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Sokka was born with eyes of darkest brown. This was of no surprise to anyone, since his parents and everyone else in their small Southern village had brown eyes. He fit in, for the first year and a half of his life, until the day Katara was born. Blue-eyed. Not just any blue eyes, but a blue so bold and fierce it could only be compared to the ocean. She was a waterbender, the first to live in the Southern Water Tribe since the last Fire Nation raid. And people talked. They whispered. Look at their family, the chief and his blue eyed daughter.
No one ever paid much attention to Sokka, especially after his sister was born. He was just another kid, and she was an actual waterbender. No one knew quite what to do with her, but that didn’t stop the adults of the village from passing baby Katara around, all wanting their own look at her bright blue eyes. “She’s a miracle,” some whispered. “She’s been cursed by the spirits,” speculated others. Sokka’s gran-gran took one look at her granddaughter and said, “She’s powerful, that’s what she is. Whether that power amounts to great good or great evil is up to her.”
When Zuko opened his eyes for the first time, his father nearly drowned him.
Ozai’s eyes nearly glowed in their purity, a shining gold that showed the true potential of his firebending. Ursa’s eyes were a brown so dark it was nearly black. A brown that swirled with the secrets she kept.
Zuko’s eyes were… tainted. Not the pure gold of Ozai’s. Not even a burnt orange like the guards who stood outside the physician’s chambers when he was born. They were dark, right on the edge of brown. Only when he was held to a certain light did the gold shine through. “He’s weak!” Ozai had roared. “How could this happen? No child of mine shall be allowed to live with eyes like that.”
“Please, my lord,” Ursa had begged. “Give him a chance. The eyes of children sometimes take time to clear.”
It was a lie, and they both knew it. But Ozai was merciful that day, because he slammed the door and left the room without a word. Little Zuko closed his eyes as he rested in his mother’s arms, and she hummed to herself. While he slept, Zuko’s weakness was hidden. She could use that.
The air nomads had known Aang was the Avatar when the baby had shown up at their doorstep, abandoned. His eyes, while a bright, silvery grey, seemed to change color in flashes of amber, sapphire, emerald. The eyes of an Avatar. They brought him inside immediately and began to prepare themselves for his training.
Toph could not see with her eyes, nor could her eyes be seen. So it was taken as a general assumption that the poor girl couldn’t be a bender.
Even when she tried to tell people, they didn’t listen. Her parents wouldn’t hire her a bending instructor, for she couldn’t bend! Her eyes were not the green of an earthbender, they were milky-white and blind.
So Toph went on her own, and learned from the badgermoles. The badgermoles who had no eyes, like her. She became better than anyone in the entire Earth Kingdom, and yet no one knew that she was even a bender. Toph decided to keep it that way.
Azula wasn’t like Zuko. Her eyes were pure gold. Sometimes he thought he would be blinded by how bright they were.
It seemed like a mockery of him, that Azula’s best friends were non-benders. Away from the sunlight, indoors or at night, their eyes nearly matched Zuko’s own. Of course Azula pointed this out. And of course they all laughed, while Zuko turned and hid his face in his mother’s robes. He was the eldest child, but no one ever treated him that way.
When he was thirteen, Zuko’s father burnt a handprint onto his face and sneered at the color of his eyes. “It’s no surprise to me that you lack honor. I should’ve known from the moment you were born that you were too weak to be my son.”
The fire hurt more than the words, but Zuko struggled to say which one scarred him worse.
That water tribe peasant had dark brown eyes that glittered with determination when Zuko faced him down for the first time. Pathetic, Zuko sneered to himself. He doesn’t stand a chance.
Sokka’s eyes might’ve been brown, but they were also precise. Experienced. Well-trained, especially when it came to aiming a boomerang.
When they travelled, whispers always followed Katara and Aang: eyes so pure and bright, they could only belong to the greatest of benders. If they went into towns, Aang would shift his eyes from grey to blue or green to avoid suspension, but there was no hiding the brightness of the colors, the strength of his bending. Or Katara’s, for that matter.
Sokka was just the boring brown-eyed non-bender. No one noticed him, which was why he was able to get the jump on Prince Zuko with his boomerang. No one noticed him, so he could blend in where the others didn’t. (he lacked discretion in other ways, but that was beside the point.) He was the most boring, the most forgettable of the Avatar’s companions.
It doesn’t get to him, he tells himself. He’s happy being normal. Being average.
In the Northern Water Tribe, there is a girl with eyes like the moon. Her name is Yue, and Sokka thinks he loves her. Until the blessing in her irises becomes a curse, and she ascends to the heavens to protect her people.
What is it with people and their special eyes? Aang’s shifting colors, Katara’s pure blue, Yue’s white dotted with darker spots. Sokka looks at his own ordinary brown eyes in the mirror and sighs.
In the Earth Kingdom, Zuko’s eyes become a blessing. They’re just brown enough that he can pass for a non bender, so long as the sunlight doesn’t catch in his eyes. Uncle Iroh, with pure gold eyes much like Ozai and Azula, has to wear glasses with a subtle tint to them so that no one can see that he’s a fire bender.
In the dark, Zuko’s eyes are close enough to ordinary that Jet kisses him. In the dark, Zuko lets himself forget his honor. It all comes crashing down on him when his Uncle’s glasses slip and Jet sees that golden gleam.
Sokka notices that the citizens of the Outer Ring are almost entirely non-benders, while the Dai Lee and the Inner Ring are mostly made up of earthbenders with green eyes. He doesn’t point this out to the others, because he isn’t sure what they’ll say, and knows that they probably didn’t even notice. None of them ever do. Maybe it’s strange that he does.
Zuko stood up to his father for the first time. He stared into brown eyes just like his mother’s on the day of the Black Sun, and thought that he could do this without a fight.
If his mother hadn’t been on his mind, maybe Zuko wouldn’t have turned around. But he did, just in time to see the golden color flood back into his father’s eyes. He tasted the lightning in the air before he felt it course through his veins.
“Hello, Zuko here!” said the boy with the gold-brown eyes. They all scowled.
A few weeks later, Sokka and Zuko were on their way to the Boiling Rock.
“So, a non bender, huh?” Zuko said, attempting to fill the silence on their awkward balloon ride.
“Yeah well, I make myself useful in other ways,” Sokka says defensively. “I helped invent this.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that!” Zuko says, and Sokka thinks he’s telling the truth. “It’s just… I mean, it’s not a comparison, obviously, because I am a bender, but I’m. Closer to not being one.”
Sokka stops looking over the edge of the balloon to meet Zuko’s eyes. They might be darker than Azula’s, but the glow of firebending is still there. Sokka would know it anywhere.
“Look man, there’s no ‘closer’. You, and the rest of them, have special flashy eyes. And I have this. It’s fine. I’m used to it. No need to make me feel better.”
“I wasn’t trying to,” Zuko says. He’s lying, which is strange. Maybe Zuko isn’t that bad, after all.
When Katara bloodbends, her eyes go black. Not like the warm, black-ish brown of Zuko’s mother’s eyes, or Sokka’s eyes, but more like the terrifying black of the deepest pits of the ocean. Zuko can barely look.
The day of Sozin’s comet, Zuko’s eyes blaze gold. Pure, unfiltered gold. It hurts to look at him. “I can face my sister,” he says. “I’m finally strong enough.” Sokka is secretly terrified of him and secretly misses Zuko’s old eyes, but none of that matters and soon they’re saying their goodbyes.
If Zuko’s eyes were terrifying, Ozai’s are a hundred times worse. Even though Sokka doesn’t see him up close, it’s like his eyes are made of fire.
That is, until Aang takes his bending away. Then, the fire goes out. The brief glimpse of Ozai Sokka gets later is of eyes a faded grey, like the color has been sucked out of them.
When they finally reunite at the Fire Nation palace, Sokka notices that some of the light from Sozin’s Comet has stayed in Zuko’s eyes. Even though he’s practically dead from taking lightning to the heart. No one else comments on it, though, so Sokka stays quiet. Maybe it’s weird that he pays so much attention to Zuko’s eyes, so what? His eyes are nice. Warm. Sokka shakes off that train of thought and tries to find literally anything better to think about.
Sokka lets Katara and his dad go home without him. He stays in the palace with Zuko, Toph, and the Kyoshi warriors, whose ranks now include Mai and Ty Lee. He’ll go home eventually, but for now, the thought of it is daunting. The Fire Nation has much more going on, anyway. Sokka’s always liked to be around as much action as possible.
So he sits in on Zuko’s meetings. Swipes Zuko’s notes when he isn’t looking, and makes suggestions in the margins. Hides in the woodwork while Zuko receives civilian complaints, so he can better assist Zuko with how those complaints can be resolved. He also finds plenty of time to check out the Fire Nation navy, and air force, and various other centers of innovation, to add his two cents.
The scientific community of Caldera City is much more open to Sokka’s presence than the political community, so he ends up spending more and more time outside of the palace. Fire Nation mechanics are fascinating to Sokka, much more technologically advanced than anywhere else he’s been, save maybe the [] air temple. That doesn’t mean he can’t help them improve, though. Everything seems to run on coal, which is inefficient and an aesthetic nightmare. “Maybe if your navy ships didn’t rain ash on people, this peace would’ve been easier to negotiate,” Sokka jokes to Zuko.
Zuko takes the joke to heart, which he does a lot, especially when Sokka jokes about the Fire Nation during the war. And Sokka knows it’s because he’s trying to be good, but seriously. Zuko could stand to loosen up a bit. Which is the excuse Sokka gives when he sticks around, even after all his other friends are gone, even after Suki is gone. He’s here to keep Zuko from passing out from stress and being uptight.
Of course, Sokka hasn’t been one hundred percent effective, because Zuko has passed out from stress. Multiple times. It’s only been a few months since the coronation, but Sokka’s two hands aren’t nearly enough to count the amount of times he’s found Zuko asleep in the libraries, or at his desk, or, on one memorable occasion, at the dinner table.
Zuko is grateful for Sokka sticking around, even though he can tell that it’s not entirely selfless. He notices the way Sokka dodges questions about his family, about when he’s going home. He knows that the excuses he gives are flimsy at best. But if Sokka is being a little bit selfish, then that gives Zuko an excuse to do the same. He doesn’t want Sokka to leave. Doesn’t want to be alone in this massive palace with all the decrepit old nobles.
So Sokka stays, and Zuko lets him, and both of them never really talk about serious things, because after all they are teenagers, even if they did end a war. Instead, Zuko and Sokka spend their free time sparring with swords, exploring the city, going to plays. Whatever activities they can find that are most likely to give Zuko’s guards a heart attack.
They’re hanging out by the turtleduck pond one hot summer day, Sokka sprawled on the grass with his feet in the water and Zuko sitting cross legged beside him. Zuko is reading the manuscript of one of his favorite plays out loud, while Sokka complains about it.
“And then, she says, ‘Your eyes are like the flaming sun, bright enough to blind me’,” Zuko reads. Sokka rolls his eyes. “All of these romances are so heavy on the golden eye imagery. You never see anyone talking about brown eyes like that.”
“Oh, well, most of the plays are written for the nobility, but I’m sure I could find-” Zuko starts, but Sokka waves him off. ‘“It was just a joke, buddy. Art is all about the imagery, the bright colors and shit. Eyes like mine are just common. Not as many easy metaphors.”
Sokka laughs, and Zuko joins him, but the words stick in Zuko’s brain. That night, he racks his brain for plays he could bring to Sokka about non-benders, but comes to the realization that he can’t think of any, at least not in the romantic genre. So Zuko lights a candle and starts a list. He titles it, Brown eyes in Fire Nation romance plays. And then he heads for the library.
Katara comes to visit, on her way to the Northern Water Tribe. She tells them that she’s going to lead a group of Northern waterbenders to help the South rebuild. Throughout dinner, Zuko can tell that she’s trying to entice Sokka into coming home. He either doesn’t pick up on or deliberately ignores her hints, though, and slips out of dinner early.
Zuko follows him as soon as is socially acceptable. He has a feeling that the conversation they’ve been putting off will have to happen now. Sokka is sitting on a bench in the gardens, ripping petals off a flower. Zuko sits down beside him. “Sokka,” he says, “I think it’s time for you to go home.”
“I can’t,” is Sokka’s response. “They don’t need me anymore. Katara and her waterbenders will be there, what can I do to help with all that?”
“I thought you were the ‘plan guy’.”
“Yeah, but they clearly already have a plan figured out, without my help. I’m more useful here with you than I am at home.”
“Do you like it here, though? Aside from work?” Zuko asks softly. He’s afraid he knows the answer already.
Sokka doesn’t answer for a minute, just looks away. “I do like it here,” he says. “Really! I like helping you. I don’t love the weather, or the nobles, or the spicy food, but I like it here. I want to stay.”
Zuko places a reassuring hand on Sokka’s leg. It’s something out of his comfort zone, but he knows that Sokka is a tactile person. “I can take care of myself, you know. Something that you refuse to do. Go home, Sokka. You’ll always have a place here, but… you miss it, I can tell. The winter, and your family, and your sea prunes.”
“Promise me you’ll write,” Sokka says, his voice trembling. “I’ll go insane with a bunch of waterbenders for company.”
Zuko laughs. “And a firebender is better?”
“Not any firebender. But you? Yeah. Definitely.”
Zuko wraps an arm around Sokka’s shoulders, squeezing. “I’ll write. Every day, if you want me to. As long as you promise to write back.”
When Sokka arrives home, there’s already a letter from Zuko waiting for him. He takes it and tucks it away into his bag, saving it for the night. There’s a party, meant to celebrate the arrival of the waterbenders, but Hakoda and Katara make it feel like they’re also celebrating him. He appreciates it, even if he knows it’s not true.
They have a new home now, a bigger one since his dad is back and apparently Aang stays over often. Sokka makes fake gagging noises at that, which gets Katara to roll her eyes.
When Sokka finally gets a chance to read Zuko’s letter, the moon is high in the sky. He lights a small lantern in his new room (he never had his own room before; igloos don’t really have the space for that.) and breaks the seal. The letter is long, filled with a seemingly unfiltered stream of Zuko’s thoughts. Write to me as soon as you can, Zuko writes at the end of the letter. And P.S, I went to a play and one of the lines made me think of you. ‘Your eyes are like the bark of a tree, protecting the life underneath’. How’s that for an easy metaphor?
Sokka laughs then. Of course Zuko would remember some conversation they had months ago. It’s late, and he’s tired, but Sokka picks up a sheet of paper and begins to write a letter back anyway. Two can play at this game. It was a nice quote, Sokka writes, But tree bark? Really?
Part of Zuko’s routine is now to check in at the aviary every morning, just in case a letter has arrived. More often than not, there is one: sometimes from his Uncle, other times from whatever scribe Toph hired, occasionally from the girls on Kyoshi Island or from Aang. The ones he looks forward to most are the ones from the South Pole, though. Sokka’s letters take the most time to arrive, but they’re always the longest and most enthusiastic. Zuko sometimes thinks he can hear Sokka’s voice in his head when he reads his words.
Plus, there’s the competition they’ve started in the postscripts of every letter. Zuko spends a lot of his free time adding to the ‘Brown eyes in Fire Nation romance plays’ list, which gets more difficult as Sokka’s criticisms stack up. “You can’t compare someone’s eyes to food!” he writes in one letter. “Saying someone’s brown eyes are golden in the sunlight is just a cop-out,” he writes in another.
At some point, Zuko stops looking in plays and novels, and starts coming up with his own poetic words.
At some point, Zuko stops ambiguously writing about someone’s eyes and starts writing about Sokka’s eyes.
Sokka said he’d stay in the South for a few months, but that turns into a year, two years. The letters get longer and longer, but Zuko still misses him. Katara visits on trips to the North Pole, but Sokka never comes with her. “He’s always so busy,” she says apologetically. “Throwing himself into work, as usual.”
A letter arrives the day Katara leaves. P.S, that last one was pretty good. Although, it’s not exclusive. Any kind of eyes could feel like home to someone.
Zuko thinks, but doesn’t write, that that’s not true. Even though it’s been years, there’s still only one set of eyes that feels like home to him. Those eyes are brown like tree bark, brown like food, turn golden in the sun. Those eyes are Sokka’s.