Tokka Week - Tradition

There were times when Sokka looked out the window of his house and was surprised to see Republic City there.

It was ridiculous, of course. The city was decades old, and Sokka had not only lived in it for most of his life, but helped to both build the place and run it, in its formative years. Regardless of the fact that the history books and dramatizations memorialized him as One of The Avatar's Companions, the real defining aspect of Sokka's life was how he took Aang and Zuko's vague dreams of "a place where there are no nations, kind of," and turned them into a city of technological wonder, where people truly did not care what country your parents once called home. (In his darker moments, Sokka thought that what he would really be remembered for, maybe a century down the road, was how he lost the fight to have Republic City self-governed, with no formal eye to elemental affiliation, and was subsequently chased out of public life. A political cautionary tale for the ages about messing with the three Established Nations' power.) So, really, there was no reason for him to not be aware of the metropolis outside his windows.

It was just that he spent so much of time remembering, these days, that sometimes he forgot it was Now and not Then.

Katara kept bugging him to return to the South Pole and help train the new Avatar, but every time he thought about it, he considered how his joints ached in the winter, these days. And, really, he had nothing to teach this Korarra girl or whatever her name was, unless it was how to publicly embarrass herself by letting a bunch of slick "politicians" from far off cities play her like a backwater rube. It wasn't like he was any good with a boomerang or sword, anymore, and he doubted an Avatar would be interested in that kind of stuff, anyway. All he could do was tell stories about the past, and Katara had that covered.

Besides, Republic City was important in its own way, even if Sokka kept forgetting about it.

He wouldn't be able to properly relive the memories without it.

On one particular night, a night in early Spring when the heat of the day still gave way to a chill after sunset, Sokka put on his ratty old bison-hair coat, tied his white hair back into a proper Warrior's Wolf Tail, took his walking stick in hand, and went out for a night on the town. He hardly ever went out anymore, not since his last attempt at being the life of the party earned him no more than pitying stares, but tonight was special.

Tonight, he had a date. His one date a year, every year, as constant as metal.

He met her in the park, next to his favorite fountain. It was the oldest fountain in the city, and Sokka had specifically commissioned it; the water spouts were carved like badgermoles, a little joke he always thought hilarious. He stood there besides the babbling water, looking at the electric lamps scattered around the parklands with a fascination that would never die, and waited. As expected, he didn't have to wait long. You could set your watch (Sokka loved watches, with all their gears and springs) by this girl.

"You're loitering, Old Man," Lin Bei Fong said as she approached, all hunched within her trench coat. The light of the electric lamps betrayed some new gray in her hair.

Sokka broke out his most foolish grin with the ease of years of practice. "Good evening, my dear. So kind of you to spare some time for a senile old fool."

She grunted. "It's not like I have much of a social life. May as well waste my off-hours in your stinking company." Sokka laughed, and Lin finally broke out that smile, the one she never displayed while she was on the job. "Seriously, there's no one I'd rather spend my evenings with than you, Old Man."

That cut off Sokka's urge to laugh like one of Piandao's jian. "Yes, remind me to give Tenzin more trouble about that."

Lin grimaced. "Please, don't."

"All right, you're the chief, Chief." Sokka broke out his signature grin again, and waggled his eyebrows at his 'date.' "But if you'll let me take the lead, I have an interesting night planned for us."

"Let me guess, Pro-Bending tickets?" Her eyes glinted in the lamp-light, and she did an almost passible job of keeping the amusement off her face.

Sokka harrumphed in response. (He had been working on his harrumphing; it was something all old men had to be able to do.) "That tame little circus? Linny, my dear, we are going to real entertainment."

The challenger slammed a gloved fist into his opponent's chin, and the champ went down with a spray of cloudy sweat and pink spit.

Most of the crowd booed as their champion sank to the mat, but Sokka rose to his feet and screamed his loudest cheer. "YEAH! KICK 'IM WHILE HE'S DOWN! RIGHT IN THE SNOWBALLS!" Some of the other people in the stands started cussing in Sokka's direction, and a rain of popcorn descended on him from a gaggle of people several benches down. Sokka shook his walking stick at them (the only reason he even had the thing) and sat down, but couldn't keep a smile off his face.

Beside him, Lin brushed some popcorn off her coat and gave Sokka one of her Looks. "You know, rooting for the underdog is fine, especially if he's winning, but there is such a thing as 'restraint.' This crowd is so nasty you could probably qualify for police protection."

"Squish squash, I have you, that's pretty much police protection, even if you're off-duty." He waved a hand at her and turned back to the ring, where the champ had gotten back up to his feet and was swiping unsuccessfully at his challenger. "Besides, I know a few moves myself if it comes to that."

"And if the champ jumps out of the ring and comes after you himself like that time two years ago?"

"Hey, that was a statistical anomaly. What are the odds of that happening again?" The notion tugged on Sokka's mind, whispering of the pleasures to be found down on Memory Lane. "You know, that reminds me of the time I first met your mother. Did you ever get the details of that one?"

"Tell me," was all Lin said.

"Okay, well, your mom had been fighting in this local Earthbending league, and the first time I saw her, she was defending her title in Earth Quake 6. No, Earth Rumble. (Pretty sure it was 'Rumble.') Anyway, those fights were the real thing, back then, but they still had a sense of showmanship, you know? None of this artificial stuff like they do with Pro-Bending, where a player comes out wearing a stupid hat or something and then puts it away by the time the match begins. Nah, the Earth Quakers- Earth Rumblers- they make their gimmick into their whole- whole thing, you know? They picked names, and wore costumes, and made fighting moves that were- like, you know, part of the gimmick. Like the Walrus; he was this ugly fat guy who smelled like cheese, and he had this move where he jumped up and down and used his Earthbending to rock the whole ring. That was something to see."

"The Hippo."

Sokka blinked and turned to his date. "What?"

"The Hippo." Lin had a little smile on, something that was far too soft for her. "Mom told me about him, but he was the Hippo."

"Listen you, don't sass me. I invented submarines, I think I can keep track about whether someone was the Walrus or the Hippo." Sokka turned back to the ring, and took vague notice that the challenger had backed the champ into a corner, and was wailing away on the bigger man. "So your mom was one of those Earth Quakers. And she was the champ. I was a fan the second I saw her. I screamed and rooted for her while she smashed this guy- pretty cool guy, mostly- named the Boulder who challenged her. (I had his autograph, but lost it when Appa got kidnapped.) That's when your Uncle Aang knew she had to teach him Earthbending. So we... did we kidnap her, or did that come later?" Sokka searched back through the memories, but it was like trying to grab ahold of water. "Well, it doesn't matter. The point is that the other Earthbenders tried to beat us all up, so your mother stepped into the ring in her pajamas- I remember those, they were yellow and the legs were so baggy it looked like she was wearing a skirt- and protected us from all forty of them, all by herself. It was the most amazing thing I ever saw, and I once saw Aang rip a man's spirit out through his throat."

"That's it."

Sokka turned back to Lin again. "What?"

"The match. The champ has been dethroned, long live the champ." She pointed over at the arena, where the ref was hoisting the younger's man gloved hands into the air while the crowd groused and booed. "Time to go, Old Man."

"Sweet!" Sokka stood up and bellowed with all his lungpower, "YEAH! YOU BROUGHT THE POUND, AND THE OTHER GUY'S ON THE GROUND!" More popcorn assailed him, but Sokka didn't care. He let Lin lead him down from the bleachers while he twirled his cane happily. "That was a show worth seeing. Martial arts are supposed to be about fighting, you know? That's why they were invented. I learned a bunch of different styles, but I always kept in mind that nothing finished a fight like distracting the other guy and knocking him on the head with something hard. Boxing is closer to that, even with all the rules and stuff, but Pro-Bending just- it has no spirit, you know? It's more like a game of Seek'n'Slush than a fight. Your mother would have hated it. Too bad she never got to try boxing, but they probably wouldn't like letting a Bender fight."

"My mother," Lin said, "would have just knocked her own way into the ring if they tried to stop her. But her style wasn't just about fighting."

Sokka stopped dead in his tracks. "You're right. Huh. I guess Toph is still schooling me, even though I'm older than dirt."

"Ooh, fancy."

Lin crossed her arms and had the nerve to waggle her eyebrows at him. "You say that every time we come here."

Sokka tapped his cane twice on the walkway and looked up at the casino. It was the gaudiest building in downtown Republic City. Eschewing the golden paints and lights of the big Pro-Bending arena, the Dragon's Breath Casino instead left its own facade a plain white, but then used spotlights filtered through tinted glass plates to turn the building into an insane motley of every color known to humanity. "Well, when they stop looking fancy, I'll stop calling them fancy. Don't sass me, Linny."

She just sighed at him, but he caught the smile on her lips as they strode through the silver doors. "Just keep your face down, Old Man. You've been thrown out of here enough times now, I think they'll probably recognize you if the bouncers get a good look."

Sokka gave an indignant harrumph, but fluffed the collar of his coat up just the same. "Well, even your mother got caught, eventually, and she was the best cheater I ever saw. Did you ever hear about the time she swindled a whole town out of so much money, they put a bounty on her head that could have funded my entire private luxury airship project?"

"Yeah, I think I heard about that once or twice. Although, you're making the bounty sound a little high-"

"Harrumph! I think I can remember where my own funding came from, thank you very much."

"...did you just actually say 'harrumph?' Out loud?"

Sokka grinned but otherwise ignored her, examining the sprawl of the casino floor. The chance wheels and dice games were right in front, their loud crowds and kinetic appearances perfectly positioned to draw newcomers into the wild atmosphere of the place. Sokka ignored them; those games bored him now, and besides, he had been banned from those tables after several of his previous annual excursions. He found what he was looking for in the distance, past the card games and tile matches, in a well-lit corner of the casino not far from the bar. Motioning Lin along with his cane, Sokka started off with devious purpose. Before long, both he and his date were standing before his prey. "I was reading about these," he said. "They call them 'slot' machines. They're similar to these things I once- um, played with- in a casino on one of the islands Zuko leased to the Water Tribes, but they were steam and water-powered. Slot machines are all gears and springs."

Lin's eyebrows rose, and she ran a caressing hand over the nearest of the devices. "All metal, hm?"

"Exactly. You do your thing, and I do mine." Sokka happily tapped his walking stick on the plush carpet floor, and then moved in front of one of the slot machines. All of Republic City's casinos used thick carpets to keep Earthbenders from cheating, but there was a reason why the city's few Metalbenders were all banned from the gambling houses. Sokka watched as Lin dropped a coin into her chosen machine and pulled the lever. She let that round play out, and when the spinning wheels informed her of her loss, she shrugged, snapped her fingers over the coin slot, and easily caught the silverish half yuan that leaped back out of the coin slot like a trained pet. Sokka grinned and turned his attention to his own slot machine. He didn't have Metalbending powers, but he had his own hard-won skills. From a hidden pocket on the interior of his coat, Sokka pulled out a small device that he had been building in his spare time. It had several dials on the face, but the best part was what was inside.

Sokka really liked all the new science coming out about electricity and magnets.

It took five lost coins before he calibrated the projected fields properly, but after that, the slot machine came up with a trio of lucky eights and rang the little victory bell. Sokka chuckled as the coins spilled out into the machine's tray, and he acknowledged the scattered applause from the other patrons around him with a nod, but his mind was elsewhere, years away from the glitz and the ringing of the casino. He turned to Lin and said, "Hey, Linny, you remember how your mother would always cheat whenever she diced with the other cops?"

Lin turned away from a little game she was making out of spinning the slot machine's wheels with nothing but nose twitches. "Of course. She was the chief, and a blind woman, but you could always see how those guys wanted to just belt her one when they figured out what she was doing."

Sokka nodded happily. "It was never really about winning for her, I don't think. Yeah, that was always fun, and spending the money was great, but for her I think it was about being clever. The first time she cheated, it was against one of those crooked pebble-under-a-cup guys. She could feel him cheating, and had no problem with punishing him for it by cheating him better. That's what it was all about, I think: her cheats were a challenge to see if anyone would notice; if anyone could cheat her back. And coming up with new ways to use her Bending was... well, it was her version of how I love coming up with new gadgets." Reminded of the magnetic wave projector in his hand, Sokka dropped another coin into the slot machine and pulled the lever again.

The victory bell went off once more, and more coins spilled out into the tray.

Sokka put another half-yuan in, gave the machine a spin, and once again a combo of bell and clinking coins announced his victory to the world.

Another coin, another win.

And another.

And another.

And another.

The applause had died by now, and Sokka heard a set of heavy footsteps on the carpet. With a polite smile, he turned to the massive bouncer standing over him with thick arms crossed over his sculpted chest. "Ah, Lee, how are the kids?"

"They're very well, Founder Sokka. And you?"

"I'm old and crazy."

"Quite so, sir. The police have been summoned, sir."

"Good man. Do I have time to stop at the bar before my arrest?"

"I would prefer not, sir. I have to do my job."

"Very well, let's not get you in trouble. Take me away."

At that point, Lin sauntered over, her Professional Look in place on her face. "Already? That was a fast one."

Sokka shrugged. "I got carried away. Here, destroy this for me?" He held out the magnetic wave projector, and Lee made a move to grab it, but Lin was quicker and had it crushed in her hand before his fat fingers even came close. By the time she was done, the metal device was reduced to a ball of scrap no bigger than a half-yuan.

Lee sighed. "I'm going to get yelled at for that."

Sokka stood on his tip-toes, reached a hand up as high as it could go, and patted the bouncer consolingly on the shoulder.

The officer who responded was a new face, but as soon as the young saw Lin standing there with Sokka, he groaned and covered he eyes with his hands. "Aw, Chief, not you, too. Cheating?"

Lin stood tall and put her hands on her hips. "I think you'll find, kid, that no one on staff actually saw me gambling, and I have just one coin on my entire person. The only thing I did was enter a casino as a Metalbender, and by itself that's a minor infraction. However, I'm refusing to pay the fine, so you'll have to arrest me and put me in holding until I agree to write a promissory note for the full amount."

Sokka got a lot of amusement out of the variety of emotions that played out over the kid's face. Eventually, the officer said, "But Chief, I can't arrest you. If the council finds out then you-"

Lin cut him off with a single motion of her hand that Sokka was pretty sure could have creased iron. "Don't worry about the council. They and I have... an understanding about tonight. Just do your job. Arrest me and the Old Man here, and put us in holding for the night. Come on, it won't be that bad. You'll have something to tell the rest of your precinct."

The officer sighed and nodded, but he turned to Sokka first. "Okay, old timer, you're under arrest for subverting the operations of a legal gaming house, but since the owners are at a loss to explain what exactly you did, we'll just hold you until morning."

Sokka nodded happily.

Sokka looked out past the metal bars, at the stone walls of the holding area, and gave a little shiver. The open windows let in the cold midnight air, and the police had taken his walking stick and coat when they booked him. "I know they don't look like each other, but this place always reminds me of when Azula locked me and your mother up with the Earth King in his palace's dungeon."

"And why do you suppose that is?" Across the cell, Lin was reclining comfortably on the cell's sole bench. It was metal, of course, and she had probably fitted it to the exact contours of her body.

Sokka gripped the bars, and let his mind flow back over the years. "I wondered that. And, of course, I came up with some theories. There's the parallel in being confined, of course, with both the bars now and the door back then being made of metal. In both of them, I'm trapped with a lovely young lady who could rip that metal away but is waiting for the most opportune moment."

Lin grunted. "Well, two out of three isn't bad, you old liar."

"Well, okay, maybe you're no spring pig-chicken anymore (huh, that really makes me feel ancient), but you're still a lovely lady. Trust me; I've made a special study of lovely ladies." Lin didn't say anything, so Sokka returned his thoughts to days long dead. "This situation is a little different, though. Toph and I were locked up with the Earth King and his bear, and we couldn't escape right away, he made us go- no, what? I thought he wouldn't leave without his bear. Maybe he wouldn't leave without saying goodbye to Ty Lee? Or something. I dunno." He sighed, but a smile soon found its way to the surface. "Ba Sing Se had been conquered by Azula, Katara was being held captive somewhere, I was locked up where no one but a bunch of corrupt secret police knew, and I had to drag along a guy who was as old as my dad but acted Aang's age. And I wasn't worried. I had your mother there, and I knew she'd be strong enough to make sure we were okay."

Lin was so quiet that Sokka began to wonder if she was asleep. He finally let go of the bars and turned to look at her, but he found Lin both awake and alert. She was staring into the space above her bench, but when she noticed Sokka's motion, she easily met his eyes. "When Mom first started to teach me Metalbending, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to do it, that I'd be a disappointment. So I asked her, I said, 'What if I'm not as strong as you? What if I can't Metalbend?' And she just patted me on the head and told me, 'Kiddo, even if you couldn't bend dirt, you'd still be the strongest little girl in the world.' And it was so simple, but it made me feel better."

Sokka nodded. "For a girl who grew up without friends, she really knew how to stand by people." A new memory occurred to him, and he sat down on the little bit of space left on the bench by Lin's feet. "Except for that time we were up all night get chased by dangerous evil Fire Nation ladies (and you can tell your Auntie Mai I said that) and she told Aang and Katara what they could do with themselves before she walked off into the sunrise. That was one of those things that was horrible to live through but lots of fun to tell stories about later. What do you say, are you up for a fun all-nighter with the smelly old man who's stealing your night off?"

"I'm up for it, Old Man. Tonight, and every year."

In the morning, Tenzin came and did the annual Bailing Out of Uncle Sokka and Company. Sokka was pleased that he and Lin were polite to each other, even if their tones were a little cool, and Tenzin even managed a, "I was thinking of you yesterday. Your mother was, of course, a special woman to me." Lin even accepted it and momentarily lost the scowl that she started with as soon as the Last Airbender showed up.

Then Sokka and Lin got out of there, retreating to a new diner she said had a good bacon congee special. As they ate, both ravenous and bleary-eyed, Sokka couldn't help but stare out the diner's windows, down the avenue to the police headquarters where Lin worked every day (well, every day but today). His eyesight wasn't so good anymore, especially not with the young sun shining out over the waking city, but he liked to think he could make out the statue that stood above the building's front entrance. It didn't really matter if he could see it, though; he knew exactly what it looked like, because he had watched a proud and strong and needy little girl grow up into the woman who had tamed and managed the first modern city. Sokka may have built Republic City, but he let it defeat him, but even though Toph had returned to the underground that she loved so much, one final time, she had done so with an unbowed back and the admiration of the entire city. Sokka wanted to be happy for her, or jealous, or inspired, or something, but there was really only one emotion that he was feeling right at that moment.

And because he was old, and disgraced, and didn't have to worry about his image anymore, Sokka spoke that emotion out loud: "I miss Toph."

Across the little diner table, Lin nodded heavily. "Me, too." She polished off the last of her tea, stood up, and recovered her trench coat from the back of her chair. "Same time next year, Old Man?"

"If I'm still alive. Maybe I'll try to die, this year."

"Don't. Well, see you soon, Old Man."

"Yeah. Have a good one, Linny."

She gave him one last pat on the shoulder, and then she was gone. Sokka stayed a while and nursed his tea. When there was just one sip left, he raised the cup into the air, and said, "I still love you, Toph. See you soon."

He downed the last of the tea, and walked out into the daylight.

END