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Taming the Wolf

Summary:

What if the Avatar was found a few years later than in the original timeline? Sokka has become a brooding, vengeful warrior at the South Pole, waging a one man crusade against the Fire Nation. One day, he picks a target that will change his life, and give him the opportunity to change the whole world. Sokkla, Kataang, maybe other ships later. Cross-post of my in-progress longfic over on FFN. Same author username.

Warning: Mentions of genocide, a more brutal take on the violence of the A:TLA world.

Notes:

Heyo, this is kebabeater1. I'm crossposting this from FFN where it was originally posted. If you haven't seen it there, this is an in-progress longfic that explores a more grim spin on the ATLA world with slightly grown up characters (read: everyone is an adult). As a result, there are some divergences from canon where I felt necessary to make the world more fitting for the story.

The word count is different from FFN because I've removed all the responses to reviews in the A/N. Otherwise, the fic is untouched, except for some spelling/grammar issues and that I reformatted the earlier chapters to follow the neater formatting style I developed later on about 12 chapters into the fic.

Chapter 1: The Wolf Came At Night

Summary:

Sokka carries out his dark crusade. Azula ponders danger.

Notes:

This fic is completely untouched with regards to plot from the FF posting, but the chapters have been re-proofread and I've changed some phrases/edited some grammar and gone for some universal consistency. The only significant add is a fluffy flasbhack sequence in Chapter 11. It is 100% untouched with regards to plot. Unless you're a stickler for grammar, if you've been following along on FFN, no need to reread everything here... unless you really want to :)

All the characters are aged up. Aang is the youngest at 18. Zuko is 22. Sokka 21. Katara and Azula are both 19. If any other characters are introduced, I'll be sure to note their age.

Chapter Text

Chapter I: The Wolf Came At Night

The icy-white caps of the South Pole contrasted starkly with the crimson red banners unfurled along the metal barge, even in the nighttime – especially in the nighttime, as a mystical array of lights bent themselves across the brightly lit, starry sky.

A young woman stood atop the deck, leaning slightly against the railing. Her athletic figure was encased in richly made, well-tailored red and gold robes. A beat of steady, measured breathing was evidenced only by the visible intake and output of freezing air by her face, marching at a consistent pattern. Intentionally errant strands of her raven locks, otherwise tied up together into a knot with an ornate gold hairpiece, framed her elegant, pale face. Red, lipsticked lips pursed together into an inscrutable expression. Hawk-like golden eyes raked her surroundings. As always, the woman appeared above her surroundings, as if she was a spirit or a deity come down to observe the mortal plane. Her surroundings, in this case, were a Royal barge south of the Patola Mountains, skirting along the edges of the South Pole like a swimmer out of his depth, clutching onto any handhold for dear life.

She felt that she was being watched. She was quite right.

The bitter truth was that their situation was not quite so different from that of the metaphorical swimmer. It was supposed to be an easy initial mission, something for the young woman to get her feet wet in her official duties as her father's heir. Her lord father had commanded a royal inspection of the Fire Nation base at Whale Tail Island, but the seemingly simple task had been derailed by one frustrating occurrence after another. The young woman's lips shifted their positions almost imperceptibly, concealing gritted teeth. Princess Azula of the Fire Nation was not used to things not going her way, and even if things dared not to go her way, she was used to making them. For someone so masterfully in control of herself, the circumstances, fully out of her control as they were, infuriated her.

Even so, she didn't telegraph her emotions on her face and in her body language. The crew and captain of the ship still knew well enough that it existed. Most of them planned on leaving her well enough alone for the remainder of the trip, aside from necessary mission updates, and they attempted to communicate to her royal guards as much as possible before even attempting to approach her. The young woman's ire was entirely different from that of her father's – Fire Lord Ozai was brutal, demanding, but generally straightforward about these tendencies with his subordinates. It was expected of him, as a man, and as Fire Lord. With the Princess, many did not know what to make of her when they first met her. It was an advantage Azula used to her benefit many times, shifting her actions and personality like a chameleon. She was equally charming, seductive, commanding, and cold when she needed to be, depending on who she faced. With the crew of this ship, it was her imperious side that stood out, and that imperiousness came with a healthy dose of cold detachment that instilled fear and that special form of devotion that only comes from extreme fear. The captain of this voyage, a slightly pot-bellied, middle aged career naval officer of the Fire Nation, walked on eggshells around her and around the elite members of her royal guard.

The original plan was to sail from the Capital eastward to the Black Cliffs, and then bee-line southeast to Whale Tail Island. Her father had recently decided to rename the military base there in honor of his own father, Azulon. Apparently Fire Lord Ozai thought of no better way to induct his daughter into her royal duties than by sending her to inspect the place named after her namesake.

In practice, this seemingly simple plan had gone awry almost immediately once they found the open sea. A terrible cyclone, forming in the open ocean that divided the southern archipelago and South Pole from the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation heartlands, forced them to skirt sharply south, further than anyone had anticipated. Azula nearly ordered her crew to sail through the storm, their lives be damned – she never thought that her fate, glorious as it was destined to be, belonged drowned at the bottom of the ocean at the mercy of a storm – but the captain had talked her out of it, for no other reason than that their supplies were limited as it is, and that a delay would be understood given that news of the cyclone would certainly reach the Capital from naval scouts.

Their attempt to avoid the storm worked, but supplies were running low all the same, and the Patola Mountain archipelago was not known to be well inhabited or particularly civilized. Azula sneered internally when she thought of the pathetic villages they had sailed past, docking here and there to replenish most necessary supplies. There were only a handful of villages that could stock a modest merchant barge, never mind a royal diplomatic vessel. Azula's cold fury had only heightened to learn that the ship could no longer pass northwards from where it had come and resume its former course, as mist and fog left behind by the cyclone had made passage through the rocky coast nearly impossible. The captain had changed course, decided to navigate through the archipelago and approach Whale Tail Island from the south, but the mist storm had not relented. They were forced further and further south, into their current predicament – hugging the coastline of the South Pole.

Her fury was increased by the fact that, prior to her trip, her father seemed intent on finding her a marriagable match as soon as possible. Though her brother Zuko was still alive, Azula was sure that her father wanted his dynasty to continue through her - and that meant having children, and soon. The pestering had begun as soon as she turned 16, and three years had passed since then. Ozai's displeasure with her pickiness grew until their latest disagreement, where her father had sworn to have her married within the year. She shuddered when she thought of her father's latest suggestion, a 40 year old navy commander named Zhao who'd recently risen through the ranks during action on the Northern front. The man was only 12 years younger than her father. The thought would have made a weaker person retch.

Brushing her thoughts aside, Azula re-focused her attention on her surroundings. This was enemy territory, and Azula knew it. Her eyes scanned the water and the coastline as best they could, looking for canoes, longships, or any sign of a blue uniform hidden in the night. Nothing yielded to her sight, and her inner frustration mounted. Her feeling defied cold logic, but she knew there was danger. True, the Southern Water Tribe was nowhere near as populous or as united in its defense as the Northern Tribe, and she knew from attending her father's war councils that most of the Southern manpower had left to assist the Fire Nation's enemies on other battlefields. She even knew that, officially, at least, all the waterbenders in the Tribe were dead, long dealt with before her time, although that never stopped rumors of a new waterbending prodigy from reaching the remote villages of the southern archipelago. Such rumors came and went, and she knew better than to trust in them. The concern in her mind was much more corporeal, even if the stories made him out not to be.

For the last two years, terrified merchants and harassed military scout ships had sent cryptic messages and distress calls from along the coastline of the South Pole. It was spurred, initially, by the disappearance of a squadron of men who'd gone on a scouting mission in the area. When they failed to report, a second squadron was dispatched; when they too failed to report in, a traveling Fire Navy cruiser sent a missive to local command that they found 6 corpses hanging from a rocky outcropping along the South Pole coast, all regaled in Fire Nation armor. A search of the nearby surroundings had yielded nothing but resulted in the disappearance of some more search parties.

After that, the attacks began with impunity.

Ships that were forced to traverse near the South Pole coast made their journeys in terror. Rumors became reality, and whispered stories were told soon among all those who took to the southern sea of a wolf, a predator of smoke and iron that came in the night to claim his prey. This Nightwolf, as he was soon dubbed by bards and propagandists, raided Fire Nation military ships with brutal precision, making sure to avoid unnecessary entanglements and assassinating the highest ranked officer aboard. Merchant vessels belonging to the Fire Nation were no less lucky – they were raided, commandeered, and forced to drop valuable cargo ashore before being set free. The base at Whale Tail Island had dispatched search teams to the Pole to find the location of the Water Tribe settlement and the Wolf, but they often disappeared. After a while, the Fire Nation instructed all its merchants and capital ships to avoid traveling the South Pole coast. The military brass had given excuses of inclement weather, poor current patterns, and lack of supply bases in the area, but Azula knew it was all to save face. The Nightwolf had single-handedly kept the Fire Nation out of the South Pole. They did not have the resources to spare to hunt down a lone vigilante in the frozen tundra, and it was simply more effective to re-route travel lanes. If the occasional careless merchant or scout ship was raided, or if someone ventured too close to the coast, so be it. Princess Azula knew better than to trust in rumors, but all the same, she could not shake the creeping tension that preceded an encounter. She felt it, but she could not see any proof to substantiate it, and that infuriated her more.

Unseen by her, unbeknownst to her, the danger was much nearer than where her eyes had looked. Her golden gaze tried to pierce the white veil of snow and ice that loomed nearby, but another set of eyes – clear blue, determined, and no less steely than her own – had seen through her already.


Sokka had trailed the barge along the coastline through the day, using the natural scenery as cover, stealthily moving along the snow as he counted the guards, the crew, and the visible passengers above. As far as he could make out, the ship was lightly staffed, but there was a passenger of some worth aboard – a girl so beautiful she must be a noble-woman, he surmised. Beautiful? He chided his thoughts. Focus on the mission, Sokka. Board and kill the officers.

Try as he might, though, Sokka, was not impervious to appearances. His thoughts often betrayed him, and as he found a place to make his move – a steep cliff with a hidden face that led down to the waters, sheltered from the view of the ship until he could be close enough to make the short, brisk swim to the barge – he found the girl's face filling his thoughts. She was beautiful, he supposed, and there was no use in denying it, but he forced himself to re-focus. Her beauty held no utility for him. She was a distraction. Ideally, he could finish his mission without even alerting her to his presence. He had to remind himself of that fact, or he would be distracted from doing what he knew he needed to.

He slipped quietly down the hidden slope, sliding to the entrance of a small, natural cove that jutted out imperceptibly to the sea. He did not have a boat or a raft, but he'd observed the barge long enough to notice a metal loading ramp that extended nearly into the water, low enough for him to reach if he swam by the hull. That was his entrance. If all went according to plan, he would be in, do what he needed to do, and be out before anyone saw. Years of snow hunting and a ruthless, undying dedication to his mission had transformed the 21 year old warrior into a terrifying, stealthy machine. He was long and lean, but powerful in a wiry way. His face was painted grey and white in the manner of an arctic wolf, better to match his surroundings and his spirit. This was his land, and he was its sentinel. His bright eyes, full of rage and fury, stood in sharp contrast to his warpaint, and that was what all those terrified Fire Nation scum unlucky enough to see him, but lucky enough to survive, remembered the most about him after he'd taken their most important passenger to a watery grave – piercing blue eyes, the eyes of a demon.

He timed his movements perfectly. He was already in the water as the barge was passing by close enough to have seen him, had he remained on the jutting ice outside the cove. His movements in the freezing water were quick. It had long ceased to bother him, and though the cold pierced his skin, the fire inside him raged hot enough to dampen the feeling. He was focused on his goal and nothing else. As planned, he made it to the metal ramp, climbing it deftly. His clothes did not weigh him down, and he was minimally soggy from his swim – Katara had treated the snow-fox fur and hides perfectly, making it as waterproof as possible. As he made it to the railing of the barge, he shimmied along the surface of the deck, scanning quickly with his eyes to gauge all possible threats. The girl was further down the barge, away from the command tower, and there were six guards that he could see between him and his goal. He glanced upwards, and was glad he did, as a lookout was also perched atop the metal pipes jutting into the air from a station, scanning the surroundings for threats. Luckily, his back was turned, facing the sea and the portside rather than the starboard side of the ship. Sokka knew to make his move.

He vaulted noiselessly over the railing and onto the deck, right behind the closest guard. The lookout did not notice and the other guards on the deck were too busy facing port, as well. Sokka had timed his infiltration perfectly - all of them were distracted by a particularly bright shimmer of the Southern Arctic lights, but Sokka paid it no heed. His feet made little noise as he landed like a cat and bounded silently towards the unsuspecting guard. As his lack of luck would have it, the fool guard made the mistake of turning his head – not because he heard me, I was quiet, thought Sokka, with gritted teeth, but perhaps simply at the wrong time. No matter – he'd been seen. He could make out the alarm in the guard's eyes and knew it was almost too late. Sokka punched the soldier sharply in the gap between his helmet and his throat, de-voicing him for a moment. He whipped out a rope from his belt and choked the soldier, laying him down slowly and pinning his legs so that the thrashing was minimized. After the soldier ceased kicking, Sokka unwound his rope from the man's neck, leaving deep purplish bruises. The soldier's regalia had caught Sokka's attention. This wasn't an average Fire Nation grunt - the armor was fancy, almost ceremonial. The girl he'd seen on board had to be someone important. Sokka dragged the guard as quietly as he could behind a set of crates.

His next move was the lookout. Leaving the unconscious first guard behind the crates, he moved silently to the metal pipe that held up the lookout's station and began to climb, faster than anyone could have thought a man to climb. He caught the lookout by surprise and lassoed his rope around the guard's neck, running in a circle around the crow's nest and using the central pillar to put tension in the rope line. This one fell unconscious even faster. So far, so good. There were far too many guards below for him to go loud and overpower. He had to lessen their numbers through stealth before carrying out his mission. The goal is all that matters now, he reminded himself. Climbing back down, he surveyed the positions of the remaining guards. One was still gazing at the lights from the port side railing of the ship, one had moved to the bow and was surveying the sea ahead, and one was moving starboardside towards the crates where he'd knocked out the first guard. Sokka decided that one was the priority. If he found his unconscious comrade, the alarm would be raised and he'd miss out on his chance. The remaining two guards were directly below him now, leaning against the crow's nest pillar and chatting with one another. His mind geared into overdrive, formulating a plan of attack. If he hit quickly and rapidly, it wouldn't matter if he was detected; the guards would be dead or unconscious before they could make a noise.

Grinning madly, he readied twin bone knives from his belt and leapt 40 feet downwards. Any rational man would have thought such a jump to be suicide, but Sokka didn't give it a second thought.

He'd aimed his leap magnificently. All the force of his weight crumpled one of the two guards, who had no time to shout; in the process of falling, he'd timed a vicious downward stab with the knives, angling to the gap between the helmet and the collarguard of the other guard's armor. One knife glanced slightly off the collarguard, but the other found its way home into the man's throat, and he fell, gurgling, unable to make a noise through the knife in his larynx.

His head whipped to the next closest guard, the one who'd been leaning against the portside railing. Sokka's fall had created just enough noise for him to turn around and look for the source of the disturbance; his eyes had barely registered his two fallen comrades before the Wolf was on him like a blur with rope, leaping around him to lasso his neck in one fluid motion, cutting off his air supply and leaving him choking wordlessly - in a matter of seconds he'd tied a knot to the railing and thrown the man overboard. If Sokka had stayed there, he would have heard a sickening snap as the rope broke the man's neck, but he'd already leapt towards his next target. The guard at the bow heard the snap too and turned around to look at what caused that noise, but he, too, was quickly and wordlessly overpowered by the Nightwolf.

As quick as Sokka was, the guard who'd been his priority had made it to the cargo crates on the starboard side of the ship where Sokka had first boarded and he saw the body of his unconscious comrade. Fuck, he's going to give me away. Think, quick.

Sokka threw his boomerang past the man's face, who was so shocked by the whizzing in his ear that he turned his head to follow whatever object had just flown past him, giving Sokka enough time to leap to the man's position. He slammed one of his bone knives into the man's esophagus, then unsheathed his club and caved both the man's knees in. He caught the boomerang as it whizzed backwards, sheathed his weapons, and dropped the corpse of the final guard atop the first guard he'd choked out.

Glancing furtively, he noticed that every threat was dealt with. He snuck towards the stern side of the ship to make sure no patrols from there would find his handiwork in the front, but it was empty, save for one figure. The girl these men were supposed to be protecting was out in the open, leaning against the stern, scanning the water and the land. He took in her athletic figure and the side profile of her face, and his breath hitched. She truly was beautiful; it wasn't a trick of the light or of distance. Sokka decided to let her be. He'd be done with his mission and off the ship before she even knew of his presence.

He returned noiselessly to the middle of the ship, climbed the lookout tower again, only partially this time. He shimmied across to the second deck from the top on the central command tower, where he knew the captain or the ranking officer would be at this time. Nudging the door, he sighed in relief when he found that it was open.

Sokka slipped inside the room and rapidly scanned his surroundings. Three officers were playing cards on a table, their backs turned to him, and the highest ranking officer (he could tell from how the armor ranged from stupid to ornate and stupid) was speaking in a low voice with a man he assumed to be a navigator, who was frantically pointing at a chart laid on a table. He grinned. There was only one way in or out of this command room, which meant he had the guarantee of an uninterrupted date with these 5 wonderful officers.

Before any of them realized he'd made it into the room, Sokka rolled a pellet into the middle of the room and locked the door behind him. The pellet quickly hissed out a haze of smoke, filling the enclosed space and causing the officers to swear and choke and squint as a disgusting, ashy cloud blurred their eyes, filled their mouths and irritated their lungs. Memorizing their positions, Sokka attacked the card players first, knife in one hand, club in the other. He buried his knife in the chest of the right hand officer while leaping onto the head of the middle one. He knocked that man on the ground, pinned between Sokka and the chair, and dispatched him with a smash of his club to the face. Whipping to his left, he let go of the knife, he kicked out a leg, destabilizing the cursing officer on the left, and bounded up to his feet to grab and force the head of the unfortunate soul against the desk with his free hand. With a thick and sickening crack, the last of the card players was dealt with.

He knew the navigator and the captain had moved from their original positions, but the loud swearing and panicked voices filled in the blank for him. Knife in one hand, club in the other, Sokka jumped to where the navigator was and smashed his knee with the club, eliciting what would have been a pained yell if Sokka hadn't wrapped a wiry arm around the man's neck and clotheslined him headfirst into the ground, snapping his neck. Jumping from his back onto his feet, he quickly located the Captain. By now, much of the smoke had dissipated, flowing out of the room through cracks in the doors and windows, and both could see each other. He made out the features of the captain – a man probably in his late 40s, with a round belly and little apparent aptitude for battle. The fear in his eyes testified to that. Sokka grinned wolfishly, his face etched into a horrifying mask fit for a demon.

"P-p-please. Y-you're him, r-right? The W-w-wolf?" The panic in the man's voice, interrupted by coughing, fed a dark, ravenous part of Sokka's heart. "I-I-I'll give you anything. J-just let me live. You- you can t-take the girl instead!"

The voice of the Wolf made the Captain's heart freeze. No one ever mentioned what he sounded like – no one who'd heard him speak, anyway. Everyone who had was dead. "And what, precisely, would I want with the girl?" The words came out guttural and playful, like that of a sadistic carnivore toying with its meal. The captain gulped so loudly he thought it might be heard in the Capital.

"She's the Princess. The Fire Lord's d-daughter. J-just take her and l-let me live. Please. I b-beg you."
This was news to Sokka. His brain worked furiously, trying to work out the most effective way to make use of this information. In the meantime, the Nightwolf had a meal in front of him he fully intended to play with.

"Tsk tsk. Is this what passes for royal security in the Fire Nation? I just dealt with seven of your guards outside and four officers in here. I don't know the Fire Lord personally, but I'm afraid if I let you live now, I think you might die a death a thousand times worse when they find out how you let the Wolf devour their sweet, innocent princess. Maybe I'm doing you a favor. I think whatever I have in store for you is more merciful than what the Fire Lord'll do if he ever sees you again." Sokka laughed, a deranged noise that came out like a bark from a canine. The captain cringed to hear it.

"We'll all desert. W-we won't e-ever go back to the Cap-p-pital. Please. No one will ever k-know."

"You're going to die, Captain. You can die quivering like a coward, or you can die a man, on your feet. It's up to you, but my advice? You might stand a chance in combat. Shit, maybe, by some miracle, I'll trip and fall on my knife, and you'll live. Maybe they'll pin a medal to your chest for it. I'm giving you a shot at glory." Nothing in the Nightwolf's tone gave the captain any hope that a positive outcome was likely.

The captain nearly vomited, hearing the tortured laugh of this demon in front of him. His begging re-intensified, taking on a different tack. "Please! I have a family! A wife…. two sons! Please! Don't leave them without a f-father!"

As soon as he said it, he knew he'd curried no favor with the terror. Something in those azure eyes steeled even more, and the captain knew there was no mercy in them.

"I had a family too. And you ash maker filth took her away from me." It was the last hiss the captain would ever hear.

With a leap as fast as lightning, the wolf was upon his prey, making quick work of the cowardly captain, tearing him to shreds so suddenly the man had no time to scream.