Author's Note: This was written out of desperation. I'm sure it is a concept that has been covered by many, many Sokkla shippers. What can I say? I've fallen ill with a writer's greatest plague…
Ozula reference. I know…
Oh, and I forgot to thank everyone for supporting me through the first ten prompts! Your reviews, favorites, subscriptions, and PMs are what keep me going! Thanks so much!
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011: Innocence
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When Sokka was a boy, he collected stones, constructed miniature, harmless weapons, and conjured a make-believe war out of snow and ice. The battles he fought were merely imaginative, meaning that there were no opposing forces in reality. He was lucky to have had sloppy ice sculptures as opponents, for there were no other boys to play with. No boys who wanted to play soldier with him, of course.
But young Sokka did not mind the lack of group involvement, for he had one main objective, and it was to make his father proud. See, Sokka's father, Hakoda was a man who saw battle as an opportunity to gain honor, and it was the desire to gain this honor that inspired Sokka to seek combat.
However limitless the imagination is, it cannot prepare one for the real thing.
And Sokka was not prepared.
Upon that early morning, tattered Water Tribe boats lined the shoreline. The insignia of blue was draped on their sails. This was the hue of a pure nation; a generation of people who had never once saw the spillage of blood and the untimely loss of life. Once upon a time, the Fire Nation had touched these very shores, but, oh, it was so many, many years ago.
Swarming beside these scarred, ice-dodged boats were the men of the tribe, clad in warriors' tusks and painted marks of combat.
Hakoda was among them –and it was Sokka's only wish to join him.
But there are places where some men are needed most.
So, on that frost-covered, dim morning, where the icy, cool breath of dawn pollutes the air above the water, young Sokka claimed his destined spot: the border of his homeland.
It was on this day that a boy became a man.
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Throughout her formative years, it was not uncommon for Princess Azula to say that her mother only cared to properly part ways with Zuko. To say that her mother never offered her one goodbye upon leaving the Fire Nation Royal Palace forever.
But in those days, it was also not uncommon for the princess to weave a web of lies.
So, when that sudden turn of the doorknob woke the slumbering princess, she sat up, her eyes locked on the figure intruding her quarters. In a tiptoeing gait, the figure approached closer, but the face was masked by the blackness of a hood and the shadow of nightfall. The twilight sky was clouded over; stars were forced to hide and the moon was banned from shining.
"Azula, are you awake, dear?"
Ursa was the one here tonight; Azula was clearly able to detect that as the weary mother pulled the hood back and revealed her face. She was frowning, but not in a stern or sinister way.
Azula rubbed her eyes.
"Azula, honey," Ursa said in a quiet but evidently urgent tone. "Listen to me."
She sat at the foot of Azula's bed, holding out her arm and swiftly pulling her daughter close. She ran a hand through Azula's black tresses, pulling the knotted ones away from her eyes.
"Listen," she repeated, "no matter what I have said or done to you, know that I always loved you, and forever will. Remember that, dear. I love you."
Her embrace tightened as a tear fell onto the sheets. Azula, though tired and unaware of what was truly happening, gave Ursa a concerned stare, and rested her head atop her mother's chest, intently following the rhythm of her heartbeat.
"Please, don't let your father take over the good inside you," Ursa then said at once, rising from the bed. "Go back to sleep. I love you."
Like a shadow that blackens to nothing at all, the soon-to-be Firelord's wife disappeared forever.
And the very next day, Azula became a woman, pulled under by her own father…