A Horrid Way to Burn

Part 1 (Chief Sokka)

Ljv

Disclaimer

"Those who hate most fervently must have once loved deeply; those who want to deny the world must have once embraced what they now set on fire."

- Kurt Tucholsky

It had been years; spaces between moments that are not really spaces at all. Time serves to mean very little when the torments of the years past are just as fresh in his mind as the torments of today. It is not insanity, but he can still hear her voice mocking him, can still smell her when he enters a room, can see her standing beside him from the corner of his eye. Had he not watched her die, he would bet his life that she was standing right beside him now.

"Madness is the appropriate reaction." Katara says.

Sokka laughs.

"It's what she would have wanted." He says back.

oooooo

As Sokka gazes at her from across the room, he wishes that in the twenty years since they had first met that he had killed her when he had the chance.

"Who were you escaping with, Azula?"

She shifts slightly in the chair in which she sits at the question; the metal cuffs about her wrists glinting in the dull candlelight of the room. However she otherwise does not make any indication of hearing his voice at all.

He leans more heavily into the wall at his back, eying the antique swords hanging on the wall just above her head before dismissing the idea. Torture induced confessions had never worked on her anyway.

He let his shoulders roll forward into a hunch letting out a low sigh of resignation as he hung his head relieving the near constant pain in his upper back that resulted from a lifetime of strict posture. He listens to the distant sound of blasts and roaring fire and wonders if the screaming people below are even real.

"Whoever your companion was," he continued, more out of malice than necessity, raising his only eyes to look at her "will be caught, questioned and then promptly killed."

This is enough for her to move her gaze to him. He recognizes the humor in the thin line of her mouth but he fails to comprehend the joke.

oooooo

Sokka discusses battle strategies with his advisors in precise detail.

Azula will immediately and competently take control of the Fire Nation once Fire Lord Ozai is eliminated. Therefore, for complete victory, Azula must be subdued before the Fire Lord is assassinated. Her immediate death would serve very little purpose. She must be detained and questioned extensively using any means necessary.

Sokka should be the one to capture her. He is the only one capable of getting close enough to her to do the job correctly.

This will be one of Sokka's greatest personal triumphs of the war if he really does succeed in taming Azula.

The plan is brilliant.

It will work.

He knows the thoughts in his mind are only ghosts of reality. He supposes that they always have been and always will be. They had always served him consistently and well in the past and he had no reason to doubt their accuracy now. So the worried look exchanged between people when speaks bothers him far less than it should have.

"Sire," they say, "the war ended ten years ago."

He is starting to find, on the whole, that his advisors are useless.

oooooo

"Why are you smiling?" He asks, straightening his shoulders, looking directly at her now.

"Am I?" She asks softly. "I didn't realize."

He frowns before leaning away from the wall and walking the length of the room to stand directly in front of her. She watches his approach with a bemused kind of grin that knows everything but betrays nothing.

"What are you hiding?" He wants his height to intimidate her. He wants her to be afraid of him. He doesn't want her to look at him as she does now. He does not want to feel as if she can see through him.

"Your guards searched me," she responded, her expression completely placid, "I am hiding nothing that hasn't already been found."

"Who was your companion?" He asks again.

"I haven't a companion." She responded serenely, her eyes glinting. "Only you."

Her bending had already been completely neutralized. Despite this, Sokka feels such anger (among other things that he will not even admit to himself in the darkest recesses of his mind) it literally burns.

Her father is dead, her brother had already long ago betrayed her and her capital city is burning. She has nothing to gain by playing these games with him.

But even this, her evasion, is nothing new.

She watches him calmly as he watches the candlelight steal up her face to reveal a small scar high on her cheek. A scar he had given her with the blade of his own knife. A scar he had once, it a much more different time, it seemed, ran his trembling fingertips over in awe.

"Princess," he says pointedly, "you realize that once I kill you that the Fire Nation will lose the war?"

"I realize many things, Chief Sokka. But I am incapable of realizing any kind of end to this war that does not result in a Fire Nation victory."

"Then you are blind."

"Am I?"

His gut clenched.

It was not like her to make mistakes. Especially one foolish enough to result in her capture. When so much and so many depended upon her survival, such a mistake was more than stupid; it was deadly. His soldiers informed him that she had only been feet away from escaping. However, she was traveling with one companion who had been caught. She had forgone her own escape to guarantee the her companion's.

With her alive she would have been more than capable of prolonging the war that had already lasted for far too long.

Catching her had been easy; far too easy.

It unnerved him.

"Who was your companion?" He asked once more; forcing all the authority he could into his voice.

"How long has it been?" She asked suddenly, a smile holding far more than amusement curving her lips.

"Since what?" He snaps back, bewildered and irritated.

She gives him a coy smile causing a chill to run down his spine. He wishes desperately that it wasn't even remotely pleasant.

"Since the last time you had me like this." She says moving her wrists as if to elaborate the cuffs binding them.

For a second, he feels a pain so intense expand within his chest he forgets to breath.

"I forget."

"Lair." She smiles.

"Nine years."

Nine years to another time when he had successfully captured her with every intention of using the princess as a prisoner of war – as a means to an end. An end that was not an ending, but another memory of war that seemed somehow too out of place to really be real at all. Nine years, back to a moment between the children of two enemies, where things had ended very differently.

He watches the candle light flicker orange against her skin and eyes and he knows to be careful of the fire he sees there. Her eyes gleam with a fierce intelligence that had proven to be a problem from the very beginning. She was a tactician by nature and a killer by nurture. She was a worthy opponent and they both had the battle scars to prove it.

She was battle hardened, wary, wise and just as beautiful as the first time he saw her. Had she not been born the daughter of his father's greatest enemy he would have made her his queen.

"Tomorrow," he says, "you will acknowledge your defeat to the entire world."

She raises a single eyebrow before laughing.

"When will you learn," she says, "that you cannot win against me?"

oooooo

Time comes and goes and even on the rare and very unfortunate occasion he finds himself caught up in it.

There is talk about the palace of replacing the king with a younger, more suitable candidate to handle such a stressful job.

"Why would anybody want to do that?" He asks, confused. "My father is doing an excellent job running the Water Tribes."

"Chief Sokka, your father is dead."

oooooo

As he gazes down at her he wishes he could strike her down. For just once in her life render her completely useless so that she knows just who between them is inferior. He wants to hurt her, he wants to wrap his hands around her neck and strangle her. He doesn't want to look at her and feel a pain so severe in his chest that the only word he can identify it with is loathing.

Sokka turned abruptly on his heel and walked the length of the room before stopping before the window. He could feel the heat from the blazing inferno that devoured the city on his face.

He wants to drag her chair to the window and make her look out of it. He wants to watch her face as her city burns.

"The public library is burning." He says matter-of-factly.

"Oh Sokka," she says, her voice exasperated, "if you want to be that petty, two can play that game."

"The flames have reached your mother's garden."

"Good." She says. "I've never liked it much anyway."

"Soon," Sokka continued, "your father's palace will burn to the ground."

"Doubtful. The palace is fire proof. You don't think Firebenders would live in a place that they are liable to burn down at any second do you?"

"Your brother betrayed you."

"I've betrayed him."

"Your father is dead."

"So is yours."

"Who was your companion?"

There was a pause before she asked, "Sokka, how is your son?"

He growled.

She laughed. "I'm guessing nobody knows he's dead yet do they? That's quite a bit of political heat to take right before the final battle, isn't it?"

Sokka froze, cold racing down his spine.

"How?"

"I have my sources. A really unfortunate illness, really. Just like the one that took your dear Kyoshi Warrior from you."

"Keep your mouth shut, you Fire Nation Whore!"

"I suppose that you would know, wouldn't you."

He turned angrily to look at her, hating her more than he had the right.

"Do not speak to me of my son."

She raised an eyebrow, not at all intimidated by his anger.

"You mean, your dead son." She said as if in correction. "I've seen drawings of him in the reports sent back to my father. I must say you have very strong blood. Your son looks exactly like you."

Before Sokka knew exactly what he was doing he was across the room with the blade of his sword pressed against her throat.

"Say something else about my son," he hisses down at her, "and lets find out what happens."

Her eyes widen fractionally before they narrowed in humor.

"Of course." She whispered. "My lips are eternally sealed."

oooooo

One of the fundamental understandings about nature is to realize that everything is trying to reach its absolute lowest potential. Just as water flows down, fire becomes extinguished, the mountains crumble, the winds will fade, and we all eventually fall.

"I make the motion to remove Chief Sokka from the throne due to…"

There was a huge uproar among the court at this statement.

The voice kept going,

"DUE TO A MENTAL INSTABILITY. I BELIEVE THAT…"

"You have no right!" Another voice screamed. "He is the greatest war hero that…"

"…HE IS NOW INCAPABLE OF RUNNING THE WATER TRIBES…"

"Who are you to say such a thing?

"He is a great king and a good man!"

"…PROPERLY! HE STILL BELIEVES THAT WE ARE FIGHTING A WAR THAT ENDED TEN YEARS AGO!"

Sokka raised his hand and immediately the entire court fell silent.

He spoke, his voice even and controlled.

"You are right Admiral Cheng, we must take the Fire Lord off of the throne. It is the only way to win this war. Azula cannot be given control of the throne. We must make an immediate move."

Silence filled the entire court.

oooooo

The doors flew open as Toph entered flanked by her own personal guards.

"Sokka," the blind woman demanded with out preamble, "why is she not dead yet?"

Sokka leaned away from Azula removing the blade of his sword from her neck.

"She has information." He replied simply not moving his gaze from Azula's. She gazed back up at him boldly.

"We have no use anymore for her information."

Sokka ignored Toph's statement and asked.

"Did you catch her companion?"

Toph straightened at the question; confusion shaping her features before an amused smile curved her lips.

"Oh Snoozles," she said, "what have I told you about being distracted by women?"

And before Sokka could fully comprehend what Toph said, she sent a flying boulder towards the wall. It crashed into it leaving a gaping hole that reveled a small boy, no more than eight or nine years old, curled against the inside of the wall. The impact left him unconscious but otherwise unharmed.

Then Toph sent a jagged rock that flew through the air and right through Azula's heart. She was dead instantaneously.

"I knew you were incapable of finishing the job, Chief Sokka. I took the burden for you."

Toph then turned to leave, her guards flanking her sides.

"Protect the princess's body. We are going to need it to show her people when day breaks. And that boy… he is yours to do with whatever you please."

Sokka stood very still listening to the lone beating of his heart.

Toph paused in the doorway.

"Your heart was already broken, Chief Sokka. Don't let it hurt you anymore."

She then left, the door promptly shutting behind her.

Azula's eyes were still open and appeared to be watching him. There was no fire however. Those were not her eyes.

Sokka heard a rustling before remembering the boy covered in a pile of debris. He quickly closed Azula's eyes with his fingertips, letting his touch linger against her face, before turning and walking over to the small form. As Sokka took in the exact shape and color of the boy, he thought for a moment he was gazing at his precious Hakoda. But Suki's son was dead just like her.

The boy then opened his eyes and knew that this was not his precious Hakoda. The boy's eyes were nothing like his and everything like hers.

And he hears Azula's voice just as if she were alive and not an impaled heap tied to a chair.

"I must say you have very strong blood. Your son looks exactly like you."

oooooo

The coronation of the new Chief required the old Chief's presence and Sokka sat very still next to his sister as the formalities of the crowning ceremony took place.

Sokka was not entirely sure what was happening. It was only when the new Chief of the Water Tribes and Fire Nation was declared did he really understand.

As the new king raises his head, it is her eyes that pierce him.

And then he hears, just as if she were sitting right by him and whispering directly into his ear, "When will you learn that you cannot win against me?"

-fin-

ooooooooooooooo

A/N:

For some clarity.

Azula bore Sokka a son who happens to look EXACTLY like him due to one passionate one night stand that Sokka obviously hasn't gotten over. The new king is Azula's and Sokka's son who sits on the throne that now rules over both the Water Tribes and Fire Nation. Sokka goes nuts because he doesn't realize the war is over and is stuck on the night Azula died. He therefore can no longer run the Water Tribes or the conquered Fire Nation. Review ; )