Title: This Time Will Be Different
Prompt: #050 Hopeful
Notes: …I love Koh. He competes with Jun for the title of "Favorite One-Shot-Ish Character". Because they both are Teh Awesome. Takes place during 'The Seige of the North Pt. 2'. Minor connections with my fic 'Timeline' because that's been on my brain lately.
This Time Will Be Different
Koh knows everything. It's something that Wan Shi Tong resents him for (one of the several reasons that the bizarre owl spirit retired to the mortal world) and the rest of the spirits vaguely fear him for. But Koh knows everything, whether or not anybody likes it.
He gets visitors because of his knowledge. Visitors like Avatar Aang, so very young and so very naïve and so very, very blind. Avatar Aang talks of cultures, talks of moon spirits, talks of wars, talks of things that will be resolved because they always are.
Koh tells Avatar Aang anyway. "They balance each other," he says. That is true, Tui and La have always balanced each other. "Push and pull, life and death, good and evil, Yin and Yan." And he is warning Avatar Aang, in his own way. Not about Tui and La, goodness no.
He warns of the little Waterbender and her Firebender, hurtling down the path they have already trod a thousand times. He warns that selfish love can come to nothing, because there is no way to separate the two from each other. He warns, because he still hopes that this time will be different.