Scene 4: Mortal Lives are Short but Full

Haikus are easy.
Except sometimes when they're not.
Shut up, Katara.

~ "Easy" by Chief Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe

Sokka was a lot more willing to apologize to Zuko when he saw that the other boy had contributed jerky from his own supplies for their meal. Finally, another guy who could appreciate the finer things in life. Namely meat.

Also, he wasn't a jerk about it when Sokka muttered an apology. He just nodded and handed him some jerky. Well, maybe Sokka had been a bit hasty in his judgement of the firebending weirdo. Zuko didn't seem all that bad, really.

…Unless Katara, that little sneak, had put him up to this. Did she reveal Sokka's secret weakness for meat to the enemy?

Sokka abandoned his suspicious glaring at Katara (who was clearly ignoring him, how rude) when Aang started interrogating Zuko. Sokka would have quite liked to interrogate the guy himself, but he would let Aang handle it for now. The kid never asked the important questions, like, How many of your firebending friends are you planning on betraying us to? or, Will you be telling the Fire Lord where we are immediately, or will you give us a few days' head start to make the hunt more interesting? But Aang was a cute little pest. Who could say no to those big, innocent, polar puppy eyes?

Definitely not Zuko, at least, who seemed pretty bemused by Aang's persistent interest in him but kept answering his questions nonetheless. Sokka wasn't sure why Zuko was confused by Aang's attention. Little kids like him tend to get fixated on a shiny new playmate, especially one that has a dragon.

"How old is Druk?" Aang was asking. "Is he fully grown?"

"He's not quite three years old," Zuko answered. "He's a long way from fully grown."

"I thought so! Appa is six years old, and he's already full-grown." Aang paused to toss a peach into the bison's giant mouth. "Hey, I read this book once that talked about a gemsbok cow that bonded with a tigerdillo cub. She raised the cub as her own, and the tigerdillo saw her as its mother even after it grew up. Isn't that neat? Maybe Appa could take Druk under his wing, show him a few things."

Zuko kind of shrugged, like he didn't want to hurt Aang's feelings by telling him his ludicrous plan was ridiculous. "Druk and I have parents, you know," he said instead.

Aang whipped his head around to Zuko so fast he nearly overbalanced. "What, you mean like dragon parents?"

"Yeah. What other kind of parents would a dragon have?"

"Wait," Katara said, "you said that Druk and you have parents. Do you mean the dragons are your parents too?" Okay, what weird herb had Aang put in the food today? It had to be a hallucinogen if Katara actually thought that—

"Yeah, they are."

Sokka spit out the mouthful of water he just took from his cup. "What? How in the name of La did a dragon give birth to you?"

Zuko just raised his one eyebrow at him. "They didn't, obviously," he said, like that ought to explain everything. "They found me with Druk right after he hatched, and they took me in. I guess your example is sort of similar, Aang. They kind of treated me like one of their own hatchlings."

Okay, things were starting to come together now for Sokka. This actually explained so much. Zuko had been living in the wild with dragons and avoiding other humans for almost three years? No wonder he was such an awkward turtle duck. He was practically one of those feral children that you hear about every so often that get lost on the ice and found and raised by polar bear dogs. Only Zuko was an undersocialized firebender raised by dragons, so who even knew what kind of weird behaviors he'd picked up?

"Sokka said that the dragons are extinct," Aang was telling Zuko. "But I guess that's not true? I mean, we found you and Druk and we weren't even looking."

Zuko frowns. "Sokka is almost right. There really aren't very many dragons left. Only three that I know of."

"Oh." Something about that took the wind out of Aang's sails, and the kid sagged. Sokka saw him glancing at Appa and Momo, the lemur lovingly named after it brought Aang some peaches. Sokka held in a wince. If even the dragons, so revered in the Fire Nation, were so rare now, what about the flying bison and the winged lemurs? It didn't bode well.

Zuko seemed to understand Aang's distress as well, because he told them that he'd seen other lemurs at the Eastern Air Temple, which raised Aang's spirits right back up again. Seriously, nothing could keep that kid down for long; he was sickeningly optimistic. Sokka noticed that Zuko said nothing about seeing any other bison, but he wasn't going to point that out to Aang. That was a thing to deal with another day.

Momo, who had to know that they were talking about him, the little demon, stared at Sokka with those eerie, green eyes.

Sokka glared back. "I'll still cook you," he told the lemur.

Momo retorted by stealing his last piece of jerky and running off with it.

"Hey! Give that back, you little cretin!" Sokka took off after it. "Aang, you better make him give it back or he's dead meat!" Maybe another lemur chase would get the kid's mind firmly off the topic of the probably extinct bison. Sure enough, Sokka heard Aang's laughter dopplering as he ran past, boosted by his airbending.

Sokka, unfortunately, ran out of steam quickly on his second lemur chase of the day. Wind and ocean, how did that kid have so much energy? Wasn't he like, frozen and mostly dead a couple days ago?

He found the kid in some kind of low, outlying structure, kneeling on the ground for some reason.

"Hey Aang, you find my dinner yet?" Aang didn't respond. Was he…crying? "Aang, I wasn't really gonna eat the lemur, okay?"

That's when Sokka saw them—the bodies. Fire Nation soldiers and what was clearly the skeleton of an airbender, still clad in ragged yellow robes and—and the same necklace he'd seen on the statue of Monk Gyatso, Aang's mentor. His heart sank. He knew that the Fire Nation had wiped out the Air Nomads, but he had never expected to be confronted with the evidence quite like this. And poor Aang…

"C'mon Aang, everything will be all right," Sokka said, trying to comfort the little guy with a hand on his shoulder. "Let's get outta here."

Aang stopped crying, but Sokka's hope that that was a good sign abruptly died when the kid started glowing.

What in the name of La?

Aang got to his feet and the wind began to swirl around them, growing stronger with each passing moment.

"Aang, c'mon! Snap out of it! Aaghh!" The powerful wind sent Sokka spinning through the air. He had just enough presence of mind to cover his head with his arms before his body connected with something very hard. Sokka grunted as the breath was punched out of him.

"What happened?" Katara and Zuko were suddenly beside him.

"He found out firebenders killed Gyatso. And then, this!"

"But what is this?" Katara's guess was as good as his. Did all airbenders glow when they were experiencing soul-deep grief?

"He's gone into the Avatar state," Zuko said, which, what? Aang was what now?

"I'm gonna try and calm him down," Katara said.

"Well, do it! Before he blows us off the mountain!" This was, in Sokka's opinion, not an irrational fear at this point. Because apparently Aang was the Avatar.

Katara tried to move forward, but the wind was too strong for her to go quickly, and then Aang actually lifted up off the ground to hover menacingly twenty feet in the air, and the wind reached a howling gale. Sokka could barely see Aang's small figure with all the dust and debris blowing around. He did however see when the huge dragon came up beside them. Zuko grabbed his arm, and before Sokka could even protest, they were moving forward, protected under the dragon's wing. Zuko snagged Katara as well and they all made their way towards Aang, the dragon providing a bulwark against the wind.

When they were underneath Aang, Zuko lifted his sister onto the dragon's neck, then got on behind her, arms on either side of her to steady her. Sokka didn't have any better alternative, so he couldn't exactly protest. He just hoped the guy knew what he was doing and wouldn't let his baby sister fall or be blown away.

As the dragon lifted them up to the distraught airbender, Sokka prayed to La that this would end well. He saw Katara reaching up to the boy, though she was still several feet below him.

"Aang, I know you're upset." Wow, Katara, no kidding? "And I know how hard it is to lose the people you love. I went through the same thing when I lost my mom." Sokka found his own heart constricting at the pain in his sister's voice. If he had one wish, it would be that Katara could stop blaming herself for Mom's death.

"Monk Gyatso and the other airbenders may be gone, but you still have a family. Sokka and I, and Zuko, we're your family now."

Something about what Katara was saying was getting through to him. The wind was dying down, and Aang was sinking, coming down to rest on the crest of Druk's neck. Katara's and Zuko's arms reached out to catch him.

The dragon slowly lowered them to the ground, where Zuko slipped off its neck easily then turned to take Aang from Katara so she could dismount as well. Sokka left the shelter of the dragon's wing to join them. The kid's eyes and tattoos were still glowing with that eerie blue-white light, even though his body was limp in Zuko's arms.

"We aren't going to let anything happen to you," Sokka told the little airbender as his sister took the boy's hand in hers. "Promise."

Finally the weird glow faded. Aang groaned and seemed to swoon a bit. "'M sorry." Poor kid sounded exhausted.

"It's okay," Katara told him. "It wasn't your fault."

"But you were right," Aang whispered. "And if firebenders found this temple, that means they found the other ones too. I really am the last airbender."

Tui and La, this kid. He's gonna break Sokka's heart.

Zuko held the boy a little tighter against him, and Katara wrapped her arms around them both. Sokka put one hand each on Katara's shoulder and Aang's foot, the easiest part of him he could reach. Hopefully Katara and Zuko wouldn't smother the kid.

Who was he kidding, Katara was definitely going to be doing some smothering in the coming days. Poor Aang could probably use it, frankly.

Poems are cool, but they
sometimes don't make sense. Stop it,
fluffy snot-monster.

~ "Stop" by Chief Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe

Everyone simultaneously and without actually saying anything agreed that it was time to turn in for the night. Aang nodded off in Zuko's arms before he could even set him down, so they all just piled up together with Druk and Appa curled around them. It was a lot warmer than Sokka thought it would be without being in their sleeping skins. Zuko and the dragon seemed to be giving off a lot of heat.

Katara and Aang were sound asleep in minutes, but Sokka could tell that Zuko was still awake by the way the moonlight reflected off his golden eyes. It was…pretty freaky, to be honest.

"Hey…Zuko?" Sokka whispered, though he knew that Katara and Aang were out. A herd of camel yaks could stampede over them and they would sleep right through it.

"Hm?" Zuko blinked at him over the heads of Aang and Katara, sandwiched between them.

"You think Aang is the Avatar?"

"You didn't know?"

"No. Katara and I broke him and his bison out of an iceberg. When he didn't know about the war, we figured out that he'd been frozen for a hundred years. We knew he was an airbender, but he never bent any other elements."

"…And you thought that being frozen for a hundred years was just a thing that a normal pre-teen airbender could survive?"

"Well when you put it like that… Actually, I probably should have known something was up when he came out of that iceberg in a giant beam of blue light." Zuko was looking at him like he's an idiot, Sokka just knew he was. "Look, we weren't exactly expecting to find the long-lost Avatar on our fishing trip, okay, give me a break."

"Druk and I saw that beacon while we were still at the South Pole," Zuko said. "We were actually on our way to see what it was when…well, when we saw a Fire Nation signal flare coming from the same direction. We decided it was better to leave the South Pole entirely after that."

"Actually, that flare was Aang and Katara. They set it off by accident from an old wreck."

"Oh."

"Yeah. We were a bit worried that some Fire Nation troops would come to investigate, but I don't think there was a ship in the area to see the flare go off. Or the beam of light for that matter."

"You're probably right. The Fire Nation considers the Southern Water Tribe quelled. They wouldn't station ships so close to the South Pole unless they really had to. Firebenders don't like low temperatures."

"Well, good. The hubris of the Fire Nation worked in our favor for once."

"Hm."

Aang stirred in his sleep, turning and burrowing into Zuko's chest like a polar puppy seeking warmth from its mother. Zuko gently put an arm around him, careful not to wake him. Sokka's heart melted just a little as he watched Aang's small hand latch onto Zuko's shirt. He was so small. Was Sokka that small when he was twelve? He held his sister a little closer.

He waited for Aang to settle before he spoke again. "I wonder why he didn't tell us that he was the Avatar."

"Maybe he didn't know," Zuko said, surprising Sokka.

"How could he not know that he's the Avatar?"

"Traditionally the Avatar is told their identity when they turn sixteen. Aang might not have been told yet."

"Huh."

"So, if you didn't know Aang is the Avatar, why are you traveling with him? Katara said that your mother… Are you…orphans?" La, this guy was just the most awkward dork ever, wasn't he? How was it possible? He had a dragon, for Tui's sake.

"Oh. No. Our Gran-Gran is still alive, and our dad is too." He hoped. "The thing is, Katara is the last waterbender left in our tribe, after the Fire Nation took all the rest. She'd never even met another bender ever in her whole life until Aang. And now you, I guess. Aang told her that he would take her to the Northern Water Tribe to find a waterbending master. Katara wasn't going to go at first because she didn't want to abandon what family she had left. I was…kinda being a huge jerk about it. So Aang left, and he was just a little kid all alone out there on the desolate ice plain and Katara was sad and I hate it when she's sad, she's such a brat when she's moping, and so I told her I'd go with her to take care of the dumb kid she adopted and find her a dumb waterbending master and keep all these dummies out of trouble, geez."

Sokka couldn't quite tell for sure in the dark, but he thought Zuko was smiling, which Sokka hadn't actually seen him do yet, so maybe he was just imagining things. "That's rough, buddy."

"Yeah, tell me about it. Little sisters, what can I say. They exist to ruin your life."

Zuko snorted, but then he sobered. "You're a good brother, Sokka."

Sokka was warmed by the compliment from the older boy. Sometimes it was hard being a big brother. He supposed Zuko would know, since he was an older brother to a dragon, somehow. Speaking of which. "I know that Katara kind of spoke for you when she called you Aang's family. Sorry if that…if it's not what you would have said for yourself."

Zuko was silent a moment. "It's all right," he finally said. "I don't mind. The dragons didn't really ask either before they took me in, so I guess I'm used to it."

Sokka grinned. "What, did they like, swoop in, snatch you up and carry you off one day?"

"Heh. Pretty much."

Sokka sobered. "Do you have any…human family?" Family was important in the Southern Water Tribe. That's why Katara basically adopted Aang, probably much the same way she inevitably would Zuko. They both seemed like they were all alone, and that's hard for a person from the Water Tribe to stomach.

There was an even longer pause. "Yeah," Zuko said softly, "I do."

"How come you're not with them?"

"I can't. I can't go back. They're in the Fire Nation, and—and I was banished. By decree of the Fire Lord."

"WHAT?!"

"Shh!"

"Sorry, what?" Sokka hissed. "You were banished? What for?" In the Water Tribe, banishment was pretty much a death sentence. People couldn't survive for long on their own at the poles. Maybe it was different in the Fire Nation, but damn.

"…I guess you could say I was a political dissident."

"You were a political dissident that was banished by the Fire Lord when you were what, thirteen?"

"Yeah…"

"And then you were adopted-slash-kidnapped by dragons and became a feral, firebending dragon-whisperer?"

"Uh…I guess so."

Sokka pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets in the vain hope that it would make anything that had happened in the last forty-eight hours make sense. "Man, what even is your life?" What even was Sokka's life? In the last couple of days, he'd gone on a road trip with his sister and the Avatar, discovered like three supposedly extinct species of animal, and nearly died from being blown off a mountaintop by a pre-teen's spiritual tantrum. Not to mention ran into this guy, who was clearly insane. Or maybe the spirits really had it out for him, Tui and La, how did something this crazy even happen to someone his age?

You know what, maybe it was a good thing they ran into Zuko. He seemed to be experienced at pissing off the Fire Nation and getting away with it. Now that they're helping the Avatar, they could probably use someone with his expertise.

"Fair warning: if you let Katara adopt you, she's gonna want to keep you," Sokka told Zuko. "You'll be stuck with us, pal."

"She'll have to fight the dragons for custody, and they're not about to give me up easily."

"Okay, but, you need a human family too. One you can actually hang out with, anyway. We can be that. Your human family." Oh spirits. Had Sokka just offered to adopt Zuko? La, he was getting to be worse than Katara. Just a couple hours ago he was trying to punch the guy's lights out, what happened to that?

There was silence from the other side of their cuddle pile. Zuko's golden eyes were almost luminous as they looked at him. "Thank you, Sokka," he said softly, hoarse voice maybe a little bit raspier.

Sokka cleared his throat. This conversation was getting too mushy for two guys to be having. "Yeah, no problem! Wouldn't be fair not to warn you about my sister's annoying mother-pig-hen tendencies, after all. Think nothing of it."

"Of course."

He yawned. "Well, I'm more tired than an otter-penguin with an egg. Probably should go to sleep."

Zuko opened his mouth to respond, but just then his dragon batted him in the face with the tuft on the end of its tail. "Okay, okay, Druk. We'll shut up and go to sleep now," Zuko grumbled. "I know you think you need your beauty rest, you persnickety, overgrown crococat."

Sokka covered his mouth to stifle his laughter so as not to wake Katara. Behind him, Appa rumbled and then Sokka felt something huge and wet swipe the back of his head.

"Eeuugh! Gross! Don't lick me, you fluffy snot-monster!"

Sokka could hear what sounded suspiciously like Zuko stifling laughter as he tried to wipe the bison spit out of his hair.

"Fair warning:" Zuko finally said, a hint of amusement in his voice, "dragons like to do the same thing, so expect more licking in your future if Druk and I join your company."

"I take it back. You're not allowed to join us. I'm revoking your invitation, effective immediately. That giant lizard had better not think about licking me!"

The dragon hissed at him. Zuko, the jerk, was no help. He was shaking with suppressed laughter over there on the other side of the cuddle pile where Sokka couldn't reach to elbow him in the ribs.

Sokka sighed. What did he ever do to the moon to deserve this?

My Real Life is entering a pretty busy period, so updates may be sparse through April/May. Don't worry though—I am having fun writing this and plan to continue! Leave me a review or favorite if you are also having fun reading! Sokka, unfortunately, is not having fun… XD

ln(^_^)