Chapter Text
There is a moment when the Fire Nation soldiers come for Aang— kind of darkly funny in retrospect— where Sokka throws off the pretense of his human form in a desperate bid to end the fight as quickly as possible. The ship is alone and its force small; if he stands any chance at all, he reasons it will lay in overwhelming them with shock.
He is unexpectedly met with a mirror.
The man— boy? The person who had been leading the soldiers down the ramp of the old cruiser discards his human shape at nearly the same moment, and there is a pause, shocked as much as anything, where two very uncertain dragons bristle, arch their necks, and hiss like angry, overgrown geese.
And then the tension breaks with a crack, whether startled into fighting or a deliberate choice, the instant too quick to catch. With a thunderous clap of scales, claws, teeth and furious beating wings, they clash, heaving and tangling together. Through the screen of kicked up snow and blurred forms of their bodies, no one can see where one ends and the other starts, only flashes of deadly shapes darting too fast for anyone to follow. The soldiers and the villagers both keep their distance; none of them are equipped to intervene.
Red blooms across the ground, churning pink, frozen, no telling which of them has scored a blow or where. Afraid, Katara cries out for her brother.
Katara is nearly four when she discovers the water will intentionally move with her will. Sometimes. Water is fluid, and it wants to move, but it's also heavy and she can't push back against the weight of the entire ocean.
But a fresh snow drift is more than adequate enough to keep her entertained. The little flakes hardly weigh anything at all. She lifts her arms and the snow rises into the air, swirls around her glistening in the moonlight, like the stars themselves have come down to dance just for her.
“K’tara STOP!”
Right on cue, Sokka appears to interrupt her fun. He grabs at her hands, eyes wide, mouth pressed into a serious line. “S’not safe!”
Sokka does not know everything. Katara is almost four and she can make the snow dance. She pulls away, twisting out of his grip, leaving him holding onto only one of her mittens.
The flakes weigh hardly anything at all when she throws them at her brother in a fit of pique. At first.
Sokka snarls and lunges for her again, so she yanks at the snow overhanging them.
It moves so easily. Then too easily, as more and more snow rushes down, down, and suddenly the whole hillside above them is moving, just as unstoppable as the ocean tide.
Katara screams. Sokka dives toward her, still half-blind and spitting slush from his mouth.
Not fast enough.
(As if his little body would have been able to shield her from an avalanche in the first place).
But then the night bursts open in a flash of brilliant, warm light from his desperate, straining hands.
Only Aang’s arrival and intervention breaks them apart. Sokka, human once more, stumbles back, hand pressed tight to the deep gash rent through his chest. The other boy crouches, low and wary, though he doesn't seem half as bothered by the cut on his chin, or the teeth marks that weep from his hip all the way down his leg.
“You're just a child,” he snarls at Aang.
“Well, you're just a teenager... Dragon?” Aang retorts. “My friend Kuzon is a dragon, do you know him?”
Aang is right. The Fire Nation soldier is just a teen, same as Sokka and Katara. But he doesn't act like them. Prowling and snarling, golden eyes bright and hungry in a way the villagers fear. In a way Sokka fears for different reasons.
He surges forward, firing off a volley of fire blasts so quick and hot the air around him shimmers. Aang moves even faster, slapping away each burst with a flick or twirl of his staff.
Sokka can't move that fast. Watching them fight is more like watching two skilled dancers move around a stage than whatever animal frenzy he'd been fighting with earlier. He watches the soldier's fire flicker and swirl, mesmerized, his own fire answering, kindling up quick and hungry like he's never felt before.
He's never met another like him. Except this one isn't like him at all. He's well muscled and well scarred, not just the obvious one on his face, but littered over his body, peppering already pale skin with lines and dots like a star map. The other teen flows from form to form, graceful, confident as his fire blazes, and Sokka knows he was outmatched from the start.
Sokka is five when he discovers that he can make fire from nothing. Like Them.
He couldn't move fast enough. The snowbank had been collapsing with Katara in its path, and he couldn't reach her. He stretched out his hands and all he could think was ‘help her!’
He opened his fingers wide and fire roared out of his palms, hot and red. Red.
It crackled around Katara, and even though she flinched from the light, the flames did not so much as ruffle the fur trim of her coat as the snow was blasted into a harmless stream.
'It isn't fair', he thinks now.
All he ever wanted was to help. To be a good man, a good son, and a good member of his tribe like his parents. He minded his sister when Gran Gran admonished them to stay together, even when Katara was being a brat. He helped the men pull in the catch, helped process and prepare the meat from their hunts, and tended the fires for cooking, drying and warming because he was good at that. The women would always call him over and ask him to keep an eye on their work, because the work was always easier when he was around. Their fuel lasted longer. As if the flames always understood him, or he them, or both. But he had never done more than help.
He would never, ever—
Shouting voices close in on them swiftly. Katara is shaking him, smiling, breathless as she gasps, “Sokka! Sokka you're a bender, too!” She's too young to understand that her bending is a burden and his is a curse. Sokka is also young, but he is a year and a half older than Katara, and he knows that whatever just happened, nothing good will follow.
Dad reaches them first. He reels both children in, one under each arm, nuzzling the tops of their heads as he breathes them in. “Are you alright? Are either of you hurt?”
“We fine,” Katara answers first, because Sokka is still too shocked to respond.
“What happened?” Bato is beside them next, hand on his sword hilt, eyes scanning. “Are we under attack?” Other villagers are gathering around them, hovering nearby in case more help is needed, but allowing the grown-ups closest to the children to comfort them first.
“We was bending,” Katara announces with glee.
In the silence that follows, you could hear a lemming vole scurrying under the snow.
Dad recovers quickly, saying, “that's amazing, Katara,” in a slightly strangled voice and hugging them tighter. His hugs feel safe. Sokka wishes he could burrow into his dad's heavy seal coat and never leave. Not even his dad can protect him from what comes next.
A heavy set man with a full bushy beard and eyebrows to match muscles his way forward. His dark eyes settle on Sokka and stay there.
“The boy made fire.”
“With what,” Bato snorts at the same time dad’s expression turns thunderous.
“This isn't the right time for stories, Gilak.”
“I'm not telling them, Hakoda. I saw it with my own eyes, your boy made fire with his hands.”
“It must have been a trick of the light. Moonlight on the snow. Right kids?”
Sokka bursts into tears.
The fire is painfully hot, even at this distance. Even with his inborn resistance. Sokka shoves Katara behind him and slices a stray burst with his own flame. It's dimmer and nowhere near as hot, but it's strong enough to diffuse the attack into a harmless shower of sparks.
That strength won't last much longer. The wound on his chest burns with the movement. He can feel his own blood streaking down his belly, drying cold on his skin, and it makes him dizzy.
Aang deflects another slice of the Fire Nation soldier's flames toward them without thought. This time Sokka nearly stumbles when he moves to block it. Only Katara's arm wrapping around his keeps him upright. Her frightened cry finally pulls Aang's attention to them. The airbender stops fighting.
“If I go with you, will you promise to leave everyone alone?”
Sokka tries to warn Aang, even as the soldier nods his agreement. The Fire Nation can't be trusted. They'll come back again, with more men, more ships. Maybe even more dragons. Pain steals Sokka's breath and his words with it. Aang only appears more resolute, even as the rest of the armored men close ranks around him and begin marching him toward their ship.
Katara speaks instead, pleading for Aang not to leave, but the boy only gives them an upbeat smile.
“Take care of Appa for me until I get back!”
A soldier shoves him and he's swallowed into the cruiser with no more fanfare.
At the top of the gangway, after his men have stolen their friend away, the scarred soldier pauses. He tilts his head, yellow eyes raking Sokka up and down, leaving Sokka feeling more open and exposed than the wind and snow biting at his wound and blistering his bare toes.
His mouth parts as if he wants to say something, but words never come. One of his men returns with a thick cloak to drape around his shoulders, and then they too both disappear into the Fire Nation ship. It pulls away from the crushed wall with a belch of stinking black smoke, more of the ice crumbling, collapsing into the crater it left.
Sokka’s calves give out too, sinking him down onto trembling knees. Katara’s death grip on his arm only succeeds to pull her along with him. Gran Gran appears on his right. Pina replaces Katara, wedging her shoulder into his arm pit and both women heave him, grunting and huffing back upright.
“Let’s clean you up,” Gran Gran lulls softly in his ears. She pats his cheek. “You were so brave, my Sokka. Your father would be proud.”
Sokka does not feel brave. The fire in his belly is snapping, writhing under his skin with barely restrained emotion. He is incandescently angry.
“You’re being very brave, my little pup,” momma whispers into his hair. Sokka has slumped into the warmth of her furs. What may outwardly pass for bravery is mostly exhaustion. He’d already cried out all of his tears onto Bato’s coat as the man carried him back to the village last night. Now, with barely any sleep, pulled out of his warm bed to be sat on his momma’s lap in the big round house, surrounded by their village’s elders in the dark winter morning, he is mostly numb.
He sits and stares into the big central fire while men and women shuffle and mummer to one another as they peer at him. Its strong, steady, heat beats against him like a breathing thing, growling a crackling lullaby. Even knowing that carrying the fire in his blood has likely condemned him, Sokka can not bring himself to be resentful of it. He hopes that the elders chose execution over banishment. He does not want to die hungry and cold. He wants to be warm.
Nunmak taps his out pipe over the fire and it snaps happily. He packs more sweet, woody herb into the cup, then fishes out an ember from the larger fire with a bit of bark saved for tinder and drops it in. It sighs with his breath, sleepy and pleased in its new home. Sokka snuffles, and fights to keep his eyes open against the curl of fragrant smoke it sets free.
After a thoughtful drag and his own heavy sigh, Nunmuk gives his momma another sweeping look. “And you’re certain that’s all you can remember?”
He feels momma nod against his temple. “Only the stories that survived with my mother. They came from before I was born.”
“Your family was not originally from Wolf Cove. The survivors fled here after your village was destroyed by Fire Nation forces. Your grandfather was northern,” Tilluk says.
“He came from the north,” momma corrects the wording. “But he protected the village as if it was always his. He turned aside the flames of the Fire Nation whenever they came to the village and drove them off, again and again.”
“Until he did not.”
“Until he could not.”
Momma’s fingers thread soothingly through his hair. “My mother told me that a ship came. One with a dragon painted on the side. She was too young to remember, but this is what her mother told her: her father fought them with such fierceness that the snow around the village became a river, and the river turned first red with blood then black with ash. The smoke was as thick as a blizzard. When it cleared only one fighter remained standing; a Fire Nation soldier stood over my dying grandfather. Even with his last defiant breath, the Dragon of the South summoned all his might and laid a mark on that soldier’s leg so that he would always carry the death of our village like a shackle for the rest of his days.”
“A man from the north, who could turn away the flames of normal soldiers,” Gran Gran speaks next. “Who fought as fierce as any dragon protecting its nest, for whom they sent dragonslayers to deal with.”
“When you say it like that, it sounds…”
“Like your grandfather may not have been human.”
“There is a way to discern,” Nunmak says, the smoke curling off his tongue. With the orange of the firelight casting his wrinkled features into deep shadows, Sokka can almost picture the man beginning to transform himself, the lined face pulling back, unveiling sharp teeth. “A mere firebender can still be scorched by an untamed flame, but only another wielding their own fire can melt through dragon scale.”
Momma’s hug turns briefly bruising as she pulls Sokka back from the fire, back away from the men and women that are hemming them in at every side. “Are you suggesting I should try to burn my son?”
Nunmak says nothing, but his eyes remain locked with hers.
“What does it even matter,” momma says. There’s an edge to her voice that snaps Sokka away from the blank place he’s been floating. “He’s one of ours, he’s my son! A son of our tribe! He is of your own blood too, why does it matter whether he can wield fire if he wields it for us?”
“It may not matter,” Miki speaks up, keeping her voice low and soothing. She lays a wrinkled hand on momma’s shoulder. “But it may make a difference when they come for your children, Kya. And they will come.”
“No place that could permanently damage him,” Tilluk continues. “Not the hands or feet or face. No joints or places that stretch—”
Momma stands abruptly. Her hands are shaking. “You’re crazy! You’re all crazy, I won’t let you—”
Dad is at her side. He places a big hand over Sokka’s shoulder. “I agree, this is extreme. Sokka isn’t a danger to anyone, and he’s too young to fight besides. Let him grow up and find his own place in the village as the other children have.”
“But he isn’t like other children,” another voice says.
“He will need to be watched.”
“He will need to be trained.”
“The village must be protected.”
The fire in front of Sokka blurs. The adults are starting to raise their voices— not shouting, not yet, but dad’s other hand is on the handle of the knife in his belt.
The Fire Nation will come for them. They’ll come for Katara.
The village needs to be protected. His grandfather gave his life to buy the safety of his family.
Fire has never burned him before. He’s afraid of the specter of men that might come to raze their home, but of the fire itself he has no fear. Sokka pulls open the ties of his parka and shimmies out of his parents’ holds, leaving the coat with them. He kicks off his boots too, not wanting to scorch the trim that Gran Gran had poured so many hours into stitching beautiful patterns on with beads and thread. Momma’s voice behind him screams his name. He feels bad about scaring her.
The fire in the middle of the big round house is nearly as tall as he is. It pushes back the dark and cold blanketing everyone in a warm embrace. It opens wide and bright for Sokka to step inside.
Soft human skin starts to smoke and flake away, rising on the updraft with a thousand little snaps like the fluttering of startled sparrows.
Sokka does not burn.
Sokka’s chest burns. He tries not to think about it too hard, but the stitches tug at his skin uncomfortably and rub against his shirt under the coat. He has no idea how he’s going to fly like this, but he can’t let Katara go running off by herself with only a canoe and her determination.
“You can’t stop me, Sokka,” she says when he crests the hill and shuffle-slides the rest of the way down the slope to stand behind her. “I’m going to get Aang back. He saved our tribe, and I’m going to save him!”
“Katara I—” agree, he would say, except his stubborn sister plows on ahead. It’s clear she’s been stewing over this since the cruiser left with Aang.
“If we don’t help him, no one will! I know you don’t like him, but he’s risking his life for us, and we owe him—”
“Katara,” Sokka slings the extra pack and bed roll from his shoulder and lets the bundle thump heavy next to him. “Are you going to talk all day or are we gonna get going?”
Katara’s shock as she spins to face him is brief, replaced by a giant grin. “Oh, Sokka!”
He braces for her weight as she crashes into him, arms flung out to grab him around his neck. He forgets to protect his chest, and Katara forgets it needs protecting. Sokka doubles over with a hiss.
"Shoot! Sorry." She pushes away from him, then frowns. “Sokka, did you actually think you could carry me to rescue Aang?”
“— or the rest of these supplies?” Gran Gran says, and the siblings jump apart. The old woman was surprisingly spry and sneaky when she wanted to be, even carrying her own large pack full of extra food and clothes. Katara dutifully relieves her of the burden, then buries herself in another hug.
“Well,” Sokka draws the admission out, “I didn’t think rowing a canoe after a Fire Nation Navy cruiser would work much better."
Gran Gran snorts. “And this is why you should have a little more faith in your old Gran. Were you planning to sneak off without saying good bye?” She motions him to close in and accept a hug as well. It’s warm and strong, grounding.
“Did you have another idea?” Katara asks, sweet and earnest, opening a box that should have remained closed. Gran Gran smirks, then cups her hand around her mouth and whistles. The snow under Sokka’s feet shakes with the answering groan. Aang’s huge furry behemoth comes rumbling over the hill.
“Appa!” Katara shouts and goes to fling herself at it next.
“I found him wandering all alone outside of the village and thought that he might want to help find your friend as well,” Gran Gran explains. Her toothless smile is best described as devious. Katara is not wise to the cunning ways of elders, she’s too busy scurrying into the saddle on the shaggy stinkbeast’s back and calling for Sokka to hurry up.
Sokka groans. “I’m about to regret everything, aren’t I?”
Gran Gran sympathetically pats his back.