Chapter Text
Sokka might die. But he’d thought that in plenty of situations and hadn’t died yet. So he was probably fine.
“Let’s go on a life-changing field trip with Zuko!” Zuko snarled. He paused to shoot a fire blast at a whispy, shadowy tentacle that shot towards Aang. “Let’s a have a boys night! We don’t need the girls to raid an ancient tomb!”
“More of a shrine than a tomb!” Aang’s protest filtered down through the trees. The three of them raced through a forest, Zuko and Sokka dodging sticks and roots and bushes in the undergrowth and Aang flying above. Behind them came the clicking hiss of whatever spirit had occupied the shrine-tomb.
“Not the point!” Zuko shouted back.
“Okay, but can you imagine what Katara would have said? She wouldn’t have let us go in at all.” Sokka stopped talking to slash his boomerang at a tentacle that had grabbed his shoulder. It was a spirit, but its limbs could be cut with normal weapons, and faded away when they split from the body. “Nobody tell her what happened today.”
“That’s the whole reason—“ Zuko stopped short, skidding to a halt as the forest—and the ground—came to an abrupt end. A wide chasm stretched in front of them, with a cheery lake twinkling with sunlight distant below.
“Just jump, I’ll catch you guys!” Aang shouted as he flew over the chasm, circling back around. Sokka was already turning around, stowing his boomerang and drawing his meteor sword.
“He can’t lift us both, you go first,” Sokka said.
“Don’t be stupid. I’m a better fighter than you,” Zuko said. “You go.”
“What?!” Sokka turned from the pursuer to jam a finger in Zuko’s face. “If you’re so much better, than how come—“
And that’s all he got out before he felt an impact in his side, and dark mist darkened his sight. He heard a distant shout, Zuko’s voice calling “Sokka!” But the voice was growing smaller and fuzzier, and then it was gone.
*%*%*
Sokka gasped in a lungful of air, staring at the blue sky. His eyes were…open?
He felt cold dampness on his back, and stared up into a cloudless baby-blue sky. Grassy earth beneath him, sky above him, and around him…
He sat up. He was surrounded by houses, though they were built in an architectural style he’d never seen before. They were made out of some material he couldn’t identify—not wood or brick or earth-bent stone. The street in front of him was also a weird, black texture he’d never seen before. There wasn’t the cramped, suffocating mass of buildings like he’d seen in the lower ring of Ba Sing Se, but these houses didn’t have the vast properties of the upper ring, either. This was something in between.
“What in the spirit world?” Sokka muttered to himself. That’s obviously where he was, which was always extremely annoying. He’d have to find the spirit that sent him here to get back. But the neighborhood was tranquil and quiet, with no movement around him to be seen.
“Sokka, what are you doing?”
Sokka gasped and turned around at the familiar voice. “Katara!”
“Why are you sitting on the lawn?”
Katara stood in the doorway of the house, holding it open to call out to him. Sokka gaped at her. They both spoke at the same time: “What are you wearing?”
Katara looked down at herself. She wore a form-fitting shirt and tight trousers made of a blue material Sokka had also never seen before. “Forever 21? What are you wearing?”
“I don’t know, clothes?”
Katara rolled her eyes. “I meant, who are you wearing. What cosplay is that?”
“What?” Sokka asked, shaking his head. “Katara, where are we? What is this place?”
Katara sighed. “Sokka, I don’t have time for this. Dinner’s in five. Come wash your hands and set the table.” She pulled out of view, letting the door close behind her. Sokka shakily stood up and went to pull it open.
It didn’t open.
“What the…” Sokka leaned in, saw there was a button on the handle. He pressed it, opened the door. Huh, nifty. So the latch prevents the door from opening unless, and the button makes the latch go in…
“Sokka! Table!”
Sokka hurried inside towards Katara’s voice.
There was a table: that was about the only piece of technology he could recognize. Pots with fire under them, he got that too. But the room was filled with curious objects made of gleaming metal, and the cabinets that Katara was pulling open were decorated in a way he’d never seen. Smelled great though.
Katara pulled a stack of plates out of a cabinet and shut it. “Come on. Get the cutlery.”
“Why are you being so weird?” Sokka asked. He meant: what is this place? Why are you acting like everything’s normal? Why are you so familiar with this room?
Katara’s breath hitched. “I just…” She blinked rapidly. “I’m sorry. I’m just so stressed about the APs and my capstone project. And all this drama with Haru…”
“Haru?” Sokka repeated.
Katara’s bit her lip. In a broken voice, she whispered, “I think we’re going to break up.”
Sokka was confused as hell. He didn’t know where he was, what was going on, or what Katara was talking about. But his little sister was his little sister, even if her clothing was weird and her hair was down, and it was his job to take care of her.
He pulled her into a hug. “Whatever’s going on, you can handle it. Just like you handle me, and every other obstacle in your way,” he said. “If Haru’s being a dick, just ice him.”
Katara laughed shakily, hugging him back. She buried her face in his chest for a moment, and took a steadying breath. “Thanks,” she whispered.
She pulled back and gave him a shaky smile, wiping her eyes.
“Go put on some deodorant,” she said. “You reek.”
*%*%*
“So, Sokka…” Hakoda said. “What, uh, ‘cosplay’ is this?”
There were four people at dinner. Sokka, Weird-spirit-version-Katara, weird-spirit-version-Dad, and a woman Sokka had never seen before in his entire life.
He got now that this spirit world was some strange mirror version of the real world. Maybe the spirit from the tomb-shrine had made it up from Sokka’s mind. But if that was the case, who was this woman? Was having a new stepmother some sort of torture the spirit dreamed up for him? Like, it wasn’t bad, it was just weird as hell.
“Sokka,” Hakoda prodded.
His step-mother (APPARENTLY!), who Sokka had been staring at, gave him a curious look. “Everything alright kiddo?”
“I, um. Yeah.” Sokka blinked and pulled his gaze away from the stranger. “What?”
“I asked what cosplay this was,” Hakoda repeated. He gestured with his fork to Sokka’s clothes. He’d taken off his sword and boomerang, because they were uncomfortable to sit in, but they were still in easy reach. Otherwise, he was just wearing his normal clothes.
“I don’t…uh, penguin-seal leather?” Sokka answered.
Hakoda squinted, perplexed. He looked at Katara. “Is that the name of an anime?” He stage-whispered. Katara shrugged.
“Well, I think it looks very nice,” the Stepmother—her name was Uki, Sokka had gathered with his vast espionage skills—said.
“I agree,” Katara said. “This one’s really high quality. How much did it cost?”
Sokka looked at the holes in his pants, and the ugly seam that Katara had sewed shut months ago. “Not too much,” he hedged.
He had to get out of here. He had to find the spirit.
*%*%*
Bathrooms. Bathrooms were the coolest thing ever. Toilets. Katara had helpfully shouted that he’d forgotten to flush and he was disgusting, which pretty quickly taught him the purpose of the strange porcelain chairs. He was curious about this version of him that spirit-world-Katara was talking to. Someone who did ‘cosplays’ and forgot to flush the toilet. There was a Sokka who had been here, who wasn’t now. Sokka wondered if he’d come back.
Anyway. Back to bathrooms. He remembered when the gang had been flying through the earth kingdom and took every opportunity to stop at springs and lakes to bathe, because they had to devote the water Appa could carry to drinking. But here, water just sprayed out when he turned a faucet. He wished he could take it all apart and see how it worked. A pump system? Was it coming from groundwater? And deodorant! Katara had pointedly handed it to him when they went upstairs. The instructions on the tube had explained the rest. “Use: reduces body odor and underarm wetness.” That was a thing?!
“I could get used to this,” Sokka muttered. There was soap in the shower, which he used liberally, and it smelled familiar. It was the same penguin-seal fat soap they used at the north pole, and it brought back visceral memories of Yue.
Sokka rinsed and toweled himself off with one of the fluffy cloths hanging from a hook on the wall, and examined the deodorant again. Active ingredients: Aluminum zirconium tetrachlorohydrex. Sokka had no idea what that was.
But…he looked at the bottle again, and broke into a cold sweat.
He had no idea what these letters were, but he could read them. They weren’t the elegant logograms he’d memorized as a child. But he could read them.
He had to find the spirit.