The last time he prayed was when his mother was alive, he muses.
They would send a prayer to the Spirits every night, before the earliest of them went to bed. He can't remember her voice, but he knows that she would ask the Spirits for protection, for peace, for the happiness of their little family, and to thank them for what their little family had been given. Sometimes Gran would do it, sometimes even his father, and he thinks he remembers little Katara doing her best to remember everything she needed to say.
He remembers praying once.
It was one of these calm family nights, shortly before…well…before. Hakoda had insisted that Sokka be the one to offer thanks to the Spirits, for some reason. His father was always careful to make him feel included. Sokka doesn't remember what he said, but he remembers sleeping that night and, for the first time in his young life, really wondering about the Spirits and whether they protect and keep the balance like Mom said they did. He wondered if the Spirits watched over them individually, like Katara seemed to believe. It was a nice thought.
No more than two weeks later, the family became one less.
Gran was steadfast, and would not relinquish her faith. She had always been like that. Hakoda had never been overly spiritual to begin with, but he always acknowledged their presence, and when the situation was right, their hand in the outcome. Katara was Katara, and words of faith and destiny and hope would ring from her mouth for the rest of her days, determined right from the start that their mother was of course right and that all that was left was to take upon them their allotted destiny and that good would of course triumph over evil because that was how things were supposed to be.
Sokka admired her enthusiasm.
He had never quite taken to the whole spirituality thing. Ever the logical minded one, he grew to question the world around him and without anyone there to answer his questions (and neither Katara's childlike insistence or Grans words of hush up, boy, and stop talking crazy, there are chores to do could quite measure up to what he needed to hear), Sokka found his thoughts on the Spirits and their function and maybe even their existence fell to the wayside. He was forced to grow up too fast, and at some point, somehow the Spirits became the Universe and destiny became luck, and he convinced himself he was despised by both. Besides, if good always wins then why is it losing the war?
He would have lived life forever this way, if not for him and his sister finding a little bald kid in an iceberg.
Suddenly he was part of an epic story featuring all of the things he questioned, turned away from, despised. And all he could do was observe in silent awe.
He was quickly reminded that, yes, the Spirits did exist and yes, the did alter things. Okay. he could work with that, that doesn't meant that they care about the world or what happens to it, or that they care about him or his sister or his desperate need to keep her safe. So he brushed it off.
But, as it always does, time wore down his defenses. He couldn't tell when it happened but somehow, some way, maybe this destiny thing wasn't so far-fetched.
And then Yue came and went, and all of the sudden he knew there was someone watching over him, and it scared him not because it felt weird or tingly or invasive or different, but because at the core of everything, he felt the same as he always had. Like the assurance that came with being a Spirit-fearing person and the almost divine courage to continue on into the bleakest-looking of futures, was nothing he didn't already know.
Weeks after Yue, when this realization hit, Sokka looked up to the full moon and gave a resigned smile. And when he prays for the first time in years to Tui and La, for guidance, for strength, for his sisters safety, he would never admit even to himself to the tears of relief he shed.
The makeshift family continued on their journey, and Sokka found that strange things were happening. He and Katara seemed to be meeting in the middle, her blind faith having been tempered into something a bit more believable, more workable, and himself gaining more and more confidence that he, that they all, were exactly where they needed to be because they were the only ones that could do it in the entire world at this point and this all started with a boy in an iceberg.
When he found himself on a Fire Nation airship, Suki and Toph behind him and Aang missing and Katara with Zuko a continent away (she'll be okay, she's strong, I know she'll be okay…) he found himself strangely confident.
It was a rough ride, and certainly they all had to fight to bring about what was right, but they were all here.
And that was enough proof for Sokka.
A/n: My goal here is not to offend. I'm not trying to be preachy, and I'm not asking you all to find a religious path, or anything. But, regardless of individual belief, there is a cannon spiritual world in the show. And Sokka has seen some things. It just made sense to me that something like this would go through his mind.