Flash.
The new year saw the trio set foot once again in the Earth Kingdom, except this time, they actually had managed to persuade both Katara and Mai to agree to something almost resembling a coherent plan, an occurrence Sokka had hitherto figured so unlikely that he'd figured he would have had more chance of picking up a rock, closing his eyes, spinning round three times fast, throwing with eyes still closed, and knocking Ozai stone dead.
So, naturally, this plan had completely disintegrated the second they had landed on Earth Kingdom soil. General Fong had decided that the whole 'master all four elements to attain complete spiritual harmony, utilise newfound spiritual harmony to kick Fire Lord in face. Harmoniously' plan was... long-winded. He'd figured he'd found a shortcut: the Avatar State.
So that was how Sokka and Katara three found themselves spending their first weeks of the new year watching a bunch of Earth Kingdom soldiers tentatively prod Mai with sticks.
Metaphorically.
Except that one time when one of the 'experts' involved had the idea that sharp physical pain was an ideal trigger. Not one of the most successful of experiments. Of course, none of the experiments had actually achieved anything, but that was the one that resulted in a: the most broken furniture, and b: the most researchers put in the hospital, which earned it the coveted title of Biggest Failure of the Week.
Katara didn't like this plan. She figured it was a waste of time (which it would be, if they still hadn't made any progress in a week's time), and that General Fong was a gibbering egomaniac who couldn't get enough of emotional blackmail (which, you know, was kind of unfair without actually being untrue). Sokka... was kind of ambivalent. As much as he was never going to admit it, Katara made some almost rational points, but as skeevy as General Fong was, he was also pushing what was looking like their best chance of drop-kicking Ozai into the sun without everyone dying.
Basically, as long as Mai was cool with the idea (and she seemed to be onboard, at least for the moment), then he guessed he was cool with it too.
–
He was officially No Longer Cool With It.
The turning point had probably been when General Fong, desperate for results, had A: started simply attacking Mai, and then, when that hadn't worked, had B: attacked him.
It wasn't fun, being trapped underground. He couldn't move his legs, or his arms, or in fact anything other than his head, which he could rotate a few degrees either left or right. It was completely and utterly black. All he could do was listen to the muffled sounds of violence from somewhere above. He was sure it was all as exciting as could be, but he was a little more concerned by the fact that he was probably about to suffocate. The panicked huffing definitely wasn't helping, either.
But suddenly the earth spat him out again, and he was dragged to his feet by a hysterical-looking General Fong.
"You've got to do something!" he yelled, inches from Sokka's face. "She's completely insane! She'll kill us all! Do something!"
So Sokka punched him in the face until he felt better. Until Sokka felt better, of course. Fong just felt less conscious.
And then he looked up, and his breath hitched in his throat.
She was the eye of the storm. Fire curled, swept up in an enormous hurricane, and the earth shook beneath his feet as the fortress crumbled from within but he barely noticed.
It was kind of odd, seeing Mai actually look angry. Sure, she got angry, but about the only way you could tell was the way her nose kind of wrinkled a little bit and she made eye contact a bit more.
In the Avatar state, she was a bit more... uninhibited.
He had to do something.
He took three unsteady steps towards her, and looked down. Yep. Not dead yet.
He continued this unconfident pace until he suddenly felt the wind dropping and the ground still below him, and though the roar of flames still filled his ears, it seemed to be coming from somewhere behind him.
He found the courage to raise his eyes. Mai was before him. Arms spread and fingers splayed, eyes blank blue, azure light spilling from her open mouth. Hair fluttering around her shoulders, every line of her body aching with power, it was a ...memorable sight.
Sokka's jaw swung gently in the air, before he remembered himself.
He had to do something. But he couldn't think of anything smart. So he did something stupid instead, and clapped his hands on his shoulders before shaking her roughly.
"Mai. Mai. Mai, snap out of it!"
It was like someone cut her strings- her arms flopped, and she sagged- Sokka was forced to catch her and hold her up by her biceps. Her head rolled forward, and when she looked back up at him her eyes had turned back to gold.
"Oh," she said, in a dazed kind of way. "You're not dead. That's nice."
Sokka said something, he was sure. He just had a hard time concentrating for the next while. The sight of Mai in the Avatar state was sprawling in his head, with its feet up on the coffee table and his favourite book in its hands, yelling at him to make it a drink and something to eat.
Sokka tried to shake the image of Mai in full on Baby's-Got-Blue-Eyes mode out of his head, because it was doing strange things to his brain but more importantly it was doing strange things to his dick, and if that wasn't the world's most specific fetish he didn't know what was.
–
So the three reverted to the original plan, which had been to ride to Omashu as fast as they could, and enlist the assistance of the mightiest earthbender in all the land, Bumi, the Mad King of Omashu.
Predictably, that all went rather badly. Really, Sokka was starting to get jaded by how familiar the formula was by now.
Except for one moment.
The man the Fire Nation had appointed as governor of Omashu was an unimpressive figure. Small and fussy, grey hair more through stress than age. Sokka had dismissed him as a threat, even if he hadn't been guaranteed safety as he delivered the man's infant son back to him.
It had been kind of odd, how willing the man was to negotiate, even if they did have his kid (accidentally, but he wasn't about to admit that). But Sokka wouldn't have thought too much of that if the man hadn't spoken up, as Sokka was turning to leave.
"How is she?"
He stopped, and turned in confusion. "What?"
The governor nervously licked his lips. "The Avatar. Is she... is she well?"
"Why would you care?" Suddenly, Sokka's eyes flicked to the man's wife, and the realisation was a punch in the gut.
"I just... I hope she is …not unhappy." The governor wouldn't meet his eyes, which was fortunate for him, because Sokka was looking for the barest excuse he could find to knock the man out, and at this point he would have happily taken 'prolonged eye contact' as a reasonable cause for violence.
Sokka turned to leave, but he spat one last answer over his shoulder.
"She's better off where she is now than she ever would have been with her birth parents, I can tell you that for nothing."
He didn't need to see the man flinch to know that his guess had been right. But it was good to have confirmation.
–
Sokka hesitated, rubbing his eyes in frustrated confusion.
What was he going to do? Tell her? What would that do, except make her angry?
You'd want to be told, a voice inside him insisted. Sokka wasn't sure he believed it, but he followed its advice nonetheless.
"Mai," he said, opening the door to her room that The Resistance had thoughtfully provided. Katara was there too, and the two of them had apparently been engaged in conversation, before Sokka arrived. "Everything went okay."
Mai nodded.
"So," Katara asked. "We ready to get moving, then?"
"Hold up. Mai, there's something- there's something I have to tell you." He inhaled, deeply. "Katara, could you give us a minute?"
"Sure," she said, oddly accepting of the idea- the oddness was only compounded by the reassuring look she gave him as she walked past him to leave the room. Never mind. Figure that out later.
"Mai, I, uh, I guess I have some news?"
She waited for him to continue.
"But I'm kind of worried, 'cause I don't think you'll wanna hear it."
Mai shrugged. "I can't tell until you actually tell me, you know."
Fine.
"Mai, the governor of Omashu is your father."
The only reaction Mai displayed was to reflexively tap the hilt of her sword- a sword, Sokka suddenly noticed, he had never seen her draw- and to blink heavily.
"You're certain?" she asked, from a thousand years and a million miles away.
"He asked after you," Sokka said, as professionally as he could.
"Oh," she sighed, after a long while.
Eventually, Sokka worked up the nerve to speak again- seeing Mai forcing placidity was unnerving in the extreme. "Do you wanna stay a while longer, or-"
"No. I just... give me a minute."
"Sure," Sokka replied, softly, and turned to leave.
"Sokka," Mai said, abruptly, and he turned back. She still hadn't moved a muscle, and her voice was as impassive as it had ever been. "Thanks. I needed to know."
Sokka nodded, and closed the door.
–
It had been weeks since Omashu, and their fortunes had decidedly not improved in that time.
"Okay, so I'm pretty sure we came into this stupid swamp from the south, so the only thing to do is try and get up high, and check the sun. Mai, you think you could climb a couple of trees?"
"Hey, who put you in charge?" Katara snapped, irritated and tired. "I'm pretty sure you're not the Avatar here."
Sokka rolled his eyes.
"Sure. Fine. Mai, seeing as you're our Wise And Inscrutable Leader-Type-Of-Person, got any pearls of wisdom you'd like to dispense for us?"
Mai blinked.
"Hmm?"
"What. do. you. think. we. should. do? You're the boss, after all."
"What? I don't know. Sokka, you're in charge. Try and find a way to get us out of here."
"Thank you," Sokka replied, with endless patience, and returned to studying his map.
After a while, Mai acknowledged that Katara was glaring at her.
"What? It's called delegation."
Katara simply shook her head.
"You do realise that there's no way you can take that back, right? We're going to be hearing about this for the rest of our lives."
–
They determined, after a while, the way that would quickest lead them out of the swamp, but by that point the sun had gone down, and they decided that it would be best to just get some sleep, and start moving.
When the sun rose, Mai was alone, and, as far as she could tell, nowhere near the small camp they had made.
Of course.
–
It was a long, confusing, and irritating day before the three of them were reunited. Mai counted a total of three hours spent in some kind of swamp-gas-induced dream, five friendly waterbender hicks, and (and this was important) precisely zero pairs of trousers. In a swamp filled with foot-long leeches, they decided to go around in grass skirts. WHY.
But anyway, at the end of the day, the three of them were back together. Both Sokka and Katara looked... a little troubled.
It turned out everyone had gotten a dose of swamp gas.
("Oh, come on. You heard what that guy said, it's clearly not swamp gas."
"Swamp gas, Katara. I don't care what some crazy man says. It's swamp gas."
"But you know it's something Spirit related, you're just pretending it isn't because you don't like it!"
"It's swamp gas, Katara."
"See? Even the Avatar agrees with me.")
Katara shook her head. "I saw... I thought I saw Mom. It wasn't obviously, but it seemed so real..."
Sokka shook his head. Mai looked questioningly at him, and he'd just sighed and answered, resignedly. "Yue."
Of course. It would be Yue.
"Hey, Mai," Sokka said. "What'd you see?"
Mai shrugged. "Flying pig."
Sokka burst out laughing. For some reason, Mai's stomach did a little backflip at the sound.
