hoshizora

This is about 6000 words of Avatar fanfiction. It is mostly about Sokka. It takes place in an alternate future timeline some years after the events of the show. Haters may proceed to the left. That is all.

I wish to thank meredyd and ali_wildgoose for their helpful beta reading, and tenebris and torts_schmorts for their services as line editors and bullshit-callers. Whatever crappiness that remains here is purely my own fault.

And I know we too are made of all the things that we have lost here.

—Tom Waits, The Day After Tomorrow.

***

Now.

Alcohol had never passed Sokka’s lips until after his sister died. It was one night, not long after a mute, stricken Zuko had returned to Ba Sing Se with her body, that Sokka had descended into a span of grief-stricken dipsomania. The physical consequences of his despair-fueled binge had been so severe that for a few nervous hours, Hakoda worried he would lose both his children in the same week.

The intervening years had taught him to hold his liquor somewhat better than he did that first night, and as the resistance grew—Fire Lord Azula’s brutal regime guaranteed such growth—Sokka frequented worse and worse establishments. Eventually he mingled with criminals and lowlifes because he himself was a criminal. The days when he wasn’t a wanted man seemed dim and distant.

Sometimes the more battle-hardened Water Tribe guerillas would grumble that all these Earth Kingdom towns looked the same, that they never really knew where they were or where they’d been, only that they’d been fighting yesterday, had fought today, and would be fighting somewhere else tomorrow. Sokka did not have this luxury. He knew the name of every town, had a mental map of every back alley, every dirty bar—this one had exits on the south and west sides, that one was so many feet from a thick forest, another had a large basement with a false wall, and on and on, all these details that might someday save someone’s life. He knew these things and he thought about them constantly, was always counting exits and distances and angles and guards until for a while his dreams were nothing but frantically paranoid geometry.

Now the geometry, the reds and blues and greens of troop movements and fallback positions and contingencies—they were background noise, almost subconscious. Sokka had become very good at putting himself where he needed to be.

Tonight, he needed to be here. It was not the safest place, just a few li outside of occupied Ba Sing Se, but he was handing off updated objectives to the local resistance, and the information was sensitive enough that he’d elected to go himself.

He was keeping an eye open for the brocade pattern that would identify his contact, when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Qin Du?” inquired a serious-sounding voice; female. Qin Du was Sokka’s current pseudonym.

“That’s right,” said Sokka evenly, turning away from his table. There were two figures facing him, a man and a woman, both solidly-built and dressed in the green uniforms of Occupied Earth Kingdom guards. The brocade was absent.

“Would you mind if we examined your sword?”

The jig would soon be up. Sokka unstrapped his sword from its belt, and leaving it sheathed, presented it to the woman. “Not at all.”

She pulled the sword just an inch out of the sheath; enough to see the grey-black blade. She looked sharply up at Sokka. “If you’ll come with me, Mr… Du.”

Sokka smiled. “Of course.”

He was flanked by the two guards; they escorted him out of the tavern, watched by the various unsavory denizens of the establishment. One especially dirty example—this one with an eyepatch—sighed, visibly relieved not to be the subject of the evening’s inquiry.

Once they had exited the bar, the woman turned back to Sokka. “Sokka of the Water Tribe?”

Sokka’s beatific smile now shifted to a puzzled look. “Sokka of the what now?”

“We know this sword. We know who you are.”

“Well, if you’re so convinced, I guess there’s no point in trying to argue with you,” he said, raising his hands in mock concession. He then brought his knee up in a strike of shocking speed, knocking the sword free of the woman’s hand and into the air, where he caught it and drew it free.

Both guards immediately took up aggressive stances; it was clear they were about to launch earthbending strikes.

“I know it’s not you,” said Sokka, taking a step back. “Just let me go.”

“We can’t let you do that,” the man said.

“So I’m gonna say they’ve got your… daughter? You look like a man with a daughter to me,” said Sokka.

And then the talking was over, and there was only the sound of stone hitting steel.

***

Then.

It was Toph that busted him out that first time he’d been hauled in by the Dai Li; an hour later and he would’ve been gone for good.

After they sprinted off into the night—Toph leaving a wake of impassable rubble behind them—she raised her voice, there in the gloom. “You gotta learn how to fight, Sokka.”

“I can fight!”

“Look, Snoozles, it was one thing when you were traveling with three of the best benders in the world. But that isn’t how it is anymore, and what if I hadn’t gotten paranoid and come for you?”

“Zuko knew what I was doing, he could’ve sent Iroh, or the—”

“If you think Zuko has time for anything besides his little civil war, you’re more deluded than I thought. The Kyoshi Warriors are tied up holding off the southern advance. The White Lotus are spread way too thin to make it in time. What, you think I’m just making this up? I’m not an idiot, Sokka.”

Sokka had no reply to this. He’d been trying to figure out where the new Dai Li facility was; Lake Laogai had long since been phased out, and people were disappearing again. No one would ever have found him.

“It’s nothing personal. But if you’re going to be facing earthbenders, you’ve got to know how to fight them yourself.”

“Well, now that earthbending without special permission is a crime, it’s gonna be hard finding someone to practice with.”

“Don’t be dense. If you can beat me even once, you can beat any earthbender alive.”

“…Oh.”

They made their way west and south into the badlands. It was the most seismically active place in the world outside of the Fire Nation, an otherworldly landscape of twisted mineral pillars and hot mud bogs, constantly outgassing sulfuric fumes. The colors of the place had a wrongness to them, vivid ochres that shifted abruptly to the blue-green of copper oxidation or some kind of primitive flora; it bothered Sokka that he could not tell. Little but algaefern and the odd roachcricket lived here. It was hard country. Occasionally this or that tribe or caravan would carve its way through, but there were no permanent residents, indeed no reason to stay at all.

“It’s perfect!” was Toph’s pronouncement.

Sokka slumped. He could already tell that it was going to be a long few weeks.

They made camp that night.

He was awoken by a sharp blow to his ribs. He winced and opened his eyes. “Ow. Toph, is that—oh come on, it’s not even light out!”

“Think that matters to me, Snoozles? More to the point, think that matters to the Dai Fucking Li?”

“Hey, even the Dai Li need their beauty sleep.”

Sokka received a dirt clod to the gut for his trouble. “Ow!”

“Up ‘n’ at ‘em, Sokka. Today, you’re an honorary earthbender, just like those chuckleheads at Earth Rumble.”

Sokka’s voice nearly cracked with glee. “Like the Boulder?!”

Toph smirked. “Oh yeah,” she said, her voice heavy with sarcasm. “Just like the Boulder.”

She twitched her head; The bedrock under Sokka’s feet jerked sideways. Sokka scrambled to maintain his footing. “Hey, no fair!”

“Oh man, Snoozles. We’re haven’t even started.”

What followed was sixteen hours of the most punishing training Sokka had ever experienced.

As the hundredth column of rock slammed Sokka in the hip, he felt a surge of anger. “Toph! Dammit! You know, I trained with Piandao and his students for six months, and sure,  every day was either a ridiculous puzzle or some kind of grueling excuse to get the shit beaten out of me while I held a stance. But this? This is just abuse.”

Toph shrugged. “Well, that’s at least the fiftieth time you’ve died today, Snoozles,” she said. There was a note of resignation in her voice.

It was the resignation, the idea that she was giving up on him, that did Sokka in, finally. “Well, what the hell am I supposed to do, Toph? You’re the greatest earthbender in the world. The. Greatest. I can’t beat you in a fight. Okay? Is that what this is about? Because I knew that already.”

“No, Sokka. It’s not about that. It’s about you not dying, okay? Because you are going to get yourself killed doing what you’re doing, and I’m not gonna have your skull getting crushed by some Dai Li amateur on my conscience.”

“Well then tell me what to do!,” said Sokka, flinging his arms in the air in frustration. “Beating up on me for hours isn’t exactly an effective curriculum, y’know?”

“Hell, Sokka, I don’t know. I learned earthbending from giant ferocious beasts. What do you want me to tell you?”

“Well, who’s ever even beaten you? What’d they do?”

Toph was quiet for a moment. “Aang beat me,” she said, her tone softer. “In Earth Rumble VI, and plenty of times while we were sparring.”

Sokka had no immediate response. Aang’s disappearance—nobody wanted to suggest that he was dead—was a half-decade behind them. It was always painful to consider. He was lost in thought for a moment, before it occurred to him.

“Aang could beat you because he’s an airbender. He was light on his feet. Twinkletoes!”

“Yeah…?”

“It’s all about air!”

“Where are you going with this?”

“If I’m going to beat an earthbender, I have to get away from the earth. I’m not an airbender, but I learned elemental forms from Master Piandao. If I use air…”

“You can give it a shot tomorrow,” said Toph. “If I hit you again, you’re not getting up for a while.”

“You can tell that?”

“Anyone can tell that, Snoozles.”

***

Now.

The two earthbenders moved quickly to flank Sokka, who immediately shifted to his air stance. Airbenders were constantly in motion, Piandao had explained—and so too was Sokka, as he stepped lightly to the side to avoid the first stony missile that came flying at him, and then the second.

“I know it’s not you!” he repeated.

The earthbenders were as silent as their attacks were unrelenting. Sokka had learned not to trust the ground in a battle with an earthbender, so when the first pillar of rock thrust up diagonally at the woman’s command, he was ready for it, his foot already up, vaulting off of it and using the significant energy of the strike to lift himself high in the air—the air, where earthbenders wielded no authority.

The woman had planned for the pillar to strike Sokka from behind, and so he traveled up and toward her, with enough speed that she had no time to hurl any more stone at him. He landed close and already spinning, stepping around her and attacking low, delivering a vicious blow to her thigh with the flat of his blade. The shock to the femoral artery caused enough circulatory distress that she began to lose consciousness.

He was upset that they’d chosen to fight him. They could’ve backed down. They could’ve joined him.

The first earthbender sank to her knees, eyes unfocusing, even as Sokka squared off against the next. The man had already launched a volley of stone toward Sokka, who twisted, backhanding some of the projectiles away with his sword and pulling himself just barely clear of others.

Earthbending was a linear form, strikes moving in straight, powerful lines. Air, on the other hand, whirled and spun, and so did Sokka, tracing circles with his steps as the avoided attack after attack, each stepped-out arc bringing him closer to his opponent. Journeyman benders of the sort he faced most often were generally unused to non-bending opponents pressing close attacks, so a shorter distance gave him an additional advantage.

The earthbender’s attacks grew more frantic now as he saw Sokka cleave stone after stone with that black blade, but with desperation came sloppiness, and his last strike—a wedge of earth meant to knock Sokka’s legs out from under him—went wide, giving the water tribe warrior a chance to sweep in and upend the earthbender.

Suddenly the earthbender was on his back, a blade at his throat.

“I gave you a chance to walk away,” said Sokka. “I know this isn’t you, doing this, coming after me.”

“We couldn’t… we can’t,” said the earthbender. “We don’t have a choice.”

Sokka set his jaw. “We always have a choice.”

Another blow from the flat of the blade rendered the man unconscious.

Sokka looked up. The fight seemed to have gone unnoticed for the moment—it was late, after all—but his rendezvous was now spoiled. Standard procedure was to fade into the forest, so that’s what he did.

A half hour later, when he was satisfied that he hadn’t been followed, Sokka began working his way in a large circle through the woodland that surrounded the small Earth Kingdom township, pausing every few minutes to sound the whistle that signaled a resistance handoff—a trick he’d picked up from Jet, a long time ago.

Hours passed before he finally heard—faintly—what might have been the answer. He gave the call a few more times, as closely-spaced as he dared—and this time the response was quicker. His contact was out there.

Sokka waited.

He waited longer than he thought was necessary, then gave the whistle again. It came fast and quick, from behind him now.

Turning as quickly as he dared, torn between being impressed at the contact’s stealth, and immediately suspicious of such subtlety. He moved to where he could see a small clearing, and sounded the last signal he was comfortable giving.

A black-clad figure stepped into the clearing; Sokka nodded to himself—that was protocol.

“It’s a long, long way to Ba Sing Se,” said a clear female voice.

Sokka now moved into the clearing. “But the girls in the city, they look so pretty.”

“Qin Du?” the girl asked.

Sokka nodded.

“Wei Chen,” said the girl, pulling back her hood to reveal a round, youthful face. Too young, Sokka thought.

Then again, they were all of them too young.

Sokka reached into his robe and produced a scroll. “These are the new objectives. We’ll send more in two weeks. Anything to report?”

“The occupying forces in Ba Sing Se are still—apparently—having trouble. They’ve outlawed earthbending, but still need earthbenders to run the city. There may be an opportunity to strike. We’ll know for sure soon.”

Sokka nodded. “Anything else?”

The girl looked stricken for a moment. “N-nothing that hasn’t happened to everyone else.”

It never failed to make his chest ache, every time he heard a new story of loss. “Who was it?”

“My husband. We’d only been—well, it doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. It always matters.”

“Yeah,” said Wei Chen bitterly. “Anyway, I brought some food for you. I saw the guards dragging two unconscious earthbenders into their station. That was you?”

Sokka nodded.

“I guess you’ll be heading out of town, then. Too bad… it would’ve done some of us a lot of good to meet you.”

“I’m sorry. They knew who I was, somehow. There might be a leak, or we might have just been unlucky today.”

“A leak?!”

Sokka sighed; self-policing was his least favorite job. “Yeah, I’m working on it.”

“Well, here,” said Wei Chen, thrusting a pack at him. “That should tide you over for a few days. Where are you headed?”

Sokka shook his head. “If there’s a leak—”

“Oh. Right.”

“Thanks. Tell everyone I said hi. Tell them—.”

“Yeah. I will.”

Wei Chen turned and faded into the forest, leaving Sokka alone with his thoughts. The war had ruined so many lives, and so many loves. He tried not to think about what it would mean if it came his turn to suffer that loss again.

***

Then.

The most successful mission of Sokka’s career began with Suki. In retrospect, Sokka would come to see this as a kind of omen, a sign that they were at their best together.

Kyoshi Island had managed to hold off the Fire Nation advance time and time again, and as a result had become a major stronghold for the resistance. Suki spent maybe a third of her time there. The rest, she was out with her warriors, whose abilities were in constant demand.

But at the moment she was home, and Sokka was visiting her, and they were drinking tea—or they were about to.

“Y’know, I’m actually pretty hungry,” said Sokka in what he hoped was a casual voice.

“Well, the tea ceremony exists to show hospitality,” said Suki serenely. She was dressed in robes Sokka had never seen her wear before; they were tied rigidly around her waist with a broad, stiff sash, and the collar hung low in the back, exposing the nape of her neck in a way that made Sokka think things that were, he suspected, outside the purview of the ceremony.

“Great! I haven’t eaten since yesterday!” Sokka clapped his hands together, wringing them excitedly.

Suki sighed. “Your posture is wrong. Ankles under your hips, like—that’s better.”

“And I sit like this for how long?”

“Sokka, please. I know this probably seems like another dumb Kyoshi thing to you, but it actually does mean a lot to me.”

“Sorry.” Sokka coughed, and resolved to behave himself. “So, anyway, listen. I’ve got this idea for cutting off the Fire Nation here in the south—”

“We can discuss battle plans later. You should let me serve you tea first.”

“Oh. Um, okay.”

He found that concentrating on Suki’s motions was a good way to take his mind off both the war and his increasingly-numb legs. She attended to the making of the tea using the same precision with which she fought; there was total concentration and no wasted movement.

Her presence, her almost overwhelming there-ness after so many months apart was what struck Sokka the most. He was suddenly grateful for the framework of the ceremony; it was all that stood between him and sentimental idiocy.

The utensils she so carefully wielded looked old, even ancient. “How long have you been using that, um… mixing thingy?”

Suki did not look up from her practiced motions. “The guest traditionally inquires about the chadougu tools after taking the tea,” she said mildly—it was an explanation, not a rebuke.

“…Oh.”

The ceremony proceeded. Suki gave gentle directions when they were necessary, first as they first shared thick, bitter tea from a single rough-hewn bowl, then a thinner, more familiar brew poured in separate, smaller cups. It was she who finally broke the ritualistic exchanges of greetings to start an actual conversation.

“Have you ever visited Kyoshi Island in the autumn before?”

Sokka blinked. “I… I guess not.”

Suki looked out the window of the tatami-matted, paper-walled room; it overlooked a small garden that was cluttered with the brilliantly falling leaves. “Avatar Kyoshi loved the momiji trees, this time of year. Sometimes we joke that she broke the island off simply to preserve her favorite gardens.”

“They are pretty amazing,” Sokka allowed, admiring their vivid red color as it contrasted with the blue ninth-month sky.

“They’re not the only thing we would lose if Kyoshi were to fall, though,” said Suki. Evidently she was now willing to engage the conversation Sokka had come here to have.

“No,” said Sokka. “We have to shut down the Southern Raiders for good. It will cripple the Fire Nation’s operations in this area, and make the path to the South Pole a lot safer.”

Suki sipped her tea. “And you need the Kyoshi Warriors.”

“Not just any warriors. I need you specifically, and the team you’ve trained.”

Suki smiled. “I’m listening.”

Sokka grinned and outlined the plan.

When the ceremony concluded—Sokka again required pointers on the ritually correct methods of thanking the host, of standing, and of exiting the tea-room—they went their separate ways. Suki went to change (thankfully) from her (distracting) formal robes into looser sparring clothes, while Sokka took advantage of a rare block of free time to practice swordplay forms.

Once she returned, gathered with the rest of Suki’s corps of fighters to spar; Sokka fended off Ty Lee’s advances both martial and playfully amorous as had become traditional in their strange little friendship. (This was especially weird as Sokka had stumbled upon Ty Lee and Masako tangled up in a most unplatonic way just a few hours earlier.) On the whole, the dojo was filled with an easy camaraderie that had been purchased too dear, but was no less pleasant for it.

Eventually Suki dismissed the girls and it was just her and Sokka, now well and truly warmed up.

It was inevitable that their sparring would be charged with a new energy now, but every time Sokka attempted a hold that would put him close to Suki in more or less the way he wanted, she found a way to put him on his ass. Eventually he took the hint, giving up and fighting like he meant it; they traded blows and pointers and at length left the dojo with their arms around each other’s shoulders, both out of affection and for actual support, having over the course of an hour or so gradually beaten the everloving crap out of each other.

Sokka hadn’t been so happy in months.

When they parted ways to wash up before dinner, Suki traced her fingers along his arm before catching his hand for a moment, meeting his eye and miming the barest hint of a kiss; the simple gesture did things to his mind—terrible, distracting, heart-pounding things.

It was evening; He was getting up the courage to go to Suki’s room and wondering why this simple action should require courage at all, after all this time, when there was a knock on the door.

“Uh… hello?”

“It’s me,” said Suki.

Sokka twitched. “Gah! Suki! Uhm! I was just gonna… y’know,” he said, leaping to his feet and scrambling to slide open the door. “I was gonna come see you.”

Suki smiled and stepped inside.

“So, um…”

He got no farther before she shoved him up against the wall with a kiss that was genuinely alarming in its vehemence.

“You have no idea,” she said, kissing him again, “how much”—kiss—”I’ve been wanting to do this”—there went another one—”all day.” Sokka tried to keep up, but she was a determined opponent, wily and tireless when roused.

“…Whoah,” he finally managed. “Um. Hi there.”

And for a while there was no more talking. And but things progressed as they tend to and amid sweat-damp gasps they were no longer standing and there were seriously these little moans—and at length Suki sort of shifted and hesitated, and since this was pretty much the first time there had ever been any kind of hesitation this far along in any of their interludes (Suki generally leaving no room for hesitation of any kind) Sokka backed up a little bit and directed toward his girlfriend what he assumed was an expression somewhere between confusion and concern.

“Uh… did I do something?”

She looked askance. “No…”

“Because you should know that I’ve been looking forward to seeing you the way I used to look forward to coming home, in the old days. And I think that kinda says something.”

Suki looked back to him and smiled. “You’re right. It does.”

Relieved to see her smile, Sokka grinned back. “Yeah. You’re my home. So… what’s up, home?”

She sighed. “It's just I’ve been thinking.”

“In my experience, thinking is really overrated a lot of the time.”

“This from the idea guy?”

“Hey, I call ‘em how I see ‘em.”

Suki giggled. “No, I mean about…” she trailed off and adjusted herself amid the scattering of clothing, an artless, unselfconscious movement that raised Sokka’s temperature a few degrees. “About this,” she finished with a vague gesture that he took to refer to their current circumstances.

“I dunno, I thought it was going pretty great,” said Sokka.

“No, no, it is,”—she leaned over and kissed him as if to make the point—”but the more I think about it, the more it seems like now would be a really bad time for me to… well, for us to… um, have a baby.”

“…Oh,” said Sokka. His gaze trailed off and he stared with unfocused eyes at the wall behind Suki.

“I know a lot of the girls talk about making memories and living in the moment and all that stuff, and there’s a war and we don’t know when it will end… but I don’t want a memory of you, Sokka. I want a life with you, and I want it to happen when we can stand and face it together.” She stopped and looked at him, worried. “Is any of this making sense?”

Sokka’s eyes refocused on Suki’s face. “Just cut to the chase. You’re not breaking up with me?”

“Um, no. Not ever.”

“Oh, okay then. Because I don’t want that.”

“Well, me neither. But we should probably stop, um…”

“No no, I get it. But we can still…”

“…Oh. Oh. Ah—aah. Yes. We can—hey. Ah. Stop that.”

“…No.”

***

Now.

Once the Southern Raiders had been dealt with and the South Pole was as secure as it had been in a century, a major goal for the resistance became the preservation of the Southern waterbending style, for both military and cultural reasons. Katara’s death had been a terrible blow, but despite Fire Nation impressions to the contrary, waterbenders were still born in the south. Hakoda decided that it was best to preserve the notion in the minds of the Fire Nation generals that Southern waterbending had been wiped out, so each time a waterbending child was discovered there, they were sent across the world to the North Pole as soon as they could safely make the journey, where they could be protected and taught in relative security.

Whenever he could, Sokka accompanied these children on their journey, both for strategic reasons and because he was quite sure that it was what Katara would have done, had she been alive to do it.

In this case, an information drop at Omashu had Tae, a promising young waterbender, nearing the end of her journey across the Earth Kingdom. She would need an escort across the northern sea to the North Pole.

He’d come to the cold, grass-dotted beach prepared to wait for days, but luck was on his side; he’d barely had time to liberate a small, single-masted fishing vessel and moor it there on a half-rotten dock that jutted out from the lonely coast before a rickety cart appeared well down the coast. It bounced along the unimproved road, pulled by two tired old donkeygoats. 

As they approached, Sokka was able to make out their forms. A young man drove the cart, a still younger girl sitting beside him in the driver’s seat; his face brightened in a smile when he recognized Sokka.

“Sokka! Tui and La, it’s good to see you!”

“You too, Maki. And this is Tae?”

Maki nodded. “Tae, Sokka,” he said with a big gesture. “The Hero of Tai Mon Pass!”

Sokka chuckled. “That was luck. Now, being the Five-Time Champion of the Omashu Haiku Throwdown? That’s skill. Nice to meet you, Tae.”

Tae nodded. “Hello,” she said flatly.

Sokka gestured to the dock. “Boat’s right over there. I figure it’s two, three days to the Pole, depending on the winds.”

“Great,” said Maki, visibly relieved to have made it this far. “You all set, Tae?”

“Yeah.”

“So,” continued Maki as they walked toward the dock. “Where are you headed next?”

“What, after the pole? I’m thinking south. Kyoshi Island.”

“Oh yeah? How’s Suki doing, anyway?”

Sokka chuckled. “According to the letter I got, she is ‘tired of waiting.’”

“Hah! Good luck to you—you’ll need it.”

They crossed the hundred or so yards to where the boat was moored, and Sokka took Tae’s pack, hefting it easily into the small craft.

He jumped aboard, extending a hand to Tae, which she ignored as she clambered somewhat gracelessly into the craft. Sokka shrugged. “Good to see you again, Maki,” he said with a wave. “Say hi to everyone.”

“Will do, friend.”

“Tae, give us a little shove off?” asked Sokka, after untying the small boat.

“Mm.” Tae stood, and with a perfunctory lean-and-push, generated a small wave that eased them away from the dock.

After a few questions about her trip thus far were answered with such an economy of words that Sokka eventually suggested she would make a good haiku poet and received an extremely dirty look for his trouble, he mostly gave up on conversation for the rest of the day.

It was after they’d finished a breakfast of dried salted fish the next day that he gave it another try.

“So… how old are you?”

“Fourteen,” answered Tae listlessly, dangling a hand over the edge of the boat and doodling little swirls in the water, her fingers a few inches from the ocean surface.

Sokka was quiet for a moment, then he chuckled. “Man, my sister would’ve been so excited to meet you.”

Tae sniffed. “Hn. I gotta say I’m really sick of hearing about Katara.”

Sokka furrowed his brow. “Uh. Okay.”

She sulked for a second before softening. “No, I mean… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… I know  she was your sister. I just—there are all those stories of how amazing she was, how quickly she mastered waterbending and she practically is waterbending depending on who you talk to. I’m… not.”

“Wow, if you knew how much you sounded like me—”

Tae didn’t seem to hear him. She was on a roll now. “Nobody gave a damn about me until the snowballs all the other kids threw at me started missing. And ever since then they’ve been making me practice hours a day, and it’s not easy for me, you know, just because I can waterbend doesn’t make me any good at it, and now I’m all the way across the friggin’ world and I…” she trailed off. “I’m not her. I’m not anyone.”

Sokka was quiet for a moment before responding. “Yeah… I get it. It was hard being in her shadow all the time. I got used to it, but it wasn’t really until after she was gone that I realized… she wasn’t special because of her waterbending. Waterbending was special because it was what she did.”

“Great, well, I’m never going to be like that.”

“No, see, that’s my point. You’re not that. And your bending is special because it’s what you do—you’re not special because of it, but the other way around. Do you see?”

“Not really,” said Tae, but she seemed to be grudgingly listening.

“In the fire nation, firebending makes you special. Better. They call it ‘the superior element,’ and ever since Azula took the throne, non-firebenders are almost second-class citizens, no matter how skilled they are, or how loyal to the Fire Nation. That’s just what we’re fighting against, the idea that being able to bend makes you better. But waterbending’s also an important part of our culture, and it almost died out. We need to preserve it.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Tae was staring at the ocean’s surface.

Sokka stood and adjusted the rigging of the little vessel’s single sail. “And Katara was the one that fought for girls to be able to learn combat waterbendering at the North Pole—not that you have to, but she would’ve wanted you to be able to chose whatever path called to you. And she would’ve been proud to see you making this trip.”

“…I just, everybody talks about how great she was, she’s like the most famous person in the Southern Tribe. And I’m nobody and I’m never gonna be her.”

Sokka shrugged. “Well, if anybody wanted Katara around again, it would be me. But just because I loved her doesn’t mean I want anybody else to try to be her. That’s just weird.”

“I guess it is kinda weird.”

“Yup. And I’m never wrong. Ask anyone! Anyway, we should make it to the North Pole tomorrow. I’ll introduce you to Pakku. Make sure to call him ‘granpakku,’—he loves that.”

***

Then.

It was one of the last nights they spent on Ember Island together, all of them.

Sokka was out on one of the rambling old estate’s balconies, squinting at a map lit by candle and moonlight.

“Hey… Sokka?”

“Gah! Katara! Uh… hi.” Sokka spun around. “I thought everybody was asleep.”

Katara shrugged vaguely. “I haven’t been sleeping so well.”

“Yeah. I don’t know how Toph does it.” They shared a smile at Toph’s famously deep slumber.

“So… what’re you doing?” Katara asked.

“Just looking at some maps I found. Nothing we didn’t know already, but… well, so far I’ve never felt like, ‘gosh, I sure wish I hadn’t wasted all that time planning,’ y’know?”

Katara smiled, perhaps sadly, though it was hard to tell by candlelight. “Yeah.” There was an awkward pause. “Listen, Sokka…”

“Yeah?”

“I wanted… I wanted to apologize for what I said before. About… about you not loving Mom.”

Sokka made a face. “Pff. You were angry, you didn’t mean it, I knew that.”

“No, it was an awful thing to say, and I’m ashamed I said it.”

“Well, don’t worry about it. I forgive you.”

“It’s not like…” she trailed off. “It’s not like I think I’m the only one this war has hurt.”

“‘Course you don’t. I don’t think you think that. At least I don’t think I think you think that. Uh, wait—”

Katara giggled. “No, I mean it. I know you gave up a lot to come with me and Aang, and I know it hasn’t been easy for you.” She glanced up at the gibbous moon before continuing. “But I don’t think we could’ve made it this far without you, so… thanks.”

Sokka smiled. “I’d do it all over again, too. C’mon, give your big brother a hug.”

She did.

“So… Suki.” Katara said after a moment.

“Uh, what about her?”

“She seems to like you quite a bit.”

Sokka grinned and looked off to one side. “Well, the feeling’s pretty mutual, I guess.”

“I think Mom would’ve really liked her.”

“You do?”

“Definitely.”

***