(no subject)

[beliefovermisery]

Eventually bullied into lying down and closing his eyes, Sokka has a hard time getting to sleep. But each time an idea forms, a new project, something he has to write down, there's someone there to push him down the second he pops up. After so many scoldings, so many hours of sleepless work, he does eventually conk out.

It's a deep sleep. Not a dreamless one.

Comments

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

Her bottom lip all pouty and wibbly, and she hugged him tight.

"You won't let firebenders get me, right?"

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

Surprised by it, his arms hesitantly wrapped around her, forgetting about the bandages. He remembers fire, he remembers smoke, he remembers brown skin burned black...

"Never," he whispers and his voice is hoarse, his eyes burning again. "No one's going to get you while I'm here, Katara, I promise."

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

"Sokka! Sokka, can I keep it? Pretty please? Gran-gran said to ask you because she said it would be your pet, too."

Near the opening of their hut, Katara stood holding a wriggling baby penguin in her arms, all bottom-heavy and adorable.

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

It's a blur - his arms go from full to empty, Katara just a bit older in front of him. He can feel the vibration in his throat when he groans aloud, the leather strap that falls from his fingers where he was learning to sharpen the boomerang.

"Katara, why are you bringing one of those in here? They have their own homes and you steal enough of theh jerky already!"

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

"But it's so cute!" Katara exclaimed, squeezing it gently. It wriggled out of her arms and made its way over to where the dried fish was stored and started digging in.

"And he doesn't have a home. His mother got eaten by an orca. Can't I keep him, pretty please?"

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

"Hey!" He barely notices what she's saying, too busy running over to pull the stupid thing from their food stores. It was slippery and wriggled out of his grasp more than once before he got his arms good and tight around it.

It's the mother thing that does it, he remembers. The stupid, wriggly penguin in his arms aside, it's that it doesn't have a mother and needs a home, it's that need to give everything motherless a home and he...

He sighs and looks at his sister. "...I gue-- OW!"

And then the penguin bit him and he struggled not to throw it across the tent.

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

"Don't hurt him! You're going to scare him!" she admonished, tugging the penguin off of Sokka, and cuddling it.

It didn't bite her.

Nothing she ever brought home did.

"Sokka says you can stay! So I'm going to be your mommy now," she told the penguin, cuddling it. "I'm going to call you Cupun."

She was always their mommy. Never just an owner, never a sister, or an aunt. She always said she was their mom, because it was always one that had lost one, always a little orphan. Or orphans, in the case of the gulls.

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

He hated the gulls. They made terrible messes and ate all their food and always bit him, always managed to hurt themselves. And whenever they got hurt too badly, broken wings and mangled legs, it was Sokka that was asked to set the splints, comfort Katara even while he broke their bones back in place.

He never said no. Not once.

Katara was their mommy, their protector. He was hers.

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

The world shifted again, and the two of them were trudging along the water line, checking to see if their nets had dredged any sea prunes off the ocean bottom.

Katara was yet older and had an extremely sour expression on her face.

"I don't see why I can't go. You know it would be a lot easier for you to go fishing if you had someone to help you."

Not that she could do much to help. She didn't know how to throw a spear. She couldn't magically make the fish float out of the water.

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

That expression was far more familiar than the tears and bright smiles of the last visions and Sokka is intensely familiar with the feel of his eyes as they roll, the sound of air pushed out of his throat when he sighs.

"It's not easier for me to fish when I have a girl in the back, whining about whether or not it's really right to be killing all the poor widdle fish. I catch less every time you go and you know it! Why don't you just stay here with GranGran and the other women?"

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

"You are such a sexist jerk," she exclaimed. "I'm not going to be whining--I know we need to eat, and I can do it just as well as you can."

Her face was full of defiance.

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

"I don't know where you learned to lie like that but it isn't working!" he'd snapped back, glaring at her over his shoulder as he started loading up the canoe. "Every time you go with me, the water's always bad and the I never catch any fish!"

That part was true.

Mostly because they hadn't yet discovered that an upset Katara created upset waters.

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

"You act as if that's my fault!" she exclaimed. "That's nature. It's just coincidence."

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

"That's luck - I don't even believe in luck, but I know you're bad."

But, of course, she went with him.

And he didn't catch a damn thing.

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

"--stop saying it's my fault! I am not bad luck!" exclaimed, stepping onto the shore and helping Sokka tug their kayak up onto the snow.

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

"No?! Then why did the boat capsize just as you were calling me an idiot?!"

He was batting at her, trying to get her away from the boat. He would curse at her for the next week, but he remembers reaching for her when the boat flipped, grabbing her hand and pushing her to the surface-- even as he sunk further below the waves.

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

"It wasn't! My! FAULT!" she exclaimed, backing away from the boat, shivering as she stamped her foot down on the ice.

Once, twice, three times. Once for each syllable.

The ice cracked, but instead of falling apart, chunks of it were thrust upward and refroze, making a series of little steps all around her.

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

He froze. He blinked.

He frowned and threw his head back, groaning at the sky.

"Like you weren't enough trouble ALREADY!"

They'd seen Waterbenders before. Later, he would be proud. At the time, he was worried about what sort of havoc it would play with their lives next.

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

Her eyes were wide and perhaps a little scared.

"What did--how did--?"

A pause and she went to the water's edge and reached out, concentrated hard, trying to tap into that feeling she'd had when the ice cracked, that cold, flowing, wonderful feeling.

She waved her hand upward, upward, tugging and pulling, and some of the water spiraled upwards.

"Sokka! Sokka, look! Look what I'm doing! I'm bending!"

His crankiness would not and could not dampen her joy.

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

He remembered trying to stay angry.

He remembered failing, too.

He remembered staying outside and nearly freezing to death, refusing to leave her side as she played with the water, joining in her laughter and her joy when she succeeded...

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

Katara was twelve now and Sokka was thirteen and their father had left for the ships. Gran-gran was off consoling some of the other women.

And Katara sat there, glaring at her brother in his war paint, as he packed his things, petting Flo the highly flammable cat-seal.

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

GranGran was there. That's what he told himself - GranGran was there and she would look after Katara. He couldn't spend his whole life watching over her, not when there were other people to protect, not when there were bigger threats out there.

GranGran was strong. She would watch her.

So he put his boomerang in its sling and packed and-- ignored the singing guilt that came from her eyes.

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

Eventually, when he happened to glance her way, she said quietly:

"You promised."

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

He didn't flinch. He would have now, but then... the only break was in his heart.

"They need everyone, Katara. I can't just stay here while they fight. I'm old enough, I can fight."

[flyingsister.livejournal.com]

"No, you aren't," she said, frowning. "And if you're old enough, then I'm old enough to go--and I'm a Waterbender."