Archive of Our Own

When Sokka adopted an unfamiliar kid into his close circle, he never imagined just how weird an experience this would prove to be.

Okay, if he thought about it for longer than five minutes, he could see the potential surprises down the line were to be expected. Had this been any other kid, it wouldn’t have been as complicated as it was maybe, but this kid wasn’t like any other kid Sokka knew. He wasn’t from the Water Tribe or even from the Fire Nation or the Earth Kingdom. Those he could deal with because while he didn’t know a lot about their cultures, he still heard enough.

But an Air Nomad? Tales about the lost civilization came up every now and then, yes. Gran Gran used to tell Katara and he bedtime stories about the airbenders that used to roam the world, just like she used to tell them about the Avatar. He knew they used to be around about a hundred years ago, and he knew they were airbenders. But even Gran Gran was too young to know these people. Her stories were shared with an undertone of curiosity in her own voice that made it obvious she wasn’t even sure whether some of her information was genuine or just a fairytale.

So Sokka’s knowledge when it came to the Air Nomads mostly consisted of the fact that they could bend air, they were eliminated by the Fire Nation near the beginning of the war, and they were a thing of the past that the world would never see again.

Which meant that when he and Katara found a boy in an iceberg, set him free, and watched as he sneezed and flew up high from the force of it, his brain had a minor meltdown. He told himself he was hallucinating. He told himself this couldn’t be real because the airbenders were gone; they were extinct. Yet this kid’s every move, word and… well, his whole entire personality, really, determinedly defied Sokka’s logic.

For some reason, it took him a while to warm up to the guy. He knew that an airbender wasn’t really supposed to be considered an enemy. The kid’s entire people was gone because of the Fire Nation. He had no reason to help the ones who’d hurt him. Although it didn’t quite look like he was even aware of the fact that anything bad was going on, not with the way he was acting. Really, there was nothing malicious, threatening or suspicious about him besides the obvious conundrum of his existence.

But he was a stranger. Someone Sokka wasn’t familiar with, and neither was anyone else. He was goofy and easygoing and friendly, but nothing was that simple, was it? Sokka grew up learning to be suspicious and wary of stuff and people he didn’t know or understand. And this kid was all of that and more. So despite his sister’s immediate attachment to this random airbender, Sokka did his best to hold firm and observe the stranger critically, without getting too close that he would be blind to a possible hazard.

The second something went wrong, Sokka readily decided enough was enough. And he knew Gran Gran was in complete agreement with him. So banishing the menace seemed like the best idea at the time, and the elder’s support only convinced him of that. His conviction did waver a little when Katara protested and actually threatened to banish herself right along with a person she barely knew for longer than a couple of days.

A hint of gratitude flared in his chest when the kid convinced his sister to stay with her people rather than abandoning them all for him. But it wasn’t enough to forget about the possibility of an invasion by the Fire Nation that suddenly loomed over their heads because of the airbender. So Sokka stubbornly stood his ground and watched as the kid and his bison got further and further away.

From there things only escalated. Sokka prepared for a fight, a Fire Navy ship appeared, some grumpy-looking teenager may have—er—kicked his ass a bit. The usual. Yada, yada, yada. Let’s just say that things didn’t look good for them all. Especially because the firebender was looking for someone Sokka was pretty sure didn’t even exist anymore. The Avatar was a myth at this point—it was laughable that this random Fire Nation dude thought that legend was anywhere near their village.

And then the kid showed up again to help and for some reason the firebender came to the conclusion that he was the Avatar.

Sokka would have laughed had it not been for the telling silence of the airbender. Instead of scoffing at the accusation or responding with a baffled question about why in the world this Fire Nation guy would ever think this could be true, the kid resumed a fighting stance that was all the answer any of them needed—Fire Nation soldiers and Water Tribe people combined.

When the kid—the Avatar—surrendered and agreed to go with the firebender so their village wouldn’t be destroyed or attacked any longer, Sokka’s mind sort of recalibrated itself. Because not only was this kid an enemy of the Fire Nation—he was also actively helping Sokka and his people by giving himself up willingly. And, you know, the enemy of your enemy is a friend; especially when the enemy of your enemy was the Avatar and, according to legends, the world’s only hope.

They couldn’t just let him be taken away for good, could they?

So Katara and he found the kid’s bison—flying bison, because that was a thing, apparently—and used it to catch up to the Fire Navy ship. They rescued the Avatar and Sokka did most of the heavy lifting, of course. And then they were off, apparently taking the guy to the North Pole so he could study waterbending.

In Sokka’s opinion, all of that was already strange enough. There was no need for any more oddities to come up following this madness. But, as usual, the universe loved messing with him.

࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

It was freezing cold. Sokka had his parka on, his hands in his pockets, tucked inside warm gloves. His entire body was trembling from the shivers that kept on running up and down his back. And he could see that Katara was feeling the same way, huddled into her own coat while rubbing her arms in a futile attempt to keep herself warm.

The South Pole was cold, yes. But it was much closer to the ground so the wind was never anything like it currently was. Sokka didn’t know the wind could be this ruthlessly strong. He felt like he was about to slip and fall off a cliff at any moment if he made the wrong move. The breeze threatened to sweep him off his feet with no mercy. And the slippery snow covering the area wasn’t helping things because he just knew that one miscalculation would condemn him.

And then he turned around and found Aang playing on the ground with his new lemur friend. The kid was wearing the same clothes he’s been wearing all along—some kind of strange orange and yellow outfit that Sokka had never seen before. It didn’t look particularly warm. In fact, the wind ruffled the fabric ruthlessly and relentlessly all the time. Yet Aang seemed to be perfectly content with the temperatures. He wasn’t shivering, turning blue or showing any sign that he could feel the biting chill in the air.

“Seriously,” said Sokka almost indignantly. “How are you not freezing right now? It’s so cold!”

Teeth chattering, Katara said, “Y-yeah. I’ve never b-b-been this c-cold before.”

Aang looked away from the lemur and blinked at the two of them like he was seeing them for the first time. Had he not noticed how cold it was? Was he not human somehow? It was impossible to ignore! Sokka was shaking in his boots, and he grew up in a block of ice! This high altitude was impossible to live in. There was no way a bunch of people actually used to live up here without all of them dying of hypothermia. This place just wasn’t suitable for humans to reside in.

“Oh, it’s cold?” said Aang.

His voice was so innocent that Sokka knew he wasn’t messing with them. But it was too ludicrous to think he really wasn’t bothered by the absurdly low temperature. Although… well, come to think of it, when Sokka had briefly made contact with Aang’s hand a bunch of times, the kid’s skin had felt warm. And when they all set up camp so they could sleep at night, Sokka and Katara burrowed themselves in their cozy sleeping bags, yet Aang always remained uncovered, instead sleeping on Appa’s tail or simply on the ground like the snow wasn’t a problem at all.

Was this some kind of Avatar thing? Was the Avatar supposed to be immune to the weather or something? Theoretically, Aang was a firebender, right? Maybe he could heat himself up from the inside, even if he didn’t know how to firebend yet. Although Sokka imagined Katara wouldn’t have been able to feel the chill either with her water magic and stuff. She could make ice, right? Didn’t that make her resistant to its coolness or something?

Without any warning, Aang did this thing of his, where he floated off the ground instead of getting up the old fashioned way. This freaked Sokka every time he saw it because it looked so… weird. It was unnatural. It went against all logic he had stored in his head. Because his brain still insisted that humans were supposed to be bound to the earth. But apparently airbenders were not included in that category because this kid kept on floating and jumping too high and defying gravity in general, really.

“I’m sorry,” said Aang. “I didn’t realize you guys were cold.”

The lemur made himself comfortable on top of his head and chittered loudly. It earned him an absent pat from his new owner.

“It’s n-no b-b-big deal,” Katara rushed to reassure him. “Y-you had other th-things on your m-m-mind.”

Sokka grimaced as Aang’s shoulders sagged down a little. Katara hadn’t seen it before Aang trashed the place, but Sokka did. He saw the Fire Nation armor spread all around that ancient room, bones littered all around. And he saw the skeleton of who could only be Gyatso. Somehow, the most horrible sight—the one that kept on haunting him—was of Aang weeping on the floor, his body appearing so small and fragile all of a sudden.

Yeah, he definitely had other things on his mind.

Shaking his head, the kid said, “Come on. Let’s go inside for the night. The wind won’t bother you as much in there.”

As he started leading the way, Sokka exchanged a look with his sister. She looked as disturbed and worried as he felt. Because Aang had nearly killed them after he saw Gyatso’s skeleton earlier. His grief had just been all-consuming, it triggered some kind of freaky Avatar thing in him. If they went inside and ran into more dead Air Nomads… how would he react? Were they really going to risk it?

But they didn’t really have much of a choice. It was getting late and they needed to sleep for the night before going on with their travel. And, well, the place was dilapidated but still intact enough for them to spend the night, right? And if Aang was suggesting they stay, who was Sokka to argue. Yes, he felt bad, but he was also cold and tired and could use a somewhat proper shelter for one miserable night in their journey.

The kid led them up staircases and through a maze of hallways that made Sokka’s head spin. But eventually he approached a door hesitantly and came to a halt. Instead of opening it, he just stood there, hand hovering next to the handle, and bit his lip. Then he took in an audible breath and pushed open the door. It creaked loudly, the hinges probably rusty beyond relief. And only once the room inside was visible to him, did Aang exhale.

Sokka thought he heard the kid muttering something about there not being any bodies inside, thankfully. He decided not to comment on it.

“Here,” the kid said brightly as he stepped in. “This used to be me and my friends’ room.”

The place was mostly dark, only a bit of light streaming in through the open stone window. There were six incredibly dusty beds in the room, the blankets ruffled and unmade, like people slipped out of these beds in a hurry. Only one bed was perfectly made and completely smooth—the one directly opposite the door, closest to the floor.

Scorch marks littered the floor and walls but no bodies were, indeed, anywhere in sight. It didn’t make the place feel any less haunted. But there was nowhere near as much wind between these walls and the chill in Sokka’s bones was beginning to ebb away. So he figured this was better than nothing.

Aang approached the bed directly in front of him and ran tentative fingers over the green old fabric. When he sighed heavily with his back to them, Sokka felt his chest clenching sympathetically. And beside him, Katara let out a small sound, like she was going to cry. Or maybe say something to try and ease up the pain.

“A-a-are you s-sure t-they wouldn’t mind us b-being here?” asked Katara as she peered into the room uncertainly. “It wouldn’t f-feel right t-to impose.”

Instead of answering, the boy turned to frown at her. “You’re still cold?”

“We just need a few minutes to thaw,” said Sokka dismissively. “This is already much better. And we can get our sleeping bags for some extra warmth. Right, Katara?”

“R-right. We’ll be f-fine.”

Sokka shot her a look and swiftly pulled her to his side. Hugging people always felt awkward; probably because they usually initiated and Sokka just had to deal with it. Gran Gran made him feel like a little kid every time, even if she was shorter than him. Katara could be extremely clingy, to the point where he felt like he couldn’t breathe. But sometimes he’d be the one to initiate the contact—usually when there was a storm and the cold was more unbearable than usual. Then they’d huddle close together to share body heat.

This wasn’t the South Pole and there was more than snow and ice surrounding them. But it was still freaking cold up on this mountain and his sister was shivering. So holding Katara close with a side hug it was.

Head tipping to the side, Aang looked between the two of them thoughtfully. “Maybe that’s why we didn’t invite people over here. Wouldn’t want our guests to freeze.”

“How are you not bothered by this?” demanded Sokka as Katara burrowed herself further into his side. “You’re wearing one layer! Or, well, you could argue it counts as two but it’s still nowhere near enough for this weather.”

“I regulate the air around my body so the temperature is always comfortable for me.”

He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Sokka and Katara stared at him blankly.

Slightly more sheepish, Aang rubbed the back of his neck, right under the lemur, and explained, “We learn to do that pretty early on. It’s sort of like… like walking for us. Although it comes after we actually do learn to walk.” He let out a small chuckle. “We learn to control the air surrounding us so we aren’t affected by the temperatures of the different areas we visit. And, well, the ones up here too.”

“And before y-you learned how to d-do that?” asked Katara.

“We’d stick to the adults,” he said fondly. “They’d stretch their bending to make sure the kids around them were comfortable too. It was kind of fun. We’d all huddle together around someone who could keep us warm. Gyatso told me once that we looked like baby turtleducks following their mom. But then we learned and we could wander by ourselves. I kind of forgot it was cold up here.”

Quirking an eyebrow, Sokka said, “Hey, here’s a bright idea, Aang. Why don’t you do that thing now so we can all be warm?”

“Oh.” He blinked a couple of times, looking stumped. “Well, I’ve never tried doing that before. I don’t think it should be too hard… I can at least try.”

“Yes, p-please,” said Katara gratefully.

He wanted to start off small, so he sat down on the bed—Sokka assumed it must have been his—and got comfortable. The lemur climbed down from his head and rested in a bundle in the boy’s lap. Aang didn’t even bat an eye at that, like he was used to flying lemurs using him as a comfy bed. Then he told the Water Tribe siblings to come closer and take a seat so he wouldn’t have to regulate so much air at once; he preferred only affecting his close vicinity.

They didn’t question it. They simply took a seat on either side of him on the dusty mattress and watched as he closed his eyes in concentration. Sokka had no idea how Aang managed to breathe so deeply amidst all this dust, but he decided not to comment on it. If his friend willingly wanted to clear the room of all its dust with some kind of breathing exercises, who was he to complain?

And then he felt it—like a blanket of warmth that slowly draped over him, from head to toe. He saw Katara’s eyes widening from the corner of his eye, but mostly focused on the shift in the air surrounding him. When he leaned slightly closer to Aang, he noticed the warmth strengthened just a tad. But this was much more comfortable too. No wonder the kid had no idea it was cold—he had his own air shield this entire time, protecting him from the harsh climate they were treading through.

With a content sigh, Katara unabashedly shifted closer to Aang, pressing against his side. The kid laughed in a mixture of incredulity and amusement. Had it been Sokka, he would have whined about personal boundaries. But Aang leaned into the touch like it was something he’s been craving yet had been too anxious to express out loud. The lemur did chatter a small protest when it forced him to adjust.

“Ah, that’s what I’m talking about,” sighed Sokka blissfully as his veins seemed to thaw. “This is the most practical, useful magic trick anyone could learn.”

“It’s a b-bending technique, Sokka,” chided Katara, but her voice had no bite. “But it is useful. We could have u-used it b-back home.”

Chuckling, Aang said, “Well, I can’t help the entire South Pole. But you can come to me if you’re too cold or too warm.”

Incredulous, Sokka snorted. “You can be too warm?”

“Sure!”

The idea was absurd. After living his entire life surrounded by ice and snow and frost, being too warm was laughable. How was that possible when some days Sokka yearned for the sun to beat down harder on their land, so his fingers could lose their numbness? Yet Aang said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world that such a thing could happen. Sokka was doubtful he would ever feel this way himself, but he decided he would prove it simply by going through this journey without complaining about the heat.

“Well, good to know we have options,” he said eventually. “Oh, hey! I can feel my toes again!”

So for the first time in his life, Sokka fell asleep feeling genuinely comfortable with the temperature around him.

࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

I don’t eat meat.

Sokka knew they had more pressing matters to focus on right now—like the fact that his sister willingly let herself get taken to a Fire Nation prison. But Aang’s words kept on rolling around his head, refusing to relent. He’d said it to his crazy friend Bumi, but back then Sokka had assumed it was just that he didn’t want to put anything in his mouth that he wasn’t sure was safe. But now he was really starting to doubt it.

When he thought all the way back to the day they’d met Aang, Sokka couldn’t really recall a single time when the boy had put any sort of meat into his mouth. Granted, whenever there was food around, Sokka was much more taken with it than with his sister or new friend. But he was pretty sure Aang usually stuck to the vegetables and fruits that were offered to him. And once they figured out who Bumi was, Aang still didn’t really touch any of the meat that was offered to them.

Now, flying on top of Appa with the clouds as their cover, Sokka and Aang had nothing to do but wait until the day reached its end. Then they’d get Katara out of the prison she’d put herself in and they would be on their merry way. But for now it left him alone with the kid, and Sokka couldn’t help but stare at him a little too much.

It was midday, so Aang offered they ate their lunch. For Sokka it meant pulling out some leftover roasted chicken he had stashed away. For Aang, though, it apparently meant pulling out a melon and an egg. This looked so ridiculously unsatisfying, yet the kid ate his meal with a content smile while chatting to Sokka nonchalantly. If he noticed his friend was gawping, he didn’t mention it.

Eventually, it must have gotten a bit too weird for Aang, though. “Sokka, what’s wrong? You barely even touched your food.”

“Nothing. Just thinking.” As if to prove it, he took a bite out of the chicken and chewed vigorously. “See?”

“Are you worried about Katara? Because I’m sure she’ll be fine. If anything major happens, we’ll be able to notice it even from way up here. And we’ll get her out later. She won’t get hurt. We’ll make sure of it.”

With a sigh, Sokka lowered his meat and rubbed his forehead. “No, Aang. I’m sure Katara will be fine. It’s not that.”

“Then what?”

He looked between the boy’s open face and the meager melon he was eating. “Remember you told your crazy kingly friend that you don’t eat meat?”

Aang’s head tipped to the side. “Yeah…”

“Were you serious about that?”

Eyes crinkling with a smile, Aang hovered down from the edge of the saddle so he could face Sokka properly. The way he moved still looked so remarkably unnatural to Sokka, who had to remind himself that this was normal now. It was hard to get used to, but Aang could just float off the ground sometimes and it was perfectly reasonable; no matter how insane it looked every single time.

“I was,” said the boy patiently.

“You’re kidding!” Sokka’s voice cracked. “How can people survive without meat?”

Shrugging, Aang said, “I guess it would be weird to hear about after so long. But the Air Nomads didn’t eat meat. We were all vegetarians.”

Sokka blinked. “Vege-what?”

A hint of hurt flashed across Aang’s face. Either because they were discussing something to do with his dead people or because the kid was now discovering that something he saw as a known fact was so unfamiliar to Sokka because there hadn’t been any other Air Nomads to spread this type of knowledge in a hundred years. It made the teen feel a little bad for even broaching this subject. But before he could plow on and change the subject abruptly, Aang started talking.

“Vegetarians. It means we didn’t eat meat—anything that used to be alive. I don’t really feel all that comfortable eating something I had to kill.”

“What if it dies of natural causes?”

Looking saddened by the thought, Aang shook his head.

Sokka kept on staring at him for a few moments longer before glancing down at his roasted chicken. Some of his appetite ebbed away. Not because he felt bad for the dead chicken—meat was delicious and he figured the cycle of life existed for a reason—but because it turned out his relatively new friend was uncomfortable with doing it. Was he supposed to stop so blatantly enjoying a meaty meal? Should he eat in secret, away from Aang so as not to hurt him?

A smile returned to Aang’s face. “You shouldn’t worry about it, Sokka. I don’t mind if you and Katara like meat. Most of the world does. Especially now. I don’t mind. We just have different cultures. Would you ever make me follow your tribe’s traditions?”

“Well, no. But doesn’t it bother you?”

“Not really.” He peered over the side of the saddle for a second, probably to make sure they were still keeping close to the prison. “A part of being a nomad is learning to accept the difference in cultures you encounter. My friends and I used to run into a lot of people who did things we didn’t support ourselves. But that doesn’t mean what they do is wrong. It only means they have a different way of seeing things. I think it’s fascinating!”

Personally, Sokka thought that he would have found stuff like that to be weird. The same way he found some of Aang’s quirks odd. But, then again, he never really thought of forcing his own way of life on this kid. And Aang wasn’t shoving his own cultural values down Katara and his throats. They had this silent agreement to respect each other and just accept the fact that they came from different backgrounds.

“If you say so…” he said uncertainly.

It still felt a little weird to take a bite from his chicken again, sitting across from Aang. But it got better with every passing moment of no judgement from the kid.

࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

“What’s he doing?” asked Sokka.

“Shh!” hissed Katara.

He lowered his voice and whispered, “What’s he doing?”

From a few steps away from them, Aang let out a sigh before evenly saying, “I’m meditating, Sokka.”

They were camping near the edge of the forest with a small creek nearby and the view of looming mountains on the horizon. After the events of the previous day—with Jeong Jeong, Zhao and the whole burnt Katara mess, Sokka and his sister ended up sleeping a little more than usual. He’d expected Aang to do the same, especially because he had been the one to actually fight Zhao, not either one of them.

But when he and Katara woke up, they found the kid sitting a little ways away from Appa and Momo, already awake albeit with his eyes closed. His legs were crossed and his fists pressed together. The arrows on his hands made it look like he was pointing at each hand, while the one on his forehead pointed at the hands. It would have been amusing, but Sokka mainly found it strange.

“Meditating,” he echoed slowly, testing the syllables in his mouth. “Um, why?”

He wasn’t an idiot. He knew meditation was a thing. But back at the South Pole, it wasn’t really something anyone did. Not his mom back when she was alive, not his dad back when he was home, and not Gran Gran. No one sat down to meditate. Maybe because they didn’t quite believe in all this spiritual stuff Sokka was pretty sure was connected to this. Meditation had something to do with the spirits, right? And while Sokka now knew spirits existed—that was something he never wanted to think about too hard ever again—he wasn’t sure why anyone should meditate.

For all he could remember, Hei Bai was annoying, destructive and unfriendly. Even if Aang claimed otherwise. Interacting with them sounded like something Sokka would never be interested in doing. Sure, yeah, the Avatar was the bridge between the worlds, blah, blah, blah. But Aang had been less than enthusiastic about dealing with Hei Bai back when they’d encountered the spirit, so he wasn’t sure why he would try to do anything spirits-related right now.

“Sokka, be quiet,” chided Katara. “Can’t you see he’s trying to concentrate?”

“But why?” he insisted. “What do you get out of doing this?”

Without opening his eyes, Aang lightly said, “It’s not exactly meant to be done to get me anything. Meditation, to me, is a way to connect to the rest of the world. I try to put my own body behind and focus on everything else. It calms me down and helps me process things properly. It’s not really about gaining anything; unless what you’re trying to gain is some deeper understanding of your mind, maybe.”

With a smirk, Katara crossed her arms and shot Sokka a look. “Well, that wouldn’t take too long for you.”

He shot her a dry glare. “Ha-ha, very funny.”

“We used to have different sorts of meditations back home,” continued Aang. “Sometimes we’d sit and just concentrate on breathing. Sometimes we’d look all around to also absorb our surroundings. Monk Gyatso led me around the temple a few times as a sort of meditation, too. We’d focus on the way our bodies moved and how the air shifted around us in accordance. I used to do it at least once a day.”

“I guess being on the run wouldn’t make it easy to find the time or peace of mind required for this, huh?” said Katara gently.

Aang inhaled, exhaled and said, “Guess not.”

Sokka’s eyes narrowed. He still thought the whole thing was dumb. He concentrated on his surroundings by simply opening his eyes and taking everything in. He moved all around and paid attention to detail. He didn’t see how sitting and breathing could help him achieve the same conclusions. But he figured this was just another one of those things that Aang took for granted yet made no sense to him.

“Didn’t Jeong Jeong make you meditate yesterday?” he said in befuddlement. “I thought you hated that.”

Eyes snapping open, Aang stared ahead. His shoulders tensed and his fists clenched more tightly. The way his brows furrowed and lowered combined with the small frown that suddenly tugged his lips down, made him look both thoughtful and upset. His startingly gray gaze refused to flicker in the direction of the Water Tribe teens, instead looking ahead unwaveringly.

In a smaller, more pensive voice, he said, “It wasn’t the meditation I had an issue with.”

Biting her lip, Katara hesitated before finally asking, “Then what?”

Instead of responding, Aang put on a cheerful smile as he levitated back to his feet—again, Sokka was taken aback, although not as much as he used to be—and declared they should get ready to board Appa and continue on their journey.

With a look toward Sokka, Katara turned to comply and organize their supply. Maybe she didn’t want to argue with Aang and upset him by pushing this point. Or maybe she could just tell that the boy wasn’t quite as comfortable around her yet. Sokka himself had forgiven Aang for burning Katara, especially once he learned she’d healed herself. But while Aang had been relieved to see no burn marks left behind, he still didn’t seem to quite forgive himself for it.

They worked on collecting all their belongings and stashing everything in Appa’s saddle quietly. But the second Katara went away to fill up their water supply, Sokka approached Aang and tugged him further away from his sister for some privacy.

“You know she forgave you for what happened yesterday, right?” he whispered.

Aang scrunched up his nose but muttered a small, “Yeah,” all the same.

“Then what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Making sure Katara was still busy, Sokka said, “Aang, come on. I said something that upset you. I want to know what it is so I don’t do it again, okay? Just lay it on me.”

The kid looked down and wrung his fingers in his lap. “When Jeong Jeong taught me, he told me to concentrate on the sun and just… squat all day. And I wouldn’t mind that. I didn’t really care about that part of his lessons. But he… he basically just made me meditate for hours. Yesterday he just brought me to the top of a mountain so I could breathe. I know how to breathe, Sokka! I’m an airbender! It’s one of the first things we learn to do! We’re told to concentrate on our breaths, feel the way the air flows in and out and all around us. I don’t need more breathing exercises!”

His voice grew loud enough to draw Katara’s attention. Sokka could see her pausing for a moment to send them a concerned look. But then she caught his eye and seemed to realize he had it covered because she turned back to her task.

By the time Sokka looked away from her and back at Aang, the kid’s body seemed to have deflated. His head was hanging, eyes hooded and aimed at the ground. He shuffled his feet against the grassy ground and pressed his lips together, like he regretted ever speaking up in the first place. Call Sokka crazy, but he thought for a moment there that the wind picked up a bit, ruffling Aang’s clothes and swirling around him lightly, like it could pick up on the kid’s distress.

“Sorry,” the boy mumbled.

“No, you know what? You have a point,” said Sokka. “I’d be upset too if someone tried to teach me something I already know.”

Aang glanced up at him, then let the corner of his mouth lift a tad. “Yeah. And it’s not that I mind focusing on my breathing. I do that a lot anyway. But… but it feels wrong when a firebender teaches me how to breathe. Not because he’s a firebender,” he added when Sokka opened his mouth. “It’s just because… he’s not an airbender. Why would he know more about it than me? Just because he’s older doesn’t mean he knows more about my element than me, does it?”

Tapping his chin, Sokka said, “Well, technically, you’re still older than he is.”

With a chuckle, Aang’s expression brightened up. “Thanks, Sokka.”

He didn’t think he actually did anything to help with this. But maybe Aang didn’t need any words right now. Maybe all he was looking for was some validation from a friend, to know he wasn’t alone in thinking Jeong Jeong’s lessons were somewhat wrong. Well, if that was the case, Sokka had no qualms about siding with Aang on this to help his friend.

“Are you ready to go?” Katara called as she mounted Appa.

A skip back in his step, Aang brightly said, “Yeah! Come on, Momo. We’re leaving.”

Sokka rolled his eyes at the sight of the flying lemur fluttering over toward the Air Nomad, landing on his shoulder like it was his home. Seriously, it was like the little guy could only understand Aang. He never listened to Katara and Sokka the same way he did with Aang. But at least his presence seemed to cheer Aang up even further. So Sokka merely shook his head and climbed up Appa’s tail.

࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

The thought kept on bothering him—Momo only really listened to Aang. Katara had told Sokka in the past that back when they were both sick, she’d asked Momo to fetch them some water but the lemur never seemed to understand her. And Momo certainly never understood Sokka; the blank look on his face was indication enough.

Yet every single time without fail, Aang would say something or ask for something, and the flying lemur would comply with ease. It was baffling.

When Toph joined them, Sokka watched as Momo misunderstood her as well. It was like the little guy just didn’t bother with really trying to comprehend the meaning of their words. Maybe he didn’t care enough. Even though they were all taking care of him and feeding him and allowing him to climb all over their bodies, no matter where his tiny paws had been previously—and there were some nasty places Momo liked, Sokka knew. But no, the lemur only had eyes for Aang, the one who had officially adopted Momo as his pet. Friend? A mix of both, probably.

But Sokka didn’t have time to dwell on that. They were all too busy dealing with being chased by the Fire Nation, nearly drowning in sand and then… then losing Appa.

It was horrible. Normally, Sokka was pretty sure he would have been there for Aang. He could tell his friend was hurting, after all. The fact that the peaceful, quiet and easy-going kid he knew instantly snapped at Toph upon realizing that Appa was gone was proof enough that this cut deeper than anything else that had happened to them up to that point. This was exactly the kind of moment when Sokka felt like it would have been appropriate for him to, you know, be there for Aang.

When he was younger he always wanted a brother. Not instead of Katara, no—he loved his sister. But he wished he had another little sibling, a younger brother he could possibly talk to about all of the stuff Katara never understood or cared about all that much. Someone he could goof off with or fight alongside or… or something. But his mom died and his dad left to fight in the war, and Sokka never got the little brother he was hoping for.

But then Katara and he were roped into traveling with a twelve-year-old who was destined to save the world. There was no blood shared between them, no, but that was redundant anyhow. Because what did it matter if they were related or not? Aang was nothing like he’d ever imagined a little brother would be because he had his unique quirks that probably came from his different culture, but the way he and Sokka got along was better than any fantasy Sokka had ever come up with before.

So how come Sokka didn’t think to console Aang—someone he considered family—when he could very plainly see the deep ache Appa’s kidnapping had caused? It wasn’t hard to see that something in Aang snapped the moment he heard that sandbenders had stolen Appa right under Toph’s nose. His pain, anger and grief were crystal clear. Yet instead of offering his friend some compassion, Sokka focused on getting out of the desert. No wonder Aang left them all in favor of looking for his bison—Sokka would have been upset had they all focused on the wrong thing.

And then there was that whole cactus juice induced hallucination and… yeah, Sokka took a while to come back to his senses. Probably too long, because by the time his mind was starting to clear, Aang was more livid than Sokka had ever seen him before. Honestly, it was kind of, sort of, terrifying.

Somehow, once all of this was over with and they made it out of the desert, Sokka still didn’t reach out to Aang. Neither did Toph, from the looks of it. He wasn’t sure about Katara, although she did seem to be the wariest when it came to mentioning Appa around Aang, at least.

They could probably all tell something was still off about their friend. Aang wasn’t as angry anymore, and he wasn’t sobbing or breaking down or destroying anything. But Sokka could see the boy was still hurting. He wasn’t acting like himself. Sometimes he just caught Aang staring into space, like he was stuck inside his own head, and instead of approaching him to see if he needed some help, Sokka found himself turning around to do his own stuff.

Whenever he was somewhat further away from Aang, his thoughts would circle back to the fact that he wanted to help the kid. And he could see that Toph felt bad about it all, too. But every single time he tried to find Aang so they could talk through the whole Lost Appa thing, he’d lose his nerve at the last moment and bring up much more random stuff to talk to. The conversations always died pretty quickly, with neither Sokka nor Aang being all that interested in whatever it was they were discussing. He was pretty sure one time they ended up talking about whether the Unagi was a shade of onyx or jet black.

Seriously, it was weird.

By the time they all made it to Ba Sing Se—and got rid of the drill of the Fire Nation—Aang was back to normal albeit still weighed down by Appa’s absence. Still, once it became clear that they were going to have to spend a while in the city before meeting the Earth King, Sokka decided enough was enough. It was time to talk to Aang without backing out at the last minute. The kid could use some support from Sokka and not just Katara. Even if he was certain that Aang more than loved it whenever Katara focused on him like that.

So when Aang sprang to his feet—Sokka was starting to really get used to this airbending levitation thing he had going on—and declared one day that he was going out to ask some more people about Appa, Sokka volunteered to go with him before Katara could chime in herself. Toph looked unsurprised by this, but his sister gave Sokka a slightly baffled look, clearly wondering what he was up to. So he just flashed her a wide grin before following Aang out of their upper ring house.

They spent some time wandering about, searching for people who looked like they might actually help them. Aang, the softer spoken one, started off most of the conversations while keeping things polite. When nothing came of it, Sokka jumped in with his much more blunt attitude. He had no qualms with upsetting a bunch of strangers for the sake of making Aang happy again. Besides, he was worried about Appa too and wanted to find the big fellow as soon as possible.

Of course, nobody had any information to give them. They hadn’t heard of any sky bison. Most of them believed they were extinct or never existed in the first place. A little girl heard Aang describing Appa and cried about how a monster was on the loose. After a bit of comforting her, she changed her mind and decided she wanted to be Appa’s new best friend. Sokka was glad when her father finally said they had to go and dragged the girl away.

“Come on, Appa,” mumbled Aang as they started walking in a different direction. “Where are you?”

“Hey, we’re going to find him,” promised Sokka, putting a hand on his shoulder. “There’s gotta be a clue somewhere around here. Someone must have seen or heard something. And we won’t stop looking until we find him.”

A grateful smile crossed Aang’s face before he pulled out his bison whistle and blew it for the dozenth time, eyes traveling to the sky. When nothing happened, the smile faded back out of sight.

Rubbing his arm, Sokka said, “You know, I’ve been meaning to, um, apologize. For not really helping you while we were in the desert.”

Aang kept on searching the sky while still walking ahead. Somehow, he didn’t run into anyone or anything; although Sokka still felt the urge to grab and steer him before he did. At the sound of Sokka’s words, though, his eyebrows drew closer together and the corners of his mouth tugged down.

“What are you talking about?” he said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the cactus juice definitely helped. But—”

“What cactus juice? What are you talking about?”

Confusion settled in Sokka’s brain. “Um… I found this cactus and drank the water inside? It made me hallucinate for hours? Did you not hear Katara when she complained about it?”

With a grimace, Aang dropped his gaze to his feet. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention. Are you okay now?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he dismissed with a wave of his hand. “But if you didn’t know about the cactus juice, then what were you talking about? I mean, we lost Appa. Katara tried to help. I should have, too. I know how much he means to you, Aang. I’d be pretty furious if I were you.”

Squeezing the whistle between his fingers, Aang’s hand trembled a little. He kicked a pebble in his path and made it skip and roll down the road and out of sight. Sokka momentarily felt like maybe he should just leave Aang be; drop the subject. Was it really a good idea to bring this up now? Aang was finally acting like himself again, if slightly more subdued. That was good enough, right? But then Aang’s grip on the whistle loosened and Sokka relaxed a little.

“It’s not your fault you didn’t try to help, Sokka. It’s mine.”

Yeah, Sokka was beyond flabbergasted. “Huh?”

“You know how everything in the world vibrates at a certain frequency all the time?”

“Everything in the world what?”

Aang scrunched up his nose and inhaled deeply before explaining, “Airbenders can feel motions in the air. Some disturbances are smaller so it’s harder to spot them, but we know everything in existence vibrates constantly. All over the world. Every living thing, every inanimate object—everything. So some philosophers theorized that maybe because certain vibrations harmonize together, certain people are drawn to each other. Like people who play different melodies that pull them together and harmonize with each other.”

The idea of something Sokka couldn’t even feel initially made him want to object vehemently. But then he thought about the words for a little bit longer and hesitated. Because Aang didn’t say the colossal vibrations were the theory—that was a fact of life to him that he’d assumed everybody knew. No, it was only the harmonious music he claimed could be false.

So if Sokka took the vibrations as a known fact and not as some ludicrous fantasy, he could see how it would kind of make sense for the harmony thing to be applied to it. Because if they were truly all vibrating individually, perhaps some of them had matching, complimentary frequencies that drew them closer together. Like family members, maybe; or good friends.

Very slowly, he said, “Oooookay. And this music philosophy is important… why?”

“Well…” Aang looked away from Sokka, wringing his hands with a guilty look on his face. “A couple of years ago I figured… I mean, if I can feel the vibrations and change them a little, maybe I could create different harmonies with them, right?”

“You can do that?” Sokka’s eyes widened. “There’s no way!”

Shrugging, the kid said, “It worked on Appa. I mean, we were already close and we did match without my help. But if I airbend the air that comes out when I talk to him just a little bit… well, I can sort of make it make more sense to him.”

Sokka’s feet came to a sudden halt. He stared up ahead as his brain screeched at him loudly about how his question regarding Momo suddenly made sense. Because now he realized why it looked like Momo only understood Aang properly. Because the lemur really did understand Aang. At least to an extent. This harmony sound manipulation magic must have been used by Aang tons of times and none of them had been aware of it because… well, it was an airbending technique.

“Aang, that’s genius!” he said excitedly, grabbing his friend by the shoulders and shaking him a bit. “You can talk to animals! This is so—okay, actually, it sounds impossible and it’s probably not going to help us much—”

“I don’t really talk to them. I send them the general idea of what I feel or need, maybe,” Aang corrected, unbothered by the abuse. “I don’t think they can really understand me. It’s not like I’m using words with them. It’s like I’m playing them a song and they understand the message it’s trying to pass on.”

“That’s what I said!”

“Um… not really.”

Resuming their walk, Sokka waved his hand a little. “Whatever. The point is that it’s awesome! Hey, and you also proved that philosophy was dead on, right? Because it wouldn’t have worked if those ancient guys had been wrong about their harmony theory.”

A small smile flickered across Aang’s face before the kid looked down and away again. He still looked guilty, for some reason. Sokka was expecting more excitement from him—or at least a bit of pride, like the one he’d displayed after showing Katara and Sokka his air scooter—another invention of his. Yet he didn’t look like this was making him any happy this time around. If anything, he was amused by Sokka’s enthusiasm rather than content with his accomplishments.

“This is amazing. Why aren’t you more thrilled about this?” he asked, dropping his voice a little. “You basically made another thing up. A new airbending technique, right? Which, by the way, I’m totally going to name. But this is a good thing, right?”

“By itself, I guess.” Aang stashed his whistle again, then tugged at his sleeve restlessly. “But then I also discovered I can push people away by using it. If I change the notes I send out, they no longer harmonize with others’. And the worse it sounds, the more it pushes people away.” Looking down, he started fiddling with his fingers. “And I kind of used it in the desert and after so you guys wouldn’t bother me.”

Sokka stared at him, dumbfounded. The idea that Aang somehow used his airbending to mess with Sokka’s perception of him sort of bothered him. He didn’t like the idea that something like that could affect him so effectively. Because it did. Sokka had been wanting to approach Aang for a while now, and every single time he’d changed his mind inexplicably at the last moment. And apparently it’s been Aang’s doing all along.

Had Aang used this ability to change Sokka’s vibrations—whatever that meant—maybe he would have been truly upset. But he said he’d only changed his own. He changed the ‘notes’ he was sending out to the people around him so they’d leave him alone. Sokka could understand needing space. It was just Aang’s silent way of asking all of them to take a step back and not crowd him. It wasn’t inherently bad.

“Sorry,” the boy added meekly when Sokka failed to respond.

“It’s fine,” he brushed it off quickly. Wrapping an arm over Aang’s shoulders, he added, “And hey, next time I’ll feel this way I’ll know it’s your fault and not just me being as apathetic as Katara always claims me to be.”

Brows climbing up, Aang said, “Of course you’re not apathetic, Sokka.”

“Thank you! D’you mind telling that to her when we get back? She can’t ignore the Avatar vouching for me.”

“I don’t think she’ll see it that way…”

“Well, then she can’t ignore our best friend vouching for me.”

Aang finally chuckled lightly. And he knew it was stupid, but Sokka could have sworn his eyes looked slightly less stormy; the gray in them just gleamed more brightly, in his opinion.

They didn’t find Appa that day. Although the idea of communication did lead Sokka to come up with the brilliant plan of making posters and spreading them across the city to reach more people. It would be like Aang using his melodic vibrations technique, but instead of using airbending and a language no one understood, they’d be using ink, paper and actual words.

The hopeful grin on Aang’s face upon hearing the idea was worth the trouble of working on the hand-drawn posters for hours only to then scrap all of his work.

࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

This one took a while for Sokka to notice.

･･･

“Hey, do you know where Katara is?” asked Sokka.

Without looking up from the berries he was harvesting from a bush, Aang pointed in a certain direction.

･･･

“Aang, I can’t find Momo and we’ve got to go.”

For a moment Aang’s face screwed up thoughtfully, then his gray eyes cleared and he fluttered to his feet—perfectly normal. “Oh, he’s flying near those trees over there. I’ll go get him.”

･･･

Sokka squinted all around. “I swear, Toph was just here a second ago.”

“She and Katara are that way,” said Aang absently, gesturing with his hand. “But, uh… Sokka, why is there a beard on your face?”

“Aang, buddy, we all have our secrets. TOPH!”

･･･

It was honestly a shame it took Sokka this long to realize there was anything strange about the fact that Aang could just tell where people were without looking. And once Sokka did notice it, he’d instantly assumed it was just like the kind of thing Toph did. Surely Aang was simply seeing through his feet with earthbending, learning from his teacher and practicing it at random to help find their friends.

But then Sokka thought about it some more and realized it still made no sense. Because the few times Aang was necessary to help them find Momo, the lemur was way up high in the air, flying around and completely disconnected from the ground. Besides, Aang could do this before they ever even met Toph. So this couldn’t possibly have anything to do with earthbending.

And now Sokka sat and stared at Aang’s unconscious body, and it dawned on him that he was that close to never being able to find out how Aang did it. Because the kid nearly died. No, he did die. He died and Katara brought him back with her magic water grumpy old Pakku had gifted her. Seriously, they all owed that old man everything for giving them such a valuable thing. The entire world owed him.

This was one of the rare moments when Katara wasn’t around Aang. She kept on tending to him restlessly, constantly looking for ways to make the situation better; to help the kid who wasn’t even aware of what was happening. It took a whole lot of time to finally get her to go to the quarters Sokka had declared as his own so she could sleep. Toph was keeping an eye on her, to make sure Katara was actually sleeping and not driving herself mad.

So Sokka volunteered to keep an eye on Aang, just in case anything went wrong.

It felt wrong, staring at the motionless body of his best friend just lying there, devoid of energy. Aang was such a lively person that seeing him so still made Sokka feel like the world was shifting on its axis. And the Fire Nation flag hanging off the wall above his friend’s head wasn’t helping in the least. It was like the Fire Nation was mocking them, looming over their worst enemy’s broken body tantalizingly, as if saying: “See what we did? He’s ours now.”

If Sokka ever ran into Azula and Zuko again, he’d kill them himself for doing this to Aang. If Katara didn’t get there first.

He still remembered his initial confusion upon seeing a tearful Katara carrying Aang’s body toward Toph, the Earth King and him. It was a strange sight that turned horrifying the second he’d caught his sister’s mournful gaze and realized things were far worse than they looked. The tension hadn’t left his body until he saw Aang momentarily opening his eyes again before passing out. Because it was a sign of life—life that hadn’t been there before.

The universe or whatever had given Sokka a new family member, a little brother to look after, only to snatch him away far too early. Had Aang not recovered, Sokka would have gone on an entire search for the beings responsible for this—be them human or spirit or something else entirely.

Unlike Katara, who dedicated every waking moment to caring for Aang, Sokka found it worse to see the boy like that. So he did his best to stay away from Aang’s room unless his help was required. It didn’t feel right to be around Aang and not see his smile or hear his jovial voice. This dormant version of the airbender was unfamiliar; it didn’t fit the person Sokka knew and he’d rather not get acquainted with this shadow of his friend. Instead, he’d rather stay away and pray for Aang’s recovery so he could have the kid he knew back on his feet.

Still. If it helped Katara rest to know that he was with Aang, then he would stomach the sheer wrongness of the situation.

He wondered if maybe Aang could tell he was there despite being dead to the world. He sure could sense where people were while he was awake. Maybe being unconscious didn’t take away this ability. Maybe Aang was actually awake but couldn’t move, speak or open his eyelids to show it.

He poked Aang’s arm a little and waited. Nothing changed. The kid still remained indifferent and oblivious.

Sokka sighed.

“You know,” he sniffed, “if you knew you had hair right now, you’d have jumped straight out of bed. Just saying. That’s kind of all the proof I need to know that you’re completely out of it. You’re not even reacting.”

Not a single twitch showed on the Air Nomad’s face. Sokka’s heart sank a little as the tiny shred of hope in his chest got snuffed out again.

At least the kid couldn’t push them all away in his current condition. Yes, Aang could bend in his sleep. But this wasn’t exactly any normal sleep he was stuck in. So he couldn’t possibly airbend in order to make their vibrations incompatible or something. He was stuck with all of them doing their best to keep him going despite how dire his situation was.

“Hang on…” Sokka muttered, a crease forming between his eyebrows. “That’s it, isn’t it? That’s how you know where we are! You use airbending. The same way Toph uses earthbending to see—you can probably feel us, like, moving in the air. Or you feel our vibrations and recognize them. Ho-ho-ho, I totally figured it out!”

Aang just kept on lying there.

“It should really have a name, you know,” he plowed on stubbornly, imagining Aang’s gray eyes opening and his eager smile tugging at his lips. “How about… air seismic sense? Well, I guess seismic implies it’s connected to earth. Just air sense might be better. But it’s so boring. You agree, right?”

No response. Sokka nodded gravely, pretending his friend had agreed with him.

Outside, the voices of the Duke and Pipsqueak drifted in past the closed door. From further away Sokka could even detect his dad’s voice. He wished he could bask in the feeling of actually being able to spend time around his dad for a long period of time, but it was hard to see any of this in a positive light when Aang was teetering on the cusp of death.

Sokka wondered if telling Aang that Katara was worried about him would help. He knew the boy had a crush on his sister—it was kind of hard to miss. And had Aang been awake, he would have hated seeing the condition Katara was in, especially since it was related to him. But if Aang was able to hear Sokka like this, would it just hurt him to know he was making Katara feel this bad, or would it actually spur him to wake up more quickly?

His chest squeezed painfully and Sokka quickly tried to focus on Aang’s own chest as it rose and fell with every breath the airbender took. It was the proof that the kid was alive. It was the confirmation that not all was lost—not for the world and not for Sokka’s personal world. So he found himself matching his own inhales and exhales to Aang’s ones. He wished there was some airbending involved in this. It would have been another sign that Aang was recovering from… dying.

Recovering from death.

The words were so absurd, Sokka wanted to scoff. Instead, he just thanked whatever spirit was still looking out for his best friend or little brother or whatever more Aang was to him. Because he was more. They haven’t even known each other for an entire year yet, but Sokka already knew his life would never go back to the way it was before. Even if he returned to the South Pole once it was all over, Aang wouldn’t be left behind because he was now an integral part of Sokka’s life. Not to mention the fact that Katara would never allow either of them to just abandon Aang to face the world by himself.

For a few minutes the silence stretched between them, enveloping them in its suffocating embrace. Sokka poked Aang’s arm again to no avail, then sighed in frustration and elected to just hold his friend’s hand. His thumb brushed against the blue arrow on its back, and he absently wondered how much it must have hurt to receive these tattoos.

“Oh, I’ve got it!” cried Sokka delightedly, cutting through the depressing tranquility. “Echothrum! Eh? Eeeeeh? That’s good, right? You like it! I know you like it. It’s a great name. Mmm… you like it, right?”

He knew it was a trick of the light, but Sokka could have sworn the left corner of Aang’s lips tugged up a little.

“Yeah. Yeah, so now you just gotta wake up so I can tell you I named your super special music airbending thing, Aang.” Sokka watched him imploringly, heart in his throat. “Just wake up; come on. Just wake up.”

His friend kept on breathing and Sokka held on to him tighter.

࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

Sokka knew close to nothing about the different types of fabrics, okay? But he had a sense of touch just like most people in the world. So he knew from the few times he’d made contact with Aang’s Air nomad attire that the thing was made of some kind of fabric Sokka had never felt before. Katara and his clothes were much sturdier, their outfits thicker and stiffer. But Aang’s yellow and orange clothes always flowed with ease, the fabric as soft as silk yet clearly durable enough to survive most of their journey without ripping too often.

Every time the breeze blew past them, Sokka could see why the Air Nomads picked this fabric for their clothes. It seemed to move right along with the wind, the way Aang himself sometimes did. Had Sokka worn something like that, he would have probably frozen from the chilly air that got everywhere, the clothes not providing enough of a divider. But with Aang’s airbending, it wasn’t an actual issue. So the fabric was perfect for him.

But then Azula shot Aang with lightning and the orange and yellow robes ended up sizzled, torn and blackened. Despite his lack of knowledge in the matter, even Sokka could tell there was no repairing this amount of damage. Katara still tried, though. While Aang was unconscious and there was nothing else for her to do, she’d pick up his clothes and do her best to stitch them back together. But it was a futile attempt at maintaining a piece of the past that had already slipped through their fingers.

It wasn’t surprising to see the grief on Aang’s face upon realizing his robes were gone and couldn’t be saved. It was, however, surprising to walk in on Aang’s sitting in his room aboard the Fire Navy ship, desperately trying to mend the torn pieces with a needle and string.

“You can sew?” said Sokka in shock.

Groaning in frustration, Aang set aside his work and dusted his hands. Ashen particles rained down and onto the floor, which Sokka scrunched his nose at. Then he focused again on the hunched posture of his friend and his grimace deepened. Because he’d expected Aang to wake up and be, you know, Aang. Instead, ever since waking up there was this dark cloud that kept on following the kid around. He was irritable, short with everyone and, of course, in constant pain from the healing wound on his back.

Stepping further into the room, Sokka tried to keep his voice light as he said, “I didn’t know you could sew, Aang.”

“The monks taught me,” he said dully, not turning around. “Air Nomads are nomads. We have to be able to fix our clothes in case something happens to them. I don’t think they expected them to get charred, though.”

Sokka shot the bundle of unwearable robes a look. “Oh, I didn’t know that. I, uh, have no idea how to sew.”

He could practically hear Aang’s eyeroll as the boy wryly said, “I know, Sokka.”

Had the circumstances been any different, Sokka might have laughed. Because only several months ago he would have scoffed at the idea of Aang sewing. The task itself was assigned to merely girls in his head. Girls sewed; boys did all the manly tasks. He must have come a long way for him to be able to discover his friend knew how to sew without finding it weird in the least.

It did make Sokka wonder what kind of thoughts must have crossed Aang’s head every time he heard Sokka’s more—um—sexist comments during their journey together. He was pretty sure the kid didn’t have a single sexist bone in his body, yet he’d never chided Sokka for his comments, nor did he correct him. He basically just let Sokka be while minding his own business and letting Katara handle the mess.

Huh. Maybe Aang was a good influence on him.

“I’m sure we’ll be able to get you new clothes eventually. We’ll just… we’ll look for whatever we need,” he said.

“This fabric was woven by the Air Nomads, Sokka,” his friend said tightly. “We might find the same colors, but we won’t find the same exact thing unless we snatch the clothes off the corpses back at the Air Temples.” His voice cracked and he exhaled shakily. “And I don’t know how to weave this fabric. They never got around to teaching me that. But I do know that the plant they used to make our clothes grew around the Air Temples. The high altitude was important. We harvested them together. No other nation would have these plants so no one would be able to make these clothes again.”

All… right. Sokka loved Aang and wanted to help, but an emotional Aang tended to go into the Avatar State, and Sokka wasn’t equipped to handle that. Katara was the only one who ever managed to pull him out of it; Sokka could never really find the correct words to tell his friend to soothe him the way his sister did. And if this conversation deteriorated and Aang started glowing furiously, their ship could sink and they might all end up dead.

This would be a great time for his sister to come and check on Aang like she always did these days. But, of course, the universe never liked aiding Sokka. The doorway remained vacant, leaving him alone with a moody, grieving airbender.

Okay. Okay, he could prevent a catastrophe, right? Aang was his friend. Sokka just had to… figure out what the heck he could say to make any of this less tragic.

“Oh,” was what he ended up saying. “I’m sorry.”

Aang didn’t react, instead moving his hand to run his fingers up and down his unsalvageable robes.

Figuring he could try to distract him, Sokka said, “Maybe you could teach me how to sew too!”

“Maybe,” mumbled Aang. “I think I’m gonna rest for now, though.”

“Are you sure?”

The only response he got was of Aang lying down on the bed. He rested on his side like he always did in a fetus position, his back to Sokka. It left the ugly lightning wound on his back and the small exit wound at the bottom of his foot in full view and the Water Tribe teen wrinkled his nose. It got worse when he noticed the boy’s hands pulling the charred fabric toward his chest, like he was cradling one of the last remains of his past.

With a defeated sigh, Sokka murmured a farewell and let Aang be.

･･･

The Fire Nation outfit Sokka snatched for himself was great, but it didn’t sit on him quite as well as he would have hoped. He would have asked Katara to help him, but she was busy adjusting her own clothes on top of Toph’s.

“I can help with that,” said Aang as he descended toward the ground on a puff of air, which Sokka barely even found unusual at this point.

Sokka turned to see his friend sitting on the ground and fiddling with the sleeves of his new suit. It clearly bothered him that he was being forced to hide his tattoos, but at least his mood had brightened and he seemed to be acting more like himself, if a little less all over the place. His smiles were sincere again, his laughter like wind chimes, his attitude back to its ridiculous optimism. His familiar tattoos were hidden behind pieces of fabric and a layer of brown hair, but he looked more like himself than he had since getting shot down.

“Oh, right!” said Sokka as he took a seat beside his friend. “I forgot you could do that.”

With a chuckle, Aang rummaged through one of their bags for a thread and needle. Sokka had no idea how much he’d missed this sound until he heard it. It warmed his heart to see Aang back to his happy self again.

“Well, it’s not exactly the same color,” mused the kid as he picked a brown roll of string. “But it should work just fine. No one would even notice. Here, I can show you. It’s really simple, actually. You just gotta…”

He kept on talking, walking Sokka through the entire process. It probably really was simple, but to him it was more complicated than any fighting form Sokka had ever learnt. Still, he did his best to actually consume the information and commit it to memory. If he were ever stuck with nobody else to help him and his clothes got torn, he could use this knowledge. This was just another survival skill he could learn, even if he grew up thinking it was girly.

Hey, maybe the Air Nomads had the bright idea.

࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

Honestly, out of all the weird things that could have happened to them, being invited to stay at a Fire Nation family house was somewhere up there, right next to Aang being revived and Sokka owning a space sword.

He had no idea how it even happened. One moment they were strolling down the marketplace of a Fire Nation town, searching for food they could afford to buy, and the next a wrinkly, old lady showed up and gaped at Aang like he was the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen. Sokka had no idea how she was standing on her legs or seeing anything, though; she looked so old. Probably around the same age Aang would have been had he not frozen himself for a hundred years—yet another oddity in their lives.

They all freaked out at first, especially when the woman, in a hushed, reverent tone of voice, called Aang by his name. Granted, she didn’t assume he was the Avatar, but the fact that she took one look at him and could put a name to the face made alarm bells screech inside Sokka’s brain. They had to leave. Like, right now. Before this hag called the guards.

Instead, Aang’s own dread morphed into awe the second she’d introduced herself as Tei. He even jumped a little too high in his excitement, which luckily nobody noticed—including Sokka, who almost forgot this wasn’t something all people could do. Apparently, Aang used to know someone by that name a hundred years ago. With how old this lady was, Sokka figured it made sense it was the same girl. But that didn’t mean he was okay with just allowing this Tei lady to lead them to her house, where her family lived. In the middle of the Fire Nation. Where people viewed their team as the enemies of the entire nation.

Seriously, this had Bad Idea written all over it. Especially after the whole… Hama debacle.

But when his friends tried to intervene and drag Aang away, the boy brushed them off and willingly followed Tei. The entire stroll toward her house, Aang and she held up a steady stream of conversation, which mostly consisted of the hag slowly telling Aang about her husband, children and grandchildren. And one great-grandchild, apparently. Aang took it all in excitedly, practically bouncing on his feet like the weight of the war had been lifted off him for the time being.

It was nice to see, but Sokka was beyond wary of what was awaiting all of them at the woman’s house.

Her family was waiting for them at her house, apparently. He should have seen that coming. There were two couples inside, accompanied by five younger people and one baby. Katara cooed at the baby despite standing stiffly among them all, and Toph just glared at no one in particular, her arms crossed over her chest. Sokka himself stayed close to Aang, just to be sure. He knew the boy could take care of himself, yes, but it was never a bad idea to have some backup.

“So what’s the deal?” he asked when a woman—a daughter of Tei—handed them all cups of tea. “Were you, like, childhood friends a hundred years ago or something, Aang?”

“Not really friends,” said Aang. He took a sip from his tea and then brightly told Tei’s daughter, “This is great!”

The woman inclined her head with a smile. Then she turned to chide a young kid who started probing at Toph, as if checking to see what would finally make her snap.

Giving her tea an apprehensive look, Katara asked, “So what’s the story? You clearly knew each other well enough for her to recognize you looking like that after so many years.”

Unless Tei is up to something, Sokka’s mind provided, but he kept his lips sealed.

“Granny never forgets a face,” said a young adult. He rolled his eyes and added under his breath, “Kind of annoying sometimes, if you ask me.”

The girl next to him—most likely his sister—cheekily said, “Lucky no one does, Nosai.”

“Behave, you two. We have guests,” chided their mother from the corner of the living room. To Katara, Sokka and Toph she told, “He saved our mother’s life.”

Sokka’s eyes widened as he whipped his head around to look at his friend. He didn’t have to look to know that Katara was doing the same. And if Toph could see, she would have probably joined them. As it was, she only shifted her stance, dropping her hands by her sides like she was interested to hear more of this story now. Cringing under their gazes, Aang rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

“I really didn’t,” he said.

“Nonsense,” dismissed Tei. She looked at Sokka and the others with a warm smile. “When I was young, I was incredibly sick. All of the doctors in town told my parents I wasn’t going to make it past spring. We were looking for a miracle. And then the Air Nomads arrived. When my mother heard, she immediately set out to look for one who would be willing to come back home with her. It was difficult, you see? Those horrid rumors about them already started spreading back then and they were wary of accepting our hospitality.”

Face darkening, Sokka held his tongue. He didn’t need to ask to know that by ‘rumors’, Tei meant to say ‘Sozin’s propaganda’. The old Fire Lord must have spread some nasty things about Aang’s people to make his entire nation resent them. And for trusting nomads, this must have been a strange reality to come across—being hated by people for lies.

When he glanced sideways at Aang again, he found the boy staring down at his feet with an unreadable look. It made Sokka wonder if he even remembered these rumors. Was he too young to understand what was happening back then? How old had he even been? Was he younger than twelve? Was that his last visit to the Fire Nation? Did the monks traveling with him not warn him of the possible danger?

Shoving the annoying kid away, Toph asked, “Why did she look for an Air Nomad? I thought waterbenders could heal, not airbenders.”

“I suppose that is another thing that died along with the Air Nomads,” sighed Tei heavily.

A son of hers hugged her while looking at Toph. “In the past, when the Air Nomads were still alive, they were viewed as a sort of good omen. People used to look for them whenever they showed up so they could get their blessings. So my grandmother, desperate to save my mother, looked for one and found him.”

He pointed at Aang, who shuffled his feet and gulped down his tea to busy himself.

“Seriously?” the earthbender said flatly.

“Yeah,” said the kid around an awkward chuckle. “I never understood why people really believed that. Monk Gyatso always said it was best to go along with it than to deny a shred of hope when people looked for it. So when she asked… well, how can you say no to a mother who wants her daughter to get better?”

Utterly at awe now, Katara put a hand over her heart and said, “And it worked?”

His only response was to vaguely gesture toward Tei, who was very clearly alive and well—if wrinkly beyond relief. The old Fire Nation hag smiled and looked around at her family with that same sort of loving glint in her eye that Sokka’s father had whenever he gazed at Katara and him. It made some of the lingering tension in his body finally ebb away a little.

“Well then, Twinkle Toes,” said Toph as she unseeingly turned her head in Aang’s general direction, “maybe we should ask for your blessing before we start the in—the, um, plan.”

The invasion plan, Sokka knew.

Tapping his chin, Sokka pondered aloud, “Does the blessing worth more if it comes from an airbender and the Avatar?”

“Can’t hurt,” she retorted.

“Guuuuuuys,” whined Aang, face flushing a little like the conversation was too much for him to handle. Then he turned to Tei, bowed in that way he’d learnt at his Fire Nation school, and kindly said, “I’m glad everything turned out okay for you.”

“It’s a shame the same cannot be said for your people,” she said solemnly. Then she reached forward, grabbed his free hand between both of her own and locked eyes with him. “But I have no doubt you will right this wrong somehow. If one Air Nomad survived, I am certain more will come in the future. You will bring an end to this horrid war once and for all. That is my blessing to you, Aang.”

A touched, slightly crooked smile appeared on his face as he said, “Thank you, ma’am.”

࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

They had just watched a play in which their own characters ended up either dead or on the losing side of the war. Everyone looked kind of depressed, their energy having been sapped by the play and the cheers of the crowd upon their demise. Sokka had kind of forgotten that since this was a play created by the Fire Nation, they would have to lose. He’d been hoping for a morale boost, not to upset everyone.

Zuko looked like he was on the verge of snapping at the nearest person. Toph poked at her food listlessly, appearing to be lost in thought. Katara had a frown on her face, as if her meal had offended her personally; also, she kept on sneaking glances toward Aang. Suki tried to keep up a stream of conversation, and Sokka helped her as much as he could. They kept their voices chirpy and bright, pulling the others into their discussions even if they were reluctant to speak.

And then, out of nowhere, Aang just put his bowl aside, got up, blurted out something about the wind and climbed up to the roof of the vacation home. Sokka wasn’t sure what he’d expected to happen next, but it wasn’t for the boy to start moving like he was dancing.

It wasn’t that weird to see Aang dancing, to be fair. The kid usually pulled off that same crazy dance he liked to goof around with. And during that secret dance party he’d pulled for his school friends, he’d shown some pretty great moves. Sokka had half a mind to ask the kid to teach him how to move like that. Or maybe his sister because she, too, could apparently dance pretty well.

But this time was different. Even from the ground, Sokka could tell Aang wasn’t moving in the same way. His limbs flowed between the motions so smoothly, it looked like a practiced thing. But at the same time, there was something so liquid and free about the dance that there was no way it was practiced. If anything, it almost looked like Aang was allowing something external to lead him through all of the steps, his eyes closed and his feet lightly tiptoeing across the roof without falling or slipping or faltering.

There was something so mesmerizing in this dance. Sokka felt like his heavy feelings brought on by the war and the play were drifting away the longer he watched his friend. And the others appeared to be feeling the same. Sokka felt light, at ease, relaxed, free. It made no sense because he knew this was just a dance and the war was still going on around them all. But for a moment…

For a moment he could almost imagine a world of peace.

Around them, the wind picked up with every motion Aang made. It whipped all around their group on the ground, then flowed upward, toward the airbender. Sand, flowers and leaves swirled around in its strong currents, slowly gaining a hazy form in the darkness. And as Sokka squinted, he realized he wasn’t imagining this—there really was a shape forming in the wind; it was solidifying with every passing moment, every added step Aang took.

It was a woman, Sokka realized through a screen of sheer shock. Her face, while obviously stormy, looked young and kind as she gazed at Aang with a deep sort of love. It was hard to tell for sure, but Sokka thought he could see a breezy dress ruffling around her, moving so quickly in the wind that it was impossible to follow. And the more visible this lady became, the more obvious it was that she was indeed leading Aang in his dance, guiding him step by step like a partner only he had been aware of all along.

“You guys are seeing the wind lady too, right?” said Suki dumbfoundedly.

“Yes,” they all answered, with only Toph chiming in with a bemused, “Nope.”

Tipping his head closer to her without looking away from the strange scene, Zuko said, “There’s some kind of… woman made out of air on the roof. She’s… well, she’s dancing with Aang.”

“Who… who is this?” asked Katara faintly.

With a shrug, Sokka said, “Well, Aang seems to know her.”

This didn’t seem to make his sister feel any better.

Eventually, Aang stopped moving. Sokka could faintly see him opening his eyes at last and gazing up at the wind lady. Instead of disappearing, she stayed close to the kid, still holding onto him but no longer pulling him. There was a mix of surprise and serenity on Aang’s face as he said something to the lady, his voice too faint for Sokka to hear.

He won’t lie, though—seeing Aang embracing the wind lady a moment later without hesitation made Sokka’s heart spike fearfully. Because he had no idea who this was supposed to be. And yes, he trusted Aang, but that didn’t mean situations like this one didn’t scare him. They’d already nearly lost Aang once before. He didn’t feel like letting it happen a second time.

From the ground, they watched as the woman told Aang something. Toph was the most impatient, obviously incapable of telling what was happening—not that they could explain any of this. And since they couldn’t hear what the mystery lady was saying, they had no way of figuring it out unless they climbed up to the roof instead. And Sokka felt like that would be a bad idea. This lady came to Aang—probably because he was the Avatar. They most likely shouldn’t interrupt them.

At last, the breeze softened and the wind lady dissipated. Leaves, sand particles and flowers rained down all around the Fire Lord’s house. And Aang, after very obviously wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, jumped down and landed on the ground without a sound a few moments later. Despite his sparkling eyes, Sokka noticed he had a tranquil smile on his face.

“What was that?” demanded Zuko. “Should we be worried?”

“Who was this?” added Katara tightly.

Voice hoarse, Aang said, “That was Vāyu. She’s the spirit of air and freedom; the spirit of my people.”

Utterly unimpressed, Toph grumbled, “Oh, great. It’s more spiritual mumbo jumbo.”

Body language softening, Katara said, “I’ve never heard of Vāyu before. Did she have something to tell you?”

“Not really. She showed up because we’re friends.” Aang shrugged at the put out looks on all their faces. “I never viewed her the same way the Water Tribes view Tui and La, or the way the Fire Nation views Agni. I know she’s a spirit. But I also knew her from the moment I was born. She’s the air itself, so she’s always there, with everyone. How can I think of someone I know this well as anything other than a friend?”

“Um… because she’s a very powerful spirit?” suggested Suki weakly.

Clearing his throat, Sokka said, “Wait, she’s air? As in… she’s the air all around us?”

“Yeah, Sokka.”

“So you’re telling me she’s inside my lungs right now?” Eyes widening, Sokka clawed at his chest and cried, “I inhaled a spirit!”

Aang laughed. “She’s the first and last ones to embrace us in life. She’s constantly with us from the moment we are born and up until we die. So… yeah, you inhale her all the time.”

“Don’t act like this is normal,” he said, voice cracking a little. “I don’t want some spirit to mess me up from the inside. I am so done with spirits. One visit to the spirit world was bad enough for me, thank you.”

Suki eyed him. “You’ve been to the spirit world?”

“There are no bathrooms there,” he moaned.

Ignoring his antics, Zuko asked Aang, “So you’ve met her before?”

“Not like just now.” Aang sent the roof a look, as if reliving that moment in his head. “I’m used to her being around me because I could always feel her presence. But I never actually saw or talked to her like that before. She never showed up in this form before now—I think she isn’t comfortable with having only one shape because it’s too stifling for her. She needs to be free. Looking the same is like locking her in a cage.”

Katara blinked a couple of times. “So… what did she want from you?”

Call him crazy, but Sokka was pretty sure the kid was avoiding Katara’s gaze as he said, “Nothing, really. Just wanted to help me feel better.”

And call him crazy, but Sokka was pretty sure his little sister flushed a little before frowning off to the side.

“Help you feel better by… dancing?” said Zuko skeptically. “How is that helpful in a war?”

“This has nothing to do with the war. That’s exactly the point.” Aang spread his arms to the sides and said, “I’m not used to being this focused on one thing for so long. Not like this. I grew up learning about freedom, about constant movement, either physically or spiritually. So focusing on the war and the fights and all of it is so… stifling. I needed a break.”

Hopping up the stairs with a puff of air Sokka didn’t bat an eye at, Aang lightly tiptoed between stone pillars, almost dancing again, and explained, “I’ve never met Vāyu face to face before, but when I was younger she used to lead me all the time. We’d play together, or she’d take me to the places with the best berries, or we’d just dance.” His eyes closed when the wind whipped around him, ruffling his robes. “I didn’t get the chance to follow her like this again since waking up in the iceberg until now.”

Scratching her cheek, Toph muttered, “Wow, you take the name Twinkle Toes seriously, huh?”

He chuckled.

“But… she told you something, didn’t she?” pressed Katara.

“Yeah.” His gray eyes opened and he finally looked straight at the waterbender. “She promised to always be with me… ‘cause I’m her last airbender.”

He went right back to twirling about on light feet.

Despite the general confusion, by the time they all went back to eat their dinner, Sokka found he was feeling much better than he did before. And he could tell the others were feeling the same. Toph couldn’t even see Aang’s dance, yet even her body appeared to be less tense than it had been before. Katara kept on following Aang as he moved with Vāyu off to the side, transfixed. Somehow, this whole thing even managed to make Zuko look almost serene for a few minutes.

Hugging Suki, Sokka silently found himself wondering what the world used to look like when more people like Aang were alive—more people who let the wind lead them all around, spreading peace and harmony around the world.

For now, he trusted his friend to bring a piece of that past life back to the world.

࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

When Sokka adopted an unfamiliar kid into his close circle, he never imagined just how weird an experience this would prove to be.

But with the war behind them thanks to this kid, and his life being so much better and richer than it had ever been before stumbling upon that iceberg containing the glowing-tattooed kid and his flying bison, Sokka found that he had no regrets whasoever.