Actions

Work Header

When your dreams have disappeared

Summary:

When the Avatar emerges from an iceberg, Sokka is reluctant to join him on a journey around the world. He finds himself wondering about an old childhood friend.

Zuko, having been banished at the age of thirteen and separated from his uncle at fourteen, decides to do what any logical teenager would do in his situation: don a mask and become a pirate. Under the name of Lee, Zuko finds himself with friends and a life he (surprisingly) enjoys. But how will he react when he hears the Avatar has returned?

Notes:

Title is from the song Jinzou Enemy from the lovely Kagerou Project! Fic updates on Wednesday.

If you haven't read the previous work in this series, you probably should. Otherwise the whole premise of this fic will be kind of confusing tbh

@nvrlostword is my tumblr.

Chapter 1: The boy in the iceberg

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sokka was not feeling the love. First he’d gotten soaked by Katara’s stupid bending, their canoe had crashed, and then that weird kid and his fluffy snot monster came out of the iceberg. After he and Katara had been so kind as to bring him back to the village, the kid had proceeded to distract the children in the tribe, completely wreck Sokka’s watchtower, and walk right into the Fire Nation shipwreck where no one was allowed to go and “accidentally” send up a signal flare. Sokka wanted the airbender gone, and the rest of the tribe agreed.

Except for Katara, apparently. “If Aang’s banished, then I’m banished too,” she shouted, taking the kid’s hand and storming off.

Sokka felt a prickle of fear as he watched his sister walk towards the flying bison, ready to leave forever. “Wait, don’t go! Katara, this is ridiculous!”

“Ridiculous?” Katara spun around, furious. “You did the exact same thing once! Or have you already forgotten?”

“Watch it,” Sokka growled. Katara had hit a nerve, and she knew it.

“Um, guys,” Aang mumbled.

“Don’t you remember when you could make friends, Sokka? Wouldn’t you have done anything for your friends?” Aang winced as Katara raised her voice.

“That was a long time ago, Katara! I’m older now, and smarter!”

“Guuuys,” Aang repeated nervously. “You should really stop arguing-“

“You’ve become selfish and a jerk ever since you got your heart broken by Zu-“ A loud, resounding crack interrupted Katara, followed by a rumbling noise. To her horror, Katara saw a moving wall of snow rushing towards her village.

“Katara, could you please stop causing natural disasters?!” Sokka, along with most of the other villagers, were running perpendicular to the avalanche’s path, but he stopped when he noticed Katara and Aang. Katara was trying to pull Aang along with her, but the young airbender had closed his eyes and wasn’t budging. Sokka was just about to tell Katara to leave him when the kid started flying.

Aang’s arrow tattoos had started glowing and, when he opened his eyes, they were glowing too. “Katara,” Sokka shouted, “is that a normal airbender thing?!”

“Why do you expect me to know?! I’ve never met an airbender before,” she yelled back. All of a sudden, boulders started flying out of the snow, forming a protective wall in front of the village.

“Did… did he just earthbend? ” Before Sokka could get an answer to his question, the avalanche hit the rock wall. Snow was flying over the wall, and as Sokka watched, it melted into a big ring of water that circled Aang. As soon as there was no snow left tumbling down the mountain, Aang sent the ring of water splashing into the ocean.

“Whoa,” Katara whispered in the unnatural silence that followed. Aang landed lightly on the snow, but was looking down at his feet and fiddling with his hands.

“...You’re the Avatar.” Aang nodded uncomfortably. Sokka shook his head in disbelief. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Because I never wanted to be,” Aang said, ashamed. Katara put a hand on his shoulder.

“But Aang,” she said, “the world’s been waiting for the Avatar to return and finally put an end to this war.”

“And how am I going to do that?”

Katara paused for a moment, thinking, then said, “According to legend, you need to first master water, then earth, then fire, right?”

With a nod, Aang said, “That’s what the monks told me.”

Katara smiled. “Well, if we go to the North Pole, you can master waterbending!”

For the first time since he’d revealed his identity, Aang smiled back. “We can learn it together!”

“And Sokka,” Katara said, turning to her brother, “I’m sure you’ll get to knock some firebender heads on the way.”

Sokka grinned. “I’d like that. I’d really like that.”

“Then you two will need to pack,” Kanna said. “You’ve got a long journey ahead of you. Your destinies are now intertwined with the young Avatar. Take care of each other.”

Sokka and Katara went to gather their belongings while Aang prepared Appa for flight. Katara decided to bring her essentials along with her mother’s necklace, the waterbending scrolls Zuko had left her, and some sewing supplies. Sokka brought a huge bag of seal jerky, his trusty boomerang and club, and fishing gear. His hands hovered over a pair of swords, which had hung unused on the wall for almost two years. Memories of a smiling, bright-eyed firebender danced through Sokka’s mind, and he closed his eyes. Sokka’s feelings towards his childhood friend were… complicated, and he didn’t have time to deal with them right now. But maybe if he went on this journey with his sister and the Avatar, he could finally get some answers.

~ ~ ~

It wasn’t until they’d arrived at Kyoshi Island that Sokka had his first real conversation with Aang. After visiting the Southern Air Temple, Aang had needed some time on his own, so Sokka and Katara gave him his space. But after meeting the Kyoshi warriors and getting settled in their village, Sokka was the one Aang sought out rather than Katara. 

“Hey,” Aang said, nearly making Sokka drop his dual swords. Sokka was trying to get the hang of using them again, but it wasn’t going very well. Embarrassed, Sokka tossed the swords to the side.

“Hey,” Sokka replied, trying to act casual. “How are you?”

“Okay, I guess.” Aang sighed, plopping down next to Sokka. “None of this feels real, honestly. I know my people are gone, but it doesn’t feel like they are. Not when they’re so alive in my head.” Sokka didn’t know what to say. How were you supposed to console someone who just found out everyone they knew and loved was dead? Fortunately for Sokka, Aang kept talking. “Katara said you guys lost your mom,” he continued. With a tilt of his head, Aang asked, “Was it the Fire Nation, too?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it was.” Sokka closed his eyes and inhaled the fresh night air, remembering the day the Southern Raiders had returned. A few months after Zuko had left the South Pole, Sokka had seen the black smoke again and foolishly thought his friend had returned. He had run towards the ship, ready to pull Zuko into a huge hug, when he’d almost been trampled by Yon Rha’s forces.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Aang said simply. The monks had told him to say that to someone who was grieving. “I wasn’t raised by my parents, but it must be hard to have your mom die when you’re young.”

“What? Oh, no, they didn’t kill Mom. At least not there. As far as I know, she’s still in some top-secret prison in the Fire Nation,” Sokka explained. “Though, she might as well be dead.”

“Hey, don’t say that,” Aang said, suddenly getting to his feet. “I’m sure she’s okay. How long ago was this?”

“About four years ago.” Aang’s face fell, but he quickly perked back up again. Sokka found his unbridled optimism kind of annoying sometimes.

“Well I can help you find her! Appa and I can get you anywhere.”

Sokka scoffed. “Yeah, sure. Do you and Appa know where any maximum security Fire Nation prisons are? To even have a chance of finding her, we’d need to find someone who knows the Fire Nation inside and out.” 

You already know someone like that, a little voice said in Sokka’s head. He tried to shake the thought away, but it stuck with him like a burr on the coat of a polar bear dog.

Aang started to say something, but Sokka held up a hand and said, “I know you’re just trying to help, but I need some time alone, okay?” Aang frowned, but left the room quietly, much to Sokka’s relief.

As Sokka retrieved his blades, his bare feet pressed into the wooden floor. Back home, Sokka would only take his shoes off when he went to bed or took a bath, but here he didn’t have to worry about his toes freezing off. It was weird.

Moonlight glinted off of the swords as Sokka picked them up. The weight was familiar in his hands, but also completely foreign. There had been a time when Sokka had nearly mastered using these swords, but he stopped practicing after his father left for war. Somehow, using swords that the enemy had given him seemed wrong.

Sokka frowned and shook his head slightly. Zuko had never been the enemy- it had always been the Fire Nation, who Sokka saw as nameless, faceless people serving a cruel, inhuman master. But that master was Zuko’s father. Zuko, Sokka’s best friend, was so inextricably linked to the evil regime that had taken Sokka’s mother and made his father go off to war. 

Sokka found himself wondering about the Fire Nation prince for the first time in years. Did Zuko ever think about him? The few letters Sokka had gotten from him had been stiff, formal, and hadn’t sounded like Zuko at all, and they had abruptly stopped just before the Southern Raiders returned. In his mind, Sokka knew that Zuko was probably sitting in the Fire Nation palace right now, laughing with a new group of friends. But in a stubborn part of Sokka’s heart, a vision of Zuko frowning down at his feet in the middle of his friend group, thinking of his friend in the Southern Water Tribe, persisted despite Sokka’s best efforts.

Once Sokka started thinking about Zuko, he was unable to stop. All night, Sokka lay awake, plagued by questions about the young prince. Did Zuko still have his little boomerang carving? Had he continued his training with swords, or had he switched entirely to firebending? Was Zuko still just as warm to the touch? Did Zuko’s hair grow long enough to pull back into a ponytail, and did that little strand by his forehead still come loose?

Irritated by all the useless questions his mind came up with, Sokka was glad to finally see the first rays of morning light. He caught sight of the girl who’d interrogated them yesterday and, curious, decided to follow her into a building on the outskirts of the village.

“Hey, Suki,” Sokka said, waiting at the doorway. “Can I come in?”

Suki startled at the sound of his voice, but gestured for him to come inside. After agreeing to train him, Suki had become a lot more friendly. “You’re not in uniform,” she teased, punching him in the arm. “Am I going to have to stop training you?”

“No, I- I’m not here for training,” Sokka admitted.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

“Yeah. I was thinking about… stuff.”

“Me too,” Suki said, staring at the ceiling. “I was thinking about my mother.”

“Really?” Sokka winced at the sound of his voice. “I mean- that’s one of the things I was thinking about. My mother, not yours. She was taken in a Fire Nation raid a few years back.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Suki said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “My mother died during her second pregnancy when I was about a year old. I never knew her.”

“Sorry.”

“When I was a child, I believed Avatar Kyoshi was my mother. I started my training younger than most, under two older girls. My father did his best to raise me, of course, but he could only do so much. The warriors I trained under taught me everything I know, and I think of them as my sisters. I had everything I needed in my childhood, but I still find myself wondering what could have been.” Suki frowned, running her thumb across her index finger. “Is that wrong? To long for something I could never have, and didn’t really need?”

“No, I don’t think so. Every day, I think about how my life would’ve been different if my father hadn’t left for war, or if my mother wasn’t taken.” Now, Sokka wondered about if Zuko had never left. Annoyed, Sokka shook his head, sending the unwelcome thought away.

“Don’t get lost in it.” Sokka looked up.

“What?”

“Don’t let yourself get so lost in thoughts of what could have been that you lose sight of the present.” Suki was staring at Sokka with intense eyes. “For better or for worse, you’re here now. Make the most of it.” Suki stood and offered Sokka her hand. “Now come on, let’s train.”

~ ~ ~

After a couple of weeks on Kyoshi Island (and Aang nearly getting eaten by the Unagi), the trio was getting ready to depart. While Katara and Aang packed the generous amount of supplies the islanders provided, Sokka went to have one last conversation with Suki. She was sitting on the beach with her eyes closed, leaning against a tree. It was the first time Sokka had seen her without her makeup on, and for a moment, he thought she was asleep.

“Hi, Sokka.” Sokka jumped. So she wasn’t asleep after all. Suki sat up and stretched, then patted the ground next to her, inviting Sokka to sit. “Are you guys leaving already? I thought you were still getting packed,” she said as Sokka settled next to her.

“No, they’re still getting Appa ready. Last I saw, Aang was doing a scaled-up version of his marble trick with some of the coconuts.” They shared a laugh, but Sokka quickly cut it off. In a more serious tone, he said, “I’d like to apologize for how I acted when I got here. I treated you like a girl when I should have treated you like a warrior.”

With an unreadable expression, Suki replied, “I am a warrior.” To Sokka’s surprise, Suki leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “But I’m a girl, too.” A slight blush spread across Sokka’s face as he touched where Suki had kissed. 

“You could come with us, you know,” Sokka blurted out. At Suki’s hesitant smile, he added, “I mean it. We could use someone like you, and it’d be nice to have another nonbender around.”

“Traveling with the Avatar is a pretty tempting offer, but I’m not going to leave my other warriors behind.” Sokka knew this would be the answer, but he still felt let down. Sensing Sokka’s disappointment, Suki grinned and punched his arm. “Sorry, but you’re no pirate.”

“Huh?” 

Suki blinked in surprise. “No one’s told you this story yet?”

“What story?”

“A few months ago, there was this Fire Nation Commander who tried to attack us. We fought back, of course, but there were just too many of them. Me and the other warriors were cornered and were about to surrender, but then it happened.” 

“What happened?” Sokka was leaning forwards in anticipation.

“Out of nowhere, the pirates appeared and ambushed the Fire Nation soldiers. Their distraction helped us drive the soldiers off, and the Fire Nation hasn’t come back since. I went to go fight the Commander, but the pirates’ leader was already fighting him. All of them were skilled fighters, but this guy was something else. He was dancing circles around the Commander, who seemed to be a pretty powerful firebender but was no match for this guy.” Suki giggled. “At one point, he even cut off one of the Commander’s sideburns.”

Sokka sat up with a jolt. “No way,” he muttered, a grin crossing his face. “There’s no way.” At Suki’s confused stare, Sokka asked, “Was his name Zhao? Commander Zhao?”

“Yes, how’d you know?” Sokka burst into a full-on belly laugh, rendering him speechless for at least a minute.

“I met that guy once,” Sokka wheezed once he was able to talk. “He’s a real jerk, and he deserved to get his sideburn cut off.” Sokka’s sides shook with laughter as he thought of Zhao with only one sideburn. “Tui and La, I wish I’d been there.”

With a slight smirk, Suki said, “Yeah, he got what he deserved, and it was great. Anyway, we brought the pirates back to our village and thanked them for helping us. It seemed like they had some history with Zhao and were there to attack him rather than to help us. They explained that they had all been scorned by the Fire Nation one way or another, so their leader recruited them to help him loot and plunder Fire Nation ships.” Glancing at the sheathed swords on Sokka’s back, she added, “You know, their leader used dual swords too.”

“Really?!” Sokka’s voice came out as a squeal. He tried to cover it with a forced cough, but he wasn’t fooling anyone. 

“Yeah. I talked to him a couple of times, he seemed cool, though he was pretty obsessed with honor and justice. Everyone was wondering what made him so against the Fire Nation, but then he took off his mask and had this huge burn scar on his face. When he and his crew left, the women who trained me went with him.”

Sokka found himself completely intrigued by this mysterious heroic pirate. This story sounded just like one of his dad’s tall tales, but Sokka could tell Suki was being genuine. “So, does this guy have a name or what?” Suki nodded, then smiled.

“The Blue Spirit.”

Notes:

i know you expected zukka but instead you get suki backstory

zuko cutting off one of zhao’s sideburns in battle was too good a concept to resist