This one is also for Zutara100. Come join us:)

Prompt: #53 - Siblings
Word Count:1036
Rating: PG
Summary: "Sokka, do you know why big brothers are born first?"
AN: Yep, stolen from Bleach. I admit it.

Sokka," his mother asked as they stared at his new little sister, wrapped in blue blankets and sleeping peacefully. "Do you know why big brothers are born first?"

He didn't know.

"It's so he can protect the little ones that come after him."

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Sokka is five years old, and he's cold. It's not a particularly chilly day, but it's windy, and that makes it feel all that much colder than it really is. Plus, three-year-old Katara is missing.

Which is exactly why Sokka is out looking for her, calling her name and listening for her tiny voice. They had been playing hide-and-go-seek—at least, until Sokka realized that he'd spent an hour searching for his little sister and that, since he wasn't that bad of a seeker, she had probably gotten herself lost while hiding.

He finds her two hours later, huddled up under an outcrop of ice and shivering from the cold. He can just make out the faint lines of dried-up tears on her face.

"I found you," he says softly, and she nearly tackles him in a bear hug, crying into his shirt.

"I was so scared you would never find me!" She sobs, her arms wrapped so tightly around him that he can barely breathe. "I'm so glad you found me! I was so scared!"

He strokes her hair while whispering words of comfort, waiting for her to calm down. "You're my little sister, Katara. I'll always protect you."

They return home just in time for dinner, where their mother is waiting with a warm smile and a bowl of hot soup.

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Sokka is twelve years old, and the Fire Nation is quite literally on his doorstep. The men of the village are fighting valiantly to protect their home, and the women are doing their best to get all the children as far away as they possibly can. But they're losing, and they know it. Sunrise is approaching fast, and with it a surge of power and nearly guaranteed victory for the red soldiers.

Sokka is scared, and tears are streaming out of his eyes as he and Katara are ushered away from their home by their mother. She's scared too. He can tell from her strained expression and the tight—borderline painful—grip she has on his hand.

"Faster!" She coerces with gentle urgency, tugging them foward. "We have to hurry!"

The threesome reach a small cave made of snow, the perfect camouflage in this barren land of ice. They aren't the only ones there; the village men built this hideout months ago, when they first heard of the threat of Fire Nation invasion. But even though they had known, nothing could have prepared them for the force of the enemy's army. The small Southern Water Tribe had neither the resources nor population to win against a rich navy.

His mother gives each of her children a light kiss on the forehead and a quick hug before running back towards the village, in hopes of helping somehow.

As he sits in the cave clutching his little sister's hands—hands that are cold and clammy and shaking violently from fear—he leans over and whispers in her ear.

"It's okay, Katara. I'll protect you," he tells her in a wobbly voice, scratchy from screaming and crying and fright. He realizes, absently, that his hands are shaking too. "I'll protect you."

Three days later, what is left of the village performs a mass funeral for the dead and the missing. The siblings hold each other as if they'll never let go; their mother is among the former.

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Sokka is sixteen years old, and he is standing before the prince of the Fire Nation. With a boomerang. Perhaps not the most intimidating weapon, but he manages to nearly knock the brat out with it. He has to be brave, after all. He has to protect Katara. Hell, he has to protect the whole village now that all the other men are gone. His mother would never forgive him if he didn't.

He watches as Zuko's ship leaves, Avatar onboard, and as he and his sister row off in a canoe to save the boy they've just met, Sokka has a dreadful premonition that this isn't the last they'll be seeing of that spoiled Fire Nation punk.

Sometimes, Sokka hates being right.

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Sokka is seventeen years old, and he's watching his little sister climb in the lap of that damn prince. He's currently hiding in a small gathering of shrubs and fighting the (very, very strong) urge to go rip them apart and give Zuko what's coming to him: a really big black eye to match his other red one. But he resists, for two reasons.

First, Katara would get angry. And in no way, shape, or form does Sokka want to be the target of an angry Katara. That would be suicide.

Second, she's not just his baby sister anymore. Katara is a big girl now, not the little girl who used to cling to his waist and cry when they got in fights. She's older, and stronger, and more mature. Although, in Sokka's opinion, probably not quite mature enough to be making out with a guy three years older than her from the Fire Nation.

But she loves him, and he loves her—or says he does, at any rate. He's vowed to protect her, and even though Katara had rolled her eyes and began a rant about how girls are perfectly capable of protecting themselves when he announced it, she can't hide the truth, or her happiness, from her big brother. After all, everyone needs to feel cared for once in awhile. Sokka knows this feeling well, the desire to be watched over; he feels it every night as he gazes at the moon.

"You're still my big brother," Katara tells him one day. "But you don't have to protect me anymore."

Then she smiles at him, and Aang calls her over to look at yet another strange object Momo has just tried to eat, and he's left alone with a dry mouth, an abyss of emptiness inside him, and an echo of his mother's words fading away.