"Sokka, can I ask you about soulmates?"

Sokka slowly lowers his fishing rod. He glances up at Aang then quickly averts his gaze as he rubs the back of his neck. "Erm. Why don't you ask Zuko? He also has a soulmate and plus Azula's his sister so…"

Aang doesn't want to ask Zuko. Zuko is his friend, but some things still take time to heal.

"You're the only one here with two soulmates," says Aang.

Sokka frowns and rubs his wrist.

"I'm sorry. I didn't—"

"No, no, it's okay." Sokka waves off his apology. "I am the soulmate expert. Go ahead and ask. I shall try to dispense some of my immense wisdom."

Aang bows. "Oh, mighty soul guru. What was meeting your soulmate like?"

Sokka doesn't respond right away.

When Aang looks up from his bow, Sokka turns and shows him the inside of his wrist.

Aang has seen the names on Sokka's wrist before, but never this close.

There are two names written on Sokka's wrist: 'Suki' written in black cursive, and above it 'Yue' written in white and crossed out with a curved black line.

"When I first met Yue, I didn't know she was my soulmate," says Sokka, "but I remember thinking to myself that she must be the one. Meeting her felt like a fairy tale."

"Who did you love more?" asks Aang, "Yue or Suki?"

Sokka groans. "Way to ask the easy questions!"

"Sorry! It's just, I've never heard you talk about soulmates. Ever. You even call Suki your girlfriend instead of your soulmate."

"That's more of a Southern Water Tribe cultural thing. A lot of people lost their soulmate to the Fire Nation. Those with soulmarks like yours only have one, and those with name soulmarks like mine…even if they had multiple soulmates…some people lost everything," Sokka shrugs. "It became a force of habit not to talk about soulmate stuff."

"Oh…" Aang shifts his weight. "I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable—"

"You're not! I'm a big boy, Aang. If there's a conversation I don't want to have then I'll speak up. And to answer your question," adds Sokka, "I love Suki more."

"You do?" Aang furrows his brow. " But you said meeting Yue was like a fairy tale?"

"Fairy tales end. My love for Suki won't," Sokka rubs his neck. "That sounded kinda harsh, didn't it? What I mean is, I've known Suki longer. Our love is deeper."

"Deeper?"

"There are different levels of love. It's like when you're swimming and everything looks the same on the surface but then you dive and can feel a difference."

Aang nods, but he doesn't fully understand.

Silence hangs in the air between them, heavy and palpable. Sokka is the first to shake away his thoughts and looks sidelong at Aang, "Hey Aang, since we're having a heart to heart after all, mind if I ask you a question about Azula?"

"Um, our first meeting wasn't like a fairy tale."

"No, not that— wait. You still view her as your soulmate?"

"Well, yeah, she kinda has my bending."

"No, I mean, you don't want to switch? You don't wish she wasn't your soulmate?"

Aang tries not to think about Katara and reasons, "If Azula wasn't my soulmate then she wouldn't have been able to earthbend that boulder, and you and Zuko would have been squished. I don't think anyone else would have learned eathbending as fast, so, no, I don't want to switch soulmates."

"I do appreciate being not squished," agrees Sokka, "but is that the only reason? You're not— my sister mentioned something about you guys getting all touchy?"

"Hm? Oh yeah I guess we were."

Sokka is stunned into silence, a rare occurrence for him, so Aang continues.

"Azula's soulmark doesn't follow her chi path like an airbender tattoo would, and I was wondering if that meant her chi path had changed to match. Turns out it was only a design difference, but I was touching along her soulmark to make sure—"

"Phew!"