Chapter Text
They say anger is a phase of grief.
That with time, it would ebb and fade as life moved on and the wounds healed.
Sokka begged to differ.
Because every time he looked at the moon in the sky, he was reminded of his loss, of his failure.
And every time he did, his anger was fanned further, until it was eating away at him, and searching for something else to burn.
He had been mostly quiet ever since the siege on the North Pole.
Ever since he returned Yue's limp body, hair dark instead of pale white, to her father.
He, supposedly her guard, had brought her back... dead.
No matter how he looked at it, even if her soul had returned to the moon spirit, the body in his arms was breathless and cold.
She died.
And he couldn't stop that.
He kept most of the time quiet, because he knew the moment he spoke more than he needed, his dam would break.
Little did he know that it could only last so far.
He didn't even bid Pakku goodbye; he didn't look back, as they mounted Appa and left the Northern Tribe's ship behind them.
He was eager to be away from them, to be away from the reminders.
But he couldn't get away from the moon that looked down at him every night.
Was she disappointed in him? Did she hate him?
He had failed her.
He would have deserved it.
" Sokka. Sokka!" The boy snapped when Katara yelled out at him, drawing his attention.
" What?"
The girl's brow furrowed up in concern. " I was just saying... you have to eat."
" I don't feel like eating." He looked away, not wanting to talk further.
" You have to. You've been like this ever since we left the North Pole. And... I'm beginning to worry about you."
" There is nothing to worry about; I'm fine." To prevent any further conversation, he stood up and walked away. Katara heaved a tired sigh at that and returned to the campfire, settling down beside Aang.
" I take it he is still the same."
The girl shook her head with a defeated look. " I've never seen Sokka so upset before. It's like... I don't know him anymore. I wish I could help him."
" Just give him some time. I understand how it feels." Aang looked over at where Sokka picked a spot under a tree further from them. " I'm sure he will be back to normal soon."
He couldn't be so mistaken.
Sokka's foul mood soured further the longer they travelled, and every attempt they made to cheer him up ended at best with him ignoring them.
They didn't understand.
They would not.
They didn't know her the way he did, nor feel what he had felt for her.
The final blow was after General Fong used his sister as a sacrifice to trigger Aang's Avatar State. Sure, it was all a ruse, and Katara was unharmed.
But something at the back of his mind snapped then. Something that couldn't have been satisfied with bludgeoning Fong on the head with a club.
He tried to bottle it all up; he tried to bury it down with the rest of his thoughts and feelings.
He didn't realize it was the last drop that would overflow his dam.
" I'm sorry, Katara," Aang began as they got off Appa and were getting ready to set up the camp. " I should have listened to you. I shouldn't have tried to rush into the Avatar State. It was the wrong way."
The girl gave him a soft smile as she patted his shoulder in an attempt to cheer him up. " It's okay. I understand why you wanted to do it. However, learning how to bend all four elements comes first. You need to be in control of your strength."
" Maybe he should learn how to fight first." Sokka didn't mean to speak up.
But he did.
And now that he had done it, he couldn't take it back.
" What do you mean, Sokka?" Katara turned to him, hand on her waist, as it was when she wanted to challenge him.
" Maybe if he fought back today, Fong wouldn't have gotten you like that! What is he going to do when he faces the Fire Lord? Run around in circles until he makes him collapse?!" Sokka countered.
" You know Aang doesn-"
" Katara! If it were a real enemy today, you would have been killed! With no mercy!" He cut her off, marching up to her so he could look her in the eyes. " And all he did was run and beg him to let you go! Maybe he couldn't get into the Avatar State, but he should have fought!"
" I couldn't attack General Fong! He was kind to us and-"
" You certainly didn't think that when he got Katara, did you? You thought he killed her too!" Aang swallowed and looked away.
" Okay, Sokka, back off!" Katara stepped between them and tried to calm her brother down. " Listen, I know you're angry. But you shouldn't blame Aang."
" Then who should I blame? Who should I blame for all that's happening to us?" The words began to spill down without him realizing. And the worst thing was, he couldn't stop them anymore. They just flowed. " Who should I blame for the 100-year war! Who should I blame for our mother's death! Who should I blame for our father being gone! Who should I blame for Yue's death!"
" That wasn't Aang's fault!" Katara snapped. " If you have to blame someone, then blame the Fire Nation!"
" Of course I blame them! And I blame the one who failed to stop them! Not 100 years ago! Not now! Not ever like this!"
" Sokka, I-" Katara definitely didn't allow Aang time to intervene.
" Aang couldn't have stopped them 100 years ago! He would have been killed! And now he is trying! You saw what he did at the North Pole!"
She shouldn't.
" After what?" Sokka stepped forward, their heads almost crushing. " After we lost the Moon Spirit? After Yue had to sacrifice herself? Shouldn't he have gotten his glowing thing and stopped them earlier if he was so mighty powerful instead of meditating and getting himself captured by Zuko?!"
" That's what he was doing!" Katara defended. " If Zuko didn't come, we could have-"
" And you! I thought you were a master! I thought you wanted to learn waterbending to become stronger and protect Aang! But you failed him, didn't you! Zuko took him from under your nose!" He thrust a finger at her, and Katara took a step back, unable to find the right words to defend herself.
" Stop it!" Aang cried out. " Don't blame it on Katara! You're right, Sokka. It was me. It was all my fault. Blame me as much as you want, but leave Katara out of it."
" Is that all you have in defense of yourself?!" Sokka glared at him.
Aang remained quiet.
Katara walked up to him and placed her hands on his shoulders, as if to support him.
Sokka could sense he had broken something in his wake. He knew he should be trying to fix the damage he had done. He knew he should apologize for taking his anger out on them.
Instead, he turned around and fetched his things. " I'm out of here."
" Wait! Sokka! Where are you going?" Katara called after him.
" To find dad. Perhaps he has more of a chance at defeating the Fire Lord than this failure of an Avatar."
" Sokka, you're just being-"
" We've been playing family long enough, Katara! And I'm sick of it! I'm sick of you two! If you both don't want to take this war seriously, then I would rather not waste my time here!" He snapped back at her. " Goodbye!"
" Sokka-"
" Don't come after me!" He shouted as he walked away from his sister. " I don't want to see your faces again!"
With that, he shouldered his bag and disappeared deep into the forest, leaving the two speechless behind him...
Karma had a way with him, he finally admitted.
" Okay. I get it. I'm not cut to be a main character. And definitely not suited to be the angry emo jerk," he conversed with the air.
He had walked away from his sister and Aang, stomping in anger and fuming, only to walk into a Fire Nation trap two hours later.
He was blinded by his own anger and rage that he failed to see where he was stepping, and the metallic cage sprang on him, trapping him in and dangling him from the highest tree in the area.
He lost his bag in the process, and with it, all of his weapons. He thought of using his boomerang to get himself down, but the cage was suspended by chains, not ropes.
He decided instead to throw it in the direction where Aang and Katara were, and it embedded itself in the ground a little further from him. He hoped that if any of them were to come searching for him, they would find it and know where he was.
All he could do by that point was wait for someone to pass by and rescue him.
He truly wished Katara and Aang wouldn't listen to him and would come looking for him eventually.
" If they come, I'm giving them the nicest hug and begging for forgiveness on my knees." He pleaded with the sky as it was growing darker.
But nothing.
No one came for him.
At some point, he must have drifted asleep, because he woke up with a start when he heard twigs snapping on the ground. " Katara! Is that you?"
He pressed his forehead against the metal bars to better see below him, and his breath hitched.
" Well, well, look what we have here." What he saw was not his sister or Aang, rather... " A Water Tribe peasant who had strayed far from home."
A couple of men in red and black uniforms riding komodorhinos...
They would come... They would come... He repeated to himself like a mantra as he was bound and thrown over the back of the rhino like a bag of rice. Surely Appa would be flying overhead any moment now...
But the sky was free of any flying bison.
He struggled, trying to loosen his bounds, trying to slip off the rhino's back. He almost managed to, weren't it for the soldier who noticed at the last moment and doubled his bounds.
With the other following after them, he became certain any plans he had to escape were futile.
Even any attempt at distraction, of creating an opening, was met by failure.
" Come on, guys! Don't you need to use the bathroom in your country?! You know what it feels like!"
But they were unrelenting. Even during the night, they would tie him up to a tree and stand watch.
Were these guys always this smart?
As the second day came to pass, Sokka came to a heavy realization.
Katara and Aang weren't coming for him.
The rhinos had put quite the distance by then, and they had entered the territory of the Fire Nation's colonies.
He didn't want them coming there by any means, even if it were to rescue him.
But that didn't undermine his concerns about what was going to happen to him.
They passed several checkpoints on their way during the third day, and with each one, Sokka's fear began to grow.
Wherever they were taking him, it couldn't have been any good if it was that guarded.
Being unable to escape, he elected to memorize as much of the way back as possible.
If anything, he needed landmarks to know where he was and how to get out of there if he could.
Finally, they walked out of the forest and began climbing a steep slope. It was deeply uncomfortable for Sokka, who had been tethered to the rhino's back and not seated properly on a saddle. It felt like dangling on a rope, and his stomach, despite being almost empty, threatened to expel whatever it had if the ride continued.
Thankfully, it didn't.
They reached what, from any distance, could have been mistaken for a cave entrance.
It was indeed a cave entrance, but deep within, there was a metal double door bolted shut.
The moment the two soldiers approached, another saluted them before opening the gate, letting them in, then shutting it back behind them.
Sokka craned his neck to take in the large doors. They were heavy, impossible to move once the locks were latched, and definitely impossible to burn through.
If he was going to escape, he would need to find another way...
" Ah. Who would have thought the Avatar's friend would grace me with his presence?" The man was old. White hair in a topknot with the front growing bald, a long white goatee, and meticulously tended sideburns. His golden eyes seemed to pierce the boy from behind his steepled fingers.
He had been brought straight to this man's office, chains and all.
" Who? Me? I've never seen the Avatar in my life!" Sokka retorted with a lopsided smile.
" Really?" The man tapped his fingers together as he decided to humor the prisoner. " Then what was a Water Tribe peasant doing near our camp? I thought your people loved the snow more than the trees?" He queried with a raised eyebrow.
" I'm just a... a tourist! Here to enjoy the Earth Kingdom's landscapes. Because... you know... Earth Kingdom." He tried.
" Right. And you expect me to believe you stumbled upon our camp by mistake?"
" I had no idea there were any Fire Nation camps there. Don't know, shouldn't your camps be in the Fire Nation?" He knew he shouldn't have said that, but he couldn't control the urge.
The man's eyebrow twitched before he finally snapped. " Enough of your lies, boy! We already know who you are! The two soldiers who brought you in today have run into you and your friends on the shipyard you had attacked!"
He pointed to the two men who saluted in return. Sokka looked back at them, as if he would recognize them from the hundreds of Fire Nation soldiers they ran into. Most of them had their masks on and, quite frankly, they all looked the same to him. However, it made sense why they were careful around him.
" Which shipyard?"
" Should I revitalize your memory?" The man stood up, flaunting the whip strapped to his belt with a smirk.
Sokka backed off. " Oh. That shipyard."
The man seemed satisfied with that. " Now, since you're the Avatar's friend, we might have use for you. We might use you as a bargaining chip or even a hostage. So I'm inclined to keep you alive for now." He explained as he settled back on his chair, and Sokka rubbed his neck uneasily.
" Yeah. That's something I would definitely appreciate."
" You'll be my special guest, peasant. So make yourself comfortable. Depending on how long the Avatar takes to come for you, you might have a long stay. Given our fortress' reputation of being unapproachable." With that, he waved, and the two men from earlier grabbed him, dragging him away. " Enjoy your stay."
The man's sinister smirk was the last thing Sokka saw before he was ushered away...
" This is your cell; hope you enjoy the view!" The guard who brought him in laughed as he unlocked the metal door and shoved Sokka in.
Like the rest of the whole structure, the walls were made of rock. Of course, since the whole thing had been made out of a mountain. So far, only the man's office, whom Sokka was sure was the warden, had been made out of smoothed limestone.
Inside, Sokka perceived what he assumed to be a large cage. Or, maybe two. He didn't know. It was like one single structure with one wall of bars dividing it into two individual cells.
Sokka didn't know the Fire Nation had been so stingy even with their prison allocations.
The whole cell was dark, and whatever he could see was totally thanks to the light coming from the hallway behind them. The only opening was an alcove up in the ceiling with bars built into it to let in some air and light.
Oh... now I understand about the view... good one. Have to admit.
" Move on!" The guards pushed him towards one of the cages and began unlocking the door. Sokka quickly glanced over in the direction of the second one. There was the faintest outline of someone curling up in the corner, as if shying away from the light coming through the open door, and keeping to themselves.
Well... at least I got company...
The cage's door unlocked, Sokka's wrists finally free from the cuffs that held them, the guard slammed the door shut behind him before turning to the other cage and giving it a kick, as if to get the other prisoner's attention.
" The warden sent you a gift. He said you might enjoy the company of a friend from the past, oh, your highness." The guard laughed as he walked away, and Sokka swallowed.
By the last light coming through the door before it would be shut on them, he dared to look at his companion. And they looked back.
A half-closed, golden eye that was cinched with a thick burn glanced back at him...
