Chapter Text
Sometimes Aang would do something that would so viscerally remind Sokka that he wasn’t just a goofy kid but also the Avatar. Aang should’ve continued fleeing with Katara and Suki, but he chose to wrestle the Unagi into spraying the village. That feeling of awe was enough to overwhelm the twinge of sorrow as he realized he was being left behind again. He knew it was for the best. If he had had to choose anyone to replace him, it would’ve been Suki anyway.
A hand snatched the back of his collar, yanking him backwards. Sokka twisted to slash at his attacker with his fan, but Zuko knocked it out of his grasp. Zuko shoved Sokka into the side of the building with his forearm pressed into his neck. Sokka could feel Zuko’s hot breath blowing against the loose strands of hair on his forehead as he leaned in.
“Where is the Avatar going?” Zuko growled.
“I’m not telling you,” Sokka choked out with a smile.
For a moment, Sokka thought Zuko might take him out right there. Instead, Zuko huffed before yanking a sash off Sokka’s armor and flipping the other around to tie his hands. Sokka tried kicking out, but Zuko knocked him hard enough into the wall to steal his breath and his thoughts. Zuko hauled him over to the komodo rhino and tossed him onto the back. He easily leapt up and grabbed the reins.
“Get to the ship. We leave immediately,” Zuko commanded with a sharp snap of the reins. The rhino thundered down the hill, leaving his men to scramble behind him. Sokka tried to free himself, but no amount of struggling would knock him off the rhino.
Zuko didn’t waste any time once he got back to the ship. He dragged Sokka kicking and shouting down the metal halls. Finally, he swung open a door, threw Sokka inside, and slammed the door shut so hard the walls rang. Landing hard on his face, Sokka groaned into the floor. Once his head stopped spinning, he twisted around to survey the room, only seeing the metal walls illuminated by lights too far out of reach, even if his hands had been free.
He let his head drop down onto the floor, the hollow bang echoing. Being Zuko’s prisoner was less than ideal, but he could work with this. Zuko was hunting after the Avatar, so as long as he didn’t get transferred to a prison ship, he’d be heading towards Aang. He needed to be just useful enough to stay on the ship. Then he would break out when the opportunity was right. He just had to figure out how he would do that.
With no window to the outside, he has no clue how long they left him there. Eventually, the door unlocked, and two soldiers marched in. He bared his teeth and pressed himself against the wall. It was to no avail as one soldier hauled him up, and the other began disarming him. He was left in just the green kimono. Even his hair tie had been taken out, letting the ends of his hair fall just to his ears. When they untied his hands, he felt the itch to punch at least one of them but held himself back.
Some time after they left, someone slid open a slot at the bottom of the door and pushed in bread and water. Sokka wondered for a moment if they put something in the food, but he couldn’t see the benefit. The bread was hard, but food is food. He wasn’t going to turn his nose up at something edible.
He stayed awake for as long as he could, but eventually the adrenaline of the day wore off, and the overwhelming boredom proved to be too much. He woke up when he heard the sliding of metal, but it was only food again. An ache in his neck steadily grew as all he could lay against was metal for what was beginning to feel like forever. It wasn’t until he got a fifth serving of food that the door slammed open.
Zuko stormed in, his uncle following closely behind. “Where is the Avatar going?”
“Already told you that I’m not telling,” Sokka snarked, rolling away to avoid the heel kick.
Zuko hauled Sokka up. He felt the spit from the next few words on his face. “You will tell me where the Avatar is going. What is he planning?”
“Or what?” Sokka kept his gaze steady even with the smeared makeup melting into his eyes.
Zuko yelled and tossed him back onto the floor. Zuko turned to leave the room when Sokka saw the blue glint at his wrist. He surged forward, clawing at his sister’s necklace. Zuko kicked him away, but not before he had ripped the necklace off.
“Why do you have my sister’s necklace?” he demanded, clutching the necklace so tightly that his fingers paled.
“So the Water Tribe girl is your sister?” Zuko said more to himself than Sokka.
“Why do you have it?” Sokka repeated.
“If you want to find out about your sister, tell me what the Avatar’s plans are,” Zuko insisted, his voice lowered a couple of octaves.
For a moment, Sokka considered saying something, but he knew Aang wouldn’t leave his sister behind. Zuko hadn’t known the necklace was important to him; he was just using it as a bargaining chip that Sokka had stupidly given him. Sokka pinched his lips together, glaring at Zuko in lieu of an answer.
“Fine rot in here for all I care,” Zuko shouted. He stomped out of the room. His uncle sent Sokka a small smile before shutting the door much more gently than it had been opened.
Sokka rubbed his thumb gently over the pendant. He couldn’t imagine his sister would easily part with the necklace, but she was smart. She wouldn’t throw away everything just for the necklace. She had to be okay.
He put the necklace on. The fit was tight, but it was worth it. Even while trapped in a metal ship so far away from home, he still had the Water Tribe with him. He would be okay. He was a Water Tribe warrior.
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“Nephew, I would suggest you use a bit more finesse when dealing with our guest,” Iroh said, sipping on a freshly brewed cup of ginseng tea as he eyed his nephew pacing the bridge.
Zuko whirled around on him. “Our guest? He is our prisoner. I should go back down there and rip the information out of him.”
Iroh laid a hand on Zuko’s shoulder. “Using fear hardly ever gets you the truth. Try a softer hand. Give him clean clothes, let him wash his face, and feed him well. A man will never bow to an enemy, but he may have looser lips when shown kindness.”
Zuko scrunched up his nose tightly before relaxing just a bit with a stilted exhale. He turned to a crewmember. “Get the prisoner a change of clothes and a bedroll. Dinner will be with me.”
The crewmember nodded and then rushed off. Zuko didn’t spare a thought as to where the clothes would come from. The Water Tribe peasant could be naked for all he cared if it meant getting the Avatar.
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Sokka didn’t know what game Zuko was playing by sending him a bunch of dresses so soon after that failure of an interrogation, but he wasn’t going to fall for it. He wasn’t going to be embarrassed by wearing a dress. That time with Suki had shown him that a dress can be a warrior’s uniform. He would have preferred to keep wearing the green kimono, but after spending days in the Unagi spit soaked outfit, he was willing to change.
He wasn’t thrilled that they offered red dresses, but he supposed it was the Fire Nation after all. They probably had some stupid law about wearing any other color. He found a dark pink dress that would have to be acceptable. If he squinted, it could be purple. The dress was certainly softer than he thought he’d get as a prisoner. The skirt trailed along the floor, even with his boots on. The top was tight around the shoulders, but the sleeves billowed out past his hands.
Not long after he was changed, a soldier came in with a wide, shallow bowl and placed it on the floor. When Sokka didn’t move to take it, the soldier made a sweeping motion with his hands toward his own face. Sokka got the message and washed his face with the water. A cloth was held in front of his face. He snatched it quickly and wiped off his face. It wasn’t nearly as nice as a bath would be, but he still felt better without the ruined makeup caked on his skin.
The soldier took the cloth back and then gestured at the door where another soldier waited. Sokka stood, sweeping his hands across the front of the skirt like he’d seen the women in the village do. He had to concentrate to avoid stepping on the hem of the dress as the soldiers led him through the ship into a much bigger room than before. A mattress lay on the floor under the symbol of the flame. The wide eyes on a dragon’s head seemed to follow him with each step in the room. Two curved swords decorated the wall, and he wondered if he could snatch one before the fire nation prince fuming at the table could stop him.
He didn’t get the chance to try as a hand on his shoulder pushed him down to kneel at the table. Zuko seemed to stare at him for a moment with a confused squint but quickly returned to his signature scowl and commanded the crew to leave. Sokka didn’t look into it too much because the food on the table smelled so good. He had to swallow to keep the drool from pooling in his mouth.
“As much as I love meat, I’m not betraying Aang for it,” he said, though a part of him was that desperate for a taste.
“Aang,” Zuko repeated almost too quietly to hear and then said much louder, “If you tell me your name, you can have some.”
“Sokka,” he answered without hesitation and immediately used the long chopsticks on the table to serve himself a huge helping of fish. He then used his own, smaller chopsticks to stuff his mouth. Zuko grimaced in disgust.
“I’m Zuko,” he said.
Sokka paused in his chewing to say with a spittle spray, “I know that.”
Zuko clenched his teeth so hard that Sokka was surprised he couldn’t hear them cracking. The table did crack with how hard Zuko gripped it. Sokka could tell how difficult it was for Zuko not to flip the table. Sokka could only hope he’d make it more difficult. He was going to make Zuko regret kidnapping him on Kyoshi.
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What neither teenager knew was just as news of the Avatar had spread through the fisherman, so had news of the prince’s new prisoner, though less of the truth survived this time. Originally, the rumor was that the prince had taken the Avatar’s companion from the Water Tribe, who had trained with the Kyoshi warriors. Soon, it became that the prince was taken with the Water Tribe companion when he saw her. Then it was that he had taken the Water Tribe girl as his companion. Only a few more transfers by mouth before word spread that the Fire Nation’s prince had taken the southern Water Tribe princess as his bride.