Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
"Man On The Moon" by Abraxas 2009-04-12
Toph and Aang left and with the doorway shut, the visitation was finished.
Sokka sighed and leaned against a wall while sitting cross legged atop the bed.
Nobody understood it. His thoughts. His feelings. Nobody of that world. And it could not be overcome - that distance between himself and his friends and family.
Hopeless, isn't it? he thought as he gazed afar into that horizon beyond the window.
The cell was large enough to accommodate two. Just enough and not another square inch. He did not complain about it - he did not share the chamber - and, actually, he did not complain about a lot of issues. He knew his family and friends were only trying to help. A useless gesture although they did not understand that. He did not begrudge them. He did not complain, though, as it was pointless to since what he so wanted fixed could not be by any human intervention.
He was fortunate he was not caged like Fire Nation prisoners. He was deemed incapacitated yet he was not considered a danger. The warden, an earth-bender trained by healers of the Northern Water Tribe, knew the particulars of his situation and proved to be a very sympathetic ally. He was allowed a level of freedom inmates were not usually granted.
The warrior meditated the way Zuko instructed: sinking deeper and deeper into a state of transcendence, he watched that scene unfold, as if a viewer unattached to the drama of his life.
The sun brushed its widening orange light against the walls of the cell.
A long time ago he concluded that the reflection of the sunset was just as beautiful as Nature's full display.
He asked and received the prison's westward cell. The warden allowed it although she did not understand why he needed it. The cell's only window was too high to allow a view of the sunset. He was not interested with that.
The cell was against the sea. Its ritual lapping, clock like tides. Its current mixing warm, tropical scent. Night after night the warrior felt its waves crashing against the complex. It comforted the tribesman to be so close to water. - That westward side of the peninsula was gifted with a vista that exhausted the vastness of the universe. A view so unblocked that it let the man lay abed, gaze upward into the sky, and watch the moon.
Sokka inhaled the air. Exposed to the elements through that window, he filled his lungs with the fresh, cool air of autumn, its bite of frost bristling his body. It was true that cold air was cold air, but, every so often, the element impelled the memory of a very special event. And he was, again, transported into the days of his youth.
Yue - that maiden of the north. His Yue! His memory of that goddess. That long, silver hair. Those mysterious and enigmatic eyes. Recreating her, her warmth, her touch, he relived a kiss that bounded and separated them forever.
That kind of cold air always invoked the oasis at the heart of the north. Always the same, exact incident. The electricity of it was striking. The abyss of onyx that shrouded the world was punctured by a shaft of light. He held her, limp and lifeless, as her body lightened and her features faded. Like sand blown by the wind. Until the clothes collapsed - empty - while the spirit of the moon ascended.
He loved her. She loved him. Pathetic terrestrial barriers prevented their declaration of love. Until the very last instant of life free of the world.
Sokka - his whole, entire life was haunted by what happened that night.
The first, few days afterward he agonized about how he could have changed what happened. If he had been stronger, like his father, maybe Zhao would not have breached that sanctuary. Or, maybe, if he had been abler, like a warrior, Zuko would not have abducted Aang. Looking through the events, choice by choice, a thousand different points could have changed the destiny that unfolded that night.
There was a problem, however, he did not possess the power to alter the choices that were others to make.
He lost Yue and it seemed it was fated so by the gods.
When he accepted the reality of what happened his reaction was obvious. It was a reflection of the irrationality only a boy of his years was capable of. He decided then and there to continue the relationship as if nothing changed. He vowed to court the moon.
He smiled, giddy with delight, as the idea settled into his mind.
To court the moon.
To seduce the stars.
Sokka ventured into the courtyard alone. A guard at the watchtower noticed his slow, deliberate gait then turned his eyes onto the roadway beyond the prison. The tribesman sat at the center of the garden with book and ink. Soon she would be gracing the sky, standing, as it were, to model yet again.
Already the last dim rays of sun were extinguished. What remained was that ghostly eerie twilight. A Ba Sing Se lecturer claimed it to be the scattering of light driven the curve of the earth. Science and its demolition of wonder! He was not against it - science - indeed, he was always fond of it. It contrasted with the supernatural bending ability of his family. It was like his own little rebellion against those powers and, later, those peculiar cosmic absurdities of life and everything witnessed within it. Avatars inside icebergs. Giant earthbending moles.
People turning into planets.
Science was the way to keep sane within that universe of the insane. And, perversely, to extract a bit of control. But that was a dangerous path to walk. Science could not substitute the soul. The old Fire Nation thought its mastery of the physical cemented its superiority of the spiritual. Zhao certainly thought a man could be so all powerful as to reshape the universe. The annihilation of the Air Nomads was yet another expression of that arrogance.
His private little rivalry with friends and family was just amusement.
With the moon there was no science, no spirituality, only a boy and a girl, the rest were details.
Sokka flipped through the book until he reached the page. The figures etched across it were slowly taking form. He was a careful sort of artist as long as the subject cooperated. Of course, the patience of the moon was inexhaustible. There, moon unnaturally large. There, a man looking at it, faceless against the viewer. A boomerang along his back left no doubt of his identity. Below the sketch was the caption written artistically stroke by stroke.
The truth was, though, he did not need to see it with his own eyes to draw it. He continued to do it, however, he wanted the moon to know he was there. He hoped, anyway, that she saw him worshiping, adoring and thinking of her.
Science - for a long, long time it provided such a perfect cover under which to operate unchecked. Anyone, especially anyone who knew of his study, would have judged it impossible that a trained rational mind could be engaged with that obviously ridiculous activity. He would have been institutionalized ten years ago.
It started with vigils. At first simple, overt yet intimate events. It could have been mistaken as meditation. When the group slept under the stars, it was easy to get away with it but, someway, somehow, he always snuck off into the void even when they were trapped by the walls of Ba Sing Se. Certain that everyone slept he sat alone to watch the moon. Soon he added a fire. That led to a makeshift tea ceremony. Huangcha. Two cups of it: sipping while watching
He was not allowed to build a fire within the courtyard; instead, he picked flowers and left them bundled with verses.
He flipped onto a sheet that showed the face of the moon.
The moon. It had been there, always, the most important symbol of the Water Tribe and the center of its ceremony. But it was so constant only a few took notice of it. And he, too, was guilty of it. Now - now that it was not just another star - he studied it as a man memorized the features of a lover. He noticed its details: it was not perfectly smooth and not completely round, its edge was jagged as if it were composed of mountains seen edge on.
"Oh, to be climbing your mountains, Yue," he whispered playfully, passing a finger along the details of the figure. "What mysteries wait along those virginal slopes?"
The face of the moon was a source of fascination. It was like gazing into another world and mapping new, unchartered territory. Areas of bright surrounded by vast stretches of dark. Everyone believed the bright was earth and the dark was water. Maybe those people believed the voids resembled the ocean at night. Were there not stories, old time legends, about the oceans of the moon? He knew, though, through observation that they were not waters. Planar and featureless, yes. Waters, no. The texture of the surface was too constant - waves and currents would be different moment to moment.
Years of watching yielded all sorts of discoveries. While gazing through a spyglass, invented by the Mechanist, he saw specs of bright orange embers. He claimed to witness the eruption of volcanoes. They were smokeless, though, which suggested quite disturbingly so that the moon was devoid of air.
It was his study that led to art. It provided a perfect excuse to be so thorough with the obsession. Paintings. Sculptures. Carvings. The moon and its phases were carved into the walls of the cell. It took the better part of a year to complete. It was worked out of memory alone.
The warden was impressed - so much so she called a few astronomers to validate its authenticity.
His friends and family were horrified by it. Zuko was upset he had been given instruments sharp enough to cut metal. Katara shared her husband's fear. Sokka could not fathom the depths of their terror.
Sokka stared afar unfocused. It was not enough, those moments alone, he and his moon. He wanted to share everything and not only time. The holding of hands. The meeting of lips. Long, silent vigils under blankets looking eye to eye. He did not think it was too abhorrent a thought. The situation, however, created a wholly unbreakable chastity. Verses instead of hugs. Flowers in lieu of kisses.
He recited poetry aloud against the calm of night then rolled the words into bottles and cast those offerings into the sea.
One night I'll climb that hill
One night I'll gaze into skies
I'll say you are only away
You'll be back again
One night I'll cry into oceans
One night I'll turn away
You'll be detained
I'll fear you forgot
And that night
I'll see a specter rising through the waves
I'll hear a voice calling out of the void
Trembling at the fear of illusion
One night you'll search
One night you'll look
You'll cry Sokka!
When I'll be gone and forgotten
It was a gift to celebrate the fullness of the moon.
He beamed, tears welling and falling, at the sight of the moon - it was so large.
Was she - could it be she - impossible!
The courtship...it did not work.
Overwhelmed by emotion, and that invincibility felt by teenagers, his reality was brought into focus years and years later. Every now and then the moon seemed to be large but she was not drawn toward him. It was illusion. No. It was delusion. The effect was due to the motions of astronomy. Yes, science at work systematically demolished the mystery of what he clung onto.
"A trillion years you've circled this globe and that will be another trillion years. I will be dust when you again speak the name Sokka - your instant is my eternity. I am that removed from you, my Yue."
All of his love and devotion, if he lived a million years, could not alter the moon's orbit an inch.
It was while riding the back of Appa - when and where he could not recall - he looked onto the landscape below and truly understood the futility of it. Appa flew, perhaps, maybe, as high as anything alive was allowed. Yet in the realm of the universe those thousands of feet between the group and the ground was nothing. And as insignificant in comparison as it was, even at that distance, people melted into oblivion like ants vanishing into dirt.
A tear that welled stormed - everyone took notice of it.
Yue was another world altogether and so distant to Sokka that the mind could not grasp the gulf of space between them. She could not see him! How could it be otherwise? When he proved to be less than nothing.
"Sokka, what is it?" Zuko asked. He was surprised by the tear that wet his cheek. He sensed the boy was concerned about his father. "I'm sure you're father's...alive..."
"What are we to Yue?" Sokka replied without really replying.
The fire-bender flung another bolt into the engine.
"Yue - she turned into the moon, you know, after Zhao," he explained.
"That's rough, kid, Zhao was a bastard."
Sokka sighed. The worst part of prison was the best part of prison: time. He had been given so much of it. And so much peace too. Uninhibited. Unfettered. He did not need to pretend strength. It was liberating to cry whenever the urge struck. Of course, he kept to himself, which was not difficult to do. The other inmates, unwanted exiles and a few lunatics rejected by the Dai Li, frankly, scared him. Anyway, they were not given his level of freedom so their paths did not cross.
It was the month after Toph institutionalized him. He was still getting used to that situation. He languished about the periphery of the courtyard. It was not used by the prisoners; there could be no doubt of it, especially when he realized there was a wall with a well hidden doorway. Days afterward, he studied it. Just through a distance only. Without betraying overt curious inclination. Then, under a sky full of stars, realizing that guards did not pay attention, he passed by that doorway and peeked through its cracks. Beyond it was a trail leading toward a hilltop north of the complex.
He could have left then and there but he did not.
He was a special kind of prisoner - no - a guest. He knew he was not crazy. Yes, the things he did, perhaps, the things he believed could have smacked of insanity. But he felt he did not cross into mania.
Was it madness?
He was aware of the futility of it. Seducing the moon. He clung onto it out of love.
Sokka loved Yue and he uttered a vow of blood that until the day he could not see the moon again he would be loyal to her and her alone.
At first he thought he would be able to balance that love with the rest of his life - but - to be loyal to something so perpetually distant he realized he needed to be just as distant.
He let relationships wane. Friends and family, who were so dear to him during that last year of war, they just passed out of his life one by one. Katara and Zuko. Toph and Aang. He used their weddings and the work that followed as excuses to withdraw and stay out of the way. They were beset with so many responsibilities. Even Paku and his father were too busy rebuilding the Southern Water Tribe. And he did not want to be drowned by their shadows too.
He felt useless - not a leader, not a bender - and there was something about the world, something he could not fathom yet, that appeared to indicate he did not belong anywhere.
He lived with Toph and Aang, working as a guard along with Suki and the Kiyoshi. Suki thought he could be depressed. Toph noticed his breakdown at his weakest moment. They watched his movements and gathered evidence. They convinced others that he was not stable.
Being alone with all of that time, he devoted the bulk of it to study and left the night free to continue the ritual of that courtship. Virtually unsupervised by the guards, he wandered about the shadow and darkness, finding a measure of solace within the corridors of the prison that he haunted like a ghost. He was content to watch, indifferently, as the world's history unraveled. He fancied it would be true with Yue too.
He was like the mortal reflection of the moon.
Sokka returned to the task of painting the stars. It was a project for Aang. He and Toph visited often with doctors from Ba Sing Se University. They were pleased that he was still active - if not exactly lucid.
He missed his friends and family. He did not intend to withdraw so thoroughly but that was fate's lot. They did not know and could not understand what impelled his state of mind. They knew only what they saw: a lonely young man with a habit of crying in the middle of the night. When he lived among them he tried to hide it - mostly to not panic them - at the end, though, he could not stifle the emotion. It was too late to stand by pretenses with Toph and Suki detailing his every last eccentricity. The intervention, led by Zuko and Katara, proved to be too much to handle. Although they tried to help, nothing could be done to console him, because they did not know the cause of his disturbance.
They could not when he refused to verbalize what it was that tormented his soul.
It was not just that Yue was gone. Everybody knew about it. She lived as a spirit. That was not death, exactly, it was a different kind of life. She lit the night. She impelled the tides. She controlled the moods of men and women. It was that he loved her, her celestial body, that he loved her despite the ramification of the transformation. And, above and beyond, it was that she lived unaware of his own existence.
He wished someway, somehow, to be with Yue again yet, as he hoped it would be possible, he knew he could not have it.
Sokka laid atop the mattress that sketchbook with the finished portrait of the lovers - the man and his moon.
He piled a collection of furniture and climbed onto its peak. He held onto the bars of the window clutching them as if to support the whole of his weight. The clock like lapping of waves melted as the tides erased that strip of beach and the waters reached the facade of the prison.
The ice warrior bit his lip as he stared into the night. A thin, rugged line of cloud, like the veil of a bride, streaked across the face of the moon. The fullness of it could not be dimmed by that cover. He stared, awed, teasing about what she could be hiding. A gift to be unwrapped.
It was difficult to be that happy understanding she could not see him, indeed, could not sense him. His feelings, all of those years of vigil, it was nothing. Even if she was aware of the admiration felt by earthlings, how many millions also looked into the sky with wonder and amazement? Not only was he insignificant by size but he was drowned by a sea of faces too.
Still, he continued his ceremony thinking, perhaps, just maybe, a wish would be granted and the world could be different.
Sokka kissed the portrait and rolled it into a bottle - he dangled it out of the bars of the window and let it slip into the water.
Time passed without Sokka's notice - the only measure he tracked dealt with those periods between Yue's full moon phases.
That morning he stood in front of the calendar: a collection of tallies. He added a mark. The count of lunar revolutions inched toward one hundred ninety two. Sixteen years worth of revolutions. Sixteen years since Sokka kissed Yue.
Slowly he noticed there were no guards around the prison. The warden, who often shared a lunch, only haunted a distant memory. She could have vanished yesterday or five years ago and it would have gained the same, exact reaction. Gradually it sunk into consciousness - the complex had been sacked. Its prisoners revolted. The scorching. The barricading. The breach of the gate. The telltale random destruction. The signs were written everywhere throughout.
Odd that he did not recall it. He would have noticed such a calamity unfolding. Yet there was nothing within his memory that recalled it. How removed was he? How consumed by Yue?
He understood he was free. No other soul languished about that prison. And nobody came by to visit. He could not recall the last visit by Toph and Aang. He was confounded if Zuko and Katara stopped by during his stay although he was certain they did, too, from time to time.
Stacks of paper, taken out of offices, gathered dust by his mattress. Paints, acquired to complete portraits, were cataloged too. The other chambers were examined thoroughly and were found to be useless. The prisoners fled with everything they felt valuable. The authorities, if they escaped, took only their lives.
He resumed the vigils at the beach. The tea. The sketchbook. He was too morose to enjoy a verse. Words failed. Language, it seemed, had been extinguished by years of silence.
As he lay against the surf, he wondered about what to do next. He thought about resurrecting his relationships. Maybe to return to the South Pole. Maybe to revisit all of those sites he and the gang explored that glorious year together. No - one by one, the suggestions were dropped and forgotten. He wanted to go to a place where ingenuity could not reach.
Sokka cobbled together a canoe out of broken parts of boats. He fished and hunted. Soon offerings of food were made to the moon. And despite everything, he lived a very stable kind of life within that prison.
The loneliness induced a reaction he admitted he was ill prepared to handle. Although he kept to himself he was not truly alone. Not when he travelled with the group. Not when he lived with Toph and Aang. Not when he entered that prison. He was not isolated until he realized he was the last surviving prisoner.
At last, utterly and completely alone, he languished, his melancholy sinking deeper and deeper.
The cell of five long years was abandoned in favor of another within the cellar. Soon his vigils - his adoration - suffered. It was as though he grew resigned to death and its finality. There was no place to go. There was nothing to do.
"What a fool, Yue, wasn't I such a fool! Did I really, really think I'd seduce the moon? Did I believe it? How did I believe it? That you, so above and beyond, so immortal, that you would have anything to do with me? What am I? To you - what am I? Am I a memory Yue? I wasted sixteen years fantasizing. I gave up my real world life to live with you inside of my mind. Within my dream. We lay together abed. Stupid! We held each other as the stars lit the sky. Idiot! But it was a dream, wasn't it, at the end, it couldn't exist! I wished what wouldn't, ever, be granted. Not in a trillion years is there hope of it. We are truly different. The universe is your realm, Yue, I cannot complete with your suitors. I couldn't while you lived and especially not now, not now - you are denied to me forever, eternally. Yue, oh, god, Yue!"
He fell against the floor and pounded into the rock - he wiped a tear and looked afar slowly, slowly realizing the problem.
"But how long was I away? Yue!"
He arose horrified by the thought of it - into what depths he sunk? How many nights was it? How long had it been spent within that dungeon depraved of the moon?
Scared, half lucid, half delirious, he stormed out of the crypt into body of the prison. His old, battered cell, at the end of the corridor, was ajar. Within he found the furniture scattered. He assembled the articles and climbed it. He looked through the window. The sky was clear. The stars were bright.
Panicked, he fled off into the courtyard.
Sokka knew so well the intricate motion of the sky and that was why he understood something was very, very wrong that night.
At the courtyard, without wasting a breath, he scanned the sky wherever it was unobstructed yet there was not a clue to unlock the mystery.
What could be wrong with the world?
His heart raced, terrified to be sure although believing there had to be a reason.
He reached the doorway and through it escaped into the jungle that surrounded the prison. He moved so fast, his mind so focused, he failed to notice he was not alone. A woman pointed toward the doorway. A man, running through the ramparts, shouting 'stop, Sokka, come back!'
Sokka did not realize it. The only thing he cared about was that trail snaking up the slope of the hill. He explored it although not thoroughly. That night he needed to breach its length fully onto the peak. He wanted a vista as free as could be of the earth's obstacles.
Rushing through the wilderness, the beckoning voices of the group echoing as if out of a memory, the only actual thought was that urge to reach the top. Leaves were hitting his face. Branches were scratching his arms. Birds and animals, stirred out of sleep, called shocked while he stormed past. The path, well defined at the start, ended with onslaughts of vegetation.
Everything, the world itself it appeared, was eradicated by the encroachment of the wilderness. Everything melted into a sea of shadow and darkness. But it was not enough to avert his course - upward and onward with a life and death frenzy.
He needed to see it - to know it existed - to be assured the world was not amiss.
At last fragments of sky broke through the canopy!
"Yue!" he cried clamoring onto a field of grass. He reached the top of the hill. And at that peak, beyond the obstructions, he realized there was no moon that night. Yet it should have been full and bright above his head. "Yue!"
He fell onto his knees and wept.
"Sokka?" a voiced called aloud.
The ice warrior could not believe it. It was a voice unheard of sixteen years. A part of his mind forgot the way the girl uttered those syllables of his name. He thought it could have been Toph even Katara - their cries to stop and return could be heard too - but the smoothness and the youth behind the voice could not be ignored.
"Sokka!"
It could not be real. None of it. It was a nightmare and that was that - yet, against the fear he imagined it to be, he looked
"Yue."
His heart skipped a beat. The eerie, blue glow. The girl, silver haired, azure eyed, as young as she remembered she was the night she had been taken.
He arose. She grasped his shoulders. He clutched her arms a tear streaked his cheek. She stopped his eyes with a kiss.
"How is it you?"
They hugged, deeply. He felt her warmth. Her actual, physical body pressing into his body. She was real - it could not be denied.
Time was slowing, its flow ebbing, as they sunk into each other. "I was so worried about you," she said, almost bursting into tears too as she stroked the stubble of his skull. "I feared the worst happened to you."
"You worried about me?" he stammered dumbfounded. "About me? Yue!"
"Oh, Sokka," she smiled and again dried his tears. "You kept me company night after night. When you didn't come to me so long I was so afraid you were gone." She nestled her face into his breast. "I needed to know..."
Sokka stroked Yue's locks.
"All of this time, I thought, I was just another mortal man. One out of millions. So far away from you that you couldn't see me anymore. I was so afraid you couldn't see me."
"I saw you each and every night. I waited with you. Sipped tea with you. I listened to your verses and I modeled to your drawings. You were with me, always, you made me feel like I was there with you. I tried hard to let you know I was there too."
She produced a parchment and unfurled it.
Holding it, again, he ran his fingers across its caption.
"You were always with me, Yue, within my heart - please."
"It's the end of the trail," Zuko said.
"Sokka, god damn it, where are you?" shouted Katara.
"He's got to be around - here - here - there's no place to go," he continued.
"Guys - I can't feel Sokka anymore," announced Toph as she entered the field. "He was here just a moment ago. I know I felt it. All of a sudden, though, he's vanished."
Katara paled and Zuko walked further into the field with the torch.
"We're at the top of the hill," he said. "He can't be too far away."
Toph sighed - if Sokka were there, she would have felt it. Of course there was that cliff nearby overlooking the water. She did not want to think about it.
"Look - what's that?" Katara broke the silence pointing toward a bundle ringed by grass at the center of the field.
The group rushed onto the site. Zuko waved the torch above while below Katara and Toph examined it. The bundle - they were clothes, Sokka's clothes. The strange part was that they were not exactly discarded as if he undressed. Instead it appeared as though they collapsed onto a pile. As if the body vanished and the clothes tumbled away.
That was not the only discovery.
"Katara, I think it's a parchment," said Toph.
The document passed between the women while the man illuminated it with the torch.
And right then and there the light of the fire was drowned by the appearance of the moon large and glowing overhead.
"Where - what? Was it a night of the full moon?" he asked, bewildered. It was sixteen years ago the last time the sky changed that abruptly.
"It's a drawing," explained Katara. Holding the image under the moonlight she described it: "A moon, full and bright, and a man facing into it. It's Sokka. It says 'take me with you'."
"Yue - was it that simple?" asked Toph as she arose. "He wanted to be with Yue."
The clothes collapsed into a pile. The moon appearing suddenly, unexpectedly. Katara's face displayed shock as the pieces fell into place. What happened at the oasis happened again at the top of the hill.
"This world lost its grip on Sokka a long, long time ago," Zuko said. "Yue - to be with Yue again - to be the man on the moon. Sokka was a spirit, too, someway, somehow, and he was not meant to be a part of this life. This existence was not his destiny. He's home, again, Katara."
A silence befell the group. One by one, even Toph, turned their eyes upward. The moon was immense that night. And although they could not quite fathom it - the details of its features were not what they paid attention to and the effect was subtle enough as to be imagined - yet they sensed the face of the moon was changed.
END