Characters/Pairing(s): Sokka, Zuko, Aang. /Zutara mentioned, presumably one-sided Kataang implied.

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Umm….Yes, I know this is depressing. Leave me alone, I like post-apocalyptic stuff. Written after Season 2 Finale, but there's nothing here involving it. I'm going to have to wait and see how Season Three pans out before I write anything that takes all of canon and talk about it regularly, I guess.

The End

xxxx

"Forty-one…forty-two…"

Sokka was counting the bodies. He traveled slowly up and down row after row after row of the damned, the broken, the dead. Every so often he found a face he did not recognize, but sadly enough those were far and few in between. Tears streamed down his face unchecked-what point was there to wipe them away, when new ones would simply spring up in their place?- and his war paint-white and blue, impeccable at the start of battle- streaked down his face. He stopped for a moment and watched, as the white droplets landed at his feet and were absorbed into the grass.

In the background he heard Aang wailing, but the young Water Tribe warrior knew he had to press on.

"Forty-three…oh Tui, Haru…forty…forty…forty-four…"

Fire Lord Zuko, leader of the Fire Nation, stood at the end of the row. In his hand was the head of his father, severed and taken when Zuko had found his beloved Uncle broken at the man's feet. In his other hand was a chain, attached to the wrists of Zuko's only living blood relation-his sister, Azula.

"You," whispered Sokka when he glanced up, his body a terrible picture-his war paint smeared, his hair broken from its tie, his clothes ripped and mangled on his frame- but Azula did not shudder, did not avert her eyes. She set her lips in a thin pinkish line- looking much more like her brother without those cosmetics she was so fond of, the ones that made her look like a porcelain doll rather than like her mother- and looked Sokka in the eye.

The Water Tribe boy's blue eyes narrowed in anger-he had found Suki's body, rotting and stinking, upon his return to Ba Sing Se after visiting with his father.

And Azula's name had been scratched into her pure white skin.

Sokka's left hand moved quietly for the boomerang he now kept tied at his waist, and he took a single step forward. Zuko dropped his father's head and raised the empty hand, and Sokka stopped.

He had fought alongside the Firebending Prince long enough to know that that meant trouble.

"Traditionally," began Zuko carefully, "a member of the royal family is executed as such, no matter their crime.

"However, my father seems to have set a precedent. Princess…Princess Azula is yours to do with as you wish, so long as it ends in death. I would ask that you return the remains after her demise for proper burning with all other criminals of war."

"What?" exclaimed Azula, her gold eyes burning with anger, "this wasn't what we agreed!"

"That," answered Zuko coldly, "was before I found out who murdered Toph."

Sokka frowned. "She's the one that did it?" he asked.

Zuko nodded. "Only she uses Firebending the way Toph was killed…I wasn't there at the murder, so I couldn't tell you right away, but as soon as I saw the burns…I knew."

Sokka accepted Zuko's words. Once, Zuko had had notoriously bad judgment when it came to family; but the older man had finally discovered what was truly important to him. His vision had cleared as a result. He was uncannily good at protecting those he loved, Sokka had learned while traveling with him

Sokka had always known, somewhere in the deepest part of his soul, that Zuko would make a good husband to his sister.

Too bad she was dead, now.

Somewhere in the background, Aang was keening; he'd lost both of the women he'd loved in less than a day, and his lemur was dying in his thin arms. His shoulders shook; the former Freedom Fighter Smellerbee held him close to her chest as Longshot stood guard with his bow drawn and aimed at any moving target.

Momo had been shot by a captured hostile Firebender in an attempt to escape; Aang had killed him immediately.

He, like most of the other soldiers, had no qualms about killings these days; the former innocent had lost that glow, and now grief saddled his thin shoulders, more so than the deaths of countless others had before.

Somewhere in the background, surrendered Fire Nation soldiers built a pyre for the Water Bender Princess, the Bei Fong Warrior, and the Dragon of the West.

They would be burned at sunset; Sokka was counting the bodies for logistical purposes.

And, in a sense, to find out whom he'd murdered, for it has been his plan that had precipitated their deaths.

Zuko wasn't the only leader of a nation, now; Hakoda had succumbed to infection in a spear wound the night before, and he'd passed leadership onto his caustic son. Sokka knew that he had gained leadership only on the fact that he was a tactical genius; now, however, his Water Tribe warriors knew he had stared death in the face, and lived. Knew that he would do everything he could to save anyone else from the horrors he had faced. No one else would lose his sister or girlfriend, his best friend-or anyone else, for that matter.

"…just… have her executed, Zuko," whispered Sokka, looking away. He hated the girl, but he saw nothing in his future that involved killing her. He would love to torture her, make her feel every last pain she had inflicted-but he refused to dirty the names of those who had died this day in a bid for petty vengeance. Katara would be disappointed. Suki would be disappointed. Yue would be disappointed. And Toph, for all her brash confidence, was not a cold-blooded killer, would not condone it in the boy she had fallen in love with. And Sokka would not force them to watch- for now the only place those girls lived on was in his mind, and he would do well by them or die trying.

Zuko nodded and had the guards take her away to the cellar. Then he gathered his father's head and walked until he stood toe to toe with Sokka. Sokka looked into those amber eyes-one effected by the horrendous burn across the Fire Lord's face, the other filled with something Sokka could not name but saw in the faces of everyone he knew- and saw another man in pain. Zuko's mouth tightened, and he reached up to squeeze Sokka's shoulder, before walking away.

xxxx

Sokka was getting dressed in Water Tribe formal wear- blue parka, though it was hot as ever outside, brown leggings and boots, war paint smeared across his face, and his boomerang held tightly between his fists. The Southern Water Tribe chief studied the boomerang-and left it on the dresser.

He could mourn later. Now he had to burn the dead.

Sokka led the procession out to the pyres. All three bodies had been prepared for burning, and something welled up in Sokka's throat when he saw his sister lying there, whole and looking asleep, asleep but for the hole through her chest put there by Mai in those final moments. And Toph-the girl finally looked her age, reminding Sokka of the scared, blind little girl she had been at the end, when the pain was clouding her senses and making her truly blind, when pain made her eyes well up with unshed tears and her lips bloody from biting so much. Iroh, the Dragon of the West, looked as old and frail as he never had in life. His face was peaceful, though, and Sokka saw the boy who had become his son standing in the shadows near the foot of that pyre. Both young men locked gazes, and Zuko moved to stand with Sokka.

They had to wait for Aang.

Then came the young Avatar, looking frail and thin and sickly in clothes hastily made that day, robes that did him no justice and made him look like a child- and a child he was no longer. He stood next to Sokka, his gray eyes focused on the floor. Zuko fetched three long torches from his long robes and handed one to Aang and one to Sokka. Aang and Zuko both bent some fire to the tips of their own torches, and Sokka took flame from the each to light his own.

Then the fires began. Aang walked slowly, quietly, to the pyre where his Earthbending teacher now rested. He held the torch aloft and said, in a clear voice that did not reflect the tears running unchecked down his face, "to the fallen. To Toph Bei Fong. May the Spirit guide you home, Toph." Then he dropped the torch on to Toph's chest.

The fire was not immediate in starting, but Aang watched with a twisted face and helped the fire along, refusing to watch her burn any longer than necessary.

When the flames were good and high, Zuko followed him and did much the same for his Uncle. A quiet, "for the man who had become my father, and the true Lord of the Fire Nation," could barely be heard, and Sokka forced himself to watch as the flames licked at the body of the old man.

Sokka's turn.

He trudged up the hill to where the Water Tribe maiden lay; she had been the killer of the Fire Lord, the catalyst for so much that had occurred-indeed, she had begun their whole adventure- and as such was afforded the most honor. Funny, it seemed to Sokka, that the peasant Water Tribe girl no seemed of higher stature than the Bei Fong princess and the legendary Fire Nation general. Funny, it seemed to Sokka, but right. The girl he had grown up with had become a true heroine, and she had served as such until the end, protecting the Avatar in a moment of weakness from the treacherous dagger of a treacherous Fire Nation girl.

Sokka shoved the torch up in the air.

"To the girl who started it all," he said, "and ended it all, too. May the spirit guide you home, Katara."

And he dropped the torch.

LE FIN

05/13/10: edited to fix formatting.