Have you ever met one person who completely changed your views on everything? They completely flipped your world upside down and suddenly nothing was the way you had always known it to be.
It was a little like that when Katara and I started traveling to the North Pole with Aang.
I had always—or at least, for as long as I can remember—been the leader of a small, admittedly pathetic, army. I had been the one in control, the one to say "This is right and that is wrong." But then Aang comes along with his penguin sledding and flying bison and suddenly I'm not even a backseat driver. The guy even ate my seal blubber jerky!
But it's so hard to stay mad at him. He's so nice, and so…not understood. He needs friends, and no one else will just accept him for who he is. It's all, "Avatar" this, "Avatar" that. Never just "Aang."
Despite all the fame and glory and everything, despite the fact that we're friends, a part of me is jealous of him. No one takes me for joyrides in the Spirit World atop some giant dead dragon. No one asks me to save their village from attacking Firebenders. No one says that only I can prevent destruction.
Now as I stop to think about it, no one ever says…anything.
It's never "Sokka, save us!" It's never "Sokka, help me!" It's never "Sokka, you can do it!" It's always "Aang, you're the best and I know you can do it if you put your mind to it!"
I shouldn't be bitter. I mean, the guy's only twelve, and he's trying to save the world as only the Avatar can. I should support him the way friends support each other, the way they have each others' backs. The way I keep telling him I've got his back.
It's my job, I guess.
But when I say it, I can't help thinking that it sounds a little forced. Lurking just behind that reassuring confidence-booster is some of that resentment, some of that bitterness. I fear that one day, he'll see it, or Katara will see it, and they'll confront me. Or worse yet, the enemy will see it and use it to tear us apart.
I don't want us to be torn apart. I may be a jealous friend, but I am still a friend, and that should count for something. He affected me—he still does, all the time. He changes the way I look at things. Like maybe this whole "reincarnated Avatar" business isn't all the nonsense I cracked it up to be. Maybe Waterbending and Airbending and Earthbending and Firebending aren't just elaborate magic tricks. Maybe the Avatar really will save the world.
He can do anything, after all.
Why not that?
Let's just put our lives in Aang's hands, the way we've been trained to do. It's a pretty safe bet no one will put their lives under my command, and the world does need somewhere to turn.
I'm not "the Avatar."
