Chapter Text
The night that Sokka’s life fell apart and, coincidentally, where this story began, he dreamt of memories and whispers
The air was fragrant with the smell of his mother’s freshly cooked seaweed stew. He tasted blubbered seal jerky between his teeth and Katara’s laughter echoed in his ears like wind chimes. The table was full, Hakoda and his mother sat together on one end with Katara and Sokka on the other. His family, together, safely in their home. Before the ash rained from the sky, before blood stained the pristine snow. Before the running, the hiding, the nights without food or the warmth of their polar bear fur coats. He warmed his hands on the green tea his father had brewed, the steam from the cup lightly brushing his face with heat.
There were whispers. Hushed and quiet, just behind his ear, for only Sokka to hear. Whispers that sounded like wind rustling through trees.
Avatar…. The first Whisper said, Bearer of the elements, I come forth, to luminate your path.
Sokka let the Whispers pass him by. The food was too warm, his mind too content to spare a passing thought.
A tormented Prince, engulfed in searing plight, his touch a blaze, a relentless blight. The second Whisper sang.
The Whispers quieted. Sokka took a sip of green tea when he saw a boy, standing just behind his mother. He wore strange orange robes that he’d never seen before, and he looked to be even younger than Katara. He had a cheeky grin that reached his ears and eyes that glinted with mischief. Most surprisingly was the blue arrow that travelled from his forehead and back around his neck. Just as Sokka tried to wrap his head around the fact that an Airbender had materialised in his home, everything started to melt away. His family’s faces broke apart into ash and disappeared in a gust of wind. Katara’s laughter faded, leaving a deafening silence. His home dissolved into black tar and Sokka was utterly defenceless and alone. All that remained was the boy in Airbender robes.
The boy’s smile widened, eyes crinkling, “Hi! I’m Aang!” Horrifyingly, blood started to leak from the boy's neck, an invisible slash across his neck materialising. Aang’s eyes opened and they were glowing a wispy blue.
Sokka gasped awake, grappling at the air, as if to grab onto consciousness. Katara sat next to him, already awake, her eyes red with sleeplessness. She looked nervous and jittery, Sokka couldn’t blame her; tonight, they took back their freedom.
The ship swayed side to side, bouncing on the current of the ocean. Smoke from the coal powered engine poisoned his lungs and stung his eyes. There were only five of them on the ship. Not a lot, but then again, there weren’t many waterbenders left these days. Konak was the eldest. He had stark white hair and more wrinkles than not. He hardly ever talked and spent most of his time sleeping. Bota was about two years older than Sokka, and when he wasn’t being forced into bending labour, he was being a pain in the ass. His mother and the other Waterbender slaves were still sleeping on steel floors, with no blankets or bedding, shackles bruising wrists and ankles. Above him, Sokka could hear the heavy footsteps of the Firenation Soldiers.
Home, sweet home.
“You were having a nightmare.” Katara said, hugging her knees up to her chest.
Sokka grasped onto the reminisce of his dream, then let it go. He didn’t have the brain space nor the energy to decipher the strange Whispers and the Airbender child.
“Are you ready for tonight?” Sokka asked.
Katara shook her head with a weak smile, “But we don’t really have a choice do we?”
No , Sokka thought, hearing the wheezing breaths of their mother, no, we don’t.
They’ve been dreaming of freedom for five years, ever since they were imprisoned on this damned Fire Nation ship. But it had only materialised into an actual plan a few weeks ago, when their mother first came down with the Sick. When they realised they were running out of time. Late at night, when the others had fallen asleep, they’d carve out their escape plan in hissing whispers.
“Maybe we could just jump over the edge and swim for it?”
“Sure, Katara, and become wolfshark food while we’re at it?!”
They had trouble agreeing on anything, as usual.
“Sokka, you can’t just freeze all the firebenders, it doesn’t work that way!!”
“I’ll make it work!”
Some plans were a bit far-fetched, while others were downright impossible.
“I fake my death, steal a guard's uniform, take his identity, learn all their secrets and take them down from the inside out.”
“Tui and La, my brother’s the stupidest person in the world.”
Eventually, they settled on a plan. They would have to take out Xian Zu, the captain of the ship who held the master key that would unlock all of the waterbenders’ chains. Without their chains, their movements would be more free and the four water benders could release all their power on the Fire Nation soldiers. And maybe, just maybe, they could take over the ship. Take back their freedom. They’d have to convince the other captive waterbenders to help, but it wouldn’t be hard. After years of mistreatment and imprisonment, they were all burning with a desire to get revenge.
Katara and Sokka started learning the patterns of guards when everyone was asleep or too tired to notice anything off. Six hours after sundown, every guard was asleep, without fail, everynight. Sokka knew this by pressing his head to the hatch where they locked them in; he could hear the loud snoring of the soldiers sleeping on watch.
Lazy ashmakers.
Then came the problem of how to get out of their cell below deck without alerting the guards. The Fire Nation soldiers locked the waterbenders in a room under the deck, with the only entrance and exit being a hatch in the ceiling that they locked from the outside every night. They had almost given up, both of them convinced it was impossible to get past the locked hatch. One night, while Sokka was glaring up at the metal ceiling, hearing rain water patter down on the deck and watching a drop of it slide in through the seal of the hatch, a plan struck him. He bolted up in his cot and shook his sister awake.
“Holy Shu, Sokka. You might not be as nutbrained as I thought.” Sokka grinned so hard it hurt his cheeks.
All they had to do was wait for a storm.
Yesterday, as Sokka and his family stood out on the deck, eating their meal in the crisp sea air, he spotted dark clouds on the horizon rumbling towards their ship, a deep growl of thunder that he could feel in his bones. He looked at Katara, and she nodded at him. It was time.
They had told their plan to the other prisoners the night before. Kato had started laughing so hard he clutched his stomach and wiped tears from his eyes. “So let me get this straight, the two youngest, stupidest twerps on this boat think that they can take down an experienced firebender and get past twenty sleeping guards too? Oh, that’s too good!” he cackled.
Konak, who was almost always stone faced and silent, shook his head and looked up at the ceiling. “You two are even more idiotic than I thought.”
Sokka bristled. “It’s a good plan!”
“I think it’s incredibly brave,” Sokka gazed at his mother, who was smiling sadly at her two children, “but also incredibly dangerous, I don’t-” His mother cut herself off with a violent cough fit. Sokka felt a stone in his stomach.
“Mom,” Katara choked out, “we’re running out of time.” His mother dropped her gaze to the ground, sighing. Sokka was tired of that, tired of his mother looking like she’d given up hope for any life other than imprisonment. Like she’d given up on herself.
“We can do this,” Sokka urged, looking meaningfully into his mother’s tired eyes. She had stopped fighting a long time ago, but Sokka hadn’t. And he’d keep fighting for her. “I promise, mom. Me and Katara will get us out of here.”
She laughed a little, it sounded almost like a sob. “It’s not like you two would listen to me anyways.” She reached her chained arms up to touch Sokka’s cheek, instinctively, he melted into her hand. “Alright, you go be a hero. But come back to me, okay?”
He nodded wordlessly, a tightness closing around his throat.
“This is insane,” Konak said, looking down at his shackles, “but we don’t have much to lose.”
Speak for yourself, Sokka thought, looking at his mom and sister.
“When will it happen?” Kato asked.
“Tomorrow night,” Katara responded. “Assuming the storm hits, it’ll happen then.”
He nodded, “This is still hilariously stupid but it might be fun to watch play out.” Kato’s smile was obnoxiously smug and Sokka had the urge to punch him. Once they were free, maybe Sokka would.
Now, as his mother woke up, a vicious cough wracking her throat, the anticipation for tonight loomed heavily over his head. By the looks of it, the other prisoners felt the same way. A Fire Nation soldier opened the hatch in the ceiling, barking out, “Get it moving, Savages. There's a storm brewing outside.”
Even as Sokka stood up with shaky limbs, buzzing with the electricity of anxiety, he smirked and thought, Yea, there’s a storm brewing, just for you, Ashmakers.
Katara and Sokka had been right, the storm was a big one. Vicious angry waves tipped the boat from side to side violently, making the soldiers above deck hold onto the railings for dear life. The Waterbender slaves walked steadily across the deck, this was what they were here for. Years of being at sea, of bending the ship through the ocean’s rough currents had prepared the five Watertribe slaves for this. Maybe the Firelord had ordered the capture of all Waterbenders to make sure the Avatar was in the hands of the Fire Nation, but he kept them on the slave ships for this reason. As a wave towered above the ship, ready to submerge them all and pull them into the ocean’s cruel depths, Sokka and Katara planted their feet best they could on the rain slick deck. They flung out their arms and caught the crashing wave with invisible hands. Grunting with effort, they subdued the wave, letting it shrink until it disappeared back into the sea. The ship no more submerged than before. Konak and Kato stood near the railings, bending the sea to their will, steadying the ship in the choppy sea. Sokka’s mother leaned on him for balance, she was much weaker than before, hardly able to bend at all. But the soldiers still forced her to work, and didn't even give her any medicine. Rain pattered on their skin, pricking them with ice cold droplets, thunder and lightning roared from the grey clouds above. All Sokka could feel was anticipation in his gut and freedom just beyond his fingertips.
That night, as the Waterbender returned with aching muscles from the long way of protecting the ship from the storm, Sokka nearly sighed with relief as he saw rainwater dripping through the seam of the hatch, it was time. Sokka collected as much water as he needed, bending it into a ball of ice the size of a coin and placing it firmly in the palm of his hand, freezing and refreezing so it wouldn’t melt away. When a guard came down to give them their dinner, a measly roll and some yak jerky, Sokka felt high off adrenaline.
It was Katara’s job to cause a distraction. Unfortunately, she was a terrible liar and even worse at improvising. As the guard turned to walk up the stairs and lock the hatch, Katara shouted, “Bleeding hog monkeys!!! Is that a Bullet Crab?!”
Sokka resisted the urge to face-palm.
“Huh?” said the guard, and with his attention on Katara, Sokka slipped behind him.
He clutched the small ball of ice in his palm, melting it into a bubble of liquid water.
“A Bullet Crab! On your back I-I just saw it!”
Sokka looked at the hole in the lock, focused on it like he was aiming his boomerang. He spared a glance over his shoulder, the guard was touching his back hesitantly.
“What’s a Bullet Crab?”
Sokka took a breath.
“You’ve never heard of them? Their pinch is said to be enough pain to bring down ten grown men!”
Sokka flicked his wrist and the small amount of water cut through the air like a blade, lodging inside the lock. He clenched his fist to keep the water in place, sweating with effort to perform such precise bending.
“You’re lying,” the guard snapped, turning around and marching back. “Filthy ice savages, the lot of you.” he hissed before climbing the stairs and locking the hatch shut.
“Did you do it?” Katara asked.
Sokka froze the water inside the lock. “Yep,” he said, turning back to his sister with a grin. Okay, no turning back, this is happening. Don’t freak out, Sokka.
They waited hours, a storm still raging outside, the pounding of the rain on the ship's hull matching to Sokka’s heart rate. They had no way to tell the time, so they had to rely on intuition. Luckily, Sokka and Katara had stayed up enough nights to know how long it took for the guards to pass out.
When it was time, Sokka stood up with a fluttering in his chest and jelly in his knees. It took effort not to collapse back to the ground. Before they could step towards the hatch, their mother pulled them into a tight embrace. She kissed them each on the cheek, whispering, “Be safe, okay?” He could only nod tightly, and he had to force himself to leave the safety of his mother’s arms. He had a job to do.
Katara and Sokka walked up the stairs leading to the hatch. It was cramped and by the time they reached the hatch, they had to crouch to not hit their heads on the ceilings. Sokka concentrated on the water lodged inside the lock. He couldn’t see it, but he could sense the water frozen around the latch in the lock. Sokka took a breath and manipulated the water so it was pushing up against the latch. He had put the ice right where the latch and the bar locked together; that way, the lock could be easily opened if he just manipulated the ice so it pushed up against the latch just enough-
He heard a quiet pop on the other side of the hatch. This was it. Hatch unlocked, guards asleep, storm raging–this was their only chance.
“Ready?” Katara asked him.
Sokka looked over at her. Her hair was knotted in several places, dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. His eyes drifted to her neck, where there was a burn scar from when she was twelve. It was from the last time they ever tried to fight back; Xian Zu had caught Katara by the throat and burned his hand into her delicate skin. Her screams from that day rang in his ears, and Sokka’s chest tightened with fear. He wouldn’t let anyone hurt her.
“Yeah, let’s do this.”
Outside of the hatch, there was a guard sleeping on a chair. He was murmuring something about turtle ducks and the Fire Lord, drool dripping from his mouth. It wasn’t hard to sneak past him. After the guard, there was a door that led outside. Luckily, they never locked this door. Outside, the wind howled in anger and icy rain stabbed into his skin like knives. It was a struggle to walk upright as the ship rocked back and forth. Katara grabbed onto Sokka's arm for balance while he held up a hand, bending the water away from them so they wouldn’t get pelted with the rain. Katara and Sokka made their way to the captain’s quarters, which were located across the deck. When they reached his quarters, they both collected rain water. Bending the water so it levitated just above his hand, he looked at the only weapon he’s ever had: his bending. Katara and Sokka weren’t experienced or powerful benders in any sense of the word. His mother had tried to teach them basic defensive waterbending when they were young, but they were captured before their skills could be of any use. It would have to be enough.
Wordlessly, they cracked the door, and Sokka peeked his head in to see Xian Zu was sleeping on his bed cot. It was strange to see someone so dangerous in such a vulnerable position. Am I really about to kill a man in his sleep? Sokka thought incredulously. But then he thought of his hand on Katara’s neck and shrugged that fear aside. Moral quandaries didn’t matter to Sokka when it came to keeping his family safe.
Together, brother and sister, they stepped into Xian Zu’s quarters. Heart hammering in his chest, Sokka raised the water above his head, freezing it into a sharp icicle. It glinted like a blade. Just before Sokka could plunge the icicle into the man’s sleeping chest, the door shut behind them. It wasn’t loud. But it was just enough of a click to wake Xian Zu. Sokka saw Xian Zu’s eyes shot open, and then his golden eyes met Sokka’s.
Fuck.
The Fire bender jumped up from his bed, springing into action as if he’d been awake the whole time. His fists lit on fire, Sokka could almost feel the intense pain that would come from just one touch from that flame. He’d felt it enough times to know. Xian Zu sent a fireball shooting their way, Katara and Sokka dodged out of the way just in time. Sokka could smell burnt hair where Xian Zu had singed him.
“You ice savages never learn, do you?” Xian Zu roared. Sokka could see he was turning to attack Katara, he flicked his small amount of water and whipped Xian Zu on his cheek. It was a frankly pathetic attack compared to Xian Zu’s fireballs. But at least it got his attention away from Katara.
Xian Zu charged Sokka, fire bursting from his palms, speeding towards him. Instinctively, Sokka threw up his hands as if it was water hurling towards him and not flame that would burn his skin off. Which didn’t make sense–he couldn’t waterbend fire, but Sokka didn’t really have critical thinking when he was about to get a faceful of flames. This is gonna hurt like a Bull Shark. Except, it didn’t. The fire never reached him. Somehow, the fireball whirling toward Sokka was thrown off course, taking a sharp left turn as if an invisible force had slapped it. It hit the wall, leaving an imprint of ash in its absence.
Sokka gaped. Did I just?
Xian Zu, stunned, looked at Sokka as if he had just gained a second head. For a moment they just stood there both completely in shock, before Xian Zu regained his composure and lifted his hands to shoot more fire at Sokka. He never got a chance. An icicle sharp as a blade stabbed through Xian Zu’s skull with a sickening crunch. His mouth fell open and blood trickled out, his eyes still on Sokka, then on nothing at all as he collapsed to the ground.
Behind where Xian Zu had stood was Katara, her hands shaking, looking down at the man she just killed. So much had just happened in the last thirty seconds, Sokka felt like he might pass out from all the adrenaline pumping through his veins. Instead, he urged himself to move.
He crouched down to the ground when Xian Zu’s body lay, trying to quell his nausea as he reached down to the man’s pants where his keys were hooked on. He ignored the pooling blood around his feet as he grabbed the master key, the key to their freedom. They did it. He took the key to his shackles, and with shaking hands he inserted the key into the lock and turned. The pop of his shackles unlocking was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever heard. He gave the key to Katara so she could unlock her own chains and slid off his shackles. Five years, that’s how long he’d had them on. His wrists were rubbed raw, darkened skin encircling his wrist that would probably never fade. He touched his skin, and it ached under his finger. The pain felt like freedom. Five years.
“Holy Shu, we actually did it,” Sokka whispered, a hysterical laughter bubbling in his throat.
“Did you firebend?” Katara asked. Somehow, between killing a man and getting the key to their freedom, she thought that was the most pressing matter.
“I-I don’t know?” He shook his head. “it doesn’t matter, we have to get back to the others.” Sokka couldn’t even fathom what that would mean if he did firebend. At this point, he really didn’t care about anything but freeing his mom.
They turned to walk out of Xian Zu’s quarters, and Sokka spared a quick glance back at the lifeless captain, before turning the handle of the door and leaving. Get to the others, unchain mom, fight back. They had been so close, inches close to their freedom, when it all came crumbling down.
Outside, nearly thirty guards stood with their weapons raised. His mother and Konak were on their knees, spears against their back. Their mom looked up to meet Sokka’s eyes, there were tears streaming down her face but she smiled at him. A gesture of reassurance. A mother telling her son It’s gonna be okay.
“Drop the key on the ground!” Shouted Xian Zu’s second in command, Soh. Unlike the other soldiers, his uniform didn’t cover his face in a mask. Soh had a long beard and dark eyebrows that pinched in a furious glare. Katara obeyed the man and dropped the key on the rain slicked deck. “Hands behind your back!”
Sokka was in so much shock he couldn’t move, would they put him in shackles again or just throw him overboard? Was this how it ended for him? He hadn’t moved quickly enough apparently because a soldier came behind Sokka and grabbed his wrists, roughly pinning them against his back.
“Attempted escape, assault on an officer, you two really outdid yourselves this time,” Soh snarled, he paced the deck furiously, ignoring the howling wind and rain. “What will it take for you savages to learn, there is no escape . You will always belong to the Fire Nation.”
Sokka’s gaze fell to the ground, he felt numb inside. His freedom had slipped away as quickly as it had appeared. He felt the fight in him wither out. He was so useless. If he had been stronger, quieter, braver. If he had just been better, maybe they could have escaped.
“But maybe that’s just impossible for your stubborn brains to understand, I think you need a demonstration.” Soh’s tone dropped to something dangerous and vicious. Sokka started to brace himself for the inevitable burns that Soh would bring upon him as punishment.
“No!” Katara’s voice jolted him from his numb state. He’d never heard her voice sound so panicked before. He looked up to see Soh wasn’t coming towards Sokka and Katara, but towards their mother. There was a blade in Soh’s hand. He grabbed his mother by her hair and shoved her head back so that her neck was exposed. She tried to wrestle her way out of his grip, but when he pressed the blade to the vulnerable skin of her neck, she froze. Sokka felt an icy terror drip in his chest.
“This is what savages like you get.” Soh pressed the blade hard to his mother’s neck. The world tilted underneath Sokka’s feet. The blade moved ever so slightly, sokka saw a drip of dark red blood slip from his mothers’s neck.
Just like that, Sokka felt himself snap. He wasn’t done fighting, he still had people to protect, he had freedom to earn. And he wouldn’t let these firebenders hurt them, not ever again. Something ancient began to stir inside Sokka. He felt an explosion of energy whip throughout his veins, coursing through his blood, vibrating his bones. He felt like a tsunami, an earthquake, a hurricane, a wildfire. Sokka screamed, and then everything went black.
You go be a hero. But come back to me, okay?
* - - - - - *
Kya felt a sharp pinch on her neck where Soh’s blade had drawn blood. Strangely, at that moment, as death was at her door, she didn’t feel afraid. A strange wave of calm washed over her. She only wished that her children didn’t have to watch her die. She closed her eyes, waiting for the blade to slice her neck. It never did.
“Spirits above,” Soh softly exclaimed, his knife loosened against her neck.
Kya heard Sokka scream, and she opened her eyes.
At first, all she saw was water and fire, swirling in a kaleidoscope of blue and red. Kya had never seen anything like it. It looked as if a hurricane had materialised on the boat and caught on fire. She could feel the heat of the flames from where she kneeled, she could feel the pull in the air towards the tornado of ice and fire. And then her eyes landed at what was in the eye of the storm. Her son. Except it wasn’t entirely him, was it? Sokka looked possessed, as if an old spirit had taken over his body. He floated impossibly ten feet above the ground, with snakes of flame and waves of water spinning around him in a tornado of chaos. Her son’s eyes glowed a ghostly blue and his face was twisted into a snarl. It was one of the most frightening things Kya had ever seen.
“Let her go!” he screamed, and it almost sounded like a thousand voices all came out of Sokka’s mouth at the same time. A shiver ran down Kya’s back. Soh released his grip on her all at once, and she fell forward on her hands. She reached up to touch her stinging neck, her hand came away bloody.
Kya looked up at Soh, there was a terror in his eyes that was ever so satisfying. “The Avatar,” he said so quietly, only himself and Kya could hear it. The Fire Nation soldiers that had held them captive for so many years were, for once, unable to harm them. They stood so shocked that they looked like statues. One of the soldiers dropped his spear and slowly backed away.
Kya saw the boy hovering in the air. She saw him as a child, learning how to walk for the first time. She saw him at seven years old protecting his sister against a Fire Nation soldier. She saw the boy reading stories late at night and daydreaming of being a hero. She saw Sokka, who never gave up hope, not once. Sokka, always a fighter until the bitter end, her little hero. It all clicked. The Avatar, this ghost in front of her. It was all her son. Sokka .
And as the wind screamed in her ear and lightning crashed in the clouds above, Kya looked up at her son with tears in her eyes. She could see the hero he would grow to be.
* - - - - - *
Zuko leaned against the railing of the ship, peering at the endless ocean with distaste. He hated the sea, he hated being caged, having nowhere to run to, no escape. Not that he’d try to anyway. Running away was something he gave up years ago. He fidgeted with his gloves, situating them so that not an inch of his skin was exposed. They gave him a comfort not much else would.
He heard footsteps approaching behind him, he knew who it was. No one else would risk approaching him. Not if they didn’t want to get burned.
“Zuko,” General Zhao barked. Zuko’s skin crawled. There were few things he hated more than Zhao’s grating voice.
He didn’t respond to Zhao, and the general didn’t expect him to.
“The Avatar,” Zhao said. Those two words sent an electric jolt down Zuko’s spine. He tried to control his reaction, but he couldn’t help how his shoulder tensed or how his gloved hands gripped the railing even tighter. “They found him. He’s captive right now but they can’t hold him forever. They need the Phoenix.”
Zuko had been waiting for those words to be spoken for years. He felt like he’d just awoken from a dream-like state, for the first time in a long time, he had a purpose. He felt the world tilt underneath his feet, a chance to escape his pain, a chance to redeem himself, a chance for his father’s forgiveness.
Bring me the Avatar. Alive. Then maybe you can prove yourself to be more than a pathetic excuse for a Fire Lord’s son.
Zuko felt fire underneath his skin. Burning, Zuko was always burning. It was the only thing he was good for anymore. A human torch, an erupting volcano, a phoenix. He turned to look at Zhao’s hardened scowl. “Let’s go.”