Sokkla Saturdays Drabbles

1) Fascination

The ministers had been banished and didn’t come back, ex-Loser Lord Ozai wasn’t feeling helpful, and Iroh’s knowledge of the court was several years out of date. When Zuko admitted that he was in urgent need of political information, it didn’t take Sokka long to figure out the most likely source of intelligence.

That’s how he wound up in Princess Azula’s abandoned bedroom, going through stacks of journals and putting his boots up on the bed.

It turned out that she was quite the cataloguer, and had indeed written plenty down- everything from her training schedule to the details of the meetings she attended. Sokka earmarked the stuff that would help Zuko, but found himself engrossed in the more mundane material as well.

Then he found a journal devoted to him. Aang, Katara, and Toph all shared one, and that writing was fairly dry. But his- it filled pages and pages, and was written in Azula’s true voice. She had listed his victories and his capabilities. She speculated on his weaknesses. She wondered why he fought. She complimented his tactics.

She said he was the most fascinating of her enemies.

Sokka kept the journal, and didn’t tell anyone about it.

---

2) Attraction

“Peasant.” Azula gripped his neck with one hand and held fire in the other. “Explain yourself.”

“Well-“ Sokka strained against her clutch- “you were trying to shoot me with that freaky lightning but you’re actually a pretty slow shot with it so I ran and dodged like a hog-monkey with Aang on top of it and-“

Azula held the fire closer. “Not that part. Explain why you-“

“I’m getting to it,” Sokka interrupted her right back. “While you were aiming, you held the lightning long enough to magnetize your armor.”

“What?”

“Yup. Electricity can generate a magnetic field around metals that aren’t themselves magnetized, and you had quite a charge going. I happened to be clutching Boomerang pretty hard. When I did that tuck’n’roll to get behind you, we got caught in your magnetic field. One yank and a stumble later… oopsie.”

“So you’re saying my armor pulled your metal weapon and you, and it was a complete accident that your hands ended up on my-“ Her face went red despite the blue light. “My-“

“Exactly.”

The fire in her hand flickered and her glare went all lopsided. She was obviously having trouble believing him.

Honestly, Sokka had doubts, too.

---

3) Confidence

When the bag was yanked off Sakura's head, she found none other than Princess Azula standing before her in full armor.

"Your Highness!" Sakura tried to bow, but then remembered that she was tied to a chair, having been kidnapped and carried in a box to wherever this dark place was. She blinked. "Um, am I in trouble?"

Azula looked back with cold eyes. "You are a teenage girl, like me. You talk to your friends at school about romantic matters? Share confidences?"

Sakura blinked. "Um, kind of? Daiyu has a thing for Lee, and Quianru-"

"Good. I have need of an expert to take into my confidence for informed analysis."

Sakura blinked. "Um, sure?"

"Excellent. Yesterday, during a military operation, I incited a boy into shoving me up against a wall, and our faces were nearly touching before we had to part. It made me feel tingly. Your thoughts?"

Sakura blinked. "Um, that's nice? Maybe ask him out the next time you see him?"

"Ah, that’s genius!" Azula grinned. "Your analysis is appreciated. Now, to protect certain sensitive information, I'm afraid you're going to have to die. Your family will be compensated for your loss."

Sakura blinked. "Um, what?"

---

4) Scar

Zuko. Zuzu. He has Father’s Mark, of course, but also that delicious splash of pink scar tissue in the center of his chest. Besides the Mark on his face, the lightning strike directly to his heart couldn’t be placed better.

Avatar Aang. A circle of boiled flesh on his back, forever ruining the blue tattoo line running straight over the spine. If the tattoos, those arrows running along his major Qi lines, are the last legacy of his people, then the scar is a reminder of their fate that will live as long as the Avatar does.

The Waterbender, Katara. She has no external marks on her, but she was the one who had to pull both Zuzu and the Avatar back from the brink of death, had to see those wounds in all their fresh glory. Yes, the Waterbender has scars, but she keeps them behind her eyes.

And yet the last of her oldest enemies, Sokka, has no scars. His injuries all healed fully. He never saw his friends fall. He found that the implications about his captured lover were false. He won all his battles.

Over the years, Azula became relieved that Sokka had escaped her unscathed.

---

5) Muse

"If you really want to solve the problem," Sokka finally said, "we should start by identifying some people outside the city who can get access to Warlord Senso. We put them somewhere quiet, take on their identities, and get welcomed past the fortifications into Senso’s court. Then we hang around, find someone ambitious and stupid- there's always someone like that laying low in every isolated government- and encourage them to launch a coup. We make sure the treachery happens smoothly and then launch our own coup before the new management settles in. Once things are stable, we appoint someone to rule the city for us who will be nice and honor the laws and won't launch attacks on neighboring city-states. Simple!"

Katara rolled her eyes. "We're not turning hostile former colonies into- into puppet states! Where do you even get ideas like this?"

"It happened to us, remember?" Sokka shrugged. "And while one example is a small sampling, it does prove the plan can work without throwing an army at a fortress city and hoping the survivors don’t rampage through the populace. Azula brought an army in later, by all accounts."

Everyone stared at him, and he couldn’t guess why.

---

6) Question

Azula stepped out from her sanctum and her followers sang their prayers. She strode across the alter, the jewels on her costume glinting in the sacred torchlight, and approached the prisoner chained over the sacrificial drain.

There was a certain theatricality that came with being worshiped as a goddess.

She recognized the prisoner. It was Sokka. It was always Sokka. With her brother confined by borders, the Avatar kept busy by the troublesome new age, and the rest of their cohorts distracted, it was always left to Sokka to track her down. "I'm impressed you found me, this time. We're far from civilization, and my new followers would rather die than speak my name to enemies."

He stared back defiantly. He was always defiant. "I know you too well, now. I think your sicko thoughts almost before you do. And I keep track of all the death cults in my spare time. The rest was easy."

"You know me, truly? You know the living danger I am?" The worshipers behind her began chanting her name. "Then answer me a question."

He waited, still defiant- still Sokka.

She brushed her lips against his left ear and whispered, "How do I stop?"

---

7) Dream

In the Dreaming, he sees Azula's fullness.

Spoiled child and decrepit hermit, warrior princess and criminal consultant, brilliant tactician and insane wreck, wanderer and city-stealer, baby and woman and girl and crone and teenager and the awkward phases where those concepts combine. The Dreaming removes the illusions of Time, stripping it away so that every moment is Now. Azula is rendered the simultaneous sum of her entire life.

She is glorious and terrible and beautiful and horrifying and most of all Herself.

Sokka hates Spirit Stuff, especially the kind that messes with the four-dimensional reality he's so fond of, but in this instant where he sees Azula in what can only be described as her 'quantum nakedness,' he has to admit that this is a memory he will cherish, will dream of.

The baby and woman and girl and crone and teenager all open their eyes as one, and Azula looks back at him with hate and love and respect and disdain and guilt and hunger. He smiles for those golden eyes- always golden- and reaches out to her. "Hi. I'm here to take you home."

All of her says in reply, "Finally."

Then she takes his hand.