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On the ground where Sokka lay asleep, his body was drenched in sweat as he tossed and turned in distress.
The memory of the firebender who had burned him—the pain, the searing heat—still haunted his mind. His body responded to the trauma, and his temperature began to rise. With a faint groan barely audible to anyone, Sokka abruptly woke.
"I'm too hot," he muttered, soaked with sweat as he stumbled out of his home.
"Please..." he panted, wandering aimlessly through the village.
When the heat became unbearable, he collapsed onto a snowdrift. The moment his body hit the snow, it began to hiss and melt into steam.
"Please, let this pass soon," Sokka thought, feeling the cold slowly soothe his feverish skin.
Eventually, as his temperature dropped, he slipped into a deep sleep, uncaring of the risk of hypothermia.
The next morning, a young Katara woke early, eager to do her chores or play with her brother. Ever since the attack—ever since the time she couldn't even see him due to his injuries—she hadn't wanted to be apart from him, afraid something might happen again.
"Sokka, wake up! Let's play!" she called, skipping toward his sleeping bag.
But when she got closer and saw it was empty, her cheerful expression turned to worry. She tried to reassure herself—maybe he'd just stepped out early. Yet the sight of his coat and clothes still lying inside quickly crushed that hope.
"Gran Gran!" Katara shouted desperately. "Sokka's gone! His stuff is still here, but he's not!"
Hearing the panic in her voice, Gran Gran immediately bundled up and stepped outside to search.
"What's going on?" asked one of the village women, alarmed. "Where's Sokka?"
"I'll look for him," Gran Gran said, her voice thick with concern.
"Sokka!" Katara and her grandmother called out as they searched frantically.
Within minutes, every woman in the village had stepped outside, asking what had happened. Once they learned Sokka was missing—without his winter gear—they all joined the search with urgency.
An hour passed with no sign of him. Anxiety spread quickly among the women, some already preparing themselves to venture into the frozen tundra, even if they lacked experience in such harsh conditions.
Then, a voice pierced the tension.
"There's a boy over here!" a woman shouted.
Katara and Gran Gran rushed toward the voice.
There, half-buried in snow, lay a small Sokka. He seemed unconscious—or in a deep, unshakable sleep.
"Sokka!" Katara cried, fearing the worst.
The boy merely frowned in his sleep and mumbled:
"Five more minutes..."
"Get up, you dummy! You're lying in the snow without your coat!" Katara yelled, frantic.
At her voice, the groggy boy blinked awake. A wave of cold crashed over him, and he shivered violently before bolting home.
Back inside, he was immediately met with scoldings from both Katara and Gran Gran—concern thinly veiled as frustration.
"Sorry, I just... I was too hot," Sokka explained, sipping warm milk from an animal he didn't care to identify.
After a light scolding, Katara and Gran Gran left the igloo to get on with their day. Sokka's expression shifted subtly. Something felt different—lighter. As if his mind had shed some of its burden.
Inspecting himself, he noticed that his chi control had been working unconsciously, enhancing his resistance to the cold.
When he stepped outside again, he ran into a woman who looked exhausted and worn.
"Sokka, I hate to ask, but... could you bring me some fish?"
The boy nodded, heart aching at the sight of her fatigue. Hakoda and the men had left enough supplies to last a year, but no more than that. A dull anger stirred in Sokka's chest.
"Of course. I'll get some right away."
The woman gave a hopeful smile and let him go.
Without delay, he gathered his fishing nets and set off in a medium-sized canoe, heading toward one of the spots his father had once shown him. As he paddled away, another woman joined the first.
"Do you really think he'll catch anything? Even when Hakoda was here, he wasn't that good," she said, doubtfully.
"I don't have a choice," the first woman replied with a sigh. "I have to believe in him."
What they didn't know was that their conversation—questioning Sokka's ability—had been overheard by two separate figures, each unaware of the other.
For the first twenty minutes, Sokka found nothing, rowing across the icy waters toward the familiar location. But the closer he got, the more fish he saw. When he finally caught a few, he realized the area was only a corridor—fish were moving through, not settling. This wasn't the true fishing ground.
Paddling to follow the trail, Sokka thought bitterly about his father. A good leader, sure—but not much else. He had settled for scraps, when with a little patience, he could have had so much more.
That thought was confirmed when Sokka reached the real fishing grounds.
The sea was alive with color and motion—schools of fish, giant crabs, shrimp the size of dogs, and lobsters shaped like twisted hybrids. In a single throw of the net, he caught more than Hakoda could in two days. By the end, his canoe overflowed with fish, with two more submerged nets tied behind it.
With the day's work done, Sokka turned toward an old Fire Nation ship—the one the tribe had destroyed long ago. Maybe he could find something useful: seeds, maps, blueprints, weapons, tools—anything to help his people.
When he reached the wreck, he marveled at the design. Crude compared to the ships of his past life, but not by much. As he moved to enter through what looked like a side hatch, a chill raced down his spine, and the hairs on his arms stood up.
Sensing danger, Sokka leapt sideways—just in time to avoid a trapdoor that snapped open beneath where he'd stood.
"That was close," he muttered, breath catching in his throat.
As he delved deeper into the warship, more traps revealed themselves. But instead of fear, Sokka felt exhilaration. His heightened senses and chi-enhanced perception gave him a split-second advantage—enough to dodge danger. And he could feel it improving with every step.
Room by room, he searched, ignoring useless logs but grabbing anything of value—repair blueprints, ship schematics, and a detailed map of the vessel's interior.
Guided by instinct, he found the food storage and retrieved several bags of well-preserved seeds. With traps snapping behind him, he escaped the ship—now able to sense danger half a second before it struck.
Back at his canoe, the weight of the fish and supplies turned the return trip into a workout.
Once ashore, he handed two fish to the woman from earlier, then carried the rest to the village's storage. There, Katara found him—eyes wide with concern.
"Where were you? I was looking everywhere!" she said, relief washing over her.
"I was... exploring," Sokka answered with a sly grin.
Katara squinted at him suspiciously.
"Exploring? Or fishing?"
"Both, actually. Look what I found!" he beamed, presenting his haul.
Her eyes lit up at the sight of seeds and tools.
"This is amazing!" she cried, rushing to show Gran Gran.
Sokka watched her go, a quiet satisfaction settling over him. He felt stronger—not just in body, but in spirit.
Maybe chi control helped with that too. If so, he was grateful.
With everything he had gathered—and everything he planned to gather—his mind began laying the groundwork for something bigger: improving the tribe, and one day, becoming its chief.
For that, he needed two things:
Influence and power.
Influence could come from respect, solidarity, and trust. But power? That had to be earned through strength and effort. He'd have to train harder.
He remembered how Ty Lee could leap several meters with ease, or how Korra could lift four people like it was nothing.
With his chi control, such feats weren't beyond him. But Sokka wasn't aiming for easy strength.
He was determined to reach the very peak of physical power this world had to offer.