A/N: Avatar and the characters created by it are in no way owned by me. Though, I'm prone to taking some artistic license with them, oops.
Shout out to Ashley for reviewing practically every chapter and totally making my day while doing so! Here's the next chapter, and I should warn you, there are some lewd comments later on, I don't think they're too bad, but some people might not like them.
I'm honestly so excited for you to read this! I had so much fun writing it, honestly, it was nice to get a break from Aang and Katara.
I hope you enjoy!
The Northern Tribe started out as a really cool place. Yeah, I was jealous of how beautiful it was compared to home, but if you asked me, us southerners had way more character than the stiffs that lived up here. Everything here was so prim and proper, it was suffocating for people like me and my tribe. I mean, they wouldn't even teach Katara how to water bend! She beat the pants off all the other healers, but she would have made a better warrior, there's no doubt about that.
Still, it had its perks. Like Yue.
Mmm, Yue.
She's the best thing about the North. Possibly the only good thing about the North. She makes this spy mission worthwhile. Still, it's hard not to tell her what's going on. Arnook thrives on keeping her in the dark, honestly I think it's because he thinks it'll keep me in the dark. Nuhuh. I'm way too good for that. He doesn't realize that there are southern sympathizers. They contacted me less than a week into my visit and we'd been meeting regularly ever since. Well, we were.
Things got a little bumpy along the way. There was a double agent. Or a triple agent, if you think about it, since they were pretending to be for the north while pretending to be for the south when they really were for the north. I dunno. It gets complicated.
But that's beside the point. The point is that a few weeks ago, I was at a meeting with these guys plotting how to sabotage the ships being sent south when the door was kicked down and we were all apprehended. Arnook was less than pleased to discover my treachery, but what hurt the most was the look on Yue's face. I tried to explain that I loved her more than anything, but she wouldn't listen. It's been weeks since I've seen her, I've been locked in this cell for weeks, forced to write letters to my father saying everything is fine. I've been encoding them. Honestly, I'm surprised they haven't come and gotten me yet.
Oh, well. I knew I'd have to be patient.
I just didn't expect the Fire Nation ambassadors to be helping me before my dad.
According to my tally marks in the wall, it'd been a month since I was thrown in prison when Lu Ten appeared in my cell. How he got in there, I still haven't figured out, but he managed it. Somehow.
"Good evening, Sokka," he said, his voice doing nothing to hide the fact that he was there from the guards. Was this guy an idiot?
"What do you want?" I shot back. While I had plenty of time to sleep, I still didn't appreciate losing sleep time. Never mind the fact that we'd never gotten along. Half of me feared he was here to kill me.
Only if I had my trusty boomerang.
The corner of his mouth lifted into a smirk and he held out a note. "It's from my uncle," he said as he shoved it into my hands. "And your sister."
"What?!"
His smug look was enough to make me want to smack him but I managed to refrain. Barely. Mostly because I was shocked to see he was telling the truth. What in the world happened?
"She ran away from her fiancé," Lu Ten supplied. "And essentially sparked a civil war in the Water Nation. Hahn isn't pleased to have been made to look like a fool and he views Katara's disappearance as a deliberate kidnapping posed by the Avatar."
"Wait, Aang is involved?" Naturally, those two would do something to start trouble. Honestly, I could have predicted this from day one. Katara was in love with him from the moment he left the south and it was clear he felt the same way. But nooo, Katara had to lie to herself because she refused to wait around.
Never mind the fact that after she turned sixteen, Dad and I wouldn't have stopped her if she got on a boat to go after him. Heck, I'd have gone with her. I'd have enjoyed it. I kinda missed him.
"Of course he is. The world has been unbalanced for over a century. His peace meetings years ago did little to fix the problem. His destiny is to fix the problem, not throw a bandage on it."
There really was no need for this attitude. "Alright, what does this have to do with me?"
The man sighed, snatching the letter from my hand. "Well, clearly you didn't read it all or else you'd know that I've been charged with retrieving you and bringing you to the Fire Nation. Your sister and the Avatar are there, waiting for you."
What.
That meant leaving the North. That meant leaving Yue. I'd disappear and she'd continue thinking I was only using her to get close to her father. Which, was a perk admittedly but I loved her anyway. I couldn't leave without her knowing that.
"You should really stop thinking out loud."
My eyes narrowed. "Well, since that's out in the open, do you think you can deliver a letter to her?"
His arms crossed over his chest, eyes narrowing. "Are you going to come quietly if I don't?"
I shook my head. "I think I'll make quite a ruckus if you don't."
His shoulders sagged in defeat. "Fine, write it and I'll get it to her. My men and I are devising an escape plan for you, I'll be back tomorrow with the details."
"Sounds good." I pulled the letter, already written, from my pocket and handed it to him. "What? I've had this hoping she'd come down here."
He shook his head, rolling his eyes. "Love makes fools of us all."
"It does. But it makes us better, doesn't it?"
He left in silence, slipping out the door and locking it in place.
To keep my cooperation, my imprisonment was fairly relaxed. Yes, I spent most my time in the cell, but I was allowed books, games, and walks around the city while heavily supervised. I think their ultimate goal was to make it look like I wasn't a prisoner. They even let me free when we had Southern visitors, all in an attempt to make it look like things were still functioning normally.
Except they weren't.
Honestly? What bothered me the most was that they threatened Yue if I wasn't feeling compliant. I didn't think her father would ever let them hurt her, but I feared they would. Enough to actually do what they said. Sadly.
Though, giving them some grief was still enjoyable.
I was in the middle of that, actually, running around the recreational room, evading them when a figure appeared in the door way, sending all of us into a screeching halt.
"Leave us."
"B-but Princess Yue…"
"Leave us!" She repeated.
And then we were alone. And my heart was sitting comfortably in my throat.
"I got your note," she said as she tugged it out of her sleeve and tossed it onto the bench in between us. Her head slowly began to shake. "That's a lot of accusations, Sokka. You can't expect me to believe all of that."
"Yue, please," I managed, swallowing my heart back into it's rightful place. "I know it's a lot to take in, but I've never lied to you."
Her arms crossed over her chest. "Yes, you did, Sokka! You were using me to spy on my father."
"I was spying, yes. But I wasn't using you, Yue."
"You expect me to believe that?"
Of course I didn't. She wasn't going to believe an outsider over her tribe, I wouldn't have. Though, I didn't trust that Lu Ten would get my note to her, but he came through like a champion. I guess that means I was leaving with him.
"Would I have written you if that was the only reason I was with you?"
That one got her. Watching her eyebrows knit together in frustration made my heart crack just a little bit. She was so beautiful when she was frustrated. And she must have been especially frustrated because she looked especially beautiful.
"Yes. No. I don't know, okay? Sokka, this is a lot for me to process. I can't imagine my father would ever be this cruel to our sister tribe!"
"He hasn't been cruel. He's been selfish and controlling. The Southern Tribe has been ready to function on its own for years, and your father is only sending down more and more troops to keep the South from gaining their independence. He's turned himself into a dictator, Yue, and that's not a role he can keep for long. Governing two completely different cultures is only going to result in tension and strife. I'm trying to keep that from happening."
"What good does spying on my father do? You're not actively fighting against anyone, and if you did have anything worth reporting, it would get there around the time anything my father said would! Besides, they could intercept it anyway!"
"Which is why I got into business with the sympathizers. They had contacts that could get messages to my family within days of hearing about it. I've been here for ages and nothing went intercepted. And I helped my father. He was able to hide things from Hahn that he otherwise wouldn't have been able to."
Her eyes closed and she slowly sank onto the bench in the middle of the room. Without any supervision, I was able to sink right down next to her. "I only did what would help my family."
"Am I not supposed to be a part of your family now, Sokka? I'm you're betrothed, after all." She asked softly with tears brimming in the corners of her eyes.
The walls shattered. The world came screeching to a halt and dropped out of it's orbit around the sun and everything turned into a black abyss. I couldn't stand it when she cried, a fact she knew, but I didn't think she was using this as a method of manipulation. No, she was generally very upset. But, Yue didn't cry when she was sad. She cried when she was frustrated. She cried when she was confused.
"You are, if you'll still have me." I took a hesitant step forward and another when she didn't step back. "Yue, you're the most important person in the whole world to me; I didn't want to do anything to hurt you, but I wasn't sure how you'd take me spying on your dad. I didn't want to involve you in any of that. You love your dad and think the world of him. I wasn't going to take that from you."
She sniffles, sitting down on the bench and looking down into her hands that were folded gently in her lap. "But I love you, too, Sokka. If you had been honest with me from the beginning, I wouldn't be in the situation I'm in now."
"And what situation is that?"
She swallowed, lowering her voice so the guards likely listening at the door couldn't here. "Helping the Fire Nation break you out of prison."
WATER PRINCESS SAY WHAT?
"Shhh!"
Oops, apparently that was said out loud. "You're what? Yue, you can't, it's not going to be safe for you."
"Maybe not, but my father isn't going to let his water benders capsize your ship if I'm on it. He won't let anything bad happen to me. And the only man that would ignore his command left the city three days ago."
"Who? Sangok? Why'd he leave?"
Yue sighed. "A lot has been happening, Sokka. Hahn sent word that the Avatar attacked him and kidnapped Katara to the Fire Nation. Sangok is going to plead the Northern case with the Fire Lord and gain his help. Maybe even save Katara."
"WHAT?!"
"If you keep screaming like that, they're going to drag you back to your cell."
How can she expect me to be doing anything but screaming? Aang wasn't a kidnapper and the Fire Nation adored him. They weren't going to fall for the Norths tricks, I didn't know how they even thought they could convince them of Aang's treachery.
"How's my dad?" I finally asked, my voice staying at a normal level, though it took all my effort to keep it there. "Did he go with them?"
She shook her head. "I heard he stayed behind. Hahn is very upset with him, he claims he helped Aang kidnap her and stayed behind to feed him a silly story about their eloping."
"WHAT?!"
"Sokka!"
"What do you expect, Yue? You're throwing all this new information at me and it involves people I care about. You can't expect me to take this news calmly!"
Her fingers gripped the fabric of my sleeve tightly, giving me a small shake as she level a fierce glare at me. "No, but you need to be quiet or more people are going to show up and make this prison break harder."
I'd have screamed again but she covered my mouth with hers before I could even think of it.
Man, I loved this woman.
Apparently, the first part of the plan was to get me separated from my guards. Check.
Second, wait until nightfall. Check. (Not sure how we got away with that one).
Third, get my stuff. Check. (BOOMERANG I MISSED YA BUDDY.)
Fourth, get rid of the guards. Check.
Finally, we needed to commandeer a boat. Pending.
Lu Ten has successfully sent the guards elsewhere (personally, I think he whacked them on the head and hid them in the closet, but I wasn't going to judge since I was finally getting out of prison) and now, Yue, myself, and a few others from the Fire Nation were sneaking around the Northern Docks. I had many questions, like how we were going to get through the giant ice wall that kept people in and out of the north, but I figured they could do their thing and I'd just be along for the ride.
Personally, I enjoyed the idea of them blasting fire and melting it, but I had a feeling that'd be time consuming and we'd probably all get captured. Still, it was funny to picture.
"You're going to get us caught with all that snickering, Southerner."
I ignored him, no one was going to ruin my fun. Though, Yue's tug on my arm made me quiet a bit. I didn't intend to risk her safety.
"Here we are…" Lu Ten whispered and gestured us forward out of the shadows and into the moonlight.
I was the first to climb aboard, seeing as I'd be the most suspicious on the docks, but the moment my foot touched the deck, I was in alert mode, boomerang out and ready for action as the Northern water bending master, Pakku, was staring right at me. "Guys, we have a problem."
Lu Ten scoffed as he appeared beside me. "Put that away, he's helping us."
This time, I suppressed the urge to 'WHAT?' And merely made the face that went along with it.
"Any grandchild of Kanna is under my protection," he said, as if that explained absolutely everything. "This is my boat and I'm taking it to the South. Your grandmother would never forgive me if I left here without you. I'll be taking you to the Western Air Temple where a Fire Nation vessel will pick you up and take you the rest of the way."
"Gran Gran? Is she here?"
Pakku shook his head. "I'm afraid she left the North as soon as she heard of the storm that struck the South. She thought she'd be needed there. I promised her I'd follow her as soon as I took care of a few things. That means you, too, Sokka." He turned, looking out on the docks. "You'll hide below and if we're caught, I'll create a distraction to get you through those gates. Now go."
With a rather violent shove, I was ushered below deck and shoved, with Yue, into a cramped space between crates. "Shouldn't you be with them?"
She shook her head. "No, you and I stand out, Sokka. Lu Ten and his men are changing into Northern clothes right now, they're acting as his crew. I'm only allowed on deck if they're fighting my people and need me to get them to stop."
Silence fell as I absorbed her words. 'My people' she'd said. "You're becoming a traitor," I whispered and she flinched. "You're betraying them and your father for me."
"Love makes us do crazy things, doesn't it?"
It certainly did.
I wish I could say we made it out of there without a hitch, but about halfway through the gates, the alarm sounded that I was missing. And while I didn't get to see all of it, I saw Pakku in a tower of water and holding off a hundred men as he forced us through the rest of the gate and then somehow vault the gate and get back to the boat. Even in his old age, he was amazing. Water bending was amazing. It made me sad for Katara, because she didn't know how amazing it was.
They tried to pursue us but Yue's presence dissuaded them, instead they fell back and for days we watched the water, looking for people following us, but none came. I didn't like the look of that. I was sure the Northern tribe would twist it into us kidnapping her. They'd probably try to turn the Earth Kingdom against the Fire Nation and the South, blaming us for it. I just hoped Aang got there first. According to Lu Ten, it'd been nearly two and a half weeks since they'd arrived and I hoped that meant they were moving on soon.
Our estimated arrival time was two weeks, hopefully less if the Fire Nation boat was where it should be. Meanwhile, eight of us were cramped on this small ship with only one water bender that could force it to pick up speed. Days passed slowly because of this, after the first day we'd run out of things to talk about. I'd filed them in on what I'd been seeing in the North and they filled me in on their observations. None of them knew anything about Katara or Aang; it was awful. I hated not knowing if she was okay.
Yue was some comfort. Having her near brought a sense of peace to me, though I worried for her safety, she'd more than proved many times that she could handle herself. I was surprised, honestly, that a princess would let herself fall so low. Even now, instead of her dresses, she wore trousers with her shirt tucked in and a sash tied around her waist. We were getting into warmer territory and she'd shed her layers, looking absolutely marvelous. Honestly, if I hadn't already seen her naked, I might have been lustful.
That was inappropriate, sorry.
Our transport was there when we arrived to the Air Nation and we quickly switched ships, thanking Pakku for his help and sending him along with a few extra provisions. From there, we sailed for the capital and arrived in record time.
Being there was surreal. There was a palace escort waiting for us and we all filed into the carriage and it carried us up the volcano to the palace, where a man greeted us and escorted us to the throne room, where Fire Lord Ozai, Iroh, and Ursa stood, waiting to greet us.
Iroh immediately embraced his son, while the rest of us stood, and I searched.
Nowhere.
I didn't see Kata-
"SOKKA!"
I whirled and was promptly plowed to the ground by a blur that looked a lot like my sister.
"You're making a habit of that, aren't you?" While I hadn't heard that voice in years, I knew it was Aang.
Yep. The gang was all here.
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