to say – the sight of her made him feel sick – but he wouldn't say that to any child. "No, no - just tired."

The little girl grinned. "Grown-ups are always tired, always sitting and meditating instead of playing and running around like they should. Plus, they're always drinking tea." She pulled a face.

Iroh laughed despite himself. The girl was so bright and lively, it was impossible not to laugh; Iroh even thought he heard the tree chuckle. "That is true."

"I don't like tea, especially the stuff my master makes to help me concentrate. It's horrible, and it doesn't work, but I suppose he tries." She sat, cross-legged, on the floor before Iroh, looking up at him with a bright, expectant gaze; she looked so much like Lu Ten used to, when Iroh told him a bedtime story, that he had to close his eyes again for a moment.

"What are you doing here?" she asked conversationally. "I'm Jenja, by the way." Her eyes widening as she remembered her manners, she pressed her small fists together and bobbed her head quickly, almost instinctively. Iroh followed her lead.

"I'm Iroh, and I'm… I'm looking for my son."

The girl laughed. "What is your son going to be doing here?"

Iroh took a deep breath. "He – he died." To his surprise, he sounded almost… calm. Jenja's face was solemn as she gazed at him.

"That's terrible," she said quietly. She seemed so genuinely sad that it was all Iroh could do to prevent himself from sobbing once again. The little girl leaned closer, her eyes bright. "I…" She lowered her voice. "I think I might be dead too. It was all sunny, and we were playing, but then my glider caught fire and I fell." She bit her lip, worried. "I couldn't airbend, it all happened so suddenly, and then… I woke up in all this mud, and I was in a swamp." A terrible thought seemed to hit her. "You're not dead, too, are you?"

"No," Iroh managed. "I'm very much alive." But you're not. Iroh tried to find a way around that in his mind. Wasn't it possible she had survived?

No. It wasn't. Every airbender had been wiped out nearly a hundred years ago. Iroh knew all the details of the attack; he had studied them as a boy, poring over textbooks the night before a test, the words swimming before his eyes. He found that he was ashamed, now, to think that the only things that had been going through his mind as he studied were history is boring and I'm too tired for this.

"Well," smiled the little girl, "Then I suppose I'm not either." Satisfied, she stood up. "Do you know how to fly a kite?"

"I do." Iroh had made one for Ozai, when they were children. "But there's no wind."

The girl rolled her eyes. "I'm an airbender!" But when she tried to demonstrate, pushing her palms out in front of her, she frowned. "It's not working. Why can't I bend?" She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Something's happened."

Iroh nodded. "You're in the Spirit World. We both are."

The girl's eyes widened. "Then I must be…" She stopped. "No." Her eyes were bright. "I'm not dead, am I?" Urgently, she tapped Iroh on the back of his hand, her little fingers pressing into his skin. "You can feel me, can't you? I can't be dead!" There was an edge of desperation to her voice, of trying to keep herself from the truth. "Please tell me I'm not dead," she murmured.

Iroh didn't say anything. The girl stood up. "I'm sorry," she sniffed, wiping her eyes. She smiled sadly. "I don't mean to be rude, but… could I go?" She suddenly seemed a lot older.

Iroh nodded. "I'm sorry too," he said quietly. The girl walked out of the tree, and disappeared, but not before Iroh caught the sound of her sobs. They wrapped around his heart like thorny vines – and tightened.

"Why?" he shouted at the tree. "Why'd you show me that? What's the point? She's dead, and making me feel guilty about it won't change a thing!"

The old tree was silent.

"Why?" Iroh was sobbing now, for the little girl, for his son, for the war. For all the people who would die today, and tomorrow… "Why?" he kept asking. "Why?" He knelt on the ground, his back bent, his face hidden behind his palms. In the end, his sobs changed to hiccoughs, his hiccoughs to nothing. Patience, he reminded himself. The taste of jasmine tea filled his mouth and his mind. I have to be patient. Maybe, if I stay here long enough, I'll know enough to stop it. But stop what? The war? Impossible. Yet every day, more people were dying.

The tree spoke. "Iroh," it said. "I'm sorry to have shown you that."

Iroh shook his head. "I needed it. I was far too wrapped up in my own Nation – but, well… those other people seemed… human." He thought of the warrior's sadness, the mother's anger, the little girl's total horror towards the idea of a life less than perfect.

Humans seemed to have the endless capacity to separate themselves from other people. To convince themselves that they were different from others; to convince themselves that there was something about people who were different from them which made it all right to hate them. But what were they all, except humans on the earth? War didn't come with the earth did like the mountains did, or the animals or the trees. War was made by men, all convincing themselves that it was justified.

When I go back home, with Lu Ten, I won't fight. Iroh paused, stunned by the enormity of that fact. I won't fight – because every time I attack a Water Tribe ship, it might be the wrong one. Because every time I kill another soldier, I am breaking another mother's heart. Because every time I order my men to attack a village, they are killing children. He gritted his teeth, determined.

"I think," said the tree, "it's time for you to be moving on."

"Yes," Iroh agreed. "I've got to find my son."

A/N: (And feel free to skip ;;) My sister asked me, when she read it, why I had OCs instead of using Pakku and Lee's mum and Gyatso or whoever, so I'm giving a reason in case that went through anyone else's mind: I wouldn't really classify the ones I used as characters; more like examples of the feelings of their nations, on the whole. Though I think, despite the fact that Air Nomads were peaceful, not all of them would have been just sad like that little girl was… Anyway. So I didn't use canon characters, because it would take away some of the surrealistic quality, or some other such nonsense.

Because this is getting way too surreal. I mean… talking trees? I have no idea where that came from, I swear…

And yeah… the similarity between Iroh and the woman's conversation and Zuko and Katara's in CoD was intentional. Please don't hurt me.

Looks up: Whoa, I'm a self-absorbed little weasel. I won't have an author's note this long again, I swear. You don't come here to read my thoughts; you come here to read the gorram story

Thanks for reading. Constructive criticism is nice :) I really do appreciate every review that pops up in my e-mail. I'm currently pressing the send/receive button twice an hour, and counting!