Chapter Text
The wind whipped around the hunters’ tents with the ferocity of a raging beast. It howled like someone had wronged it, like it was seeking vengeance in the relentless battery of the animal skins that served as the only divide between the huddling human forms and the assault of the blizzard. It was dark out, but that meant nothing, the antarctic winters devoid of light-- even if the sun had peeked its head above the horizon, its light would have been summarily executed by the cloud cover.
Though there were three tents altogether, only one had been propped up, the men inside sacrificing space for essential body heat. A fire inside of a tent was a death sentence as much as braving the cold would be; the only choice was whether it would be a death by flame or by ice. The men simply moved closer together and hoped it would be neither.
Sandwiched between his father’s fur-padded elbow and another man’s chest was eleven-year-old Sokka of the Water Tribe, just barely old enough to head out on his first winter hunting expedition. He’d been ecstatic to complete his first rite of passage in the tribe, but just as surely as the clouds had gathered in front of the navigational stars, his merriment had waned. As the first flake of snow landed on the packed, icy floor of the central South Pole, his father, the chief, ordered the tents be staked up. They’d only managed one before they’d realized that the wind would carry them away without second thought if they tried another.
Even surrounded by the seven or so men that made up the hunting party, Sokka grew cold. He’d always been disproportionately affected by the weather that was common in his home, feeling sapped of energy even in the months where the sun didn’t set, sometimes needing as many as two or three parkas just to keep his teeth from chattering. Now, wearing two jackets, his only barrier from the ice being the two or three pelts they’d thrown on the ground, his nose pinked and his cheeks chapped. The latter was a sure side effect of having been out in the elements for so long, but they still stung as fiercely as if he weren’t sheltered in the tent.
He began to shiver, and his father stopped his low murmurs to Bato to bundle his son closer.
“You’re cold,” said Hakoda, worry tainting his voice.
Sokka didn’t bother with a response-- it was a statement, not a question. As the hours wore on, and the storm did not abate, he grew colder and colder. His fingers began to purple, his nose became numb, and it seemed to Hakoda that no matter what, nothing could stop the slow progression of hypothermia.
Somewhere around what must have been the fifth hour, Sokka stopped shivering. This was not a good sign, and Hakoda knew that.
In a small voice, one that Hakoda wasn’t sure his son had used since he was seven, Sokka asked, “daddy? Why can’t I feel my feet?”
The distressed howls of the wind began to subside in the same way that an injured storm jackal would be silenced; plaintive, broken yowls in trails of red across the pure white of the plains until it succumbed to the cold and died, muzzle still open in a taxidermy figure. The cold, for Sokka, did not begin to fade, and for the first time that night, Hakoda allowed himself to wonder if the men would have to carry him back-- if he would have to send his own son to the spirit of the sea so soon after he sent the ashes of his wife. He cursed himself for being a fool; Sokka had always been fragile, though he never liked to hear it, and he should not have allowed him to come on this expedition. No matter that it was a rite of passage: if something didn’t change fast, the only passage he would be making would be from the realm of the living to the realm of the dead.
Pressed on all sides by the oppressive cold fronts, Sokka grew more and more desperate for warmth. He had never been so frozen or so tired in his life, and he wished he could shrink down to the size of the little warm patch behind his belly button that was being chipped away at by the cool. He focused on the sole source of heat, tried to make it grow every time he inhaled. It was usually so easy to do, but his skin felt five inches thick and the warmth kept hitting up against the wall, stopped in the middle of its growth.
It had no choice but to travel up towards his head and down towards his feet. With every inhale it spread, with every exhale it was reduced, but it got bigger, and bigger, and bigger--
Eyes shut, Sokka didn’t see the minuscule puffs of flame that escaped every time he blew out, but Hakoda did. His worries did not cease: they changed.
They’d all thought that Katara was the only bender in the tribe. Yet, just below his own nose, his son was touched by flame. Hakoda could only wonder if Sokka knew, but never said, or if he had considered himself as ordinary as the rest of them the entire time.
When the blizzard finally let up, and the men unscrewed themselves from the tent, Sokka did not protest his father’s declaration that the hunting expedition needed to head back to the village, lest another storm catch them unawares when they were more than a day’s walk from safety. He allowed himself to be tucked under Bato’s arm, herded along while Yanikka, the group’s navigator, led them by the stars.
A few days later, and it wasn’t as easy to keep Sokka from going on the trip. His father had told him under no uncertain terms that Sokka would no longer be permitted out on winter hunting trips, not now and not ten years in the future. Sokka took issue with this.
“I’ll be fine, Dad! I made it through last time!” Begged Sokka, tugging on the fur lining of Hakoda’s parka.
“And what if you don’t make it through next time, what then?” Asked Hakoda, a set to his jaw that said he was worried. Softening his tone, he set his bundle of pelts aside and dropped down to eye-level with Sokka. “I can’t lose you, Sokka. You and your sister are all I’ve got. You’ve always been so sensitive to the cold.” He lifted his hand up to stroke Sokka’s cheek, but Sokka looked away.
He knew that. He knew it just as intimately as he knew why he wasn’t allowed to go swimming for sea prunes and seagrass with the other boys, just as intimately as he knew why he was always given a spot closer to the fire than the rest of the village. It rankled, the care with which he was treated, how everyone always wore thicker mittens when handling him. He knew how it looked: the one time his father relented, the worst almost came to pass. But he was tired of it. Tired of being the sickly child.
He was afraid it was all he’d ever be.
“I hate this,” said Sokka, stomping his foot on the floor.
Hakoda sighed. “I’m sorry, son. It’s for the best.”
It might’ve made him a coward, but Hakoda had, after much deliberation, entrusted his mother-in-law with the duty of telling Sokka of his... abilities. In fact, it was more than a might-- running off on a hunting trip, a few last days of normalcy before he had to face his changed son-- it was cowardly.
He only hoped his son wouldn’t hate him too much.
“A man knows where he is needed the most. You are needed here, son, to protect the village.”
Sokka kicked up a pile of snow and clenched his fists. “ Nobody needs me here! I’m a burden! I can’t even go fishing without freezing!”
Sokka’s relationship with his father had been strained since that hunting trip. Leaving Sokka behind just when he needed the support of his father the most-- it seemed, to Sokka, a recurring pattern.
Firebending did not make Sokka any less of a burden, not that he’d expected it to. He was so weakened by the cold and the long months of no sun that the most he could do-- and only ever in the summer months-- was light the fires for the village, or perhaps serve as a candle. He was still so cold all of the time, and, if anything, the knowledge of what he was had made it worse-- now that he knew why he always felt so empty in the winter, he only ever felt emptier. It, to put it in the plainest terms possible, sucked.
“You are not a burden, Sokka, listen to me,” his father got down on one knee, the way he always did when he wanted Sokka to understand him. Sokka turned away. “Sokka,” he was swiveled back to face his father. “Just because you can’t do the same things the other boys do doesn’t mean you are a burden.”
Letting out a cry of anguish, Sokka jerked his arm out of his father’s grip. “I’m sick and tired of being treated like a stinking girl! Katara gets to do all of the stuff I’m supposed to do, and I hate it. You never let me do anything, and now you’re leaving me here and you’re going someplace warm and you aren’t even taking me and I hate you! ”
Sokka stomped away, shaking with righteous anger. Hakoda wished his Kya was still here.
The black dot steadily approached the village, the ashy snow a precursor to the death and destruction they would surely rain upon the only home Sokka’d ever known.
He and Katara, as the most able-bodied members of the village, stood atop the packed snow that made up the village wall-- they were the first line of defense. The only line of defense. They were pathetic, and it was going to be a slaughter. Katara held her bone club in trembling hands, warrior paint disguising her features. Sokka had thrown his gloves off-- though it was unlikely his weak, substandard firebending would do anything of importance against a legion of well-trained Fire Nation stock firebenders, it would at least do something. Worst come to worst he could set his boomerang on fire and hurl it at as many Fire Nation soldiers as he could. Experience had shown Sokka that firebenders were not flame retardant.
They were lucky that it was only one ship and not a fleet. Though, as the ship cut through the ice shelf, resting just beyond the village wall that he and Katara had abandoned as soon as it became clear that the ship had no plans of stopping before it hit, Sokka thought that maybe it would be prudent for him to revise his definition of luck.
The gangplank landed with a thunk, just barely missing the closest igloo, and a boy in a funny helmet descended, flanked by a few guards.
“ Go, ” whispered Sokka, and he and Katara rushed the boy, weapons held aloft. It was a shameful testament to their inexperience when he simply cast them aside-- Sokka, as per his luck, ended up falling face-first into the pile of snow that was once the wall.
He struggled to extract himself from the snowbank, pushing desperately against the chill that immediately threatened to set in. It was times like these he loathed the cold sensitivity of firebenders.
“Where are you hiding him?” The Fire Nation boy asked, though his query was somewhat muffled by the snow around Sokka’s head.
There was a firm tug on his ankle and he popped free, just in time to see the boy grab Gran-Gran by the collar and pull her out of the crowd of villagers.
“He’d be about this age,” he shook Gran-Gran slightly, “master of all elements?”
He let go of Gran-Gran; Senna caught her. The villagers looked on in incomprehension as the other boy grew steadily angrier. He drew his hand back, and Sokka expected fire to sprout from his fingers, but he simply swept his arm around in a grand gesture and nothing happened.
“I know you’re hiding him!”
Katara sprung up and ran towards the boy, bone club held high, but he easily ducked and she flew over him. Luckily, it gave Sokka just enough time to slide past the Fire Nation soldier and throw his boomerang. One of the children passed Sokka a spear, and he once again ran forwards, but his movements were easily predicted and the other boy simply grabbed the spear, snapped it in half, and poked Sokka in the head a quick three times with the butt of the weapon.
(All things considered, it didn’t seem to be as much of a slaughter as Sokka had expected.)
Victoriously, though, Boomerang swung back around, clipping the Fire Nation soldier on the helmet for good measure. As soon as he’d recovered, the other boy was getting into some sort of Stance-- Sokka didn’t trust Stances. So he readied his own, breathed deeply and allowed the warm spot in his gut to grow, flowing out through his palms until they developed into medium-sized (relative measurement, of course) infernos in his hands.
The other boy’s eyes widened. His Stance dropped. “You’re a firebender? ”
And then Aang bowled him over on the back of a penguin.
“Hi, Katara! Hi, Sokka!” He chirped, seemingly unable to read the room.
“Hi, Aang,” Sokka responded, making sure to lace his tone with as much passive-aggression as he could muster on such short notice, “thanks for coming.”
Aang then sprung up, and the Fire Nation boy got back into a Stance. The other Fire Nation soldiers advanced, spears pointing at Aang, and with a couple of sweeping motions, Aang threw the soldiers to the side.
“Looking for me?” He asked, tone uncharacteristically solemn.
The Fire Nation boy looked positively incensed, swiping the snow off his head and shoulders. “ You’re the airbender? You’re the Avatar!?” He sounded like he didn’t believe it.
“Aang?” He heard Katara ask from his left.
Sokka couldn’t believe it himself. That boy? That childish, naive boy? “No way.”
The Fire Nation soldier and Aang began to circle each other, the older boy monologuing. “I’ve spent years preparing for this encounter. Training, meditating. You’re just a child!”
Aang stopped circling, standing up tall (again, relative measurement) and taking an innocent expression. Absolute shit-eater. “Well, you’re just a teenager.”
The other boy didn’t seem to appreciate this answer. He swung his arm wide and brought it forward-- and pulled water from the ice below, bending it towards Aang. Sokka stared, dumbfounded, as Aang defended himself against the onslaught of water and ice. Next to him, one of the village children screamed as a stray icicle neared her head-- this seemed to be it for Aang.
“If I go with you, will you leave this village?” He asked.
“I give you my word,” the soldier said, and with a last suspicious glance at Sokka, towed Aang away by the arm.