A/N: I wrote Tahno. I regret nothing.

Wolf bats thrived in the darkness of the Cave of Two Lovers. But now Tahno's true love has left him. For all of the girls he had and no doubt abused, he never loved anyone as he did water, his entire life resting on his element, his bending. And now that is gone, and the rest of him follows.

Ironically enough, Tahno's still a waterbender in one respect. He can cry, can't he?

He's shivering. The faucet is cold to the touch, but nothing is colder than the missing piece of him, hidden somewhere deep down within, out of reach but never out of mind. A splash hits the bottom of the sink, the liquid draining down into the abyss.

Pressure on his throat and forehead. The power at his centre struggling to stay, slowly being drawn away, drained into the body of the masked phantom standing over him, a spirit of death with no weakness and no mercy.

Hesitantly, the pounding in his head growing worse from the proximity, he dips his hand into the stream, the cool water flowing between his fingers and running down his arm, dripping onto the floor. He concentrates on his element, on everything he knows and loves, and wills the water to his whim.

Will. Seeing his spirit before his eyes, an iridescent blue, surrounded by the swarms of darkness that represent the endless night encroaching, steadily yet surely destroying his life, the river rushing its course over the edge and disappearing for eternity. For him, winter is coming, and once the ice has frozen over the world, there will never be summer again.

Shaking from the effort, he lifts his head to the mirror, expecting for a moment the quirk in his smirk, the wave of hair over the side of his face, the gloating gaze of a champion, of a man who can never lose, of a bender for whom hat tricks are nothing more than a pat on the back by the universe.

Instead, broken eyes the colour of sadness and sorrow gaze hollowly back at him, their inner light darkened into the dullest of new moons, a thin crescent reflected over the black and barren surf.

A low groan runs through him, the last shudder through the cliffside before it topples into the sea.

A push, the claws on his chest colder than the frigid blizzard. Falling backwards, limbs flailing, every iota of strength compressed into a single effort to raise the waves below, bid them to embrace him, to carry him safely down.

But they are deaf to his pleas, the impact ripping him to pieces, washing away his strength, reshaping him in pain and suffering.

Once more he strains, begging for even a sole drop to respond, to come to him, to let him treat it as he would a lover, his water, his world, his everything.

"I love you."

As though words could change fate.

He focuses, pleads, wills, wills, wills the water to him, but whatever power he once had is gone.

Oblivious to his agony, the liquid continues to splash.

The sound mocks him, drives him to cry, the sound that before was his all, when he could control the world simply by moving his hands fluent in the language of water.

He collapses on the sink, the tears of a thousand nights spent weeping running down his face, his hands fluent in the language of grief.