As his father would always say: the best way to catch a fish is to know where to drop your line. Was catching a spy so different to catching a fish? The answer was yes, but Sokka had no other leads to go on. So on this early morning, one he wished he could spend sleeping, Sokka was instead walking through the icy piers of the Water Tribe docks. The scent of sea breeze mixed with the rank odour of freshly caught fish as the glaring polar sun fried the catches and made the ice of the capital shine a blinding white.
Sokka stepped around coiled rope and busy sailors, making a beeline for the harbourmaster. A bell set above the door chimed as he pushed his way inside and strode to the front desk, where an older man with thinning hair glanced up at him with a perplexed expression. A few other men waiting around eyed the newcomer warily.
"I need the records of ships leaving this harbour between autumn and midwinter 8 years ago, please," Sokka spoke clearly, careful to keep any waver out of his voice. By all rights, he had no authority to even see these records, let alone copy them down. His plan relied on appearing confident and authoritative enough to get the harbourmaster to hand over the records without asking for any official credentials.
"And who might you be?" The harbourmaster replied, having already returned to shifting around files on the leather-covered desk.
"Bato," he lied. "I'm conducting an investigation on behalf of the High Chief."
Sokka flashed a small pass adorned with Arnook's seal. The harbourmaster briefly glanced at it then returned to his files.
"We keep the dock ledgers in the back. Try not to get them dirty."
He gave the man a nod before pushing through the back door. When he was safely out of earshot, Sokka let loose a long sigh. Thank La the harbourmaster didn't ask too many questions. The pass he'd shown was just a temporary passport. If he'd asked to inspect it, Sokka would be done for. Lying about something like that could get him arrested. That was the last thing he needed, especially with Aang and Katara trying to make a good impression on their new mentor.
The storeroom was dark and musty, so Sokka lit an oil lamp lying on a small desk, illuminating the rows of ice block shelves. Groves were cut into the ice, each one housing a scroll wrapped snugly in a waterproof seal skin pouch. Sokka traced his finger along the shelves, checking the date on each scroll. His mother had been killed just over a month after his father had arrived at the North Pole. The only motivation a spy in the Water Tribes would have to pass information to the Fire Nation would be a bribe. So even if the spy had sent a messenger hawk, they'd still have to bring their bribe back into the city. And that required a ship. In theory, all Sokka had to do was check every departure between-
There! Tucked into the end of the room was the scroll he was looking for. He carefully lifted it off the shelf and unwrapped the seal skin covering. To his relief, the years had not rotted it away to nothing. Written down the side in delicate black ink were the dates, measured in years since the war began.
Autumn 92 - Winter 92
With trembling fingers, Sokka unrolled the scroll with a wide grin on his face. This was it! This was…
This was going to be a long day. Sokka sighed as he mentally tallied up the number of departures and arrivals listed down. There had to be hundreds. Hundreds of names to investigate. Hundreds of potential suspects.
"Well, I'm not going to finish by staring at it," he muttered into the silence. Sokka pulled out his notebook and settled in for a long morning.
Maybe he should've stayed in bed.
The door creaked as Sokka stepped out onto the docks and took a deep breath of polar air. Finally. It was a beautiful day and Sokka had a reason to be happy. Though his wrists ached painfully, he was one step closer to finding the spy. Fighting against the cramps in his legs, he walked over to a bench overlooking the docks. That would be a good spot to go over his notes.
He scanned the list of names and dates for anything that stood out. For once, the city's self-imposed isolation would work in his favour as those coming and leaving were all carefully vetted. It was a challenge to stay awake, but Sokka persisted, forcing himself to note down every meticulous detail.
Only when he realised he'd read the same line three times did Sokka notice that a man had sat down next to him. This newcomer was Sokka's age, with the beginnings of a beard on his tanned chin. Unlike many of the young adults in the Water Tribes, his hair was cut short. Just how long had he been sitting there without Sokka noticing?
As if sensing Sokka's gaze, the man stood up, leaving Sokka alone on the bench once more. He looked back to where the man had been sitting and spotted a small scrap of paper.
"Excuse me, you dropped this!" Sokka shouted, holding up the paper to no avail. The man had already disappeared into the crowd.
Sighing, Sokka slumped back down and brought the scrap up to his eyes. There was writing on it. As he read the first few words, Sokka's stomach clenched.
Watch your back. Things are not what they seem here.
Those that sought answers have disappeared.
Come meet me at this address if you want to learn more.
-S
He flinched as a gentle breeze wafted down the back of his parka. Leaping to his feet, Sokka quickly jotted down the address in his notebook, glancing up occasionally to watch the faces in the crowd out of the corner of his eye. He gave them one final look before hurrying away from the harbour.
There was somebody he needed to meet.
This was not what he expected.
When Sokka had imagined meeting this mystery man, his mind had conjured images of run down shacks or secret bunkers. Not a cozy-looking suburban home identical to the ones on either side of it. The row of houses were carved out of the same solid chunk of ice, each two stories high with a small balcony facing a canal that cut through the street. Canoes were tied up along the sidewalk, shining like only freshly tanned leather could. Fur pelts hung in the doorways, keeping the interior of the houses warm for their residents. It was very quaint, but did nothing to ease Sokka's fears.
As Sokka approached the front door, he briefly considered the possibility that this was all some elaborate joke. Was he about to interrupt a family's lunch or walk into the retirement home of somebody's grandma?
"Hello? Is anybody home?"
Something stirred and a few moments later, the furs were pushed aside. Standing in the doorway was the same man from that morning. Sokka didn't know whether to feel relief or despair. At least if this was a prank, it would mean Sokka wasn't being hunted.
"You made it. Quick, come inside," he beckoned in a hushed whisper. Sokka pushed through the furs into the warm air.
The stranger's house was a lot nicer than he expected. It was tidy, with a fur rug set in front of a fireplace. There was even a wooden table; a rare commodity this far north. But despite the inviting surroundings, Sokka's hand never strayed from his jawblade.
"Alright, you got me here. Now why don't you tell me why?"
The stranger didn't answer immediately. He grabbed a teapot from the fireplace and sat down at the table, gesturing for Sokka to do the same. Cautiously, Sokka slid into the seat opposite him. With a wave of his hand, Suluk drew a stream of tea from the kettle and filled two cups. A waterbender. That made things difficult.
He slid one of the teacups across the table, but Sokka didn't move to grab it. Not even he was foolish enough to drink possibly poisoned tea in a stranger's home.
"My name is Suluk," The man introduced himself. "I saw you in the harbourmaster's office. You were demanding to see the ship logs."
"So what? I am conducting an official investigation on behalf of the High Chief," Sokka replied, trying to bluff his opponent. "What does that have to do with you?"
Suluk snorted in amusement. "You might have fooled the harbourmaster, but next time at least try to make your forgery look like the real thing? Here, let me help you out."
He reached into his parka and pulled out a thick leather slip, showing it to Sokka. The chief's seal was pressed in the middle, underneath a series of numbers and Suluk's name. It was a pitkurak's badge. A real one. Sokka slumped down on his chair, feeling his earlier confidence desert him.
"What do you want?" He said after a long pause. If he was going to arrest Sokka, he could've done so back at the harbourmaster's office. No, Suluk wanted something else from him.
"What do I want?" Suluk paused, pretending to ponder the question. But after seeing the nervous sweat on Sokka's face, he sighed and looked straight into the teen's eyes. "Look, I know you're not a criminal. Nobody impersonating a Pitkurak would use their authority to look at ship logs if they had ill intentions. You'd be extorting people like the other lowlifes. If I had to guess, you're a wannabe vigilante. Am I correct?"
The insult stung, but it rang true. Sokka's plan was half-baked from the beginning. It was only his first day and he'd already screwed up. With a bitter sigh, the teen nodded.
"Then I'm going to give you a friendly warning: stop now, before you get hurt."
"Is that a threat?" Sokka narrowed his eyes and gripped the jawblade tightly. Pitkurak or not, if Suluk was going to kill him then Sokka would go down fighting.
Suluk's eyes widened and he shook his head. "No, you misunderstand me. I wouldn't kill somebody for trying to uphold justice. What I'm trying to say is that there are people out there who wouldn't hesitate to kill you just to cover their tracks."
"What?!" Sokka leapt to his feet, knocking over his teacup. "You know who I'm looking for?!"
This was huge! If Suluk knew who the spy was, then all Sokka needed to do was report him to Arnook and it would be case closed! He never considered that somebody with all the answers would just ask Sokka to meet him. Seems like the universe was finally looking out for him.
"What are you talking about?" Suluk asked after a long pause.
"What are you talking about?" Sokka replied.
The two of them just stared at each other for a while. Suluk looked just as confused as Sokka felt. Finally, Suluk broke the awkward silence.
"You are investigating the cartels, right?" Suluk asked, tilting his head slightly.
"No, I wasn't," Sokka's excitement was gone. Of course Suluk knew nothing about the spy.
"Then what could you have possibly wanted with ship logs?"
"None of your business!"
Suluk held his hands up defensively. "Alright alright. Settle down. Look, regardless of why you wanted those ship logs, if you go snooping around like that you'll attract unwanted attention. I'm only telling you this out of concern for your safety. I knew another Pitkurak who tried investigating the cartels. It didn't end well."
"What happened?"
"He just vanished," Suluk hung his head, not meeting Sokka's eyes. "One day, he left home and didn't come back. I never found out what happened to him. The other Pitkuraks said he fell into a lake and drowned, but have you ever heard of a master waterbender drowning?"
"It sounds like you knew this person.".
The waterbender sighed and downed the last of his tea. "He was my uncle."
"I'm sorry for your loss," Sokka fixed Suluk with a hard glare. "But you have to understand that you can't stop me. This investigation… it's personal. Thanks for the warning, I'll try to be safer. But I've got too much riding on this to not see it through."
Suluk leaned forward over the table, meeting Sokka's glare with an impartial expression. "You do know I could have you arrested, right?"
"I know. But I'll take my chances."
He maintained steady eye contact with the Pitkurak. For better or for worse, this was what he had chosen; for Katara, for his mother and for the world. And Suluk wasn't going to convince him otherwise.
"Fine," Suluk turned away. "I gave you my warning, that's all I can do. You may go."
"Thank you, Suluk."
Sokka gave him a curt nod and left without another word. For now, he'd head back to the palace. There wasn't much he could do until nightfall. Despite the rough start and his brush with the law, Sokka felt content.
Finally, he was making progress.
An ear-splitting bang sent fragments of ice hurtling through the sky. Sokka leapt to the ground, feeling tiny hail pellets rain against his back. He waited a few seconds before peering over the icy barrier. The leather-wrapped bundle he'd propped up against a snowpile had been reduced to a shallow crater covered in a light coating of soot.
Damn it. Another failure.
"There you are!" Katara shouted from the other side of the field, jogging over to meet him. "What are you doing out here?"
She looked flustered. To Sokka, who'd known Katara for most of his life, that meant she was furious. About what, he didn't know. But for his own safety, Sokka prayed it wasn't him. He glanced behind Katara and spotted Aang following close behind with a similar expression of irritation on his face. Sokka raised an eyebrow. It was a rare sight indeed to see the monk as anything but cheerful. Whatever this was, it must be serious.
"Blowing stuff up?" Sokka replied after a cautious pause, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. There was nothing he could do about the spy until tonight, so he'd found another way of occupying his time. It was far more fun and useful than going over the same list of sailors over and over again.
"That's so coo-" Aang began, then shut his mouth when Katara sent him a withering look. "That's very irresponsible," He hastily corrected himself.
Katara turned her burning gaze towards Sokka. "Why are you blowing stuff up!? Did Arnook give you permission to tear up this icefield?"
Yeah she's definitely angry at something, Sokka thought. But thankfully it didn't seem related to him.
"He gave me permission. It's not like this place doesn't have waterbenders who could fix all this damage in seconds."
The ice cracked as Katara clenched her fists. Carefully, Sokka reviewed everything he'd just said. Something in those two sentences had set her off.
Waterbenders! Of course!
"So, how was waterbending training?" He asked. If Katara was frustrated at herself or someone else, Sokka could just give her one of his patented big brother pep talks. Those worked at least 60% of the time, so it was by far his most successful way of cheering her up.
But to his dismay, that question only made her angrier. Sokka glanced over to Aang, silently pleading for him to say something.
"Master Poophead won't teach her because she's a girl," Aang answered for him.
Oh. It was one of those problems. That would do it. Pakku was lucky he was a master bender, Sokka hadn't learnt to not underestimate Katara's capabilities without a few snowballs to the face.
But hey, they'd gotten an Avatar out of it one time. I'd call that a win.
"Well, I can't say I'm surprised. You should have seen how one of those chiefs was talking about Princess Yue right to her face. I wish you'd been there, you could've taken his ego down a few pegs."
The corner of Katara's lips twitched up. One point to Sokka.
"I suppose this is just another thing I should add to my 'Reasons why the Northern Water Tribe is literally the worst' list. But I don't think I have any more room."
She turned away to hide the ghost of a smile that had appeared on her face. One more point to Sokka.
"And hey, Aang is still his student, right?" Sokka gave the Avatar a pointed stare. He quickly nodded, confirming Sokka's theory. "Why can't he just teach you everything he learns from Pakku?"
Katara's face lit up. "Why didn't I think of that!? Thanks Sokka!"
"And I'll have somebody to practice with!" Aang added excitedly.
Sokka struck a dramatic pose. "What can I say? I'm just that awesome."
And another point to Sokka. Victory!
Just then a burst of fire erupted from the crater of Sokka's failed experiment. He leapt back in shock, accidentally slipping and faceplanting into the fresh snow. With a pained moan, he rolled over onto his back to see Katara and Aang looking down at him curiously. Usually he'd feel embarrassed, but this happened way too often for him to care anymore.
"Sokka, what exactly are you doing here?" Katara asked again.
Oblivious to her words, Sokka got back to his feet and peered at the crater. There must have been some unburnt black powder left in the blast site. More safety precautions would be needed next time. If that explosion had been the fulminate detonator instead of the black powder, Sokka could be missing an eye. Maybe next time he could pack the powder more and-
"Sokka!" Katata shouted, waving a hand in front of his face. He blinked and glanced back at her disapproving eyes.
"Oh! See… um…" Sokka paused to collect his thoughts. "I'm testing a few ideas I had. You know how I made those grenades?"
Katara gave him an exasperated look. "You've only told us not to touch them about twenty times already."
"Right…" he trailed off awkwardly. "Well I had this idea: what if I could propel a grenade with another grenade?!" Quickly, he flipped through his notebook for the small diagram he'd jotted down on the journey here. "So I shove a bit of black powder in a tube and put the grenade here," Sokka pointed to various parts of his crudely drawn diagram, not noticing his two companions were only half-listening to him. "But I've had a slight snag. Nothing major. It's just that every design I've ever made has randomly exploded."
"That's some snag," Aang commented dryly.
"Yeah it's annoying because sometimes the grenades explode in the barrel. And the barrel explodes every time no matter what material I use," Sokka rambled on, oblivious to the looks Katara and Aang were sharing. "Bone, leather, ice, bone and leather, wood, leather and ice, leather and bone. Nothing works! I can't test how much powder I need if every barrel I test explodes! About the only thing I can think of that would work is metal, but there's not exactly a lot of that up here. Number twenty-three on 'Reasons why the Northern Water Tribe is literally the worst'. So I'll have to wait until we're back in the Earth Kingdom before I can-"
"Oh that must be so frustrating!" Katara interrupted him. Nearby, Aang sighed in relief.
"It is!"
"But maybe you should come inside?"
Sokka shook his head. "This is important! Arnook says this design could turn the tide of the war if I can get it to work. Maybe if I tried bone with wood..."
Katara pinched her brow and sighed. She glanced at the small stockpile of grenades Sokka had stashed around the field and thought for a bit. "Now I didn't make these grenades, but didn't you say these things were sensitive to impacts?"
"That's right!"
"So what do you think would happen if you blew something up near one?"
Sokka took a deep breath to reply then paused. Shit. Well, this has been an embarrassing waste of time.
"Why don't you test it with projectiles that aren't explosive?" Katara suggested, seeing the disappointed look on Sokka's face.
"That could work…" he flicked through his notebook. "And if I carve a hole into an ice slab, it could contain the blast. That's a temporary solution, but it would at least let me test the amount of black powder I need. Thanks Katara!"
"What can I say? I'm just that awesome," she quoted. "But seriously, can you finish soon? It's getting dark."
Sokka glanced around, realising that the sun was now setting over the icy cliffs in the distance. "Oh. Alright, I'll wrap things up here. Don't eat dinner without me!"
"Wouldn't dream of it," Katara said as Sokka jogged off to the neat stack of explosives.
"I'm not sure I like Sokka designing weapons of war," Aang admitted.
"Neither do I. Sokka can be quite clumsy when he's not paying attention. Him handling explosives is a disaster waiting to happen," Katara nodded pointedly to where Sokka was attaching a grenade to the end of a long piece of bone. He swung it, casting the grenade across the field. It detonated with a bang, sending an icy plume into the sky. "Let's just be glad he agreed to only handle explosives when he can see what he's doing," she finished, trudging back to the palace.
"That's not what I meant," Aang replied, but a loud boom muffled his words.
Katara had already left him and Sokka was too focused on tinkering with another grenade. Aang sighed and traced Katara's footsteps back home, wincing as another explosion pierced the twilight air.
AN: Sorry again for the wait. This chapter needed a lot more revision than I expected and university has been hell. Unfortunately, the next chapter might also take a while. But I'll try to have it polished off in less time than this one. Anyway, here Sokka is beginning his investigation, starting by checking arrivals and departures around the time of his mother's death but accidentally drawing the attention of a local Pitkurak (if you can't tell, they're basically the Northern Water Tribe's police force). We also see Sokka's latest engineering experiment. I did say in Hero of Gaipan that the firework launchers wouldn't be his last contribution to the field of explosive weaponry.
Matheus Bezerra de Lima: Yeah that's what I was going for. Sokka is feeling paranoid and is pushing himself hard to solve this case by himself, to keep Aang and Katara safe. And yeah, I agree with what you said about Northern Water Tribe culture. I get the feeling they consider themselves to be far more 'civilised' than the other tribes, both from what we see in ATLA and the continued disregard they have for the southerners in Legends of Korra. They don't really care for the south and don't like the idea of sticking their necks out to harbour people hunted by the Fire Nation.
And yeah, Sokka's relationship with Yue will be way more fleshed out. Just wait for the next chapter, you'll see exactly what I'm going to do with Yue's character.
Shahryar: I'm not going to confirm or deny anything about the spy. You'll have to wait and see. As for Kimi, you'll see her again in the sequel to Conspiracy in the North. Just because it might be a while before that story is released, I'll spoil a bit for you. She joins a specialist division of the Fire Nation Army dedicated to reconnaissance and tracking partisan groups, even receiving some training from the Yuyan Archers before being deployed to the Siege of Omashu where she makes a name for herself, a name that reaches the ears of a certain Fire Nation princess who just so happens to be looking for somebody trained in tracking down enemies of the state.
Guest: Glad you liked it. Sorry this one took so long to make.