the heart is divided (in the best kind of way)
Chapter One - Katara & Sokka
Sokka came into this world kicking and screaming. His tiny left fist was scrunched up in displeasure, decorated with a deep purple soulmark, the details too fine to make out. It was only when he grew older, when he was tall enough to totter around clutching at chair legs and his father's boomerang, that the mark became clear: simplified versions of the symbols of the four elements laid out like the corners of the square, pierced through vertically with an image of a spear. It was a curious mark for a child with no apparent ability to bend.
The colour made sense the moment Katara was born. Soulmarks bind person to person; their lives, should the people ever meet, are predicted by the fates to entwine. People are marked as partners by matching symbols, their marks denoting them as pieces of the same puzzle, able to fit together. The vast majority of marks are shared by two people and are a deep crimson red: the colour of fresh blood, the colour of the heart and the sign of romantic love.
There are, of course, times when three people are bound together with a romantic bond. Rarely is it more than three, though it is of course hard to tell when one might never meet their other soulmates. This might be due to geography or that it never really occurs to people that their heart might have room for more than two.
But not all marks are red and not all love is romantic. A few marks are a rich, royal blue: the colour of the mind and a sign of intellectual partners, those whose thoughts run in tandem and whose collaboration might advance society. These marks are prized and are seen as a symbol of sacrifice: those who have, without choice, missed out on the chance for fated romance in order to contribute to the growing body of human knowledge.
Katara and Sokka are both painted in royal purple. Some of the villagers clucked over Katara. They pointed at the mark on the back of her neck, just below the hairline, and made whispered comments when they thought her mother could not hear. "Poor child," they said, "soulmarked to her own brother." The more pitying added "not even a mind mark, but a friendship one!" Friends can be found anywhere, they muttered. Why would one need a mark to find a friend? Even worse, why would one need a mark to know one's own brother! What a waste of a chance to find an excellent husband or an opportunity to change the world.
Of course, Katara and Sokka would change the world.
Sokka heard their whispers but he loved his younger sister nonetheless, perhaps even more so because of their words. When he was old enough to understand what it meant, he pressed the back of his left hand to Katara's neck, aligning the marks. He half expected something magical to happen, for some rush of overpowering belief that he and his sister will be close forever to overwhelm him. Instead Katara kicked at his legs until he put her down.
Purple soulmarks are the rarest of them all, halfway between red and blue, representing a mix of the heart and the mind to create a colour that means a deep, lifelong and almost spiritual friendship. Sokka held his sister and thought how special that was. To find someone who completed you, heart and mind and soul.
Like all siblings, as Katara and Sokka grew older they drew further apart. They became closer to different aspects of their shared soulmark. Those that are soul bonded share exactly the same mark and it is commonly accepted that the design means something specific to the people that share it. Some have obvious meanings: a book might mean that you share a love of learning, or a plant the love of the outdoors. A bird might indicate flightiness, the urge to travel and to fulfil wanderlust. Sokka and Katara, apparently, were supposed to love war.
Sokka spent his youth with his father and the other men of the village, learning to master the weapons of a hunter and a fighter. It was obvious that he was the spear, the common man of the Water Tribes who fought to protect and serve his people, whilst Katara was the elements. Katara spent her days apart from her brother and the others of her tribe; the sole waterbender among her people, Katara would sit by the waters for days at a time, trying to learn the secrets of her skill.
She never would have admitted it to her brother, who loved her fiercely and who she adored in return – despite his frustrating qualities and annoying proclivity to speak in terrible puns – but Katara grieved for the romantic soulmate she would never have. The other girls in the tribe chatted happily about their soulmarks; some swapped giggling stories about the boys they were already bonded to, some chatted excitedly about their planned voyages to the mainland and the Northern Water Tribe to find their partners.
Katara sat apart, unable to join in with their wild speculations about what their marks meant. She already knew and there was no gentle loving man out there waiting for her, looking fondly at his mark and then up at the night stars wondering if she too was doing the same.
There was just Katara and Sokka and Gran Gran, and that would have to be enough.
They say that the location of the soulmark says something about a person. A mark on the hand might mean great scholarly skill or a talent for weaponry, and Sokka proudly interpreted his as a sign that he should follow in his father's footsteps. Katara, much to his annoyance, suggested that it might have something to do with his tendency to do something else with his hand. She often accompanied this with a rude hand gesture, always out of sight of Gran Gran.
In retaliation, Sokka argued that her mark had rather less to do with any potential intelligence or cunning, and more to do with the fact that her head was huge. This was, of course, a complete bald-faced lie, but it never failed to turn Katara's face red and to cause her to storm off.
But neither of them had ever seen a heart mark. At least not until they pulled a small, shivering boy out of the water with Air Nomad tattoos and a familiar, bright purple mark over his left breast.
"Holy shit," Sokka swore. "Holy shit."
Katara didn't even bother to reprimand him. She just stared at the mark, her mark, the mark that belonged to her and her brother alone. Except, apparently it didn't. Because now there was this boy she'd never met who was barely dressed and glowed with the marks of a people who were years in the grave and the mark of a destined lifelong friendship on his skin.
Her legs gave out and Katara sat down, hard. Sokka had drawn his spear and pointed it vaguely in the boy's direction.
"What the hell is going on? How'd you get in the ice? What the hell is that thing?" He motioned the spear in the direction of a massive mound of fur, which appeared to be breathing shallowly. The boy looked dazed.
"I'm not sure. But that's Appa, my flying bison."
"Sure, and this is Katara, my flying sister."
"Are you an airbender?" Katara cut across Sokka's sarcastic retort, her tone disbelieving.
Of course, neither of these statements were what the two siblings really wanted to say. What they wanted to say was more along the lines of "what in the Avatar's name is that on your chest" and "how can there be three of us". Both their brains seemed to be humming with the same thought over and over: mine, ours, soulmate; mine, ours, soulmate.
"Well," the boy rubs at his bald head. "I'm Aang. I'm kind of the Avatar."
"The Avatar has been dead for over-" Katara began to exclaim before Sokka interrupted her. His voice managed to reach new and impressive levels of volume and pitch.
"WE SHARE A SOULMARK WITH THE MOTHER FRICKIN' AVATAR?"
Author's note:
There are very few tropes I love more than a good soulmate fic, and as much as I love a great romance, I thought that Avatar is about friendship. So here's a chaptered fic about friendship, destiny, and discovering ourselves.
This chapter is quite short but the next will be longer. I was going to post it as one fic, but (a) it was taking too long to write and I wanted to share this, and (b) I thought it would be cool if everyone got their own chapters.
Thanks for reading and many thanks for any comments :) x