Chapter One: Tahm-Tahm

A cold breeze swiftly moved along Sokka's neck as he was returning from his hunting and gathering trip. The yield had done anything else but satisfied him, especially since he would even have to split it up between the people of the resistance and his friends. He looked down into the basket he was holding in his hands and sighed. At least he had been able to find some meat. Sure, the three hares were not that much but it would be better than nothing.

Now that food and a place to sleep were awaiting him soon, the only thing bothering him was how their journey would continue. After Aang had told him earlier that King Bumi would not be able to be the young Airbender's earth bending master, it was now on them to find a someone else to teach him this art. Usually Sokka was the one to figure out a plan on what was coming up but this time he had not even an idea of how their trip should continue.

While he had been lost in his thoughts, he did not even realize that he was only a few feet away from the camp his friends and the resistance had set up for the night. As he arrived Katara and Aang awaited him happily at the campfire. "Have you been able to find something", they both asked simultaneously, the hope engraved in their faces. "Yeah, its not too much but I think it we will be fine. Here." With that Sokka dropped down the basket in front of their feet and put up a smile. "You surely can do something with that right?", the tribesman asked turning towards his sister. "Yeah, sure" and with that she took the stuff out of the basket and started preparing the food.
While Katara was cooking, Sokka decided to turn back towards the planning of their journey. One thing was clear. They needed to keep distance from these Fire Nation girls that they had fought in Omashu. Especially the one in the pink outfit, which had blocked Katara's bending abilities was quite scary. To guarantee that they had to at best leave no traces and travel in an unpredictable fashion. It was probably best to keep travelling on the ground since flying on top of a sky bison would not be a very sneaky way to travel.
After continuing to think about the matter but not being able to figure out a concrete objective or plan he concluded that tomorrow was a day as well, so he just leaned back and enjoyed the crackling and sizzling of the warm fire while looking at the moon. He was missing Yue as much as ever, but he knew needed to let go at some point. But he did not want to let go. She had been his first love and it had just faded as quickly as it had started.
"Sokka?", he heard a Aang ask him from his right. "Hm?", he responded in a depressed fashion. "Is everything fine? Something seems to bother you." "Nah all good, you don't have an earth bending master, the love of my life turned into the moon and we're in hunted by the firenation." It will get better, I promise."
With that the young Airbender turned his gaze towards the food which Sokka's sister just had finished to cook. The next few minutes the Gaang spent eating with some people of the resistance. When they finished the leader of them, Yung, cleared his throat and started to speak loudly. "While counting the people earlier, I have found out that seemingly we are not as many people as we should be." "Oh God, who's missing", Katara asked panicky. "Oh, nobody is missing, we actually have one person too much." With that he went back towards his tent and came back with a baby in his arms. "This is the child of the man who robbed our people's home." "AWW, SOOO SWEET", Katara exclaimed. With that she took the baby out of the arms of the Captain's and welcomed it in hers. Yung shook his head and left the teenagers on their own at the fire, clearly being frustrated.
"We should bring him back. As soon as we can.", Aang said. "Yes, we really should, but we still need to practice water bending Aang." Katara responded. The two benders simultaneously turned their heads towards Sokka who was fighting to get his boomerang back from the baby. "Bad Fire Nation baby" the tribesman shouted. "Well, he seems to like you, its set then. Take Appa." "Wait, what?", Sokka responded, but the two were gone the second Aang had ended his sentence. He now looked at the baby in front of his feet and sighed. "Come on, lets get you back to where you belong, the Fire Nation."
He rose from the ground, grabbed the baby and walked towards Aang's friendly sky bison. He climbed onto Appa, shouted "YIP YIP" and rose into the skies. After a quite cold but fortunately short flight, Sokka landed on a Platform only a few feet below a balcony which was attached to the palace. "Let's get you home then." he said more to himself than the baby as he climbed off Appa's back.
After he had analysed his environment, he figured out it would be best to leave the baby on the balcony since he really didn't want to get caught and imprisoned by anyone. But when he started to climb up the steep cliff, he felt how cold it actually was as the wind blew around his body. He couldn't just leave the child outside. If no one found it in near future, it could chill to death. So as he climbed a little bit higher, he tried to peek over the railing of the balcony. He saw that there was a door leading in towards a dark room, which seemed like a dormitory. He decided it would be fine to lay the child down at the canopy bed which was located at the middle of the room.
He wielded himself over the railing and silently stepped into the dorm through the open door. As he arrived at the tip of the bed he kneed down and put the child onto the mattress and covered it in the bedsheets. When he stood up and turned around, he almost got a heart attack. He stared right into a pair of big, shiny grey eyes.
"Entering someone's sleeping room without their permission isn't very nice, you know?", the girl standing in front of Sokka said. As he looked at her, he realized that it was the girl he thought about earlier, when he was thinking about the gang's future path. "Ehmm, please don't kill me.", was the first thing that escaped Sokka's mouth. "I was just bringing back the baby." He grinned in fear, hoping the girl that had defeated his sister would let him go. The girl giggled at that sight. With that reaction Sokka wasn't sure what to respond. Wasn't she supposed to paralyze or capture him and bring him to the princess, Azula or whatever her name was? "Ehm, can I just leave?", he asked in confusion. The girl tilted her head and answered. "You just came here and already want to leave? At least introduce yourself." That made Sokka even more confused. Why would she want to talk to him? She probably just wanted to manipulate him so she would find out where Aang was. "I'm never going to tell you where Aang is!", he loudly exclaimed. "I didn't even want to know that." She sighed. "Can I not just talk with a cute boy for once?", the girl sighed. "I'm Ty Lee and you are?". Sokka's mind blew while trying to read the situation. He decided to give up on trying to escape and just decided to commit to the conversation the girl seemingly wanted to have. Maybe that would get him out of the palace as fast as possible. "I'm Sokka.", the young tribesman responded to the girl's question. "Sokka?" the girl looked at him. "That's a cute name." she said with a smile on her face. "Sokka, why did you decide to bring back Tahm-Tahm?" "Who?", Sokka asked, seemingly irritated. Then he realized who she meant. "Oh yeah, the baby. Well, we kind of unintentionally took him with us as we evacuated the resistance from the city. And because he was just a child, I decided to bring him back to where he belongs. We didn't want to keep a baby as hostage, that would be a little bit cruel, so yeah…" The girl looked at him for a few seconds. Sokka frowned. "That's nice of you Sokka." She looked him in the eyes. "I like nice people", she said. Now Ty Lee moved closer to him until she was only a few centimetres away from his face. He could feel her breath on his skin but was too irritated to say something or move. Then she gave him a soft kiss on the cheek and whispered into his ear. "Thanks for bringing him back, have nice evening Sokka."
As she bent down to pick up Tahm-Tahm, Sokka took that as a sign to get out leave quickly. "Bye, have a nice evening too.", he mumbled caught in the moment. With that he moved out of the room and climbed down the railing. When he arrived down at the platform that Appa was waiting on, he rubbed his cheek. Why had the girl done that? He only knew that he didn't feel too bad about it. As he climbed on Appa's back he had a grin in his face while they rose into the skies. Maybe not all Fire Nation people were bad, especially the girls. A quarter of an hour later he arrived at the camp, the grin still engraved in his face.
When he dropped off the sky bison, his sister and Aang came running at him. "Did everything go well?" they asked simultaneously. "Couldn't have gone better.", the tribesman grinned dreamingly. Then Sokka walked away, leaving them in confusion. The tent where his warm sleeping bag awaited him as the target. And then he slept the best had in a few weeks.