SOKKLAFIL: He is indeed alive and back, though he isn't in the best condition. Ngl I was originally going to kill him off and have her find his ghost and then move on with Jet but I felt like giving them a shot at a happier ending. "I have a little sympathy for Jet, but on the side of Zuko-fuck off man!" Yeah, Jet kinda feels used but he did go on a journey specifically to find his girlfriend's boyfriend. "I just hope that Sokka won't be an asshole and will understand why Azula did what she did. " Taht too lol.
gemsofformenos: Azula felt it but she doesn't really realize that she did. It was one of those things where you just have a feeling about something and then once it happens it's like a coincidence. "It is so much like Sokka to make a joke even after nearly been drown." Sokka's humor will never die. He will be a ghost and make jokes. It's just going to be strange for Sokka to adjust to a world that was beginning to move on from him. "Poor Jet. Like the others he hasn't expexted this but he knows what this means for his chances with Azula. He seems to believe Azula, he understands her probably and still he is hurt and feels used beside the fact that he probably knows that this isn't true." Yeah, he knows that Azula didn't set out to hurt or lead him on but he had gotten his hopes up and now he still feels like he had been used. "There might be awkward moments ahead but I'm hopeful." xP Awkward moments are fun to write. "I am super excited to read what has happen to Sokka during the last months." I definitely enjoyed writing the first part of his tale. Life of Pi was a good inspiration. "Awesome twist but due to the memories of the last chapter I've expected it a bit. That's why I think this sequence from the last chapter was such a great idea cause there has been so many options about who was having these memories." Thank you :) I'm glad that I was able to rouse different possibilities. "Great story and wonderful and heart-warming chapter with a sad note because of Jet. Poor boy has been nothing but kind here. Take care of you and keep on having fun with your stories" And thanks once again! I hope that you're having a good week!
kingeddie16ne: Indeed, things are starting to wrap up. But yeah, I feel like Sokka's humor would be the last thing to die lmao. And yes, Azula's got a difficult situation to explain, especially since she feels guilty about having started dating Jet.
He thought that it would be a storm or a mechanical failure. It was neither. It was, of all things, a fight. He doesn't think that anyone will believe him, but he knows that it was true. He'd seen it with his own eyes, long before the ocean had driven him to a state of temporary madness.
Two sharks had been going at it for who knew how long and he had driven his boat right in the middle of it. They might have thought him a third shark, or maybe he was just collateral damage, but the haul of his ship had been punctured. It flooded with water faster than he could dream to be rid of it. There was no way to be rid of it even if the flood was a slow one.
He could only yearn and hope for mercy and hope that the sharks didn't take notice of his big, bright yellow emergency raft. He could only scramble to gather as much food, water, and emergency supplies as he could without sinking the raft. He was thankful that the raft was built for emergencies, built to hold up not just his weight but the weight of the supplies as well.
He looked into the water, the sharks whipped and thrashed. The water tinged pink, in its haste and agony, the larger of the two sharks slammed into his raft. He cursed as one of his food crates fell overboard. He made a snatch for it as the shark darted off the body slam its opponent, a retaliatory strike. His weight, stretched so far, was nearly tipped the raft. He cursed again and accepted that he was simply going to be that much shorter on food.
He took a moment to observe the sharks while they thrashed and gnashed at each other. Decidedly, they were well and occupied. He begins paddling in the opposite direction. He would worry about getting back on route once he was at a safe distance from the brawl.
He reached for his compass and his stomach plummeted. He had left it, amid his other navigational tools, on the deck of his sinking ship. A sinking ship that had become only a splintering mast. His tools were well on their way to the ocean floor, perhaps to be found centuries later by a lucky diver.
For how long he drifted after that he wasn't entirely certain. After the first week things started to blend. Days and nights bled into one another. Thoughts and memories became intermingled. And soon the sky and the sea were one and the same.
He couldn't say when his mind had started to go, he thought that it was probably when he noticed that his food supply was running short. He had managed to conserve his water well, but he had always had a bit of an appetite…
And the isolation.
Powers above, the isolation.
He was a social man. Sure, he wasn't the popular jock sort. And sure, as much as he liked to think otherwise, he wasn't so smooth with the ladies. He liked to joke that that's how he'd ended up with Azula. Azula who also wasn't particularly smooth. Though, where he was social and talkative, she was more of a loner. She had Mai and TyLee tagged along to Chan's surf team parties but she usually spent those at the fringes of the party. He would make his way up and down the beach chattering with anyone who was willing to have a conversation.
He could never stand awkward silences nor nights alone. And suddenly he was all alone. Completely and wholly alone. With miles between he and any other person. Suddenly the ocean was as unfathomably vast as everyone had said. He stomach lurched and crawled constantly at the realization that he had so grossly underestimated how open the ocean was. He was only a teen, a teen who'd ventured out of Port TuiLa once on a family vacation, and to him the world used to be so small.
But then the world was too big.
And then after that, the world was nothing at all.
When his days were only monotonous blue blurs where nothing came by for days at a time, he certainly hadn't felt as though there was a world. Not unless a world of endlessly rolling blue counted as a world.
He supposed that it did; the world is a cluster of sensations and feelings. He still had those even if sensations had been muted and restricted to a steady rocking and eventually relentless blistering sun scalding his skin.
That very well could have been the moment his mind began to unravel.
When he looked at his lobster red skin and noticed the first blister. At first he howled and wailed. He screamed at the sun to give him a break, to dim just for a moment. He screamed at the ocean to stop spraying the busting blisters with salt. After that he went quiet, there was only so much pain he could take before his mind went numb.
The sun wasn't the only thing that he talked to. On one odd occasion a dolphin had come to swim alongside his boat for some ten minutes. He had a rather lengthy conversation with it that continued long after it had swam away. He can't recall what their topic of discussion was. Probably, if he had to guess, he would say that it was about favorite meals. He stomach ached and pleaded for food until his body realized that it would be getting any. Eventually he went numb to that sensation too.
Before going out to sea, he imagined that a horrific storm would be the worst case scenario. Weeks? Months? Years? Out into sea, on a small bright yellow raft found with grey rumbling clouds in the distance, he found himself excited. It was stimulation, something to break the drab and endless uniformity of his days. The lightning humming and raising his hairs, the waves thrashing and rising perilously…
It was the dangers that made him feel human.
The threat of death that made him feel alive.
There were pleasantries that kept him going as well, though those were few and far between. One night when the moon was huge and full, when the stars reflected in full splendor upon the water's surface, he watched them rise. Like fireflies they flew up from the water in clouds, flashing blue and purple lights dancing all around him as though drawn in by the bright yellow of his raft upon an otherwise inky surface.
There were fish too, shimmering silver and sleek black with bioluminescent dots. He could see a school of angler fish-he chuckled, thinking back to his first argument with Azula-they swam beneath his raft with their bulbs were like sea fireflies. Or maybe the land fireflies were like them.
In retrospect, he doesn't think that they had been real at all.
What was real were the schools of fish that swam around. He had once found himself hovering above a strangely clear patch of ocean. It was hard to make out, like looking down at a street from atop a skyscraper with a glass floor. But he could see a sprawling metropolis of corals; yellow and spongy brain coral, green-grey pillar coral, red-orange and tree-like branch coral, bright red precious coral, and fuzzy looking scleractinia. Weaving expertly through their razor edges were schools of fish of different lengths and shapes. Their colors were magnificent.
Oh if Azula and Zuko were there, they would have so many more fish for their fish game.
He had wept that day.
He missed the siblings.
He missed his sibling.
His parents.
He decided that he would take back the boring nothingness over such a deep craving.
He decided that he should just pitch himself into the sea. One deep inhale and the water would make its way in. A few desperate minutes of thrashing and struggling would be a mercy compared to the slow death he was living as he just drifted.
Drifting and drifting.
He wondered if anyone else was drifting too. Drifting and yearning and suffering as desperately. Far away on a different stretch of the ocean, but ailing as he was. The ocean was wide, surely he wasn't the only one free floating in it.
He heard the rumble of thunder.
Felt the first raindrops on his skin.
He craved them, they soothed the burning of his skin at least for a moment.
He felt a jolt run around his raft, the world around him exploded and he found himself clinging to his food crate for dear life. Even after his consciousness faded, his hold remained.
He would tell the doctors that the storm had simply pushed his raft to land. That was more believable than noting that he had black out and fate pushed him to shore. He had been so excited to feel sand beneath his feet.
Excited that he was finally back with civilization.
Excited until he learned that civilization was a literal gathering of chimps.
.oOo.
A hospital bed is like a raft, it simply doesn't drift. But it is as large as a raft and, with the right ailments, is just about as comfy as one. But at least this raft has food. At least this raft has company.
She listens intently, so much so that he is surprised that she isn't taking physical notes. He doesn't think that she needs to do so to be able to recount his tale. Her memory was always good.
He almost feels bad for not giving her a chance to get a word in. But she has had so much conversation and she doesn't seem to mind. And he still has so much to say, even still they shoo her out with a mention that visiting hours are over for the night.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Sokka. I'll bring Zuzu with too."
It is nice to hear her voice again. To hear a call that isn't from the sea. To feel a kiss that isn't from the sun.