Chapter Text
Chapter Seven: The Spirit World
They’re flying high over the landscape when Sokka first spots it like a stain spilling over hillsides just starting to bud with the freshness of the new season. It’s the warmest it’s been so far— the hottest he’s ever felt in this life, so much so that it didn’t even freeze overnight. Katara’s more heat-tolerant than he is, comfortable in her dress. Even after removing his fur-lined parka, Sokka’s melting.
The warming season is a constant worry, his internal deadline ticking down. The Solstice is in three days and he’s the only one who’s realized why that’s such a big deal. Ever-aware of his schedule, Sokka has them drifting over the landscape in a costal direction, knowing exactly how to play this next part out.
The blackness on the horizon grows clearer, the air muzzied with faded smoke.
Aang’s got quick reflexes and a keen eye and the growing black stain doesn’t escape him. Even Appa bellows softly as they all catch the scent of ash in the breeze.
“What is that?” Katara asks.
Appa banks mid-air to slant into a low dive, aiming right for the middle of the soot-stained blight. When he lands, small puffs of ash kick up from his feet. His tail drags through the fine powder— everything reduced to char. The peaked pillars of stumps are all that’s left, burnt and hollowed. The cool silver line of the river they’d been following is clouded from the debris. The scar stretches out around them like a wound, evidence of where the fire raced up the hillside and left nothing at all behind. There’s no green in sight.
“It’s so quiet,” Sokka says softly. Here even the wind can’t rustle through the trees. There’s no trees left. “There’s no life at all.” He might have been raised in what others might call a barren wasteland, but the South Pole teems with life all over the ice. This is the first place he’s stood that truly felt dead.
Aang drops to his knees, devastated as he picks at the ash. “This is my fault,” he says. “The Avatar is supposed to protect nature.”
“This wasn’t your fault,” Katara consoles him, but Sokka’s poking around where the dead ash of the ground has been stirred by a line of marching feet. The prints show the triangular tread of Fire Nation shoes, and equally angular clawed steps from their horned rhinos. Everything drags at the gray ash in a distinctive, intentional line, condemning as a signed decree.
“Fire Nation,” Sokka says, and even knowing this beforehand doesn’t calm that instinctive rage at the sight of so much pointless destruction. “A brace of soldiers came through here not too long ago. The fire started with them.” He kicks at the ground, throwing up a cloud of fine ash. “Those hot-headed, short-sighted—” he breaks off at Katara’s glare, and Aang’s still kneeling in the dust.
“This is my fault,” Aang states, dejected. “All of this destruction… I’m supposed to stop it, but I don’t know how.”
“That’s why we’re finding you a waterbending teacher,” Katara reminds him. “That way, we can both learn.”
“Learn waterbending maybe,” Aang says, lip trembling. “But there’s no one left who can teach me how to be the Avatar. Waterbending couldn’t have stopped this.” He gestures at the firescar around him like it’s an irrefutable fact of his failure.
But Sokka’s seen this kid fight a volcano and win. He’s not convinced. “The world is big,” he allows. “Someone out there has to know something.” The gears in his head start turning, looking around at the dead empty plain around them.
This wasn’t a step he wanted to repeat, but he’s revising on the fly, calculating the risks. Judging the weight of his sister’s missing necklace when held up against his plans.
His teeth grind together deep in his skull, the pressure building in his ears, and he hates that he’s already made up his mind.
Katara throws an acorn at him with a stinging ping and he rubs at the spot. “Ow.”
She tosses one at Aang as well, and the airbender catches it with quick fingers. He holds it up to his eyeline, dusting off the ash. “An acorn?”
“The ground is littered with them,” Katara explains. “That means the forest will grow back, and all of the animals that lived here will return. See?” She holds out a handful of them and in the background Momo’s cramming his cheeks full, scrabbling at the ground to hunt up the nuts.
Aang looks at the acorn, and he slips it inside a fold of his monk’s shirt as he stands, looking relieved at the reassurance that this wound will heal with time.
Sokka stares into the westward distance, towards a village he knows is hidden in these thickly-forested hills. The Fire Nation tracks head away from the village, but…
It’s no decision at all.
“These soldiers came from somewhere,” Sokka says slowly, shielding his eyes from the sun as he gazes at the river that held the fire contained to this side of the valley. “I bet there’s a village upriver. Our map says we’re outside the colonies, but…”
They both hear his unspoken concern. “I think it’s worth checking,” Aang agrees, eager to be doing something that feels productive.
Appa’s quick to find the village, and from the air the destroyed homes match the mark of passing Fire Nation troops until Sokka sees the damage isn’t burnt— it’s smashed as if by a giant fist. The dread starts to set it, tinged with a heavy resignation.
If this is one thing he can do to help, he’ll do it. Even unpleasant as it might end up being.
The townspeople gather in the courtyard as Appa passes by overhead, a clear sign that word of the Avatar has spread since the prison break only days ago. They clear a place for the skybision to land and Appa touches gently down across from the shattered remains of someone’s wooden roof that’s become so much kindling. The tiles and beams are cracked like wooden bones, gouged by the claws of some massive beast.
Sokka gulps at the sight. He can’t say he has fond memories of the beast that did this foul work, and his hand grips his boomerang tightly as an old man pushes his way to the front of the growing crowd of townspeople.
“That skybision,” the elder gasps. “Your arrows… could it be? Are you the Avatar?”
Aang’s still unused to the title enough to check for reassurance with Katara first, and he nods after she does. “I am,” he says, holding his glider staff loosely in his grip as he surveys the ruined buildings around them. “Did the Fire Nation do this?”
“No,” the elder shakes his head, full of deep sorrow. “This was no soldier’s work. Please— you’ve got to help us!” Others cry out as well, pleading and mournful.
The village leader appears, his kindly face etched with weary grief. “Avatar,” he greets with a bow. “You honor us greatly with your presence.”
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Aang returns politely, but he’s unsure of his social footing in front of so many expectant people. “Is, uh, is there something I can help you with?”
“I am not sure,” the village leader admits.
“Nonsense,” the elder scoffs. “Who is there better to help us than the Avatar?”
“What’s been attacking you?” Sokka asks, still holding tight to his boomerang. “Those houses weren’t wrecked by Fire Nation. What did this?”
“Each night this week, at sunset, a spirit monster has attacked our village,” the village leader explains. “He rampages, he rages, and he abducts one of our own. We have not seen the taken since.”
It’s a familiar story to him, one he’d hoped this time to write a better ending for, yet here he is, saying the same words, doing the same things. “Why is it attacking you?” Sokka asks.
“He is Hei Bai,” the elder says, voice creaking. “The black and white spirit. We don’t know what’s angered him… but the Winter Solstice grows near. In just a few days, the barrier between our world and the spirit world will thin until things mix completely. Hei Bai could wreck untold destruction if left to rampage on the solstice.” The man turns to Aang. “Avatar, you are the bridge between our worlds. If there is anyone who could help us with this beast, it is you.”
“Return our taken!” Someone else in the crowd cries out. “My husband!”
“Save us!”
“Protect us!”
Sokka’s got more important plans for the Solstice than pandering to the whims of a temperamental spirit beast, but he’s not heartless enough to have ever planned on skipping this village over. Some steps need repeating simply because it’s the right thing to do. Not everything about their first attempt ended up being a mistake. Helping these people was always his plan. “You said at sunset?” He asks, checking the already low angle of the sun.
Aang looks spooked by all this talk of his responsibility to hold the line between the worlds, and Katara tugs at his sleeve. “Group meeting,” she announces. “Gather up.”
Aang huddles right up to them, still in Appa’s saddle, eyes wide. “I don’t know anything about the spirit world,” he says nervously, low enough to not be overheard. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Katara checks, unsurprised.
Aang shakes his head. “It wasn’t something the monks spoke of beyond the importance of keeping the balance. But I have to help these people.” Even unsure, he’s determined to do what’s right. “Maybe it’ll be easy?”
Sokka knows Hei Bai is not a gentle introduction to the spirit world by any means. The black and white spirit nurses his aggressive grudge against mankind for the damage to his home, and Sokka’s eyebrows are slanted as he thinks very fast.
He’s thinking about the Solstice, about the Moon, about Roku’s island. Several things click into place very quickly in his mind.
He knows what he’s going to do.
Both Katara and Aang are staring at him. “What?” he asks. “Is there something on my face?”
“Do you know anything about the spirit world?” Aang asks him curiously. “You’re spirit-touched, after all.”
“I probably know less than you,” Sokka says seriously, his moon-pale eyes sharp as they can be with the pupils obscured by their opaque fog. “But if that changes or I start feeling weird spirit knowledge, I’ll let you know.” He’s lying again, glad that Toph isn’t here to call him out in it.
He’s not looking forward to the inevitable clusterfuck of maintaining his status as ordinary around a girl who can hear lies. But he’s got a plan for that… eventually.
If he ends up surviving tonight, that is.
“Game plan,” Sokka says, and they drink in his words. “Spirit world crisis or not, at sunset a big monster is going to attack the village and kidnap someone. We need to find a way to stop that from happening so we can work on getting those people back. We’ll try things peacefully at first— Aang, you’re the bridge between worlds. This spirit might listen to you when it won’t with the villagers. And I’m cautious about pissing off giant spirit monsters if we can handle things civilly.”
Aang’s eyes sparkle at the chance to solve things without fighting.
“Katara,” he says. “You and me will guard the villagers while Aang tries to talk with the spirit. No matter what, we can’t let it take anybody else. If the talking things out plan fails then we might have to fight a giant spirit monster and I’m not exactly looking forward to that.” He has to hold back a shudder at the thought.
Katara catches it; she knows him so well. His sister tilts her head at him. “I’ve seen you face down a tigerseal without flinching. This is what has you wary?” She’s impressed in the way that makes sense when she hasn’t seen Hei Bai yet. He’s the most of anything spirit-related she’s ever seen, and Sokka barely counts.
“It’s a giant spirit monster,” Sokka stresses. “At least tigerseals and the Unagi are just animals. Spirits…” he trails off, blinking. “We need to be careful with them.”
“I think this might just be something that comes to me?” Aang says hopefully. “Like at the Air Temple? I could feel my past lives there even if I couldn’t really sense more than that. That was something spiritual.”
“I think you can do it,” Katara confirms. “And I trust the three of us to keep things safe.”
It’s beautiful to see the two of them so confident in themselves and each other. He’s done such good work fostering their trust and teamwork into something unshakable, even with how little time they’ve been together.
He hates that he’s going to sabotage his own plan. He hates that he’s going to make them worry— Katara especially. “Let’s do this,” Sokka says, his mind made up. “Sunset’s close. Get ready.”
He and Katara herd every villager into the large central meeting lodge so that they have everyone contained in a single locating to keep an eye on, and less people hiding in houses if things get more house-smashy.
The sun sinks lower, the golden disk slipping below the horizon like an eye closing for sleep. Aang stands ready in the courtyard as the shadows grow around him. The airbender looks a little lost, standing and waiting for something to happen. When he turns back to glance at the central lodge, Sokka gives him a thumbs-up from the window.
Katara frets; she’s perceptive enough to feel something’s off. “This can’t be right,” she says as the shadows lengthen with the fading light. “Are we really using him as bait and just hoping that works?”
“It feels a little convenient,” Sokka agrees, eyes focused on Aang.
But Katara breaks her attention off their friend to give him an odd glance. “Convenient? How?”
Sokka blinks, focus torn between Aang and his sister. “Well,” he starts, stalling. “Aang was right earlier, you know. No bending master can teach him how to handle the spiritual side of his Avatar duties. It’s an avenue of training none of us knows anything about, one equally as important as any individual element. And then we just wander into a random village that just so happens to be under attack from a hostile spirit?”
It’s a fear of his that sits close beneath his skin, a thorn, a splinter. Something that presses deeper in the more he goes after it.
A whole lot of events that first time around were awfully convenient…
The shadows grow deeper with the sun truly set. Aang stands there, a statue in the darkness as the shadows grow and grow. Then, with a shift in the air, something steps out of them.
The black and white spirit lives up to his name, and Hei Bai ignores the Avatar completely to pounce on an empty house, ripping off the roof with those massive, dexterous hands. Hei Bai is a true monster to look at—that unnaturally wide stance, the extra arms with their human hands, that sleek, toothy head more like an eelhound than the bear Sokka knows is lurking beneath that capricious anger.
“Wait!” Aang cries, flying over to the beast to hop onto the roof. “Spirit, please stop. Listen, we can talk about this!”
Hei Bai roars and it’s more of a scream than anything— loud enough to crowd his ears like thunder and strong enough that the force of the yell shatters a beam holding up the roof so that the entire thing slumps downwards into ruin in a massive slide of debris. That scream is a weapon like nothing that should exist in the natural word. Nothing can stand against it.
Sokka’s heart is pounding.
Aang lightly flits off the moving pile, weightless enough the destruction can’t touch him. “Hei Bai!” he tries to be authoritative. “I command that you leave these people alone!”
The black and white spirit turns on him at once and with an arrogant wave, the spirit smacks Aang hard enough he goes flying.
“I’m not watching this,” Sokka says, voice tight as Katara watches Aang bounce right back up to take more abuse. “Time for plan B.”
He charges out to meet the great spirit, which was always his plan, and his boomerang passes through the beast like it’s made of night mists and not flesh, like the clouds Aang likes to jump through from Appa’s back. His boomerang hits nothing but dirt.
And Hei Bai whips right around to meet him head-on. He can see those rows and rows of teeth open in a fierce snarl.
Sometimes the only difference between bravery and stupidity is knowing the outcome.
Sokka braces himself, screwing his eyes tightly shut as he feels the beast snatch him right up in a crushing grip. The ground is far below him and as the black and white spirit runs off, Katara and Aang’s voices sound further and further away. The forest is dark— too dark. The mists press close, fogging over everything— his mind, his vision, his thoughts. It all goes fuzzy. When he looks at Hei Bai, he can see the passing trees through the massive body of the beast. He can see them through his own body too.
Aang’s chasing them on his glider, but he won’t catch up in time. He can hear the black and white spirit panting. The mists press close.
It’s the last thing he knows.
…
This time is different.
He’d been counting on that, actually. He doesn’t remember being trapped in the spirit world the first time. But now he can recognize the warped trees around him as twisted by their guardian’s grief and wrath, and when Hei Bai sets him down in a huddle of other kidnapped villagers, Sokka mimes compliance, staring straight ahead with a vacant expression amid the other kidnapped waking sleepwalkers.
The spirit stares down at him, bending his great black-and-white head low to huff hot breath across his face. That tongue lashes from between those terrible teeth.
Sokka carefully does not react, faking his dreaming. It’s like Ko, he thinks. No expressions.
The beast leaves, moving off to wail in the distance with that awful mourning cry that rends the dark forest around him even darker and more twisted, hate feeding hate. Anger in a circle.
He knows what that’s like, and he doesn’t dare breath until those wails have drifted far enough out that it’s just him and the trapped villagers. He counts them first, one by one. Seven people, all of them like dolls waiting to be picked up next and directed about. It’s creepy but he doesn’t dare try to wake them. He trusts Aang to figure this out. He’s got until sunset tomorrow until Hei Bai returns.
Sokka puts his plan in action. Aang would have tried to follow them. He’s stuck here somewhere too, separated from the black and white spirit.
He doesn’t bother with finding Aang. Roku’s dragon will find him, and Aang desperately needs the spiritual guidance only the previous Avatar can gift him. That’s not something he’d dare interfere with.
Sokka looks down at the misty ground below his feet. The moss is growing in shades of black under him. He shakes his head at the sight, creeped out. Getting himself stuck in the spirit world again wasn’t the plan this time. his entire point of visiting here was to force a meeting between Aang and Roku via the helpfully pissed off Hei Bai. Getting snatched wasn’t on his original agenda.
He can work with this. He’s nothing if not adaptable.
He studies his surroundings. There’s a ring of animal statues around him, identical to the forest circle in the real world. None of them are animals he recognizes, but one looks similar to one of Wan Shi Tong’s knowledge-stealers. Fox, the librarian had called them. Just fox. The spirit world is fucking weird.
He doesn’t quite dare to leave the circle, wary of getting lost forever. Instead, he sinks right down onto that black, fuzzy moss, and lets his eyes slide closed. He breaths carefully in, then out. In, then out. Waves against the shore. In. out. Push. Pull.
When he opens his eyes it’s back to that dark, dreary circle, not the North Pole’s spirit oasis, because that would have made things easy on him. He tries again, straining like that’s going to help force the meditation to work. But the nighttime forest is dark enough that something starts to sink in.
There is no moon in the spirit world’s skies.
Sokka scowls, frowning hard. “Come on,” he complains. “A little help here? Anything? Tui?”
The Moon does not answer him. It’s not unexpected— the moon spirit doesn’t even inhabit the spirit world— but the crushing of his hope is like a window shutting in his soul. It’s one whole avenue of help he now knows is cut off, the death of his secret desire that this time, he wouldn’t be just the guy with a boomerang.
The knowledge digs at him, twisting. Roku will be there to help guide Aang down the right path. Sokka can count of no such favors from his spirit helper.
But he’s still got his mind, and that’s all he’s ever needed.
Sokka reorients his plan at once, fixing the fact that he can expect little help from the moon that changed his eyes into his belief system, even with the inherent disquiet of the act. He doesn’t attempt meditation either— even inside the spirit world, he knows he’s particularly lacking in the spiritual sensitivity department.
But there is one thing he can do.
Sokka might not be spiritually adept, but he knows the rules of the spirit world. He knows what makes this place function with all it’s twisty little paths, all the ways it bends without breaking, until even living in the lie of it feels real. Belief matters. In this place, it’s the intent that counts.
Sokka stands back up, falling back into place amid the group of sleeping villagers. He looks at them, and they look peaceful enough. He doesn’t remember the dream the first time.
He wants a better dream now.
Sokka fixes his eyes forward and his thoughts inward, letting the fog voluntarily roll back over him. Yue, he thinks, holding her face in his mind. He pictures her, down to every smallest detail. Her hair. Her face. The eyes that shine just as his own do, mirrors of the moon, a matched set they share. Dream of me.
The fog washes over him, and he goes to his dreaming like an old friend.
…
The next thing he knows, he’s stumbling forward into fading sunlight. Dusk creeps along the shadowed edges of the bamboo that he pushes gentle aside, blinking fog out his eyesight. He steps clear of the bamboo and into the courtyard, and Katara slams into him a moment later.
“You’re back!” she yells, hugging him.
The word prompts something deep inside him, and with a rush everything comes back. Hei Bai. The spirit world. The closure of the moon and Yue’s face in his mind. Then, deeper…
The fog lifts.
He remembers the dream he had inside another dream; the awareness of it rises like pushing past the surface of dark water to reach air beyond. He blinks against the flow of knowledge, everything in his head sliding around as he shuffles his thoughts back into order, Katara’s grip around his neck helping jar things back into place.
“How do you feel?” Katara asks him anxiously. “You’ve been trapped in the spirit world for 24 hours.”
He feels like he could cry from sheer relief, but what he tells her is he really has to pee so he can slip away to compose himself before his expression can give anything away.
Aang’s busy chattering away with Katara, Momo pressing close along the line of his shoulders. He ducks inside the village townhouse for a bathroom and finds it easily.
There is a mirror inside. Small. Handheld with a silver handle. It’s dark but the lit candle provides enough light to see. He looks at himself for a long moment. The candle flame dances across the silvered center of his gaze, and he turns away to press his forehead into the cool wood of the wall.
He reached her. He knows he reached her. A thousand miles between them, and he reached her. He’s never seen her face but could carve it from route memory. He knew her for a week and has spent the last almost 4 years mourning her and waiting to see her again.
He thinks hard, memorizing the dream even as it tries it’s best to slip away. Parts are fuzzy, everything indistinct, the logic twisting on itself, but…
Zhao, he’d warned. The Fire Nation. The spirit oasis. Tui and La. A red moon overhead. A doom he’s not going to let happen a second time.
The warning is mostly the same as the one he sent by hawk to Pakku, aside from the doom part. He might trust the White Lotus member to pass along his warning to the Noth Pole chief, he might trust that this time he’s changing things, but Katara’s necklace is gone and he feels the noose of fate at his throat and he’ll get kidnapped by angry spirit monsters any day as long as he gets the chance to have Yue live past the end of spring.
But there’s something else in his head, in the dream. Something that didn’t come from him.
The comet is as bright as a falling star. It would be beautiful if the sight of it didn’t fill him with such black dread.
He hasn’t told anyone about the end of the timeline, has never even said the word comet aloud before. But the image is fresh in his mind as it was the day he died beneath it’s glow.
Sokka presses his face harder into the wall, elated and devastated that his burden might be shared. Because the comet is from her, and she’s trying to warn him right back.
He struggles to control his breathing but that comet is all he can see when he closes his eyes. He leaves the lodge house, finds Aang and Katara and the airbender isn’t celebrating his win. Instead, his gray eyes are troubled.
“Sokka,” Aang says, and Sokka has to take a second to consider what he’s going to do if Roku somehow knows about his previous life and blabbed to Aang. “Something’s changed,” the Avatar says.
“When I was in the spirit world, I couldn’t talk to Roku,” Aang admits. “But I found a way where I can talk to him. There’s this temple on an island, and if I’m there on the Solstice, I’ll be able to reach him.” But there’s no excitement on his friend’s face at the prospect of connecting with a past life. “I think there’s something coming. Something he’s trying to warn me about.”
Sokka swallows thickly, but there’s no internal debate when he says, slow and careful, “is it about a comet?”
Aang just looks at him. “How did you know that?”
He treads carefully. “I… I’m not sure,” he says. “I told you I’d speak up if I ever had any weird feelings or things and this isn’t something like that, maybe? Or maybe it is?” He takes a deep breath, steeling himself. “I’ve been seeing a comet in my dreams. One so bright it fills the sky until it blots out the moon. And that gives me a very, very bad feeling.”
And oh, the way his sister looks at him.
Sokka goes on, somewhat rambling. “Bad feelings aside, if my dreams and Roku both say this comet is a bad deal, I think it’s worth hearing out. I’m not sure if I trust my own weird dream stuff, but Roku is your past life. If he confirms this, I’ll believe him.”
“Yeah,” Aang chokes out, eyes wide. “About that.” He takes an equally deep breath. “That island I need to be on for the Solstice?”
Sokka just watches him, bracing for the blow.
The Avatar continues. “It’s in the Fire Nation…”