Chapter 1: It Came from the Deep
"Mom!"
He wasn't supposed to be scared. He was his dad's son. A brave warrior of the Southern Water Tribe!
"Go find your sister, sweetie. Keep her safe. I'll handle this." She knew that he wasn't ready. She knew that it was her job to keep him safe.
He couldn't move. He was completely frozen, staring at the Fire Nation soldier who was standing above his mother.
"You heard your mother. Run along now. Or else."
The stranger's gruff, scratchy voice somehow unfroze his legs. Turning, stumbling, he ran out of the tent. That moment, where he turned and ran away, was the last time he saw his mother.
Water.
It was everywhere in the South Pole. It clung to his parka as frost. It carried his canoe as the ocean and the waves. It filled his lungs as air.
It filled the cracks and poured deep into the void, sinking ships and swallowing everything in its wake.
"Sokka, look at this!"
As water splashed on him from above, soaking him and his parka, he was reminded that water was also freezing cold.
"Katara," He said in a monotone voice. "Stop playing with your magic water and help me fish."
The waterbender rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. "Ehe, sorry."
Seeing her so embarrassed made him want to reach out, grab her in a hold and rub his knuckles playfully on her head and tell her that it was fine. He wanted to smile and tell her that it was ok.
"But look, Sokka! I caught a fish!" His sister grinned at him, holding a fish she'd caught with her waterbending.
The clicking of mandibles nearby quickly dashed any and all such feelings from him. Its legs clicked and clacked against the wooden canoe as it slithered up from under.
"Yes, Sokka." It hissed. "Look, she caught a fish. Doesn't that just make you want to smile?"
The giant centipede coiled itself loosely around him. A face stared back at him from its head, the face of a baboon with fangs.
"No." He said back in a monotone. It was the only thing Sokka could say back, after swallowing all of his emotions. His love for Katara, his annoyance at her for splashing him with water, his happiness at her catching a fish, his revulsion of the giant centipede along with his fear of it. Everything was buried deep down inside.
Just more water, filling an endless void.
The face turned away, scanning forward.
Katara flinched, accidentally dropping the fish back into the ocean. "Right. Sorry. I'll, um, stop now."
He reached a hand out to her. "No, I wasn't -"
Coils tightened around him as its face quickly spun back around to look at him. It was too late though, Sokka had already schooled his face into a neutral look.
"You weren't… what?" His sister asked.
It stared at him, inches from his face. The giant centipede completely blocked out the sight of his sister, but Sokka knew from past experience that Katara saw nothing. Just the sight of his expressionless face staring back at her.
"Yes, Sokka. You weren't… what?" Its giant eyelid blinked, and the face on the head of the centipede changed. A smirking old man now staring back at him. "You weren't talking to her? On this small boat where there's only the two of you? Were you going to apologize and perhaps, show remorse?"
The young warrior stared back at it, unafraid. (Or even if he was, he wouldn't let himself show it).
"Never mind. It's nothing." He couldn't see it, but he knew his sister practically deflated at his words. Part of him ached and wished he could do something, even as the rest of him knew that there was nothing he could do.
Not if they wanted to survive.
"...We should start heading back soon. Gran-gran's waiting for us."
Katara huffed. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever, Dad."
It took all his willpower not to flinch. He couldn't afford to, not with the great spirit watching the two of them like how he stared at a fish he was about to spear.
The giant centipede with a thousand faces unfurled its body from Sokka, swinging its giant head back towards the front of the canoe. "As much as I do love these touching sibling moments, neither of you are going home at all if you don't focus on surviving."
Sokka's head snapped up as he felt the canoe speed up. "Katara, we've hit the rapids. Brace!"
A look of panic flickered across her face before he could see his younger sister squash deep inside, a determined look on her face. Spinning around to face the front of the boat, she sat down on the floor against the bench and grabbed the sides of the canoe with her hands.
Their boat sped up even faster, practically slicing through the water. Chunks of ice as wide as their igloo smashed together, fracturing and breaking apart.
Sokka paddled as fast as he could, steering them through the cracks and trying to time everything perfectly.
Beads of sweat trickled down his face as the effort sapped his energy, all while making sure he kept his face as wooden as possible.
"Sokka, I can help! What do you need me to do?" Katara called back to her brother.
In front of the two of them, two chunks as big as their village were about to smash into each other, the small stream of water between them shrinking with every second.
They were going to be flattened if they couldn't speed up before the two crashed into each other.
"Katara, I need you to speed us up and do it NOW!" He shouted.
From the way that the canoe rocked, he knew that his sister had picked up the other paddle and was helping power them forward…. but at the sound of the urgency in his voice, the great spirit that encircled them whipped its head back and rushed towards Sokka.
It was too bad for it that he'd only let himself have that split-second moment of panic.
"Oh, you cheeky little drip of water! Teasing me over and over again, thinking that you're winning this game between us." It hissed, clicking its mandibles.
Sokka stared him down. "Great spirit, you won't gain anything if we die now. So please, get the fuck out of my face before I steer us into an iceberg!" The fifteen year old boy hissed back in a whisper, somehow managing to keep his face stiff.
The dark spirit irritably bit towards him in a fit of anger, but ultimately it went back to the front of the boat, its centipede head jutting outwards like an eerie, invisible figurehead.
The part of him that was Katara's older brother inwardly worried about the monstrosity being so close to his sister, but the warrior in him easily pushed it aside. It wouldn't do anything to her. It couldn't. Not before Sokka had lost the game between the two of them.
The strategist in him quickly scanned their route, but his heart sank. He could see that Katara had grabbed her paddle and was trying her hardest to help him move them faster…but they were still too slow.
"Sokka, it's not working!" She called back. They were already between the two icebergs with the end in sight. It just wasn't enough, though. "What do we do?"
He grit his teeth. He hated what he was about to do. In fact, he hated everything that was even remotely related to the spirit world.
Especially water bending.
"You know how I keep complaining about your magic water?"
"Is this really the time to talk about that?!" His sister frantically yelled back, desperately trying to paddle even faster.
He bit back a dry retort. Any other time he would have, but now wasn't one of those times. "Waterbend us out of here, Katara. It's the only way, we're not going to make it out of here otherwise!"
Katara's head snapped towards him, shocked. "How am I supposed to do that?" Still, she dropped the paddle and started waving her arms in a shaky mimic of a flow. Water around them stilled, before moving again. Parts of it jerkily floated upwards into the air beside them, before they splattered back into the ocean. "Sokka, it's not working! I-I don't know how, you know I never had anyone to teach me this stuff!"
The sound of centipede legs skittering around their canoe as the great spirit readjusted itself sent chills down his back. It lifted its head until it was right next to his younger sister.
Sokka's grip tightened around his paddle. He knew deep down that it wouldn't do anything to her… but knowing that and seeing the dark spirit put its maw so close to Katara made him inwardly scream in anger.
The monster's giant eye socket, which had a face trapped in the middle where an eyeball should've been, blinked. A kind face, that of an old woman, appeared in the socket. "I wonder, should I help the two of you? Should I? A part of me tires of this game. Perhaps I should just let you drips of water rejoin La, the great ocean."
Sokka's eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second.
"THERE IT IS!" The dark spirit rushed forward, stopped only by the fact that Sokka had smoothed his face into a neutral expression once again. "Oh, so close and yet, so far away. Fine, you annoying little drip. The game will continue…for now." It chuckled, rubbing its centipede head against his cheek.
The feel of its smooth exoskeleton rubbing on his face, the stubby legs crawling up and down on his skin, almost had him puking.
It whispered into his ear.
"Tell her…-"
Sokka looked towards his sister. "Katara! You've got to put your arms forward in front of you." He said. "Calm down and breathe. Feel the push, feel the pull." He closed his eyes, unable to keep looking forward as the monster had moved in front of him.
"Remember the moon, think of how it pushed and pulled the waves. Tui and La, push and pull. Reach into the water and feel them push, then be the moon that pulls them back!"
There was nothing else. He couldn't tell if it had worked with his eyes closed shut as they were. He could only sit back and pray to the great spirits above (Tui and La, not the centipede that haunted them) that it worked.
Maybe if he hadn't had concrete proof haunting his every step that they existed, he might not have bothered. He couldn't even imagine such a life now, though.
Not feeling the crunch of his body being smushed into paste, Sokka slowly opened his eyes just in time to see them narrowly escape the icebergs as they crashed into each other behind them, the sound of ice grinding, fracturing and breaking was music to his ears since it meant that they were still alive.
She'd done it. Katara had done it! He could see the waters rushing from in front of them to behind their boat, the canoe slicing through the water faster than a penguin sledding down a cliff!
He let out a breath that he didn't even know he'd held, as the canoe slowed to a stop.
Chuckling came from next to him. "Is that emotion I hear, little drip? A sigh of relief, perhaps?" It whispered into his ear. "How tantalizing. I can almost taste your defeat. Soon, little drip. Soon, your face will be MINE." A cold, slimy chill ran up the side of his head and he had to suppress a shudder. Whatever it did to him was fine.
Everything was ok, as long as Katara was safe. He could suffer through a giant centipede spirit licking the side of his head.
He could suffer through it.
He would suffer through it.
The only other choice would never be an option.
"Sokka, we did it!" Katara turned around and looked back towards him, grinning from ear to ear. "We're alive!" She threw her hands up in the air.
He really wished she hadn't done that. As soon as she raised her arms, geysers of water rushed up from in front of their boat, launching a nearby iceberg far, far away.
He blinked. "Katara?" Sokka said, pointing to behind her. The waterbender turned around just in time to see the great pillars of water crashing back down, the noise deafening them for a few moments.
"...I did that?" She whispered.
"Yeap." He said nonchalantly, stretching the word out.
"Such raw power at such a young age," Its slimy voice rang out beside him. "A pity that there are none around to train her. What a waste, that the little drip couldn't become a drop. How far the southern waters have fallen, indee-."
The spirit's pause grabbed his attention. Turning his head, he saw something that he didn't know was even possible. After all, he'd never known something to make it hesitate, let alone freeze completely.
Sokka knew he was going to regret this, but hesitatingly, he decided to ask the question on his mind. "What is it?"
Looking down at the water in front of them, he realized what exactly had caught its attention.
"Sokka? What's wrong?"
He couldn't respond.
She followed his gaze and looked forward and down.
Mystical blue light bubbled up from under the surface of the water.
"So-ka." It tried to say his name. Oddly enough, at that moment Sokka would've preferred if the monster had called him little drip again. "Remember our deal. Remember our pact, what binds… us together."
The last warrior of the southern water tribe could feel his composure shaking. The way back was blocked off, and there wasn't enough time to get away from whatever monstrosity was coming up from the deep.
Sokka really didn't want to meet whatever thing that terrified even Koh, The Face Stealer.
Author's Note:
Feel free to drop a comment below. This is an idea I had a long while ago, where some events played out differently in Pre-Canon, namely Kya's death. She's the mother of Sokka and Katara, who died in the last raid on the Souther Water Tribe by the Southern Raiders. I won't say anymore in case somehow someone hasn't seen that part of the show yet as it would be spoilers.
The only difference is that in the show it was Katara who ran in and found her mother facing the fire bender. This event shaped a lot of Katara's life and personality as well as much of the events in canon. In case it wasn't clear in the intro though, in this story it was Sokka who found them.