Replica

An Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfiction

by Nelarun

Avatar: The Last Airbender does not belong to me.

Toph and Katara had both offered their help but Sokka refused every time it was offered. He cut a sombre figure as he searched the scorched ground, aware of his friends watching from the ridge above, aware that Toph had already searched and found, that Katara could feel the location through the moist earth, that the wind had already whispered the location to Aang, but he didn't care for their help. He'd already told them to return to the Fire Nation or the Earth Kingdom proper, to go and do their own thing, but they always watched. Probably laughing at me. Sokka stopped walking and looked around at his location, a dry and barren land, the shadow of a man the only life left here. The land was cracked, and shattered, silently crying out in pain, willing someone to hear.

For the entire war, Sokka had tried to be the smiling jester, the joke that no one took seriously, the one that everyone could shout at without fear of him shouting back seriously, because turning on him was better than turning on each other. He had held them together with jokes and idiocy and asked only that they remain a group in return. But now he was tired. The war had robbed him of his normal good temper, each joke he cracked was harder than the one that preceded it, each smile offered was more and more grudgingly given, a dim imitation of his usual beaming grin, it never reached his eyes.

He had left the South a boy and finished this war a veteran, a man jaded by the realities of life, of war, realities that he had striven to keep from Katara and Aang and Toph. To them it was simple: farms were surrounded by ripe food, so the people had enough to eat – they supposed that the farmers were at the next farm over, helping with their harvest – never imagining that the people lay butchered in their homes or were too afraid to leave them, unsure of whether the approaching figures were Fire Nation, Earth Kingdom, bandits or even worse, desperate refugees. In the towns, girls and boy gave brittle smiles that told Aang they were happy to see him, but that told Sokka that they were too afraid to come over to them, to say hello, that they wished the boy talking animatedly with them would just leave them be, but they were too frightened of what the traveller may do to them should they turn their backs. Adults became cowards, apathetic or violent. No one cared for each other, just themselves – even among family units. How many times had he seen a child wandering the streets because he or she had become a burden on his parents? How many times had a sick person been cast aside because medicine wasn't cheap and the doctor wouldn't come without being paid first?

Sokka glanced back to the ridge. After the initial joy of winning the war, skirmishes had started up once more, there was too much anger and unrest for the war to end just because one man was dead. He didn't blame people for being sceptical of the Avatar. Their entire life the people of the world, especially of the Earth Kingdom where the majority of the worlds population lived, had been subjugated by benders of the fire and earth persuasion. He didn't blame people for calling Aang air-headed, after all he wanted to explore and do only fun things, let alone the fact that his people had sky bison and instead of fleeing and helping the world, they patiently waited for the Fire Army to traverse impossibly steep terrain and wipe them out. He didn't even blame people, especially those from the coastal regions, for flinching away from Katara and himself - for too long the water tribesmen had hired themselves out as ocean raiders, sea wolves, murderers. The people of the world didn't see the young war heroes, and how Sokka scoffed at that title, there were no heroes in war, none that were alive at any rate, as a symbol of what could be attained should the people of the tribes, and kingdoms and nation band together. Not any more. They were now a group of people who had brought about great change, but who couldn't keep that change afloat, who had plunged battle grounds back into war when it was all about to end one way or another.

And not for the first time, Sokka wondered if Ozai had been so wrong to want what he had wanted? Wrong in how he went about it certainly, but wrong for wanting a peaceful land? A world united? Winters in the poles would have been bearable with a few fire benders to keep the fires burning, the healers from the water tribes could have been a great asset: a chance to stop the suffering of those in other lands, a chance to irrigate inland farm lands, hell even blood bending had it's uses. The ability on the nights of the full moon to take control of a person about to hurt another, to subdue someone attempting to flee from a crime? Earth benders could have saved towns and villages from earth slides, helped build houses and churn farmlands, but each realm had jealously guarded their secrets to the point of hoarding them, looking upon other benders with suspicion. If he was Ozai, he probably would have wanted to start again too.

He heard movement and glanced behind him once more to see his friends stopping in their quest to come down to him as he faced them. He blamed them for their well meaning endeavours. They wanted to help him find his weapons, but they didn't want to understand that this was something that Sokka had to do on his own. He had left the camp, had travelled to the Earth Kingdom on his own for that reason. His boomerang and sword were part of him just as bending was part of them. Sokka, satisfied that they weren't going to help him today or to suggest that he return to their makeshift camp, continued his search. He felt sympathy for Ozai, not that he'd ever confide that to anyone. Much like his friends didn't understand his need to search on his own, under his own powers, they wouldn't understand his feelings towards Ozai, wouldn't even give him the chance to explain. What Aang had done to the Pheonix King was far more cruel than any execution could ever hope to be. At least execution meant an end to all the senses, not just the extra ones all benders possessed.

He paused and looked up, the maths running through his mind once more. Calculating the speed and trajectory of descent this was where his sword should have landed, but there were nothing more than scorched earth and scars in the land. And suddenly Sokka realised what had happened, his heart skipping a dreadful beat. Aang and Ozai had fought here, if not here then in this region. Their battle had torn up the land with fire and wind and water and earthquake. The sword could be anywhere, even carried out to the ocean as the water receded. For the first time in a long time, emotion swirled in Sokka's breast. Anger, furious, hot anger. Aang had robbed him of his chance to find the missing parts of his soul.

For a bender, they would go to the ends of the earth to restore what was lost, but for a non-bender, they would say 'there's no time to retrieve your silly weapon, they're easily replaced, we'll just buy a new weapon in the next town.' They didn't understand that each weapon had to be broken in, you had to train with the weapon until you knew it better than your knew your hand. No two weapons were the same, they were weighted differently, balanced differently. Going into battle with an unfamiliar weapon was worse than going into battle with no weapon. The anger dissipated as quickly as it had arrived. Sokka ducked his chin and continued walking, his eyes on the ground, a shadow, a replica constantly searching for the two objects that may no longer exist, searching for those lost parts of his soul.

A/N: Thank you Corthis for reading it over
The idea behind this was that war changes people and I wished to take a look at how Sokka would have changed.