Run
Nearly two weeks had passed since Sokka's thirteenth birthday when he noticed one morning that his father was readying not only his smaller throwing spears, but his naginata as well. He knew it was unseemly to become impatient and pry, and definitely unseemly to beg, so he grimly kept his mouth shut around his father. With Katara, however, he had no problem chattering away:
"It's a full moon tonight; a wolf moon. Dad's been sharpening his spears all day," he said with a somewhat unnecessary pomp to his younger sister. "You know what that means?"
Katara yawned and made a show of ignoring him as she washed zebra seal blubber for their meal.
"It means we're going out. To hunt the Akhlut! Finally," he added as he danced in front of his sister, blocking her way to the flap of the tent as she tried to exit and spill the dirty blubber-water outside for the dogs. Sokka stood in her way, however, and folded his arms. "What do you think of that?"
His sister frowned at him, struggling to be polite under the stress of his inflated ego, and eager to get rid of the heavy burden in her hands. "That's nice. Can I get outside, please?"
Hurt that she did not seem to care – that she seemed lately, indeed, to be completely wrapped up in herself, Sokka declared, "You're just jealous because Dad said you couldn't leave and study waterbending when Gaaqua and the others left."
Katara drew in her breath and glowered at him as he smiled, satisfied that he'd finally gotten a reaction out of her. Gaaqua, the last female waterbending master of the Southern water tribe, had left some months before with her students and family, heading for the North Pole where it was said to be safer. There were a few male waterbenders left, but females did not learn bending from males in the Southern water tribe, and Katara had (as Hakoda put it) 'better things to do right now'.
Sokka was too busy gloating to notice that Katara now had a fixed look of intense concentration on her face. Moments later, she was laughing in delight as Sokka yelped, suddenly covered in blubber-water. Angry, not caring what he was doing, he reached out and slapped her across the face, hard.
She stopped laughing and clutched at her cheek in shock, but did not make a sound. The bitter look of surprised hurt in her eyes reminded him of how his mother's face had always looked when she was disappointed in him, and in shame he spun around and stormed out of the tent.
Sokka knew that Katara would not say anything to his father, but that his father would know something was wrong anyway. He also knew that he couldn't hide his transgression. It was impossible for him to lie to another member of his tribe. He did not feel justified in what he'd done to Katara – striking a family member, and a girl no less, was never justified – but lately he could not fathom a way around the wall that had grown between them.
In his eyes, she had changed as they grew up from a playful child fascinated with his every word to an aloof, polite mother-figure who thought she was better than everyone else just because she could work waterbending magic. Ridiculous stuff, Sokka thought as he walked through the village. There was no pride in fighting that way. It was underhanded, unclean, and simply unnatural.
As he walked the dogs of the village ran up beside him, barking and frisking in an attempt to get at his blubber-soaked head and shoulders. Sighing, Sokka knelt in the snow and allowed the dogs to lick him clean. He had not been there five minutes when he heard his father's voice:
"Hi-yi! Get!"
The dogs paused in their washing, perked their ears and then scattered. Hakoda came to his son's side and offered him a hand.
"Something smells delicious."
"It's dinner – part of it," Sokka amended, wiping drool from his chin. "I was teasing Katara and she gave me an early taste."
His father chuckled and took his son by the shoulders, looking into his eyes. "And?"
Sokka took a deep breath. "And I hit her. I was angry."
Hakoda's expression did not change from a mildly bemused smile, but his eyes, as usual, were stern. Sokka thought that his father's face looked like the chiming of many bells, like the bells of a dogsledge: clear, wild, but careful. His skin was slightly darker than his children's, and though there was not a wrinkle on his proud face, his long brown hair was starting to turn steel grey. There was a jagged semi-circle of a scar on his forehead from a spearfishing mishap when he had been Sokka's age.
"Have you made your peace with her yet?"
"No, Father."
"You'd best get around to it. The hunting party leaves tonight."
Sokka's mouth dropped open, briefly. Then he snapped it shut and tried to compose himself as his father threw back his head and laughed. "I know you saw me sharpening those naginata, my son! Try to hide your surprise."
"Yes, Dad." Barely able to contain himself, he shook with excitement under his father's fingers as Hakoda grinned at him and then removed his hands, gesturing toward their tent.
"We're leaving with the first clear sign of the moon."
Sokka nodded in acknowledgment and raced to the tent, his mind five steps ahead of him. He no longer cared about appearing seemly or composed. The men were going to hunt the Akhlut. He was going to hunt the Akhlut. He was a –
He skidded to a halt at the flap of the tent, nearly bowling Katara over as she emerged from inside with a heavy-looking fur bundle in her arms. She stepped back and looked down at the snow, gesturing with the tilt of her head for him to enter. Instead, with some difficulty, he reached out and grasped her wrist.
"Katara," he said, then hesitated as she lifted her face and he saw the red handprint, glistening as if she had applied ice. She met his gaze without fear or malice.
"Katara, I'm really sorry."
"I forgive you, brother." Her voice sounded heartfelt, but her eyes were distant. She proffered the bundle to him. "Gran Gran and I prepared you some supplies."
So she'd known all along that the hunt was to be tonight. Sokka accepted the bundle without comment, inclining his head to express his thanks. Shame still burned within him, and he was too proud to apologise further. She regarded him for a moment longer, then ducked back within the tent.
Sokka watched her go with a strange feeling burning in his chest, but it was not enough to entice him to follow. Instead he turned and headed to the sledges to pack his supplies and help his father harness the dogs.
------------------
"Hi-yi, pups!" Hakoda shouted, flicking the lines. As his sledge slowed, the men in the other sledges commanded their teams to stop as well, coming to rest in an uneven circle near a small clump of trees. "We'll rest here for now. The Akhlut will come with the fullness of the moon to that fjord, over through the trees. For now, let's built a fire and eat."
Sokka hopped off the back of the sledge with some difficulty, rubbing his sore legs. He knew that his father expected him to unhitch the dogs and then tie them for the rest of the night, and as he glanced longingly toward the men building a fire his stomach growled. He checked the moon. Near half-risen. It would take time for the meal to be readied, so he set to the task of unhitching the dogs and tending to them.
He cleaned their paw-mittens, massaged the pads of their feet, and replaced the mittens. He checked their heartbeats, pupils and legs, and then after he had tied them he fed them from the bundles in his father's sledge. He noticed, when he finally stretched out his furs on the snow near the fire, that he had been the last one to finish. One young man in particular, who already wore his wolf-tail proudly, was watching him with a malicious grin of sarcasm.
It was custom that six men of the tribe would go out each full moon to bring down an Akhlut. Each man brought a young relative along, usually one between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, to witness and aid with the hunt. After the young men had helped with their first Akhlut hunt, their heads were shaved bare except for a wolf-tail down the centre of the head, which symbolised the triumph of the wolf in the man over the wolf in the beast.
The meal – a thick fish stew – simmered over the fire as Hakoda turned to his son. "Sokka, as the youngest present, you have the honor of first words at the fire."
Sokka nodded, determined not to betray his nervousness. First he was required to give a brief re-telling of the story of the Akhlut, and then to offer a story of his own choice. He leaned forward so that the men could see his face in the fire's glow, and began,
"Long ago, before the world knew war between men, or violence of any kind, the people of the Southern water tribe encountered evil for the first time. Each full moon, a girl from the tribe would disappear, only to be found the next morning bloodied and broken in the snow not far from the village. Fear reigned for a full year before a young hunter of the tribe, just barely a man, resolved to discover exactly what was happening. He noticed at the scene of the latest murdered girl there were the footprints of a large animal. The men of his tribe had assumed they were the prints of dire wolves, come to feed on the remains. But the young man followed the footprints to where they disappeared into the sea.
"On the next full moon, the young man convinced his father to lie in wait with him at the spot where the footprints had gone into the sea. When the moon rose to its zenith, the Akhlut came from the waters. Its horn was stained with the old blood of the girls from their tribe. The young man and his father worked together to kill the beast, and they brought it down, but the young man's father was killed. It is with the memory of our ancient tribesmen that we go each month to bring down the Akhlut, for in its cry we hear the screams of our long-dead sisters and brother."
He finished and drew a deep breath, finally looking away from the flames of the fire to cast a tentative glance at his father. Hakoda was smiling broadly, and the other men nodded and clicked their tongues in approval. Only the young man with the wolf's tail – Gen – scowled at him. Sokka sighed in relief and quickly told the story of Tui and La, a legend from the North Pole that was time-honoured yet short. When he had finished, Hakoda handed him a bowl of stew, but before he could relax, Gen rose up on his knees and addressed him.
"Why do you tell us tales of Northern garbage? It's garbled and ill-formed; the spirits of the moon and the sea knew nothing of one another before the spirits of the moon and the sun. That, certainly, is a tale. And it's a tale that they, content in their ice palaces, are too complacent and frightened to tell. Will ye hear it?" He held his head high and spoke with arrogance, and Sokka bristled at the unspoken challenge. Hakoda cast a gentle glance at him and said quietly,
"Hold, Sokka. Hear what he has to say. It could be of great importance to you, and it is a fascinating tale, one beloved to our tribe." His father's words were light and discreet, but they stung like a slap. Chastised, Sokka relaxed as the men around him nodded, giving Gen the place of second to speak at the fire.
Gen grinned fiercely and began:
"In the beginning of time, there was no sun, and there was no moon – only blue sky and stars. And there lived among the people of what would become the Southern water tribe a brother and sister, close as barnacle-shrimp on the back of a narwhal, Malina and Anningan. When they were young, they spent every moment with one another, and there are many tales of their adventures – of their discovery of the ice crystal caverns, of the game Malina invented for their dog which became mushing, of the time Anningan bartered his sister's life from the god of the icebergs.
"But they could not stay young forever. As they grew older, Anningan was gone more often, hunting with the men. And Malina, left to care for the children of the people and clean hides and cook meals, became lonely. She started to seek the favour of other men in the village, paying less attention to her brother and more to her own endeavors. Eventually she asked Anningan to help her build her own tent. He was angry and hurt, but he concealed it from his sister and helped her to build the tent.
"Yet one night, an intruder came in the dark in between Malina's furs, and knew her. But she kept silent, for in those days the weight of such things fell upon the woman. Instead she concealed a small knife in her furs, and the next night when the intruder came again she took it out and sliced at his face. The man fled, and the next morning Malina was heartbroken to behold her brother's face. When she asked him about the cut on his cheek, he replied that one of his dogs had bitten him.
"Nearly broken underneath the weight of her grief and shame, she went back to her tent and used the small knife to cut off her breasts. She placed them in a bowl of bone, and brought them to her brother, saying, "You devoured what is in my heart. Now eat these!" He was astonished and heartsick, but before he could speak she snatched up a lantern and ran away onto the tundra. Anningan grabbed a lantern and followed her, which was not difficult as her bare chest bled as she ran, leaving shallow pools of blood in her footprints.
"Overcome with the evil of his actions, Anningan's heart was made heavy and he tripped, making the light of his lantern flicker and grow dim. Malina continued to run until the snow lifted her from the ground and she rose into the sky, where the white light of her lantern mixed with her blood and her tears became the bright flame of the sun. Anningan ran faster, and soon he too was bore up into the sky, where the dull glow of his lantern became the light of the moon. Anningan is doomed to never again be in the company of his sister, for his sins were too great. And so the sorrowful moon follows the brilliant sun over the path of the sky for all eternity." Gen paused, and then added,
"This, too, is why the Akhlut came on the nights of the full moon to the village to snatch and kill young women. Possessed by the spirit of Anningan, in full power because of the fullness of the moon, the Akhlut was driven to cover up the sins of the brother. But how and why that happened is a tale for another fire."
Sokka could not meet Gen's fierce gaze. The men expressed their approval and then the storytelling continued, but Sokka barely heard the voice of the next storyteller. His thoughts were with his sister. Suddenly deprived of joy for the hunt, he thought of Malina stumbling through the snow with nowhere to go, betrayed by her closest companion, her best friend, her brother. Without purpose, with a gaping hole over her heart, she took the only action that was left to her. She fled.
It was inevitable that they would grow apart, and so they were beginning to. But it was not inevitable that their bond should end irrevocably broken. Sokka briefly thought of his mother, and how her absence had affected the way that he and Katara interacted. Briefly, it had made them closer. Then it had wrenched them apart. Hakoda had distanced himself from his daughter, and Sokka was trying to do the same.
I don't hate her for being a waterbender, Sokka realised suddenly. I'm just scared. Scared she'll take Dad away from me, scared she won't need me to protect her anymore. He could see her distant eyes as she accepted his apology and then turned away. I can't make her run away from me.
His chest tightened and then he jumped when he felt his father's hand on his face. He looked up and saw Hakoda looking at him intently, paint on his fingertips. Sokka relaxed, closed his eyes, and let his father paint his face with the mask of the orca, of the warrior. With his eyes closed, he vowed to set things right with his sister, and began to focus on the thought of the upcoming hunt.
------------------
Sokka followed his father's bellycrawl over the crest of the hill, moving with some difficulty through the glittering, newly fallen snow. Half of the men were advancing over the hill, while the other half lay in wait nearer to the shore, ready to drive the Akhlut toward the hill so that Hakoda and his men could come down from above it and kill it. Sokka gripped his naginata. The long, curved spear made it difficult to move, but it was perfect for severing the bond of muscle at the base of the Akhlut's flippers. On the rest of the beast's body, the blubber and fur was too thick to penetrate, but if cut in the correct way at the base of the flippers, the Akhlut would bleed to death.
The moon was at its highest point, but hidden behind a clump of dark clouds. The water was silent and motionless. Sokka shivered, his supper moving sharply in his stomach. He prayed that he wouldn't throw up in front of his father. Hakoda seemed to sense his nervousness and reached over to grip his son's wrist, whispering, "Watch the water."
Sokka watched. There was a faint ssssshhh and then a loud crack as the Akhlut glided out of the water and anchored itself on land. It was much larger than Sokka had imagined, at least the height of two men and as long as twenty paces. The body was marked black and white, and sleek like an orca, but the head was grizzled and grey like a wolf's. It had three flippers on each side of its body, which it used for swimming and for moving quickly over the ice, and paws on the inside of the flippers, which it sometimes used to deceive trackers. Out of the centre of its forehead grew a straight, thick white horn, which was scalloped but cruel-looking. It shook its great head and snarled, evidently sensing that something was wrong.
Hakoda tensed and Sokka looked at his father, concerned. But the older man growled, "Don't look at me. Concentrate on him or you'll know the ice more fondly than you'd wish."
"Does he smell us, Dad?"
"Ssssh – "
Abruptly, the Akhlut roared, rising on its hind flippers, and then charged. Sokka froze with fear, but it was headed toward the second group of men, who realised it quickly and jumped to their feet to flee. There was no sense in meeting a beast of that size and strength head-on. Hakoda rose as well, and gestured to the members of his group.
"Hi-yi! Let's bring it down!" Hakoda grabbed his son by the back of his neck, briefly. "Stay with me."
He obeyed, forcing his frozen legs to work as they raced down the hill, raising their naginata. He and his father aimed for the first flipper, but even after they brought down their naginata one after the other and then darted away, the Akhlut continued to move, albeit sluggishly. It roared in pain and stabbed down with its horn, and when it rose up on its hind flippers again the moon finally came out from behind the clouds and shone its cruel light on the body of the young man with the wolf-tail, writing in pain and screaming.
He did not scream for long. The Akhlut threw its head back and then angled its horn toward the ice and brought it down again, bashing the body of the young man against the ice. Again and again it raised and brought down its horn until all that remained on the horn itself was a bloody chunk of torso. Hakoda reached under Sokka's arms and hoisted him into a tree, following with their spears. The other men in their party were already perched in trees, grimly watching.
"He was too proud," stated an older man, who was going blind, as he cleaned ichor from his naginata. "Anningan saw to it that he would die. See, the beast harms no other one."
Hakoda shifted so that he blocked his son's view of the Akhlut. "Clean your naginata," he instructed softly.
Sokka nodded and obeyed, saying, "I'm okay, Dad."
"I know you are. But I'm not so comfortable with you seeing something like this. And it won't die easily, or quickly..." Hakoda fell silent. Sokka had rarely seen his father's eyes so unsure – perhaps after the raid in which his mother had died. "I know it seems foolish, Sokka. And perhaps it's not the best thing. What is best, in a time of war? What is right? I thought I knew. Before…"
Before the raid. Before the death of your mother. Sokka heard the unspoken words, saw his father's hands tremble as he wiped the blade of his naginata. He was silent, knowing somehow that if he spoke his father would become quiet again, fighting off what needed to be said with a bemused smile.
Hakoda cleared his throat. "I imagine that before there was war, that things like this, like a death at the horn of the Akhlut, would be tragic yet revered. Seen as consequence. But because of the war, everything is broken. Our lives, our families…why should we cling to traditions? And so this death seems meaningless. What is best? I have decided that to protect my children is best. I have not allowed my daughter to become a waterbender, lest she be targeted by the Fire Nation. I have not allowed you, Sokka, to fight in any of the raids, thought you are capable, lest you die and leave your sister alone. And when I leave with the men of this village, you will stay behind, lest you die in battle with us, lest your sister die in the next raid because there will be no man left in the tribe to protect her. Gen might have stayed with you, but this night has changed that." Hakoda seemed ready to cry out with grief, or rage. "Sokka. Give me your naginata and lower your head."
Sokka obeyed, feeling strangely peaceful though his mind raced. He was glad Hakoda had finally broken his silence, as much as it had hurt to hear the anguish in his father's voice and know that he, Sokka, had no answers for him. He felt the scrape of the naginata against his head as his father cut his hair into a wolf-tail. The Akhlut gave a gargled howl, blood filling its throat. As his hair fell into his lap, Sokka unclenched his fists and gave his anger over to the glare of the moon on the newly fallen snow.
------------------
"Katara!" He spotted the outline of his sister against the horizon, knocking icicles off the clothing hanging on poles stuck into the frozen ground. She tensed and turned to meet him, arms full of furs. He could see day-old hurt in her eyes, and a controlled expression of surprise. Clearly, she was ready for a long tale of bravado. Instead, Sokka clasped her to him, hugging her tightly.
At first she froze, astonished, but as she relaxed the furs fell into the snow, and she hugged him back. He buried his face in her shoulder to hide his tears and whispered, "Little sister, I'm sorry."
"I forgive you," she whispered back instantly. He felt her warm fingers on the back of his neck and realised that she had taken off her mittens. She reached up and touched his hair. "You look just like Dad."
Sokka choked out a laugh. "I hope not. It'll be years before I'm that grizzled." He drew back from her and offered her the bundle that he'd tried not to crush when he hugged her. "I made this for you."
Katara accepted the bundle and unwrapped it slowly. "Oh…" she breathed, lifting the lantern out of the fur. The structure was made from the claws of the Akhlut, and the skin over it was cured zebra seal. Sokka had written her name in beautiful script on the side of it with ink. Below that, he had signed his own name in the same ink. Waterbending symbols bordered their names on the top and bottom. She caught his gaze, looking grateful but slightly puzzled.
He put a hand on her shoulder and gave a smile that he knew belonged rightly on the face of their father. "In case you ever need to run, so you can take me with you."