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Yue was a little older than two months when she met the previous Avatar. He came to visit her in the Foggy Swamp where she was born, cradled in her Mama’s arms. In years to come, she wouldn’t remember this; the first few years of her life would be left to stories and anecdotes only – but at the time, she recognised him in a way that babies recognised their Mamas and Pops. She recognised him because she was him. He was her. At least, once, they had been each other.
He was young with short hair and blue arrows painted on his skin. His face was round and his eyes large. He knew her and she knew him.
And though she didn’t understand the words, being two months old, she settled immediately when he said, “I’ll spend the rest of my life protecting you, Yue, I swear.” She was still too young to understand the concept, but she believed him.
*
Sokka sat by the campfire for hours that first day in the Foggy Swamp. The war wasn’t entirely over and they still had an entire nation to overthrow, but this took precedent. The baby took precedent.
He knew it was some kind of sign; that all of it meant something, that the spirits were trying to convey a message he didn’t want to hear. The baby was passed around the group and the tribe; in the Foggy Swamp Tribe, they raised children together, a mother and a father and a whole host of uncles and aunts that all took responsibility for the young in their care.
Sokka watched Aang step out of the hut, that tiny little life in his arms, and proceeded to see her get passed around the group. Katara next, who cooed over her, and Toph, who said she felt squishy. Yue grabbed Suki’s finger, making her giggle, and even Zuko held the baby, his face cracking into a soft smile for her.
Sokka did not touch her, though. Instead, he disappeared between two huts and took the long way around the village, until he ended up at a campfire, a pet catgator napping nearby. The fire was almost out, so Sokka stoked it until it was hot again, and then he simply avoided.
Avoided the baby and his friends, avoided the situation and all the Avatar talk.
It was obvious why, though Sokka wasn’t ready to look head on at the problem.
At dinner, he sat quietly as the baby’s mother, Ji, fed her some kind of paste, and everyone ate the too-chewy meat of whatever animal they’d managed to catch. There was a lot of laughter that evening, though the recent events made it hard-won.
Zuko looked like he was thinking too hard until the baby got passed back around to him again, and then he looked worried he might break her. She was so tiny, it was ridiculous. How could a thing so small possibly survive in this world? It was just unreasonable.
“Sokka,” Suki said, “are you doing alright? You’ve been quiet all day.”
Sokka hummed and took another bite of dinner. He grimaced, chewing hard to get it down. “I’m fine,” he said. “Just planning, is all.”
“Planning?” She winced as she tore a strip of meat off her stick.
“Well, the world still believes Aang’s the Avatar, and now we have to protect—uh, the baby—to make sure no one knows it’s her until she’s older, you know? Plus, we need to get Zuko on that Fire Nation throne.” He shrugged. “Lots of planning. Lots to think about.”
Suki nodded, though she seemed a little hesitant. “Well, don’t strain yourself,” she said. “We’re all here to help—oh, look, hello baby.” Suki placed her meal in a leaf in her lap and took the baby as she was passed around. Sokka watched, conflicting emotions battling in his chest.
Suki grinned at the little girl and looked so relaxed holding her. It was sweet to see—but the baby herself…
Sokka swallowed, casting his gaze downwards.
“You want to hold her?”
“Hm?”
“Yue,” she said. “You wanna hold her? You’ve barely even had a chance to meet her.”
“Uh…” Sokka considered the baby, Suki, the way she waited expectantly, then he stood abruptly, picking up the stick Huu had given him to help with his limp. “I’ve gotta—I’ll be right back.”
He ducked away from the fire light and into the dark shadows of the village. He hesitated in the path and then turned towards the large banyan-grove that grew from the centre of the swamp. He marched towards it, best he could with a semi-healed broken leg, only a little way from the village, and climbed its thick roots, biting down his struggles. Evening was turning into night, but Sokka kept his gaze firmly on the root in front of him as he climbed upwards, with no bending to help him make the journey.
At the place where the trunk began, Appa was still waiting, snoring away and nestled into a natural ridge. Sokka sighed and climbed up his side, into the saddle where some of their belongings were still tied down.
He could sleep up here tonight, with Appa. Best if someone kept the bison company, after all.
He wasn’t tired yet, but Sokka laid down anyway. He stared upwards and immediately regretted it. The moon wasn’t very high on its journey across the sky yet, not even full by a long shot. Sokka slammed his eyes shut. He’d never had trouble like this before, not with the moon, at least.
Tui and La, he thought, pull yourself together. It’s just a baby.
But it wasn’t just a baby, was it?
Sokka flung himself upright, and shifted to Appa’s head, where the fur was downy and soft. He closed his eyes, taking a few deep breaths, before opening them again.
The moon was still above him, watching.
“What do you want from me?” Sokka asked suddenly.
The swamp sounds echoed in the distance; birds and water and apes.
“This isn’t—this isn’t a coincidence, is it?” The moon did not reply. “You did this—why? Don’t you know that it’s—” he made a strangled noise and sighed, flopping back against Appa’s fur. “It’s hard for me,” he admitted. “It’s hard that you’re not here. That I failed to protect you. That you… you just live up there, watching, and I don’t know what you see.”
He sniffed and threaded Appa’s fur through his fingers, stroking with the natural direction again and again.
“Did you appear to Ji in a dream or something? That has to be it, right? You appeared to her and she named her baby after you. The new Avatar after you. I suppose you deserve it; you saved the moon, and all.” Sokka twisted his mouth. “Is it nice up there, at least? Do you get any perks for being the new moon spirit? Are the other spirits nice to you?”
Did he expect the moon to respond? It was just a distant white crescent in the sky, watching and listening, never speaking. He wished, for a heartbeat, that he was the Avatar. He could skip over to the Spirit World and find the moon spirits; could sit down for a meal with the girl he lost to the sky.
“Suki is—great, you know. I’ll probably marry her, if she lets me. She’s got this little snort she does when she’s trying not to laugh, and she’s just about the best fighter I’ve ever seen in my life. She’s really calm, you know? Like the sea on a windless day. She makes me feel like that inside.” Sokka sighed, closing his eyes, blacking out the moon. “I don’t know what to do, Yue. You’re—dead. I lost you, and I failed you, and now you’re—you’re showing up in a swamp! There’s never been a swamp Avatar!” He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes until spots danced behind his eyelids. “The next Avatar was supposed to be from the Southern Water Tribe—if there was an Avatar at all! We all thought that was done.” He sighed. “I guess Aang didn’t die ‘til he hit the floor…”
Sokka trailed off until he felt warm—no, warmth. Like there was a small flame in front of him, a presence with no sound, just heat. Yue, his mind supplied. She’d been here last time he’d come to the swamp, too. She’d told him that he failed her, that he should’ve protected her, and she was right. If he’d done better—if they’d all done better that day in the North—she would still be here.
He knew that when he opened his eyes, she’d be there; spiritual and floating, all pale and ghostly. Sokka almost didn’t want to open his eyes just so he’d avoid the pain of seeing her again, but he had to. He had to.
He blinked his eyes open.
He was alone.
That hurt more than seeing her could have.
Slowly, Sokka pushed himself upright. The moon was still a silent crescent above him. He sighed.
“Yue, what do I do?”
“Sokka?”
Sokka’s head cut to the side, where Aang was climbing over the top of the roots, one hand protectively holding a bundle to his chest. The baby. Yue.
“What are you doing up here?” Sokka asked.
“I was gonna ask you the same thing,” Aang replied. He carefully made his way over to Appa’s head and peered up at him. “You left the fire so abruptly, you didn’t even finish dinner.”
“Not hungry,” Sokka replied.
Aang pulled a face. “You? Not hungry? What’s going on, Sokka?”
Sokka blew out a harsh breath. “What do you think’s going on, Aang? The new Avatar is named after my ex-girlfriend who turned into the moon!”
Aang blinked and frowned, looking down at the baby in his arms. “Yeah,” he said after a beat. “I could see how that could be disconcerting.”
“Disconcerting? Disconcerting?! It’s downright painful, Aang! That’s—that’s her.”
“No,” Aang said, “it’s not.”
“Of course it is!”
“No,” he said again, patient, soft. “She’s not Yue—your Yue. She’s me.”
Sokka twisted his face and cut his gaze across to the rising moon. “Yeah, yeah, past life and whatever,” he said.
“Really,” Aang replied. “She’s—yes, she’s Yue, but only in name, only in, in honour. Ji told me about how she learnt waterbending; she had been so poor at it as a kid, couldn’t pick it up at all. Plantbending, neither, like Huu—but I guess that’s kind of specialist.” He pulled a face, shrugging. “But when she was nine years old, she had this dream about the moon, so on the next full moon, she came up here, and started learning to bend. Just like the first waterbenders! Following the moon’s guide. When she found out she was having a baby, she was going to name her after the moon spirit, Tui, but then she had this dream that Tui wasn’t alone up there anymore, that there was a second moon spirit who gave her life to save the first.”
“Yeah,” Sokka sighed, “I figured it’d be like that.”
“This isn’t—this isn’t Princess Yue,” Aang said. “She’s just named in honour of her. In honour of what she did.”
Sokka huffed. “Does Ji know that Yue was my responsibility? That I was supposed to protect her?”
“No, but maybe you should tell her that,” Aang replied.
“What?”
“Yeah! Maybe you should tell her that you loved Princess Yue, and Princess Yue loved you.”
“Aang—”
“We’re all connected,” Aang said. “We’re all just branches of the same tree, remember?”
Sokka shut his eyes. “Yeah. I remember.”
Aang took a moment and then said, “Do you want to meet her?”
“Hm?”
“Yue of the Foggy Swamp Tribe. I hear she’s the new Avatar.”
Sokka peered down at Aang, and then inclined his head, just a little. Aang leapt up with a smile, floating gently down to land beside him. He settled into the fur on Appa’s head, still somehow asleep, and lowered the bundle in his arms so they could see her face.
Sokka had to admit, she looked nothing like the princess. Her hair and eyes were dark like mud.
“How do you know?” Sokka asked.
“Know what?”
“That’s she’s not—her.”
Aang shrugged softly. “I don’t.”
“What?”
“I don’t know for sure – but Yue is up there, Sokka. She’s watching over us, protecting us. She guides our way at night, just like the Avatar guides our way through life. Maybe part of her is in this girl, or maybe she’s all Avatar, all Roku and Kyoshi and Kuruk. I’m not sure. But if you look at her as a baby and hold it against her that she’s not the Yue you want and miss, then she’ll be carrying that guilt her whole life.” Sokka frowned, and Aang continued, “One day, I’ll teach her airbending, Sokka. When she’s old enough, she’ll come spend a year learning the ways of the Air Nomads, just like she’ll do when she goes to the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom—maybe she’ll learn from Zuko and Toph, or maybe she’ll have other teachers. I expect Katara will teach her traditional waterbending eventually, to go alongside her swamp teachings. Maybe even bloodbending, even if it’s a little…” he pulled a face, then shrugged. “She’ll know you, Sokka. She’ll want to know you, and you’ll want to know her—but if you let her namesake stand in your way, neither of you will get that chance.”
Sokka exhaled softly. “I loved her, Aang.”
“I know, Sokka. But we all have to move on, eventually.”
“Yeah. We do.” Sokka hesitated and then held his hands out, and Aang smiled widely, lifting baby Yue into his arms. She was… small. Didn’t weigh much, but weighed more than he expected a baby to.
She blinked at him, meeting his eyes through the dim light, and giggled, her toothless mouth pulling up into a smile. Sokka couldn’t help but laugh.
“Hi, Yue,” he whispered, taking that hand that had broken free of her blanket. Her little fingers curled around his big ones. He couldn't help himself: “Hi, Princess. I’m Sokka.” It wasn’t entirely right, but it wasn’t wrong either, and he knew that with time, she would become her own person, entirely separate from the girl he’d once loved. And she, likely, wouldn’t give her life up to become the moon. He smiled down at her, and they spent some time talking softly, he and Aang, as Yue occasionally giggled into the conversation with her own thoughts, before they eventually made their way back down to the village.
When they did, no one seemed worried about Yue’s time away from the group, but Sokka did respond to Suki’s questioning glance with a reassuring smile. He’d told her half the story in the Serpent’s Pass, but he’d never told her the rest. Maybe it was time to.
But first, he moved over to Ji, where she sat laughing with her friends, their meal long finished. He took a seat beside her and she looked over. Ji was short, with braided dark hair and eyes like her daughter’s.
“There’s my girl,” she said. “Wondered where she’d gone off to.”
Sokka smiled as Aang seated himself on his other side. “I’m Sokka,” he introduced.
“Ji.”
“Aang told me you named Yue after the new moon spirit.”
“That I did. She came to me in a dream, y’know.”
Sokka smiled. “Well, I was wondering if you’d like to know about her?”
Ji hummed. “Aang told me you all knew her once.”
“Yeah,” Sokka said. “I knew her well.” He looked down at the baby in his arms, watching him with wide, dark eyes, and then up at her mother. Sokka turned his gaze toward Suki, too, to see her listening, and he smiled softly, just for her. “It was almost a year ago, now, when we went to the Northern Water Tribe. We’d just been let through the gates when I saw her, and let me tell you: I fell in love at first sight…”
*
Yue was a little older than two months when she met Sokka. She wouldn’t remember it in years to come, but that wouldn’t matter, she had stories and tales of the people that visited her in the wake of the Fire Lord’s death – the ones who’d come back over the years and raise her to be strong and gentle and kind. The ones who taught her all the things an Avatar should know; the four elements, the duty to the world above the self, that it was still okay to do things for yourself anyway.
And though she wouldn’t remember the first time she met Sokka, nor the second or third – she would know him, and know him well. He would teach her to read, where her tribe could not, would teach her to write and swordfight, to build and plan and think outside of every box.
And he’d tell her the story of the woman who came before her, just like her Mama did, just like her Pops – but it would be different, coming from him. He never looked up at the moon with spiritual reverence – no, he looked up with sadness, with love.
And when he’d finish the story – he’d do this every time, because she asked to hear it at every opportunity – he’d tug her into his side and say, “That means the moon’s always watching out for you, Princess; she’ll always light your way through the dark.”
And because it was coming from Sokka, Yue knew it was true.