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Everyone is born with at least one soul mark on the inside of their wrist, to represent the piece of their soul that they carry within themself. Most people have more than one, with each mark beyond their own indicating the person or people who share their soul, either platonically or romantically. Soul marks that belong to a person’s soulmates are black until they first introduce themselves, when they change to a color. Soulmate marks turn gray when a soulmate dies.
Most people have two or three soul marks on their wrist, and rarely more than four. Sokka is born with seven soul marks.
One is a wolf’s head, tilted upward like it’s howling, and it’s deep ocean blue, a color that’s fairly common among the Water Tribe. That one represents him. The rest are black, because he hasn’t met them yet, lined up neatly on his right forearm nearly to his elbow. There’s a wave, an arrow, a fish, a silhouette of a mountain range, a fan, and two swords crossed to form an X.
Sokka is only two when his sister is born, too young to entirely understand about soul marks yet. Gran-Gran calls him and his father back into their igloo. His mother looks tired but happy, the baby curled up on her chest contentedly. Sokka loves her right away, even though tradition says to wait a full cycle of the moon before becoming attached to a child lest they die early.
His little sister makes it through her first month in full polar night, and his mother calls her Katara at the naming ceremony. The first time Sokka hears the name, it’s accompanied by a burning sensation on his wrist, and he whines and scratches at it insistently. His father notices and pushes his sleeve up, then grins. The wave mark has turned from black to blue, lighter and brighter than Sokka’s wolf head.
“Quick,” Hakoda tells him, “Introduce yourself to Katara.”
Gran-Gran and his mother and the rest of the tribe are watching the exchange. It’s not unheard of for siblings to be bonded, though it’s not entirely common either. He walks up to his mother, cradling Katara in her arms. His mother shifts the blankets to reveal Katara’s left arm.
The wave is there on Katara’s tiny wrist, already a vibrant blue. Five other marks range up her arm, and Sokka spots his among them. Giddily, he says, “Hi, Katara. I’m Sokka, and I’m going to be the best big brother ever.”
As he says his name, the wolf on Katara’s arm changes from black to dark blue, and Katara wails for a moment before quieting. His parents smile approvingly.
Most people in the Southern Water Tribe meet their soulmates young because the population is so small, unless the soulmates aren’t from the Southern Water Tribe. That doesn’t happen often in recent years, though there are a few people who’ve met their soulmates in the rare Earth Kingdom trade ships that come this far south and there’s even one tale of a young woman meeting a nonbending Fire soldier drifting in the sea and running off with him which no one can agree on the truth of.
Still, even if all a person’s soulmates are Water Tribe, most people are a little older than two before they meet one another.
Katara and Sokka grow up on legends about soulmates told around the fire in their igloo, and they often speculate on who the rest of their soulmates are. They also grow up listening to rebukes about how Katara has to get her waterbending under control, because even in a sling on their mother’s chest, the little movements of her arms make the snow on the ground slide around.
Sokka has seven marks and Katara only has six: she’s missing Fish, and she supposes that this must be the person Sokka will marry one day. The rest of their soulmates, Arrow, Fan, Mountains, Swords, and each other, match up perfectly.
They imagine that Fan must be a noble Earth Kingdom lady, since that’s the only place they can think of where fans are used. They tell each other stories about how she’s gentle and kind and wonder how they meet her. Will they end up in the Earth Kingdom, or will she come here?
Sokka likes to go on about how Swords is a great warrior who could take down a whole Fire Nation warship by himself. Katara thinks that’s crazy, and also reminds him that Swords could just as well be a girl as a boy. Sokka just shakes his head, every time. He doesn’t know why, but he’s dead certain that Swords is a boy.
They can’t figure out who Arrow might be. They don’t know what the arrow could mean and neither of them have the sort of feeling Sokka has about Swords to tell them whether Arrow is a girl or a boy. An arrow can’t tell them nationality either, since the Air Nomads are all a hundred years dead. Occasionally, they make the suggestion that Arrow is a descendant of an airbender who escaped the massacre, but only at night when no one is awake to listen to such wild things.
Mountains, they decide, is a master earthbender. Both Katara and Sokka are sure she’s a girl, and they guess that she must be as patient and steady as the earth she bends. They imagine that she must be her parents’ pride and joy, with all the talent she has for her element. Katara is glad that there will be another bender in their soul group, because being the only waterbender in the Water Tribe gets lonely and she can’t imagine sharing a soul with five people who don’t understand what it’s like to call the water and feel it do as she wants it to.
In the Fire Nation, a lot of people only have one soul mark, their own. Zuko’s parents only have one each, a little cream colored scroll for his mother and an image of the imperial crown for his father. Uncle has two, a pale green teapot for himself and an equally pale violet feather for his wife Namiyo. Lu Ten only has one, a curling flame of pretty red-purple, a color flame doesn’t naturally burn.
Zuko has six. Uncle and Lu Ten and his mother are proud and excited that he has so many people who will care for him all his life. His father only scoffs, but he doesn’t say anything against it.
His father does say something about the fact that Zuko’s mark is a pair of red swords, especially when Azula is born with a blue-white lightning soul mark for herself. Azula also has a pair of knives and a tent on her wrist, both black.
Azula bends fire when she’s four, and their father becomes more unhappy with Zuko’s persistent lack of bending even as he sends Azula off to school. Azula meets her soulmates when she’s five, excitedly dragging them to the palace to show off their matching marks. One of them is Zuko’s age. Her name is Mai and she’s the dark burgundy knives. The other is Azula’s age, Ty Lee, the bright pink tent.
Zuko is proud of his little sister, and he quashes down the jealousy that his marks are all still black. Most people in the Fire Nation are adults or at least in their late teens before they meet their soulmates. Uncle Iroh didn’t meet Aunt Namiyo until they were both in their forties, Zuko reminds himself, so he still has time.
Aunt Namiyo gets sick and dies not long after, and Zuko and Azula and their parents and grandfather are all there to watch Uncle Iroh’s feather grey out. Uncle doesn’t make a sound or flinch, but everyone has heard stories about how it hurts to lose a soulmate.
Uncle and Lu Ten throw themselves into the war, and everything seems to go downhill from there. In the moments when Zuko isn’t avoiding his father or Azula, he wonders about his five soulmates.
He thinks Wave must live on a beach and love the water with all her heart. Arrow is not really a soulmark that’s safe to have in the Fire Nation, because it could be interpreted as having a connection to the Air Nomads, so Zuko hopes he can keep Arrow safe. He can’t figure out who Wolf could be. Perhaps a wise warrior? Mountains and Fan must live in the Earth Kingdom, which means he’ll likely travel one day, which is good because he doesn’t want his soulmates to have to live around his father because he can’t protect them like Azula protects Mai and Ty Lee.
It seems that to meet his soulmates and keep them safe, he’ll have to leave the Fire Nation, which pushes him to keep going even when he wants to lay down and accept his father’s insistence that he was lucky to be born.
Air Nomads often have multiple soulmates from different nations. Lots of the boys Aang knows have four or five or even six marks on their arms, though there are people with fewer. Monk Gyatso, he knows, only has two, and one of them was greyed out before Aang was ever born.
Aang has six marks himself, lined up neatly on his right forearm. He has an arrow to represent him, which seems a little boring since every airbender gets their arrows someday. Maybe he'll be the best airbender in the world and that's why his mark is an arrow!
Whenever he suggests it, Monk Gyatso swats him very lightly on the back of the head and gives him a lecture about humility. So instead of wondering about his own mark, he sets to trying to figure out the rest of the marks.
The wave is probably a waterbender, and the howling wolf head might also be Water Tribe, since wolves are a popular symbol, at least among the Southern Tribe. The fan could be a noble lady from the Earth Kingdom or the Fire Nation or maybe even someone from Kyoshi Island. He bets the mountain range is a really good earthbender, like Oma and Shu.
He’s a little skeptical of someone with crossed swords for a mark, since airbenders don’t really do violence, but he decides that if they’re his soulmate, then they can’t be a bad person.
Aang gets his mastery tattoos when he’s twelve. He’s the youngest airbending master recorded in all of their long histories. That must be why his soulmark is an arrow. He still hasn’t met any of his soulmates, but that’s alright. He’s never even been to the Water Tribes, and the Earth Kingdom is huge. He’s sure he’ll find them eventually.
And then they tell him he’s the Avatar and all the other boys leave him out of things. He leaves a note for Monk Gyatso and flies away on Appa, toward the Southern Water Tribe. Maybe he’ll run into one of his soulmates and he won’t have to be alone anymore.
Suki is born with six soulmarks, five crisp black silhouettes for her soulmates and one rich forest green fan to represent her. People on Kyoshi Island don’t put a lot of stock in soulmarks, due to their long isolation. Either you find your soulmate or you don’t, and that’s that. Suki agrees, for the most part. Oh, she hopes that one or all of her soulmates will come and sweep her off her feet one day, but it’s not as though she’s going to fall to pieces if they don’t.
Suki’s father isn’t alive, but her mother is a Kyoshi Warrior, and Suki decides very early that she’s going to be as well. Her mother has two soulmarks, a net in grey for Suki’s father and a bundle of purple orchids for herself. Suki also has a baby sister who her mother took in when the other girl’s parents drowned in a storm, named An-Hui, who has three soulmates marked on her arm.
Suki throws herself into training to be a Kyoshi Warrior as soon as she’s old enough, and she gets good fast. An-Hui does not want to be a Warrior, but Suki teaches her the basic moves.
Suki is eleven and An-Hui is four when a strange ship docks in Kyoshi’s harbor during the night. The Unagi leaves it be, so it can’t be Fire Nation, and she doesn’t think the Fire Nation would put their soldiers on a wooden ship anyway. The sails are white, which doesn’t say anything about where the ship came from.
Several men and women come ashore. They all have dark hair and light skin and brown or grey eyes. They would be very inconspicuous if they were in the Earth Kingdom, or even the Fire Nation, but on Kyoshi, where most everyone has brown or red hair and blue or green eyes, they stick out like a sore thumb. They wander the villages for a few days, then disappear at high tide a week later.
Following their departure, plague sweeps through the village. Suki and An-Hui and their mother all get sick. Suki recovers, but An-Hui and their mother do not. Many of the older Kyoshi Warriors are lost as well.
The plague seems to be the start of a streak of bad luck, because after that, the Warriors who are left keep dying. A few are killed by pirates, two are caught in a freak accident involving a tame circus seal-goose, and one dies of old age. Suki ends up the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors when she’s only fourteen.
And then, to top it all off, the Avatar and his party end up on Kyoshi, and she has to start thinking about her soulmarks again.
In the Earth Kingdom, soulmarks are important. Not as important as they are in the Water Tribes, but still important. Toph has never seen her soulmarks, but she knows she has them, because her mother tells her about them all the time. Apparently, she has five, which her parents are ecstatic about because there will be four other people to take care of her all her life.
Toph’s soulmark, the only one yet in color, is a mountain range. Her parents think it means she’ll live her life with the quiet dignity of a mountain. Toph thinks it means she’ll be able to move mountains.
Her other soulmarks, as described to her by her mother, are an arrow, a wolf, a wave, and a pair of swords. They’re all black, and her mother tells her that she’ll know when they meet even if she can’t see the colors change because the marks will burn. Her parents keep bringing in people who they think fit the marks to introduce themselves to her, but the marks never burn.
The marks never burn when Toph sneaks out to Earth Rumbles either. Not until one night when a kid jumps into the ring to challenge her and exclaims, “Hi, I’m Aang!”