Chapter Text
Sokka sat back on the familiar wood of the boat, listening to familiar voices calling across the deck, shouting orders and calling for ropes to be tied or loosened, sails raised and courses adjusted.
On the way to the hunting grounds, it had bene incredible to listen to. It had been something akin to magic, and Sokka didn’t believe in magic, but that was the only way to describe it.
On the way back? There was a stormy atmosphere. They hadn’t brought anything back except a broken passenger that wasn’t meant to be there. He hadn’t seen his dad in hours, or Sanuyok, or Bato. People kept coming up to him to try and get him to do stupid odd jobs around the ship, but he didn’t want it.
He would have usually been over excited to be helpful. He always wanted to be helpful.
But a twisted awful bit inside him didn’t want to be helpful if it meant helping get and Ashmaker back to his home.
Sokka sighed loudly, lying back on the deck out of the way, twirling his boomerang around his finger. He’d been botted out from sitting outside the medicine room door, where his dad and Bato and Sanuyok and every other warrior that could squeeze inside had been downstairs, whispering and muttering in grave voices with stiff expressions, while Sanuyok desperately tended to their new passenger with the limited supplies they carried with them on hunting trips. It hadn’t sounded good. They didn’t carry much for burns, Sokka could hear. Most of their burn remedies were back at the village, awaiting the next raid. Their medical supplies on the ship were all for cuts, bites, hypothermia. Nobody got burnt when they went out hunting. Nobody wanted to carry unnecessary supplies they surely wouldn’t need.
But they did need them, apparently.
And they didn’t have them, so now Sanuyok had to just grit and bear it and use what he had.
If it was up to Sokka, he wouldn’t worry at all, because they wouldn’t be saving the mother-killing firebender. Let alone bringing him back to their home.
If it was up to Sokka, that kid wouldn’t be on the ice in the first place. He’d be over in the fire nation plotting who he’d turn to ash next, and Sokka would be down in the southern water tribe, on his ice with his dad, hunting.
Deep down, he knew it wasn’t fair for him to think like that. It wasn’t fair to get angry at this kid for running the hunting trip. Sokka was fairly certain the weird black-haired boy didn’t really want to be on the ice with half his face scorched off.
An image of the sick gruesome burn flashed across Sokka’s mind, and he shuddered, stuffing his hands under his arms and trying to trick his brain that he was simply cold.
He wasn’t cold. He didn’t shiver from the cold. And he wouldn’t forget the mental image of that boy’s face anytime soon. Maybe he never would.
He supposed that’s why his father had kicked him out of the medicine room and yelled at him when he got close to the boy, back on the ice.
He couldn’t be in the medicine room, but he could sit on the deck above the open porthole in the room listening to snippets of the conversation.
“It’s a bad burn Hakoda… his eye and his ear, they’re both…”
Sokka shuffled closer to the edge, trying to listen better., he could hardly hear over the shouting on the deck and the crashing of water.
“He’ll live, though?”
“With a bit more treatment back at the village, he should survive… should. Don’t get your hopes up too high. This infection he’s come down from is pretty gnarly. I’d say it’s been a few weeks since the burn.”
“A few weeks? So, it wasn’t a recent fight. Is this kid some kind of child soldier, who they thought wouldn’t survive? Did they dump him so they didn’t have to expend resources on someone who wouldn’t survive?”
“…I don’t think so, Hakoda. He’s not- none of that explains why he was burnt, anyway. Why would they be so close to the south pole? None of it makes sense, this had to be something intentional- “
Sokka shuffled closer to the edge of the deck. Intentional? What did Sanuyok mean intentional? He leant closer over the edge, trying to hear-
“Sokka!”
He jumped at the hand grabbing the back of his parka and hauling him back from the edge of the deck. He was met with the angry scowls of Santo and Vonro standing over him.
He turned away with ana angry huff, refusing to look at them. It was childish, but he was upset, it was an awful day for all of them, everyone should be upset. “What!”
Vonro plonked down heavily on the wood next to him with a loud right, a rough hand coming to grip Sokka’s shoulder, tilting him just enough to look into steel-grey eyes. “Sokka. I get your upset about the face we’re turning back, but- “
“It’s not that! Why are we bringing back a firbender! Why is dad helping him!? Why isn’t- why are we all just sitting here letting it happen! None of us want to bring him back!”
Vonro paused, going quiet in the face of Sokka’s outburst.
Because he was right. Everyone knew he was right, none of them wanted to bring the firebender back and none of them could understand Hakoda’s decision.
“That’s nobody’s decision to make but the chief’s you brat. Stop moping around! There are things more important than the hunting trip now!”
Santo’s snapping made Sokka scowl harder, chucking his boomerang at Santo’s feet, only for the other man to pick it up and tuck it into his belt. Sokka didn’t even bother to argue for it back. Santo spoke again, firm and annoyed. “Sokka. You’re being a complete brat about this. You’re really going to sit here and mope while some random boy’s life is in danger downstairs?”
Vrono huffed, sitting gown with them, a loud groan coming from him at the effort. “Terrible spot to mope, by the way. Most people aim for dark corners where nobody can see them being stupid.”
“Shut up!” Sokka snapped back, kicking at his leg with his foot, only for Santo to yank at his wolftail from behind, just top annoy him.
“Idiot, He’s not sitting here just to mope. He’s listening to the chief and nursemaid talking downstairs.”
Sokka looked up as Kirnus wandered over, wiping seawater off his hands onto his pants.
Vonro scoffed. “Sanuyok’s going to put salt in your drinks if you keep calling him that.”
Kirnus shrugged, coming over their ever-growing circle on the edge of the deck. Sanuk looked back at Sokka. “You’re really snooping?”
Sokka bristled, slumping back against the railing of the deck. “Dad told me to get out of the medical room. But I wanted to know what was happening.” The truth went unspoken. I want to figure out why he’s bringing a stranger along with us. I want to know why he’s helping a firebender.
Vonro sighed, patting his shoulder again. Sokka looked over at him. Blue beads glinted in the fading afternoon light against stark while hair. He’d told Sokka before that each of the beads represented a family member that he lost in the raids. Most of Vonro’s family had been waterbenders, he’d learned. And now, most of them were gone. “I get that you don’t want to bring a firebender home, but this isn’t like the raids.”
Sokka felt every muscle in his body tense. He remembered his mother’s face. He remembered watching her body drift out into the blue waves. He remembered the feeling of the ribbon of her necklace under his fingers helping his eight-year-old sister tie it around her neck. He remembered the scorch marks on tents and the cracks in the ice from their awful metal ships. He remembered it all, and he didn’t understand how Vonro couldn’t be so angry about all of it.
He stood up, pushing vonro’s hand off him and stumbling away from the group who’d sat down with him. Desperate to just… get away from it all. He didn’t want to be reminded of the raids. He didn’t want to think about the fact there was someone sailing on the same boat as him that could very well be the son of one of the men who killed Sokka’s mother. Or Vonro’s family. Or left Ra with a limp bad enough he couldn’t go hunting anymore. Or Ayuah with burns on her body she could only cover so much of.
Why didn’t anyone care that they were bringing a monster back into their home?
Why wasn’t anyone stopping it?
He didn’t understand how his father could be the one bringing the enemy into their home. He just didn’t understand…
His feet pattered on the steps down below the deck, and he stumbled down the last some running off down the corner on the opposite side of the infirmary, into the storage hold. Wood shelves lined the walls, and a few crates or barrels of supplies to last their trip sat near the door. It was dark, had a weird musty smell, but it was better than being up there on deck with everyone crowding around him and trying to justify bringing a monster back into their tribe. He walked into the corner, sitting down among the dust. There was plenty of room for him, since most of the storage space ad been reserved for the meat they were planning to bring back on the hunt. The hunt they weren’t going on anymore. They’d return with nothing.
Because of that firebender.
He sat at the back of the room, the hard wood wasn’t comfortable to sit on, but he didn’t want to go back outside, or risk going to hide in his dad’s chief’s room where he let Sokka sleep so he didn’t have to share the main bunk room with all the other warriors in case someone went in there and bothered him. He just needed to be alone. He’d been so excited about this hunting trip, eager to spend time with his father, and somehow the fire nation ruined even that. But it wasn’t that other boy’s fault, not really. Not at all, and Sokka didn’t know what to think of that. He didn’t know if he was allowed to be upset because of that.
The image of that boy’s burned face flashed across his mind again. Followed by the image of his mother’s shrouded body drifting out into the freezing waves. He squeezed his eyes shut and covered his head with his arms. It didn’t feel very manly, but he just wanted to stop thinking about it. About everything. About what just happened. He wished he’d just waited a few more days for a hunting trip, so they wouldn’t be in this situation.
That felt so wrong to think.
Wishing they hadn’t been here? Wishing they hadn’t saved someone’s life?
But that life was of the fire nation. Was it wrong to wish that boy dead? He was human, but the fire nation didn’t act like humans. Everyone in the village was always saying they were hardly human, so if they were hardly human was it better if they weren’t around?
~
If there was one thing Hakoda would not, could not do, it was hurt a child.
He’d never been one to hit his children for misbehaviour. Such things were frowned upon in the southern water tribe. Hakoda had always believed in a firm talking to and a punishment befitting the crime. Sokka throwing food at his sister? He’d be sent to help his mother gather and cook to learn how valuable food was to them. Katara hiding her brother’s boomerang? She’d have to clean and tidy his weapons for the afternoon instead of going out to play. Even when the behaviour was severe, even when it wasn’t his children, he would never lay a hand on a child under any circumstances.
So, he couldn’t fathom within himself why anyone would wound a young boy like this.
He couldn’t be older than Sokka, not by much, at least. The thought made Hakoda feel sick, in a heavy way that dragged behind him like he was tied to a glacier. He couldn’t get the image out of his head, of this boy lying on the ice, wrapped in nothing but a thin red blanket, sweating and shaking from a recovering fever, his hands and feet going pink from early onset frostbite, half of his face turned into a marred wasteland of burnt skin and scabs and pus and pink flesh.
He had seen burns before.
Never one so deliberate.
So deliberately placed on his face, wrapping around his head to his ear,
It was impossible to have been an accident. he didn’t know much about firebenders or their cursed bending, but he knew things like that didn’t just accidentally happen.
“Hakoda.”
Hakoda snapped free from his thoughts where he was sitting on the edge of the bed next to the young boy. Looking over to Sanuyok, their white-haired older healer who’d been cleaning scrapes and helping Hakoda’s mother heal the carnage left after the raids longer than Hakoda had been able to swing his machete. He cleared his throat, sweeping hair out of his eyes. “What is it, Sanuyok, how is he?”
The older man let out a sigh, sitting heavily down onto the wooden stool in the corner of the medical room on the boat. The desk next to him piled haphazardly with bandages and antiseptics and medicinal herbs dried and bottled in the summer to last the long winter months, he looked at Hakoda through grey lashes for a long moment before he muttered. “I told you. We’ve done what we can, he should live, but it’s in the hands of the spirits now.”
Hakoda breathed out a long, worried sigh. He’d seen the faces of his men after he announced they would take the firebender back to the ship, He’d seen the wariness on their faces, some of them, he’d seen the anger. His eyes had passed over the scars some of his men carried, physical and emotional. He’s seen Kya in his mind. A small part of him, the bitter, angry part that could never truly forgive her death, told him to leave. To stand up and walk away, continue on taking his son on the hunting trip he’d promised for weeks once the days grew long enough to be outside safely for long periods of time. A part of him whispered in his ear that this is what the fire nation would have done if one of their own washed up on their shores. They’d leave and not turn back. Ultimately, that thought is what solidified Hakoda’s decision to bring the kid back to the boat and save his life.
Because he was not the fire nation.
The southern water tribe was not the fire nation.
The fire nation was the type to abandon a dying child because of nationality. The fire nation was the type to burn the faces of their own and leave them to die. And the southern water tribe was anything if not the fire nation.
He didn’t know what he’d do with the boy once he was healed. He didn’t know what would happen when, or even if, this kid woke up. He didn’t have a plan, he rushed into this situation blind, and as much as he didn’t like to be so reckless, he’d rather be a reckless chief than a chief responsible for letting a child not much older than his own die on his ice.
The village would simply have to adjust,
They always adjusted. They were flexible and resilient.
They could handle one firebender.
He hoped they could handle him. Tui and La he hoped they could. He hoped and prayed with every breath that he wasn’t bringing a murderer or some kind of monster in human form back to his tribe.
He didn’t see a monster when he looked at this strange boy. Even though he looked so different- with his pale skin and jet-black hair, he didn’t look the same as the soldiers who razed their home to the ground had looked. They weren’t the same. A child and a soldier weren’t the same
Hakoda tore his eyes away from the desk to focus on the kid. His boot tapped the floor as his leg jumped nervously. Every lurch of the boat left him sick. He’d never felt sick on a boat, he felt at home on the water, but looking at how the fire nation treated its own left him wanting to vomit. He couldn’t help but see Sokka when he looked at this kid. And when he saw Sokka hurt, when he imagined Sokka hurt like this, it made him angry.
Who was angry for this kid?
He took a deep breath, sipping the cup of tea Sanuyok had made him, staring out the porthole. Sokka. He needed to talk to him. Explain exactly what was going on. He’d snapped at him on the ice when they found the firebender, and then he’d pushed him out of the room not long ago. He wouldn’t be happy. He was a child too, Hakoda hadn’t wanted him to see what had happened to the firebender. But he’d seen anyway. And it wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before, much to Hakoda’s devastation. Hed seen it before.
It left a pit in Hakoda’s stomach that he hadn’t protected his children from the awful voilence of this world just a little bit longer. It didn’t matter how many times he told himself he was doing his best- he was doing alright. It didn’t matter how many times Bato or Sanuyok or his mother told him he was doing well, when he saw that familiar horror on Sokka’s face when he laid his eyes upon the firebender, he felt the sinking heaviness of failure in himself.
The smell of antiseptic and herbs and seawater was heavy in the room, and under all that, Hakoda felt the stench of burned flesh creep into his nose.
It made him sick, it made him so, so sick.
~
Sanuyok rinsed the rag in a bowl of cool water, the quiet of his medical room providing a bref reprieve from the chaos up on the deck. He glanced back at hakoda, sighing a little.
“Get upstairs, you need to go do something.”
“What?” The chief looked up at him with an expression of shock and weariness. “It’s alright, the men upstairs can figure themselves out, they don’t need me for every little thing. I’ll stay.”
Sanuyok raised an eyebrow, sighing and turning back to the desk littered with medicines and supplies. He was old enough to have watched hakoda grow up, and this man thought he could keep his worry to himself?
‘I know that. I mean you need to get out of here. Worrying over him won’t do any good, that’s my job.”
Hakoda looked at him for a long moment, turning back to look at the unconscious firebender. “You’re sure he’s a bender?
“Wouldn’t have survived out there if he wasn’t.”
“And youre really not mad at me for insisting you treat him?”
Sanuyok sighed, turning to face the chief. It wasn’t often, but in times like this Hakoda looked thirty years younger. “I’m not mad, im wondering what’s loose in your head insiting I treat him, but I’m not mad.”
He shrugged, going quiet and staring off out the porthole. “I think I’d be more mad if you ahd of left him there. The others sound mad, but they’re just worried.”
Hakoda raised an eyebrow at him.
“So you are mad?”
“What?”
“You said you were ‘more’ mad, so you’re at least a little mad”
Sanuyok groaned. In moments like these, hakoda seemed 20 years younger and a stupid teenager all over again. If there was one thing Sanuyok wouldn’t forget, it was the night’s the whole village could hear Kanna tearing into Hakoda for running off and doing something stupid with bato again.
“Get out of my room, you little brat! Make yourself useful; ill call you if anything happens!”
Hakoda laughed a little as he got up, raising his hands in surrender and exiting the room, the door shutting with a soft click.With his exit, Sanuyok let out another long sigh, looking back at the asleep kid. He stood up, wanding over to check on him.
Still breathing, still asleep.
He looked at the now bandage-coated side of his face. There was only so much he could go- moistening rags and using as many slimy burn remedies as he had access to and wrapping up the wound. He didn’t want to give Hakoda too much bad news, but this kid was really fucked.
His eye, his ear, both effectively ruined. Sanuyok could see that he was recovering from the infection caused by this burn, and he could only guess that it hadn’t done much good for his senses on the left side. The injury must have been a few weeks old at least, and the older man burned with curiosity to find out what exactly happened there, but he couldn’t wring the truth out of an unconscious person.
There was nothing else he could do here but wait for the kid to wake up.
~
Before Sokka could continue his dangerous thoughts about wishing the firbender had never ended up on their ice, the storage room door creaked open. Sokka looked up, ready to yell at whoever it was to get out. Expecting it to be Santo, coming to sneak a handful of seal-jerky or Vonro coming to keep telling him stories he didn’t understand.
But it wasn’t any of them.
It was his dad.
His tense shoulders wilted in place as the chief of the water tribe slid into the dusty storage room, sliding the door shut behind him and slowly coming over to sit beside Sokka.
He turned his head, smiling softly and pulling an arm over Sokka’s shoulders. “I get you’re upset. You feel like telling me why exactly?”
Sokka felt his body go stiff under the contact usually so welcoming, letting out long sigh and turning his head away.
Why was he upset? Because they were bringing the enemy home. Because they were helping the enemy. Because everyone up on deck were whispering about how the enemy was so much similar to him even though they weren’t the same at all, and they were talking to him like he was a child all over again and he hated it and he just wanted things to go back to how they were this morning. Like he could start the day all over again and roll out of his hammock that morning ready to redo the day again where none of this would happen.
But he couldn’t do that, and he couldn’t tell his father he wanted to do that, so he just stayed quiet a little longer.
Hakoda waited patiently beside him, breathing out softly, leaning his head back against the wall.
“You know, I’m getting too old to come crawling under dusty shelves.
Sokka turned to look at his father.
“I know you’re not happy about how today worked out-“
Sokka's words came out sharper than he meant them to. "Dad, why are we doing this? The Fire Nation has ruined everything."
Hakoda was quiet for a moment.
"They took Mom," Sokka continued, his voice catching despite himself. "They burned villages, they chased us from our own waters, and now we're supposed to bring one of them aboard? Feed them? Protect them?" He shook his head. "I don't understand."
His father squeezed Sokka’s shoulder a little tighter, eyes fixed somewhere on the wooden floor between them.
"You're right," he said at last. "The Fire Nation has done terrible things."
"Then why?"
"Because that child didn't."
Sokka looked away.
"They're still Fire Nation."
"They are." Hakoda nodded. "Just like you're Water Tribe. But neither of you chose to be born where you were."
Sokka frowned, digging the heel of his boot into the floor.
"So that's it?" he muttered. "We just... forget?"
"No." Hakoda's answer was immediate. "We remember. We remember every person we've lost." His voice softened. "Your mother deserves that."
The room fell silent again.
"But remembering isn't the same as punishing someone who had no part in it."
Sokka's jaw tightened.
"What if they grow up to be just like the rest of them?"
Hakoda sighed.
"Maybe they will." He paused. "Or maybe they'll remember the day their enemies chose not to let them die."
Sokka swallowed.
"I don't know if I can."
"I know."
The answer surprised him enough to look back.
Hakoda offered a tired smile, one that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"I'm not asking you to trust them today. I'm not asking you to like this. I'm only asking you to remember that war has a way of making children pay for the choices of adults."
His arm squeezed Sokka's shoulder gently.
"I've seen enough children killed because someone decided they were on the wrong side."
Sokka's throat tightened.
"I don't want to let another one die."
Neither of them spoke after that.
Outside, he could hear the muffled creak of the ship and the distant crash of waves against the hull. Somewhere above deck, voices drifted across the evening air.
Sokka stared at the floorboards.
He still didn't think it was fair.
He still didn't like it.
But for the first time since they'd hauled the injured fire nation kid aboard, he understood that maybe his father didn't like it either. He was simply choosing the kind of man he wanted to be, even when it was the hardest choice to make.