A/N: I decided to continue this. The updates will probably be sparadic, due to my work schedule and the fact that I'm actually working on several other stories as well, but as they come to me I'll get them up. This takes place seven months after Toph and Sokka leave Zuko's palace.
Again, the pairings aren't set in stone, probably won't be, ever mainly because I really like the friendship-vibe that this story is starting in my mind. It will probably be from several different character's point of view, for instance this piece is from Sokka's point of view.
If you have any ideas that you find intriguing, leave me a line. I can't promise that they'll come up, but I am building a world and I realize I can't envision it all.
Standard disclaimers apply.
x….x
Sokka has become really talented at hand to hand combat. Over the years, living with the Kyoshi Warriors, it becomes a knack. He isn't as good as the warriors, just like they can't outmatch him at swordsmanship, but he's good enough to beat the drunk and the belligerent. He almost kinda likes it better than sword fighting. He never thought he would admit it, but he likes skin to skin contact. He likes the bruises and the pain, waking up every morning only to have to re-wrap his damaged hands and clean out the few cuts he's earned himself over the past several months.
It's an adrenaline rush, and the best one he gets these days when the war is over and everyone else is doing super important world-healing things.
He's not trying to mess balance up, neither he nor Toph are into anything of the sort. They fought hard for peace and if it's ever threatened anywhere that they can hear, they'll show a few rabble-rousers exactly where they can stick their discontent.
However, he and Toph…they don't really have much room in a peaceful world. They're both too loud, and really don't care enough about proper behavior. Even with Toph being the world's greatest earthbender there are few who can put up with her attitude, which is generally viewed as blasphemous by the masses, unladylike and out of place. Unwanted. And Sokka, well, Sokka's just the plan guy and his plans weren't always the best. They were nothing in comparison to master tacticians.
Neither of them really had a home to return to. Toph often said she would prance through the Spirit World before going back to that hodge-podge of politics and Sokka thinks he must have been travelling with a Nomad for too long, because the wind guides his steps these days too. They travel where the wind takes them, no longer trying to stay steady, like Toph's earth, just moving. They pack the essentials onto Eely, the eel-hound that Master Piandao had given to Sokka so long ago, and head off into dying sunsets, leaving behind them bar brawls, one-night stands, and friends.
But really that's not the point. The point is that he likes hand to hand, probably a lot more than he should, because he's just barely dodged a swift punch to his solar plexus and he can only smile and return a swift chop to the back of his assailant's neck. Somewhere in the din of pub, he can hear Toph's rambunctious laughter and resists the urge to see how her match is going, because she's probably taking down drunks left and right and making it look easy.
A bulky man rushes him, but at the last second Sokka hooks a stool with his foot and kicks it at him, tripping the man up and making him fall. Sokka laughs and turns around just in time to block a punch thrown at him, but not so much the elbow jabbed right into his gut.
He'll feel that one in the morning.
Sokka doubles over and his brief moment of distraction has the other guy reaching for his wolf's tail.
"Not the hair! Not the hair!" he squawks, hands reaching up to try to loosen the grip.
The man only releases his hair when he lands a solid punch to Sokka's nose, bloodying it and sending him stumbling back a few steps. He doesn't let the man out of his sight this time and when he comes volleying towards Sokka, but he sees something from the corner of his eye.
A hawk with Aang's insignia on its breast.
Aang almost never uses his insignia unless it's Really Important, capital letters and everything.
He blocks his opponents left jab and kicks his feet out from under him, sending him to the ground. The bulky man he knocked over with a chair over is coming at him again, but Sokka now has something that needs to be taken care of and he does something he almost never does. With a wave of his hand and a flick of his wrist, he helps a pool of knocked over ale slither in front of the other, slipping him up again.
"Toph!" he yells, over the din of breaking furniture and pub patrols wrestling. "Wrap it up!"
He only has a split second to find solid footing and then the earth beneath him rumbles, sending everyone but he on Toph to the floor. They make their retreat hastily, and Sokka whistles for Aang's hawk, who instantly flies over to Sokka's upraised arm.
They run to escape anyone who might try to follow them, but after a few streets they slow their pace down to a walk. Toph walks steadily beside him, not asking why they had to call an early end to their fun. She's probably 'seen' Gyatso already and if not, which is unlikely, she knows something's up because Sokka never ends their nights by using her earthbending. He'll fight tooth and nail to the end.
Sokka suppresses a sigh as he glances at the hawk resting on his arm. A fine tremor is shaking down his spine and he almost wants to dislodge the bird for spite. Something is wrong, really wrong. He can feel it in the way that the bird seems to be sitting heavier on his arm as if the news has weighed his feathers down too.
It's only when they get back to the Inn they're renting for the night, in the safety of the room they're sharing, much to the disapproval of the Innkeeper, that Sokka takes the message from the hawk. Gyatso flaps to the windowsill and stares at him balefully until he hands over a bit of jerky from a pouch on the table.
His heart is pounding fretfully in his chest. Aang's insignia is burned behind his eyelids. It speaks to him of bad news, news he doesn't want to know of.
He and Toph have been living a life of freedom, taking their days into their own hands and living how they feel. Sometimes it leads them to inns, but sometimes they camp out in the forest or open fields like the old days. They're nomads, and they don't often delight in finding out about what's going on in the everyday. They know of the peace treaties and small squabbles between nations through Aang and Katara, sometimes Zuko or Mai. Mostly though, they stay away from it, having nothing to truly offer to help rebuild the world.
"Read the stinking letter already, Snoozles!" Toph demands, flicking her head towards the scroll in his hand. Her long ponytail follows the motion and he's caught in it for a moment, wondering when this actually became his life.
He's terrified to read a letter from Aang.
He almost wants to tell Toph that they should go find another pub to start a fight in, that the letter can wait until tomorrow. He's never felt so cowardly in his entire life, but it's what he wants. He scrubs at the drying blood under his nose and then follows her order.
He unrolls the letter and the kanji are revealed to him.
For a moment, he almost doesn't comprehend them and then he does.
"Oh, Spirits," he breaths and his hands begin to shake. He's glad there's no liquid in the immediate vicinity because he knows it would dance to the rhythm of his pounding heart.
Toph stares into the distance of their room, her lips tightening as she registers the elevation in Sokka's heart.
"It's bad news," she says, the only thing giving away her apprehension is the slight elevation in her tone when she says 'bad.'
"Pack your things, Toph. We've gotta go." But he doesn't move. Only stares at the words before his eyes, heart aching.
Toph moves to start packing her wrappings and discarded clothing, shoving everything carelessly into her pack without care. She must recognize the severity of this situation, because she never follows his orders without hesitation.
He crumples the letter and throws it into a waste bin, still immobile.
At his stillness, Toph furthers her packing efforts. Shoving Sokka's items into his own bag, she makes sure to grab every last one of their things—and a few of the inn's things—and securely ties it all off. As she moves she finally works up the courage to ask, "What's going on, Sokka?"
It's his name that finally has the words on the paper stumbling from his lips, Aang's insignia still burned into his eyes. "Mai is dead."
All movement stops.
"She died during childbirth," he continues, his words hollow in his own ears. He can't believe it. They hadn't been to see Zuko or Mai in seven months, had left just after Zuko found out about his 'ability,' but Mai had been fine then. She had been strong and still threatening to lose shuriken in his soft belly.
How can someone be so strong and then die seven months later?
His pack flies into his arms harshly, but the dull pain he feels in his gut where one of the guys jabbed him earlier is welcome, much more welcome than the overwhelming pain in his heart.
"Zuko needs us," Toph says.
Zuko does need them. If Sokka feels such an ache in his heart for a woman who he had only loved as a good friend, he can imagine what Zuko is going through. He knows that he loved Yue, and he knows the pain he felt when she had to give her life back to the moon, and he had only loved and known her for a short time. Zuko had known Mai practically all his life…
That thought spurs him into action. Together, he and Toph leave the room and pay the Innkeeper; Sokka leaves a little extra for the items he knows Toph picked up. Sokka puts Eely's gear on while he's lying down and Toph clambers on to the double-saddle on the eel-hound's back, settling their things into the saddlebags. Sokka climbs on, clicking his tongue for Eely to stand up.
"Run fast, Eely. We've got a lotta ground to cover," he tells his pet and friend.
The scaly head comes up as if in understanding and without even a tap to his sides, Eely begins running at full speed, going where Sokka directs his reins. Toph wraps her arms around his waist, causing a small twinge of discomfort from his bruised abdomen, not that he says anything, and presses her head into his back. He knows she's not crying, not yet.
Sokka doesn't think it's really sunk in for either of them. The words keep looping in his head—
Mai's dead…Mai's dead…Mai's dead…
-But it hasn't really sunk in. He doesn't want to let it sink in.
He can't imagine their group made one less; he just can't and he knows Toph can't either. The gang is all family, and sometimes it feels like they're the only family they really have despite living relatives. Mai has been important to them all for five years.
She can't be gone.
They can't lose her.
Zuko can't lose her. He's lost too much already.
Sokka feels his heart give a particularly painful and familiar lurch for his friend.
Zuko can't lose Mai. It's not right.
Toph tightens her hands in his tunic momentarily. "The baby's okay, right?"
Sokka swallows and nods. "He was born screaming…"
…for a mother he would never know.
Sokka wishes he could have just one more fight before they leave the city. He wishes he could have more bruises and cuts to help numb the burning pain that's slowly building inside him.
They reach the ocean and Eely dives in without pause, gracefully gliding from running to swimming.
For the first time, Sokka wishes he had more control over the water like his sister so that he could make the tides move Eely faster to Capital City. He knows he can't, but he wishes it like he's never wished since he found out about his stupid trickle of bending. For the first time since he was five, and watching Katara bend water with ease, he wishes he had all that magic mumbo-jumbo. He needs to get to his friend as quickly as possible. An eel-hound may be the fastest swimmer in the world, but right now it's just not fast enough.
Overhead Gyatso flies as if guiding them and the insignia glints in the half-light of his first love, the moon.
'Please,' he breathes to her.
He must have whispered too softly. They arrive five days after Mai's death and Zuko will see no one, save for his son.
Mai is really dead.
It's a sucker punch to his heart with no form to retaliate against.
x….x
A/N: I do fully understand if you would like to leave hatemail. Her death may seem out of no where and perhaps it is, but it was actually in the plot for this timeline I had in my head from the very beginning.
InnocentGuilt