Chosen by the Spirits | A male reader x Avatar the Last Airbender story

Chapter 41- A Day of Surprises (part 2)

"Sokka??" I managed to sputter out, being unable to comprehend the scene in front of me. The Water Tribe boy stood motionless, seemingly in awe, as if also trying to figure out what he was looking at. Finally, he seemed to spit some more words out.

"I can't believe it," he stuttered as we both remained still, staring at each other. "Everyone said that..." Sokka continued before trailing off. I swallowed a lump that had formed in my throat as I quietly responded.

"What did they say?" I asked him, though he gave himself little time to answer. I felt Sokka's strong embrace as he rushed towards me and grabbed me. I quickly hugged him back, still in shock, though also so glad to see my friend again. I could feel moisture form on my shirt as I also unsuccessfully held back tears. After being separated for so long, and weeks spent in the awful prison that I was trapped in, I had finally reunited with Sokka. Even if we were only in the spirit world, and in reality I was still being held captive and sentenced to die, it still felt so good to see him again. For a moment, none of it mattered.

"We thought that you were dead," he said to me as he finally pulled himself out of our embrace, wiping away his tears on his arm. With a slight sniffle, I thought to do the same. Then, his words registered.

"Dead? Why would I be dead?" I asked him, my voice still shaking slightly at the sudden revelation.

"Nobody has heard from you since Ba Sing Se," he explained. "After a while we just assumed the worst,"

"You guys assumed I had died?" I responded after a moment of silence. Something felt wrong about the idea of my friends giving up on finding me. But then, after all, I had simultaneously given up on them finding me.

"Everybody else thought that it would be best to try and move on so we could focus on the task at hand; the invasion," Sokka clarified. At first it sounded messed up that they would try and move on from my death so quickly, but then I realised that I would probably do the exact same thing. With the eclipse only two weeks away, there had likely been no time to waste mourning for too long. "But everybody has missed you so much. They're going to be so excited when I tell them that I've found you!"

"Speaking of which, how did you find me?" I asked my friend. For the last few minutes, thousands of thoughts had been running through my mind at the same time.

"Well, even though the other's thought you were gone, I didn't," he said. "I knew that you would survive. And then I remembered that you showed me how to come here, in the spirit world. You said that you had previously used it to talk to people, so I've been coming here every day in hopes of finding you,"

"Sokka, I-," I began, though I couldn't continue my sentence. With such a whirlwind of emotions in the last few hours, my head had started to go all fuzzy. But even so, I knew that I felt great happiness seeing Sokka again, and I felt so grateful that he had put in so much effort to save me. "I don't even know what to say,"

"Well then don't say anything!" Sokka chuckled happily. "I just can't believe your back,"

I froze at his words as they made me realise something. No matter how joyous this moment had been, in reality I was still stuck inside the Fire Nation, living my days in a horrible prison cell.

"About that," I said slowly. "The reason why you haven't heard from me in so long is because the Fire Nation have taken me captive. There's no chance of me escaping. Trust me, I've tried," I broke the bad news to him. However, Sokka's enthusiasm didn't waver.

"So we'll break you out!" he grinned at me. "Where are they keeping you?"

"I'm not sure," I admitted to Sokka slowly. "I was never given the prison's name,"