Chapter Text
Ba Sing Se creeps Sokka out.
First of all, it's a ghost town. Like an actual, proper ghost town. There are no signs of life anywhere—not even food left in the cupboards, or clothes folded on the bed. It's like everyone who was living here just disappeared, taking all their belongings with them.
"Ba Sing Se's been abandoned for years, Sokka," Katara says softly, when he brings it up. "You know that."
"Then why are we still here?" Sokka watches Aang jump up onto one of the walls with a supernatural gust of air. That's another thing he doesn't like about Ba Sing Se: the walls. Who divides their city like that? They've already passed one wall, and this is the second. It's scary and weird and he doesn't like it.
Katara sighs. They've already gone over this dozens of times; Sokka doesn't like the idea of them stopping to search an entire city, but he was outnumbered two-to-one.
"Ba Sing Se was a city of benders," she recites, like she always does whenever they have this argument. "Even if no one lives here anymore, there might still be some information left on bending."
"Yeah, except bending's been extinct for a hundred fifty years," Sokka snipes back. "You and Aang are already genetic miracles. What are the chances of there being a whole city of benders, Katara?"
"Gran-Gran said—"
"Gran-Gran hasn't been outside the Poles for fifty years! What if the stories about Ba Sing Se are just—well—stories? "
"You don't get it!" Katara whirls on him, her eyes blazing. "Aang and I—bending's in our blood. We need to learn more about it. Or have you forgotten why we left the South Pole in the first place?" She throws out a hand at Aang, who's currently gliding far above their heads. "Look at what he can do, Sokka! If I could just learn more about waterbending—"
"Aang grew up a century and a half ago, when bending was still a thing! Katara, the only reason he's an airbender is because some waterbender trapped him in the iceberg before all the benders got wiped out. If you grew up back then, you'd be a master too."
His sister deflates in a way that makes his heart hurt a little. He knows how much she cares about her bending, but the fact remains that bending is all but extinct. And judging from what they've already seen of Ba Sing Se, the chances of them miraculously finding a scroll left behind by the city's inhabitants are next to none.
"Katara! Sokka!"
They both look up to see Aang perched on top of a fancy-looking building. He's waving at them, a wide grin on his face.
"What is it, Aang?" Sokka calls back. The tiny airbender jumps down and lands in front of them.
"This is the Town Hall," he says excitedly. "If there were any records of bending, they'd be kept here."
"Seriously?" Katara lights up and barges into the building before Sokka can stop her. Aang whoops and runs in after her.
Sokka sighs and follows them. He's already preparing himself for the disappointment on their faces when they realise that there aren't any—
"Bending scrolls!" Katara gasps, pulling out drawer after drawer. Inside, Sokka can see dozens of neatly rolled up scrolls, each labelled with the symbol of an element. "Here's earth—and air—and—"
Her hands fly to her mouth, and she honestly looks like she's about to cry. Sokka peers down into the drawer to see row after row of scrolls sealed with blue.
"Water," she whispers, and reaches out to take one reverently. On the other side of the room, Aang's already nestled among dozens of airbending scrolls. Sokka doesn't really know why, since he's technically already an airbending master, but Aang's always going on about how he's forgotten some of the more complicated forms.
Katara takes a handful of waterbending scrolls and sinks to her knees, unrolling one and reading it with a kind of hunger. Sokka looks from her to Aang; neither bender seems likely to get up anytime soon.
"I'll just, uh..." He jerks a thumb at the door. "Go exploring."
Neither of them reply, too engrossed in the scrolls to care. Sokka sighs; by now, he's used to taking a backseat to bending.
He meanders out of the Town Hall and strolls along, peeping into houses and shops along the way. At one point, he sees a sign for a weapons shop, but it's as empty as the rest of the city.
Sokka's starting to get the feeling that, when Ba Sing Se still had people living in it, it was divided by class. From here, he can see that the city is divided into three rings; this ring is by far the nicest part of the city he's seen so far, while the first ring—the one closest to the main gate—had been little more than a glorified slum. The thought of making the class divide that obvious rubs him up the wrong way.
It's only when he sees the palace that he remembers Ba Sing Se used to have a king. And damn, it's a nice palace; Sokka stands in front of it marvelling at the architecture as the sun starts to go down. He turns around in a slow circle, watching as the shadows of the city start growing longer, and he thinks it's probably time to head back. He really doesn't want to have to make his way back to the Town Hall by himself, in the dark.
"What are you doing here?"
Sokka jumps and whirls around. There's a boy standing in front of him, where there had very clearly not been a boy before.
The boy's wearing clothes that Sokka's never seen before: red and gold robes, pointy black boots, a golden sash around his waist. He's got shaggy black hair and startling pale skin and—
Woah. That is a massive fucking scar.
"I said," the boy hisses, "what are you doing here?"
"Hey, I'm just exploring." Sokka holds up his hands. "That's not a crime, is it? I mean, I don't think it's a crime. 'Cause, y'know, this place has been abandoned for like a hundred years." He squints at the boy. "Speaking of that, where did you come from?"
The boy hunches in on himself, his gaze darting around them nervously. He strides towards Sokka, his face dark, and Sokka can't help but take a step backwards. This guy is intense.
The boy grabs him by the shoulders and looks him in the eyes (and wow, his eyes are the brightest gold Sokka's ever seen). “Listen to me,” he hisses. “This is no place for humans, especially not at sunset. Run, now, before they light the lanterns.”
“Dude.” Sokka stares at him. “What?”
The boy shakes him, violently. “Did you not hear me? This is a place for spirits, not for you. Get to the Lower Ring, quickly!”
“The Lower—?”
The boy spins him around and points at the rings in rapid succession, starting with the one they're standing in and ending with the one closest to the gate. “Upper Ring. Middle Ring. Lower Ring. Now run!”
There's an urgency in his voice that Sokka just can't ignore. He runs.
The sun’s setting. Normally, this would be a comfort for Sokka—he’s always felt better when he could see the moon.
Not tonight.
Something shifts in the air as he makes his way through the streets, searching for the Town Hall. The sun is already half under the horizon.
And then the city comes to life.
Sokka bites down on a scream as lanterns start flickering around him, even though there'd been no one there to light them. The silent city starts becoming a lot less silent—he can hear the clatter of doors and windows being thrown wide open, the sizzle of meat cooking in a pan, the shuffling of footsteps on stone. Shops and storefronts start lighting up, and when Sokka looks in the windows, he sees food cooking in the restaurant kitchens.
And, because he has the worst luck, the spirits start appearing.
Sokka's never really been a big believer in the spirit world. In the South Pole, there hadn't been any spirit stories apart from the tales of those lost to the blizzards, or how if you saw a smudge on the horizon it was a tundra sprite. But here, in Ba Sing Se?
These spirits are very, very real and very, very terrifying.
They're all weird and grey and none of them seem to have a real shape. Or, if they do have a shape, then they don't stick to it for very long. They melt out of thin air and rise out of the street, and Sokka ducks and turns and weaves to avoid running straight through them. They're all formless and colourless and he does not want to find out what happens if he touches them.
The worst part is that they have eyes. He can't tell if they have arms or legs or tails or what, but he knows for sure that they have eyes.
He almost sobs with relief when the roof of the Town Hall comes into view. If he can just grab Aang and Katara, Aang can glide them out to the Lower Ring, and they can escape. They'll grab the bending scrolls and they'll escape from this horrible spirit city.
The Town Hall doors are thrown wide open by the time he skids to a stop in front of it. The lanterns are lit, flooding the street with warm yellow light. Sokka scrambles up the stairs and—
He stops dead in his tracks.
The first thing he sees are the two piles of familiar clothing on the floor. They're just—heaps of cloth, like the bodies inside them have disintegrated.
The second thing he sees are the animals. Nestled in the folds of Katara's dress is a black koi fish, with Katara's necklace clasped tight around its middle. Perched on top of Aang's clothes is an animal Sokka's only seen in the airbender's drawings: a flying lemur, except this one has arrows marking its head and limbs.
The third thing he sees is the spirit leaning over both of them, its strange shapeless limb raised in the air like it's preparing to deal them a blow. Clutched tight in its 'hand' is a dark whip.
A terrible understanding rips through him, and he stares in horror as the spirit brings down the whip.
It hits both the fish and the lemur at the same time. The lemur cries out, falling forwards, and Sokka takes a step back.
The spirit looks up sharply, its eyes making direct contact with Sokka's own, and—
Sokka's not proud of it, but he runs.
The city is alive. Spirits swarm around him, and he can smell meat cooking in the air. Strings of lanterns line the streets. Shops and houses have their doors thrown wide open.
Sokka closes his eyes. Okay. Think. He has to think.
Katara is a koi fish and Aang is a lemur. That's...something he'll think about later. Right now, he has to figure out what to do next.
He can’t get Aang and Katara back, at least not now. What he can do is get to the Lower Ring, like that boy had told him to, and he’ll come back tomorrow when it’s daylight to try and bust them out.
Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good plan.
He has a feeling he sticks out among the mass of spirits, seeing as he actually has a shape, so he shimmies his way up to the rooftops with the help of a very conveniently placed crate. On the roof, it’s easier to breathe. Probably because he’s not being caged in by spirits on all sides.
As he makes his way to the Middle Ring, he keeps his eyes peeled. There are spirits on the rooftops, but they’re not like the spirits on the ground. They seem vaguely human—as in, they have a head and two arms and they stand on two legs—and it looks like they’re wearing robes. Most of them vanish the moment he turns to look at them head-on, but at one point he catches sight of one of them wearing a wide-brimmed hat.
...Though that could’ve been its head. Sokka really can’t tell.
The wall of the Middle Ring is only a few rooftops away, and Sokka sighs in relief. Once he gets past it, all he has to do is parkour his way through another ring. He has a plan. He’s the plan guy. He can do this.
He reaches the wall.
Scratch that. He can’t do this.
The Middle Ring is full of water.
Dark, still, silent water. It fills the Ring all the way up to the very tips of the wall. Sokka crouches down and dips a finger in, just to test it.
Yep. Definitely water.
...What the fuck.
He stands up and stares out across the Middle Ring. The water stretches out all the way to the next wall. Beyond it, he can see the lights of the Lower Ring.
So. Apparently, at sunset, the Middle Ring fills with water. The Upper Ring and Lower Ring don’t. Which means that Sokka’s escape route is blocked by a giant fucking lake which will apparently stay here all night.
Why oh why couldn’t he have been born a waterbender?
Not that it really matters. There’s so much water he doubts even Katara could’ve gotten far.
Okay. New plan. Wait until sunrise. He can do that, right?
Yeah, he can do that.
His stomach grumbles. It's been a while since he's had anything to eat, and the smell of the spirits cooking their weird spirit-meat hasn't done him any favours. Good thing he keeps a strip of seal jerky on him at all times.
Sokka shoves his hand in his pocket to get the jerky. Or, well, he tries to, because instead of going in his pocket his hand goes through his fucking leg.
He yanks it out and stares at it, and—okay, yep, he's turning transparent. This is not a drill. He can see through his hand, which is not something he should be able to do.
He tries to touch the wall, and his hand passes through it like there's nothing there.
Sokka swallows. So he can’t leave the city, but if he stays then he fades to nothing. That’s cool. That’s totally cool.
It is so not cool.
Something glitters on the water, and Sokka squints to see what it is. It's coming closer, and he's pretty sure he can hear what sounds like festival music coming from it.
...It's a boat. Because of course it's a boat.
Sokka ducks down under the wall and watches as it draws closer. It cuts through the water, but it doesn't make any ripples, and it leaves no wake behind. He's pretty sure this is a ship of spirits, and when the boat gets close enough for him to see its passengers, his suspicions are confirmed.
The spirits don't have bodies. They're just...floating, grinning faces. And they're not even proper faces, they're masks.
Sokka shudders. He's never going to sleep peacefully again.
He watches as the boat comes to a stop just before it hits the wall. The spirits disembark, and as they come off the water their bodies bloom into existence—literally. Sokka watches in fascinated horror as bodies grow from their masks. And, because this just can't get any weirder, the bodies aren't real bodies—they're cloaks. Or they look like cloaks.
Sokka's brain hurts.
Someone taps him on the shoulder, and he just about jumps out of his skin. He whirls around, heart pumping in his chest—
It's the boy from before, the boy with the scar, and Sokka relaxes just a little. It's nice to see someone who looks human.
In retrospect, this guy is totally a spirit. But he tried to warn Sokka to leave, so he can't be all bad.
"You idiot," the boy snarls, and Sokka immediately revokes whatever thoughts he'd had about the boy being nice. "Why didn't you leave? I told you to leave!"
"What, you think I wanted to stay?!" Sokka snarks back. "Besides, my sister and friend need my help. They got turned into—"
"Animals," the boy finishes, looking grim. "What did they do?"
"What? They didn't do anything! The only reason we came here was to get information—"
"Ah." The boy nods. "That's why. They took something they weren't invited to take."
Sokka stares at him. "Is that supposed to mean something to me? Because it doesn't. It really doesn't."
The boy makes a frustrated sound. "I mean that they shouldn't have taken information. It's basic manners—if you want something, ask permission. Your friends didn't ask permission, and they paid the price."
Sokka's jaw drops. "But the city was abandoned! How were they supposed to know they needed to ask permission? Who were we supposed to ask?"
The boy gives him a scathing look. "The librarian. Who else?"
Sokka splutters. "But no one—that's not—that's so unfair! How can you expect us to play by rules we don't know?"
"Typical," the boy mutters, shifting like he's about to walk away. "Your kind always complains about things being unfair."
Anger flares in Sokka's stomach. He's scared and confused and his friends might be stuck as animals forever, and now some scarred spirit boy is talking shit about his kind. He's not standing for it.
"We do not—" he snarls, making a grab for the boy's wrist. It's meant to be a grand gesture, something that stops the spirit dead in his tracks, because for once Sokka wants to be the one who shocks him.
It backfires, though, because his hand goes straight through.
Sokka stares at his hand, his stomach sinking. Right. The fading. He'd forgotten about that.
The boy looks down at Sokka's hand with a pensive look on his face. "Stay here."
"Stay what?"
"Stay here," the boy orders, and then he's gone, jumping over the rooftops and disappearing out of sight. Sokka stares after him.
Well. What other choice does he have?
He curls up with his knees to his chest and cradles his hands in front of him. His fingertips have already completely faded. He doesn't want to think about what it'll feel like when the rest of him fades too.
A soft shuffling sound to his left alerts him to the boy's presence. He's returned, crouching down one rooftop over, and as Sokka watches he leaps over to land silently in front of him.
The boy shoves his hand in Sokka's face. "Eat."
Sokka stares down at the boy's hand. He's holding a clump of dark red berries, which look very poisonous, no thank you.
"I am not eating that," he says, craning his head away.
"If you want to live through the night, you will," the boy snaps. "Now eat."
Sokka eyes the berries, then his rapidly fading hand. "This will stop the—?"
"The smoking? Yes."
"Smoking," Sokka muses, as he plucks out a berry that looks marginally less poisonous than the others. "Is that what it's called?'
There's no change in the boy's expression. "I told you this place wasn't for humans. It's a city of spirits. You need to have some semblance of spirit inside you to survive the night."
Sokka almost spits out the berry. "You mean these are—?!"
"No!" The boy looks disgusted, withdrawing his hand. "It's just—it's food from the spirit world. If you keep eating spirit food, you'll be able to survive. Eat nothing but spirit food for three days straight, and you'll even lose your smell."
"My smell?"
"Human smell," the boy clarifies. "Right now, you reek of human. The other spirits will sniff you out immediately."
Sokka swallows. The berry leaves a sour aftertaste in his mouth. "Is it possible to get my friends back?"
The boy is silent for long enough that Sokka's stomach starts twisting itself into knots. "Yes," he says at last, "but it'll be hard."
"I can do it," Sokka says, even though he's very extra sure he can't. "All I need to know is how."
The boy gazes out to the Upper Ring, where the king's palace is lit up bright. He stands abruptly and holds out his hand.
"Then," he says, his gold eyes like molten flame, "you'd better come with me."