The South Pole is a dangerous place. Between polar bear dogs and mink snakes, ice and snow covering everything, and the Polar Night, life is difficult to sustain.
For the Water Tribe, they acknowledged the dangers of their world long ago, and never looked back. Methods were developed, traditions formed, and life kept on regardless of the harsh winds trying to blow it all away.
Waterbenders made it easier. They built homes out of the ice, kept boats out of currents, and were mighty hunters in the world built for their gifts.
The Fire Nation attacked.
Again and again, until there were few waterbenders left, and few warriors, and fewer of everything.
Born in one of the worst storms they'd had in a long while, Sokka was told he was their hope. All children are, but his birth was a sign. They would survive the cold, and the winds, and the strain of existing, and would adapt to the new way of living, just as he did.
He thought that it was nice they found a sign in his birth. It might not be a sign from the Spirits, a single child born in a harsh Polar Night storm, but it didn't have to be. It provided hope.
Katara was born during the warmest time they'd had the entire Midnight Sun of that year, with nearly clear skies for hours on either side.
Sokka asked what that meant, when he could. They said it didn't really mean anything. He asked how his birth meant something, but his little sister's didn't.
Gran Gran spoke over the others.
"She will have a difficult life, but she will overcome it. We all will." His father looked confused, he remembered. He didn't know his father could be confused. "She's a waterbender. The warmest of our times, with the most Sun, those are her hardest hours. But she is here, and she will make it."
That made sense to him. Maybe Gran Gran just made it up on the spot, but the same could be said for his own "sign".
~
He is different, he learns. He is different like the tiger seal is to the turtle seal.
At a year old, he was able to understand his family and tribe better than he later found he should've - Gran Gran never hesitates to answer his questions. Yet he never once spoke, instead finding that he could signal what he needed easily.
His father claims that the most shocking moment in that year was when Sokka used a piece of bone he found to "whistle" a long, high tone: 'Come', to a seasoned hunter. He had come, and found that the toddler needed help with his coat.
When Katara was born, Sokka spoke aloud for the first time.
"This is mine. I will die for you," he had said to the smaller child.
She'd gurgled at him. He had nodded seriously and patted her head as gently as possible.
"Yes. I will live for you, too."
But just waiting to speak aloud isn't enough to be as different as he is. He knows this. It shows in other ways. He asks questions, ones that no one else seems to think about. He plays only when his father tells him the game will prepare him for hunting, or when Bato jokes that running will help keep him warm - it will keep him warm, joke or not.
He has dreams, ones that bring more questions to ask, but they are always the right ones to solve the great mystery he'd found the day before. He hears things on the wind, voices carried around that no one else pays attention to.
He is different, and no one says anything against it. Why would they?
~
He was five.
