Months before his thirteenth summer, the men of the tribe had left. Just two months before he could have gone with them.
Sometimes, the shame of that burned in his liver, the thought that he could have joined the warband, found a man's glory in combat. It was a long journey to the earth kingdoms, he would have been of age before they saw battle. He could have...
Usually, he was far too busy to feel much of anything. Even as a boy, work was nearly endless, and with the men gone, all but the oldest of the elders, those too infirm to do much but sit and eat, the men's work fell to the shoulders of the boys.
And then, after a particularly bad winter, Sokka found that he was the only man in the village, the next oldest boys not of age until highsummer came again, and his work became not just that of a man, but of a chief.
He had thought, as a boy, that he knew what hard work was. When he took up a mans job, he had looked back on that childhood folly with a smile. Now, he knew that even a man's work was nothing before that of a leader.
Fortunately, winter had come, and the food was gathered, and there was little to do but huddle within the warren of the winter camp and keep track of the children and keep everyone from killing each other in a fit of winterfever, and make sure nobody ate more than their share of the food, and make sure the children learned the stories, and keep the lodges in repair and keep himself and the older boys well practiced with weapons for the hunts to come. That was enough to begin.
By the time the sun returned, and the stores of oilfish and frozen meat and blubber ran low, managing people had become bearable, and adding summer chores on top of it was only felt like an iceblock settling on his shoulders, rather than a berg. A heavy, but manageable weight.
And anyway, there was too much to do to worry about rest. There was meat to bring in, and bone and hides and snowroot and seaplums and the special sands and stones and dyes from the shallow waters off of hunguli'kituk, the serpent's point. There was carving to be done, and repairs, sealdogs to tend and train and break to harness, boys to teach the spear and club and boomarang. There were times, in the endless sun of highsummer, where he simply forgot to sleep at all.
And then when the darkness fell for the first time in weeks, there were the ceremonies of manhood, the ice-dodging, the hunts. There was the long vigil in the sweat-lodge, pouring water onto smoldering, tarry stones dug by hand from the seabed and telling the legends to the three who reached their thirteenth summer that year.
By the time his father had been gone two years, Sokka had entirely forgotten his shame at being left behind. His father had known he was the eldest left, should the elders die. His father had trusted him to lead the village well if that came, and he had done it. Every time he looked at the solid, well made domes of the family houses, the solid wall surrounding the village, well chosen iceblocks carefully stacked and the melted and refrozen into one piece, the lodge, whalebone struts and poles supporting clean hides and packed all round with snow and ice for insulation, he felt his chest lift with pride.
His people were thriving.
By the third year, he didn't even think of being left behind, except to wish that his father would return, to wish his father could see that his trust hadn't been misplaced.
In fact, by that time, Sokka only had one real problem left, outside the usual trials of life on the ice, and it was one that just wouldn't go away. There were almost a dozen men to work now, grown in the years since the warriors left to join the war, food was still plentiful, and the other villages had been quiet, most of their warriors had left as well.
But his sister.
She wasn't harming anyone, really, and there wasn't any cause to be ôdealing with herö, not yet.
But she was so odd...
It wasn't just a woman thing either, he'd asked Kanna, he hadn't thought of her as Gaanggan, Grandmother, in almost a year, and she didn't understand Katara either. Nobody in the village could. She didn't cook, or clean carcases, or store food. She didn't mend or make clothing, or any of the other tasks that women did. Sokka had had to take Tuklii, a girl of eight who's mother had died in childbirth and who's father had walked into a whiteout not an hour after telling stories as cheerfully as any last winter, into their families lodge to help Kanna with the work.
Katara spent all her time out on the ice, doing spirits knew what with waterbending, not that she seemed to accomplish much. Her tricks were useful, sometimes, when they worked. But sometimes they didn't work, and sometimes, too many times, they did just what they shouldn't, and ruined the labor of a day or more. He knew the men wouldn't take any action without his word. He'd lead them all through the rites, shepherded them all into manhood. And he lead them well. But the women, especially the ones of and near Katara's age, were beginning to talk behind his back, and his father had always said that that was a danger-sign as clear as a sealwolf's bark.
So he'd followed her out today, leaving Mungka in charge of the village, it was good practice for Mungka anyway. He would be leading hunts before long, best get used to authority in the village, where everyone knew what to do anyway, and nothing seriously dangerous was likely to happen.
She'd walked a long way, almost a twelfth of the day, and days were long this close to highsummer. He followed, careful to use the tiny folds of ice and occasional drifts of snow to keep out of her sight.
But when he saw where she was going, he couldn't help but stop and stare.
There was a hole in the icepack, some quirk of current and pressure and sunlight and who knew what had contrived to open a pool three times as wide across as a foxwhale was long. And in the center of that pool, surrounded by a thin ledge of ice, was a perfectly smooth sphere of what looked like impossibly clear crystal.
None of that was what caught his gaze though. It was strange certainly, but he'd seen stranger things on the ice before. Two days travel to the south, near the somewhat larger village of Wangitutuklan, there was a soaring spire of Ice as black as the midnight sky, and almost a year ago, he'd had to pull Katugnuk out of the arms of an ice hag, the man still screaming and fighting him to get back to the crooning half-woman despite the ruin her claws had made of his face.
But in the center of that sphere was a human shape. Sitting cross-legged, dressed in pale oranges and yellows, and covered in swirling arrow-shaped lines that shone with a blue light that nearly matched the intensity of the sun.
When he wrenched his eyes back to his sister, she had already navagated across the lake, hopping from one small chunk of ice to another, and was frowning hard at the surface of the sphere, at an area he noticed now was worn and pitted.
And then she swept her arms up, hand flowing back away from the sphere and past her face.
And slowly, slowly, the surface of the sphere followed, first tiny chips of ice, then trickles of water, then a slow, steady stream of it. Pulling away from the ice that bound the...whatever it was and into the pond.
He didn't realize he was on his feet, screaming at her to stop, until the stream of water failed and she whirled, the look of joy on her face shifting to fear. But she didn't stop, she turned and gestured frantically, and where before there had been a steam, now a jet of water shot out of the sphere, a hole appearing almost instantly and burrowing deeper and deeper. He forced himself to slow down as he reached the waterline. Leaping on ice was hard enough when it wasn't drifting on water and he wasn't running, but every time he glanced up and saw his sister trying to free...the thing...he found his feet moving faster. He had just caught his footing on the ring of flat ice around the sphere when the jet of water cut off, and the air shook with the terrible, horrifying sound of ice shattering.
Time slowed as he traced the jagged line that leaped up from the hole his sister had made, racing up over the crest of the sphere, and then the world disappeared in a whirlwind of fog and ice shards and air that seemed to glow.
When it cleared, he pulled himself back to his feet and took stock. Katara was on the ground, caught, by the lump on her head, by a chunk of flying ice. But she looked alright except for that and a few scrapes. He was much the same, though his parka would need mending when he returned home.
He looked at the lip of the sphere, it had been meters thick, but the thing inside it had vanished.
Slowly, he forced himself to climb up to the lip and look down. In the bottom of the hollow formed by the last remnants of the sphere, there was a giant, white furred...something, an animal of some sort.
Sitting on the back of the animal, in what looked like a giant saddle, was a boy, dressed in yellow and orange, covered in no longer glowing tattoos.
The boy looked up.
ôwha laaitah shen maam dehmun sohng bahnliö
Sokka blinked. That didn't sound like any Water tongue he'd ever heard, or any of the Earth languages he'd half learned from the very rare traders. Or the Fire speech he vaguely remembered from nightmares of the raids during his youth.
What on earth was this boy?
O0O
Not sure if I should hold this as a short oneshot, or the prologue of a somewhat longer rewrite. regardless, this was sparked by several things. One, my own nagging frustration with canon. As usual, it's not meant to be slotted into canon, or to fit every nuance of the canon characterizations, in both cases because I find some aspects of them utterly infuriating, above and beyond my frustration with people for being people.
Also as usual, any thoughts, comments, criticisms, etc. are greatly appreciated, and will be rewarded with sparkly rainbows and cookies, maybe a pony or two.
Or nothing at all, probably nothing at all.
Sometimes, the shame of that burned in his liver, the thought that he could have joined the warband, found a man's glory in combat. It was a long journey to the earth kingdoms, he would have been of age before they saw battle. He could have...
Usually, he was far too busy to feel much of anything. Even as a boy, work was nearly endless, and with the men gone, all but the oldest of the elders, those too infirm to do much but sit and eat, the men's work fell to the shoulders of the boys.
And then, after a particularly bad winter, Sokka found that he was the only man in the village, the next oldest boys not of age until highsummer came again, and his work became not just that of a man, but of a chief.
He had thought, as a boy, that he knew what hard work was. When he took up a mans job, he had looked back on that childhood folly with a smile. Now, he knew that even a man's work was nothing before that of a leader.
Fortunately, winter had come, and the food was gathered, and there was little to do but huddle within the warren of the winter camp and keep track of the children and keep everyone from killing each other in a fit of winterfever, and make sure nobody ate more than their share of the food, and make sure the children learned the stories, and keep the lodges in repair and keep himself and the older boys well practiced with weapons for the hunts to come. That was enough to begin.
By the time the sun returned, and the stores of oilfish and frozen meat and blubber ran low, managing people had become bearable, and adding summer chores on top of it was only felt like an iceblock settling on his shoulders, rather than a berg. A heavy, but manageable weight.
And anyway, there was too much to do to worry about rest. There was meat to bring in, and bone and hides and snowroot and seaplums and the special sands and stones and dyes from the shallow waters off of hunguli'kituk, the serpent's point. There was carving to be done, and repairs, sealdogs to tend and train and break to harness, boys to teach the spear and club and boomarang. There were times, in the endless sun of highsummer, where he simply forgot to sleep at all.
And then when the darkness fell for the first time in weeks, there were the ceremonies of manhood, the ice-dodging, the hunts. There was the long vigil in the sweat-lodge, pouring water onto smoldering, tarry stones dug by hand from the seabed and telling the legends to the three who reached their thirteenth summer that year.
By the time his father had been gone two years, Sokka had entirely forgotten his shame at being left behind. His father had known he was the eldest left, should the elders die. His father had trusted him to lead the village well if that came, and he had done it. Every time he looked at the solid, well made domes of the family houses, the solid wall surrounding the village, well chosen iceblocks carefully stacked and the melted and refrozen into one piece, the lodge, whalebone struts and poles supporting clean hides and packed all round with snow and ice for insulation, he felt his chest lift with pride.
His people were thriving.
By the third year, he didn't even think of being left behind, except to wish that his father would return, to wish his father could see that his trust hadn't been misplaced.
In fact, by that time, Sokka only had one real problem left, outside the usual trials of life on the ice, and it was one that just wouldn't go away. There were almost a dozen men to work now, grown in the years since the warriors left to join the war, food was still plentiful, and the other villages had been quiet, most of their warriors had left as well.
But his sister.
She wasn't harming anyone, really, and there wasn't any cause to be ôdealing with herö, not yet.
But she was so odd...
It wasn't just a woman thing either, he'd asked Kanna, he hadn't thought of her as Gaanggan, Grandmother, in almost a year, and she didn't understand Katara either. Nobody in the village could. She didn't cook, or clean carcases, or store food. She didn't mend or make clothing, or any of the other tasks that women did. Sokka had had to take Tuklii, a girl of eight who's mother had died in childbirth and who's father had walked into a whiteout not an hour after telling stories as cheerfully as any last winter, into their families lodge to help Kanna with the work.
Katara spent all her time out on the ice, doing spirits knew what with waterbending, not that she seemed to accomplish much. Her tricks were useful, sometimes, when they worked. But sometimes they didn't work, and sometimes, too many times, they did just what they shouldn't, and ruined the labor of a day or more. He knew the men wouldn't take any action without his word. He'd lead them all through the rites, shepherded them all into manhood. And he lead them well. But the women, especially the ones of and near Katara's age, were beginning to talk behind his back, and his father had always said that that was a danger-sign as clear as a sealwolf's bark.
So he'd followed her out today, leaving Mungka in charge of the village, it was good practice for Mungka anyway. He would be leading hunts before long, best get used to authority in the village, where everyone knew what to do anyway, and nothing seriously dangerous was likely to happen.
She'd walked a long way, almost a twelfth of the day, and days were long this close to highsummer. He followed, careful to use the tiny folds of ice and occasional drifts of snow to keep out of her sight.
But when he saw where she was going, he couldn't help but stop and stare.
There was a hole in the icepack, some quirk of current and pressure and sunlight and who knew what had contrived to open a pool three times as wide across as a foxwhale was long. And in the center of that pool, surrounded by a thin ledge of ice, was a perfectly smooth sphere of what looked like impossibly clear crystal.
None of that was what caught his gaze though. It was strange certainly, but he'd seen stranger things on the ice before. Two days travel to the south, near the somewhat larger village of Wangitutuklan, there was a soaring spire of Ice as black as the midnight sky, and almost a year ago, he'd had to pull Katugnuk out of the arms of an ice hag, the man still screaming and fighting him to get back to the crooning half-woman despite the ruin her claws had made of his face.
But in the center of that sphere was a human shape. Sitting cross-legged, dressed in pale oranges and yellows, and covered in swirling arrow-shaped lines that shone with a blue light that nearly matched the intensity of the sun.
When he wrenched his eyes back to his sister, she had already navagated across the lake, hopping from one small chunk of ice to another, and was frowning hard at the surface of the sphere, at an area he noticed now was worn and pitted.
And then she swept her arms up, hand flowing back away from the sphere and past her face.
And slowly, slowly, the surface of the sphere followed, first tiny chips of ice, then trickles of water, then a slow, steady stream of it. Pulling away from the ice that bound the...whatever it was and into the pond.
He didn't realize he was on his feet, screaming at her to stop, until the stream of water failed and she whirled, the look of joy on her face shifting to fear. But she didn't stop, she turned and gestured frantically, and where before there had been a steam, now a jet of water shot out of the sphere, a hole appearing almost instantly and burrowing deeper and deeper. He forced himself to slow down as he reached the waterline. Leaping on ice was hard enough when it wasn't drifting on water and he wasn't running, but every time he glanced up and saw his sister trying to free...the thing...he found his feet moving faster. He had just caught his footing on the ring of flat ice around the sphere when the jet of water cut off, and the air shook with the terrible, horrifying sound of ice shattering.
Time slowed as he traced the jagged line that leaped up from the hole his sister had made, racing up over the crest of the sphere, and then the world disappeared in a whirlwind of fog and ice shards and air that seemed to glow.
When it cleared, he pulled himself back to his feet and took stock. Katara was on the ground, caught, by the lump on her head, by a chunk of flying ice. But she looked alright except for that and a few scrapes. He was much the same, though his parka would need mending when he returned home.
He looked at the lip of the sphere, it had been meters thick, but the thing inside it had vanished.
Slowly, he forced himself to climb up to the lip and look down. In the bottom of the hollow formed by the last remnants of the sphere, there was a giant, white furred...something, an animal of some sort.
Sitting on the back of the animal, in what looked like a giant saddle, was a boy, dressed in yellow and orange, covered in no longer glowing tattoos.
The boy looked up.
ôwha laaitah shen maam dehmun sohng bahnliö
Sokka blinked. That didn't sound like any Water tongue he'd ever heard, or any of the Earth languages he'd half learned from the very rare traders. Or the Fire speech he vaguely remembered from nightmares of the raids during his youth.
What on earth was this boy?
O0O
Not sure if I should hold this as a short oneshot, or the prologue of a somewhat longer rewrite. regardless, this was sparked by several things. One, my own nagging frustration with canon. As usual, it's not meant to be slotted into canon, or to fit every nuance of the canon characterizations, in both cases because I find some aspects of them utterly infuriating, above and beyond my frustration with people for being people.
Also as usual, any thoughts, comments, criticisms, etc. are greatly appreciated, and will be rewarded with sparkly rainbows and cookies, maybe a pony or two.
Or nothing at all, probably nothing at all.
