"Stop, thief, or I'll have your hands for a trophy street rat!" the leader of the guard party shouted.
It was certainly not another peaceful day in the main central of the bustling city. Throughout all chaos and business, a thief had managed to go noticed. His crime? Stealing a loaf of bread.
His name was Sokka, and this was considered to be one of his hard days. In a desperate flee from the city guards, he scrambled up to a cluttered rooftop with his prized loaf tucked underneath his arm, barely tumbling over the edge as he came to a skidding halt.
"There you are!" came the rough voice of a soldier.
Sokka gulped and spun around to see the guards approaching him. Taking out his bread, he glanced down at it in wonder. "All this for a loaf of bread?" he questioned to no one in particular.
Seeing no means of escape, his eyes glanced around below at the ground. Pretty narrow chances of surviving. Suddenly, he caught sight of a rope tied to the post attached to the roof, most likely a laundry line as clothes were attached to it.
"Stay put! You've got nowhere to go!" said the big burly leader as he drew out his sword.
"Oh that's what you think." retorted Sokka. Grinning, he stuffed the bread back into the sash tied around his waist and took a flying leap off the roof as the tip of a sword barely scratched his foot. The wind rushing past him felt good, but his arms and legs dangled helplessly as he fell, groping above for means of rescue.
With a grunt, Sokka plunged his hand upwards and felt something rough brush against it. The rope!
Lifting up his other hand, Sokka loosely gripped the rope and slid down with ease, also managing to collide with the laundry attached to it. Several shirts and pants flapped over Sokka's eyes and marred his vision briefly but not enough that he didn't see the stern older lady at the other end of his landing. To make matters more embarrassing, the woman had also seen Sokka coming down the line and had slammed the shutters shut with a heavy frown.
Sokka gasped and tried to tighten his grip as he could slow down and not crash. His plan had been to sail right through the window and through the house and away from the guards. Well, there was only one thing to do, and it was going to hurt.
Closing his eyes, Sokka crashed right into the shutters and stumbled onto the ground, dragging the vast amount of laundry he had collected on his way down. As he heard the guards yelling behind him, he scrambled to his feet and snatched up a dull colored cloak and drew it around himself as a disguise, but to no avail as he knew he would still be recognized being a thief and all.
"You won't get away that easily!" came a voice from above him.
"Huh! You think that was easy?" Sokka glanced at the man briefly before ducking his head to avoid getting strangled. He heard more footsteps stomping into the area and made a quick dash down a shadowed alley and when there, jumped behind a barrel.
The stampede of guards thundered to the entrance. "You four go that way, the rest of you follow me!" Sokka heard the captain order his men.
Sokka slowly got up from his hiding place and paced down the alley. A group of women were gathered ahead and talking.
"Good morning ladies." he casually greeted them, wearing a big smile and trying his best to blend in.
"Getting into trouble a little early today, aren't we Sokka?" teased one of the ladies whose name was Aunt Wu.
"Trouble? Oh no, I'm only in trouble if I get caught." chuckled Sokka. A big hand suddenly caught him off guard by grabbing on his soldier and jerked him back, causing his hood to fall off.
"I'm in trouble." confirmed Sokka, his mind scattering around for a plan.
"I've got you now, street rat!" the captain yelled, reaching for a weapon, but was suddenly interrupted as a furry white lemur leapt onto his back, chattering excitedly and pulling down the helmet on the man.
"Ahh!" The captain began trying to pry the lemur off his head.
"Perfect timing Momo!" congratulated Sokka to his pet. "As usual!"
By now, the guard had already straightened his helmet and Momo and Sokka had took off running again.
"Gotta keep one jump ahead of the breadline, one swing ahead of the sword! I steal only what I can't afford!" sang Sokka in an upbeat tone as he leapt atop a barrel. A guard swung his sword at him to no avail, only slicing it open and causing a ton of fish to fall out as Sokka had jumped out of the way. Momo began chattering excitedly and Sokka grabbed the belt of the big man, causing his pants to fall down, revealing heart-shaped underwear.
"That's everything!" Sokka quickly ran away from the furious guard in a hurry. The big man grumbled and tried to step into his pants as he chased after the thief.
"One jump ahead of the lawman, that's all, and that's no joke!" Sokka dodged a swinging sword, causing it to cut into a pole. "These guys don't appreciate I'm broke!"
He scrambled to the top of stacked crates and grinned slyly down at the guards, kicking a load of barrels with his foot and laughing as they exploded onto the guards, covering them with a grainy liquid.
"Riffraff!" one guard growled.
"Street rat!" another one bellowed.
"Scoundrel! Take that!" The taunts and threats flowed continually as Sokka climbed to the very top of a scaffold. A few of the guards tossed rotten fruit his way.
"Just a little snack guys!" begged Sokka, swinging onto a post and leaning on it. He gasped and ducked behind a wooden column as several swords and axes were hurled his way.
"Rip him open! Take it back guys!" All the guards began shaking the weak poles holding up the scaffold.
"I can take a hint, gotta face the facts!" sang Sokka melodiously as he allowed himself to gracefully jump off the platform. Momo's tiny paws grabbed onto his hands and the two swung through a wide window.
"You're my only friend, Momo!" Sokka burst into a room full of teenage girls with Momo clinging to his feet.
"Who? Oh it's sad; Sokka's hit the bottom!" sang the girls as they glared at Sokka. Momo's eyes lit up as he caught sight of a platter of assorted nuts and fruit and began stuffing them into his mouth.
"He's become the one-man rise in crime!" The girls shoved Sokka aside and he scrambled to find a way out, only to bump into their portly mother.
"I'd blame parents, except he hasn't got 'em!" she remarked, swinging a broom at the skinny thief. Sokka ducked and ran in desperation towards the window.
"Gotta steal to eat, gotta eat to live." sang Sokka as he sat on the ledge, one the girls stomped over and pushed him out. "Tell you all about it when I've got the time!" His voice rang out as he fell.
Thankfully he bounced off an awning and safely landed in a pile of hay, Momo flying out the window behind him. Getting back on his feet, he began to run off again as the guards were not too far behind.
"One jump ahead of the slow pokes, one skip ahead of my doom!" The guards strolled through the streets and passed a muscular man on stage who was flexing his huge arms, not knowing that the person they were after was hiding behind him, also flexing to keep in time so he would not be caught.
Sadly, this wasn't so easy for Momo, whose large ears and long tail peeked above the man's head and gave him away. Sokka gasped and quickly moved from his spot, the audience looking astonished as he ran off, and looking even more astonished as the guards chased after him.
"Next time gonna use a nom de plume." Sokka sang as he whirled around a corner only to be stopped by a herd of sheep. Grumbling as he realized this was his only means of escape, he held on tightly to his bread and continued on, running over the fluffy animals as quickly as he could regain his balance.
Looking over his shoulder, he saw that the guards were using bending to move the sheep out of the way, this only prompting him to go faster.
"One jump ahead of the hitman. One hit ahead of the flock." Sokka finally reached the end of the sheep and turned down a clear path. "I think I'll take a stroll around the block."
Sokka ran through the empty street and narrowly missed stepped on a man who was fast asleep on a bed of nails, the guards chasing after him until one tripped and fell on the poor man in front of him.
Momo ran alongside Sokka, but stopped briefly as a shiny stand of jewels caught his eye and ran over to try and seize a huge ruby ring.
"Stop thief!" the guards called.
"Vandal!" barked the shopkeeper snatched back the ring.
"Momo!" Sokka dashed back to the stall, snatching the lemur and taking off in a rush.
"Scandal!" cried a woman who was holding her purse.
As Sokka ran quickly down the streets, he soon found himself cornered in front of a door by the guards.
"Let's not be too hasty." he pleaded.
The door behind him swung open and out stepped a rather-heavy woman adorned with too much makeup.
"Still I think he's rather tasty!" she sang, picking Sokka up and rocking him around.
Startled, Sokka made a mad dash out of the woman's arms and attempted to run off again only to be stopped as the guards remained in front of him. He leaned against one the guards with one arm, acting as if they were old friends.
"Gotta eat to live, gotta steal to eat, otherwise we'd get along!" he sang in a convincing tone, but not convincing enough as the guards gathered closer.
"Wrong!" Every one of the guards at once dove toward Sokka and Momo but with no effort became all tangled up like ropes. The thief and his lemur slipped out from the pile and underneath rather bright ceramic pots, trying to make yet another escape. This plan failed as the guards were obviously able to spot them despite their hiding place.
Discarding the pots behind him, Sokka dashed forward over to a bed of hot coals and played leap frog on the man trying to walk across. The guards chased after him but were greeted with sizzling feet and burning shoes.
Momo and Sokka dashed through the street rapidly, passing a circus man along the way who was attempting the swallow-the sword trick. While Sokka continued on, Momo ran back and cleverly using his lemur wits, snatched the sword up and scampered off to face the guards, leaving the performer to clutch his now very sore throat.
Momo chattered as he swung the heavy sword aimlessly at the shocked guards.
"The lemur has a sword!" one of them whined in a panicked voice.
"You idiot! We all have swords!" reminded the captain as he brandished his own weapon, the other guards following his lead.
Screeching, Momo dropped the sword and scampered away to catch up with Sokka. The two of them ran down an alley only to be greeted by another group of guards. Turning back around to go the other way, they were again greeted by more guards. No way out!
In a hurried panic, Sokka glanced around for means of getting away and spotted a rope. Grabbing Momo and sitting him on his shoulder, he grabbed onto the rope and climbed up.
"One jump ahead of the hoof beats." he sang as he sped down the intersection but stopped short.
"Vandal!" shouted some guards were in his way.
"One hop ahead of the hump!"
"Street rat!" The guards kept coming.
Sokka took a left and dashed up a flight of stairs that were curved around a building. "One trick ahead of disaster!"
He heard Momo screeching and chattering and looked to see the little lemur was surrounded by guards. Snatching him back up, Sokka dove through a nearby window. "They're quick but I'm much faster!
Glancing around, he snatched up a rug from the ground. "Here goes, better throw my hand in, wish me happy landin', all I've gotta do is jump!" He and Momo ran towards the window and made a flying leap out with the carpet spread out beneath them.
The guards were still in hot pursuit and even the window didn't stop them. They jumped out and attempted to use their bending to slide down evenly, but failed every single one of them fell into a huge soft, and smelling pile of what just happened to be ostrich-horse manure.
Sokka parachuted over a high wall with Momo on his shoulder and they safely made it to the ground. "Alright! We did it!" cheered Sokka. "And now my fellow partner in crime, we feast!"
He took out his prized loaf of bread and broke it in two, giving Momo one half to munch on. The lemur chattered happily and hugged the half he had been given, not delaying any longer to take a huge bite. The bread still smelled just as fresh as when Sokka had stolen it. He savored the delicious scent, and brought his half up to his mouth and was just about to take a bite, when a pattering sound in the alley disrupted him.
He looked up to see two small children rummaging through a barrel of garbage looking for something to eat. The girl lifted out a small fishbone, but when she saw Sokka looking she dropped it back into place and disappeared behind the barrel, alongside with the boy Sokka assumed to be her brother.
Sokka looked hesitantly at them, then his bread, and then down at his growling stomach. He was hungry. Even more hungry than yesterday. And he wasn't yet willing to give up something he had just risked his life to get just to satisfy the empty feeling in his stomach. Without looking at the children again, he turned around from them and was again about to take a bite, but the hungry stares of the children bore deeply into him and he couldn't help but feel guilty. They needed it more than he did. They had probably gone about a week without eating, and he had only gone a few days.
With a sigh, Sokka got up and walked over to the children with his half of the loaf in tow. Both the boy and girl stared at him with big round eyes and didn't make any motive to get up, only shrinking back as they didn't know who he was.
"It's ok. Here." Sokka knelt down beside them and held out his bread.
Both the children didn't say or do anything. Smiling reassuringly, Sokka continued to hold the bread out. "Here, go ahead and take it." he said.
The girl reached out slowly took the half of bread from Sokka's hand. She tore off one bit to give to her brother and munched on the part she left for herself. Both children giggled and a happy look developed on their faces as they devoured their small meal.
Although this would have been the time Sokka would have been complaining about food, he couldn't help but feel a bit better about himself as he watched the children eat. He didn't know whether or not they were runaways or orphans, but he silently hoped they would be able to find their next meal on their own. After all, he needed to eat too.
Hearing a chattering sound behind him, Sokka looked around and saw Momo had climbed atop his shoulder, a mean glare in the lemur's eyes as if to say "Why did you give your supper for?"
Sokka just shrugged as he couldn't speak lemur. Momo clambered down from his master's shoulder and down to the children, staring at them curiously with big green eyes. For a moment, it seemed he was just going to back to eating, but Sokka was surprised as he saw the small lemur give up his prize. The children accepted it, and the little girl patted Momo on the head as a thank you.
Trumpets sounded suddenly. Sokka turned around and could hear millions of footsteps gathering beyond the wall. "Come on, Momo! Let's go see what it is." he encouraged his pet.
The lemur chattered in agreement and the two made their way from out of the alley and into the street where a whole line of people had formed. "Excuse me, coming through!" Sokka squeezed between two portly gentlemen before finally making it to the front to see what was going on.
There in the street sat a rather handsome young man about his age in royal garments sitting upon an ostrich horse with an outrageously colored saddle. He looked like he might be from the Water Tribe, like Sokka was.
"On his way to the palace I suppose." remarked someone behind Sokka.
"Yes, another suitor for the princess." Someone else sighed.
Sokka stifled a chuckle as he heard this. Several times had many princes come, from the Fire Nation, the Water Tribe, and even the Earth Kingdom, in search of Princess Yue's hand in marriage. And each one of them had left without her in tow for a honeymoon. Sokka couldn't understand why the princess was being so picky. Many fine men had come and she had turned each of them down. He silently prayed that maybe this time it would be different.
He nearly jumped as the two children he had met earlier ran out from behind him, the girl trying to stop her little brother from running into the street but was too late. Both of them stumbled down in front of the Water Tribe prince's ostrich horse and spooked it, nearly sending the young man off flying.
"Out of the way you nasty kids!" he snapped sharply, reaching behind him for a whip and making to attack the children. The children both cringed and prepared for the sharp sting of the weapon.
Sokka gasped and took out his boomerang, hurling it towards the prince's whip but as usual, missed and the boomerang ended up smacking the prince right in the head.
The prince groaned as he rubbed the sore spot on the back of his head and glared about the crowd. "Who threw that?" he demanded.
Sokka ran out to retrieve his boomerang but halted in front of the Water Tribe prince, as he had a thing or two to say. "If I were as rich as you, I think I could afford some decent manners!" he said angrily.
"Manners? Humph! I'll teach you manners!" The prince snorted and kicked Sokka away from his mount, sending the skinny boy along with the lemur in a mud puddle. The crowd began to laugh hysterically as Sokka stood up, almost completely doused in mud.
Momo whined and began licking the mud off his own fur. Sokka growled and wiped the mud away from his face as he watched the snobbish prince make off on his mount again, suddenly being struck with an idea.
"Hey look Momo, it's not every day that you see an ostrich horse with two rear ends!" he jeered with a mischievous grin.
The crowd gasped in shock. The Water Tribe prince's form hardened and he turned around to look at Sokka. "You, are a worthless street rat." he spat out. "You were born a street rat, and you will die a worthless, pathetic little street rat! And the only ones who will even notice you are gone will be the fleas."
Sokka gritted his teeth and started to reach for his boomerang to hurl at the prince, but the young man had already entered the palace courtyard with the huge doors had swung shut behind him.
"I'm not worthless!" he shouted. "And...I don't have fleas!" He looked down at his arm in surprise as he saw a small flea jump off the sleeve of his shirt. Even the bugs wanted to prove him wrong.
With a heavy sigh, he turned around from the gate and scooped Momo up onto his shoulder. "Let's go home now." he said sadly.
The two of them went down the street a little ways down until they had entered the lowest part of town, which would be the ally all filled with trash. It was getting dark outside, and the cheery attitude Sokka had usually started the day with was gone. He didn't feel like himself. He felt hungry. He felt miserable. And for the first time in his life, he didn't feel like trying to crack another bad joke of his just to feel better.
"Riffraff, street rat. I don't buy that." he sang softly as he kicked a rock out the way. "If only they'd look closer!"
He and Momo made it to the place they called home and began to climb up a half-broken ladder and entered into a tiny one room apartment that was cluttered with trash and broken furniture.
"If only they'd look closer...would they see a poor boy? No siree." Sokka slowly strode through his humble home as Momo scampered over to a tattered pillow and cuddled up on it, wasting no time in getting to sleep.
"They'd find out, there's so much more..." Sokka paused and pulled aside a large ripped up blanket that served as a curtain from the window to reveal a gorgeous view of the palace. "To me."
He sat on the edge of the window and stared at the magnificent view quietly. "Someday Momo, things are going to change." he said to the lemur, who was asleep on his pillow. "We're going to live in a big palace! Just like that one! And we'll be really rich and we can eat all the delicious food we want."
But as Sokka continued to stare, he knew that was impossible. Just like the prince had said, he would always be a street rat, nothing more.
Author's Note: Thanks so much for reading this chapter! It took me about last night and today to get it finished and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. But I still have a lot more to go, and I'm ready to write more. One thing, I'm going to be out of town for the next week, so there might be a slight delay in chapters. Be patient!
And also, before you say anything, yes, I might be making Sokka act a little out of character, but he is going through a tough time right now! Try being in his shoes!