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Love, Sokka
Dear Zuko,
I don’t know why I’m writing this. You’re literally sitting right across from me, on the other side of the fire. You could see me writing this, I guess you probably think I’m writing strategy plans, huh. Well, it’s better that you think that, because there is no way I’m letting you know what I’m actually writing! I guess I’m writing this rather than talking to you because writing things down helps me get my thoughts straight. Maybe this is just me planning what I’m going to say to you later! Spirits, I hope I get the chance to say this to you.
Zuko, I’m in love with you.
Ugh, not like that!
Zuko, I know that when we first met I threw a boomerang at your head and you spent the next several weeks trying to kill me and my friends, and that we were on other sides of the war, sooo…
You just smiled! I love your smile. The way you duck your head like you’re trying to hide it, but you shouldn’t, because it’s radiant. I wish I could draw what it looks like but even my artistic talents couldn’t capture it well enough.
Anyway, what I was trying to say, is this.
Zuko, since we’ve been traveling together, I’ve come to think of you in a different light. When you held my hand at the Boiling Rock, and when you trusted me to catch you even though up until then we had been on opposite sides of the war, I think that’s when it started. Ever since then, I’ve watched you, the way you interact with the rest of our team, you’re so gentle and you care so deeply, even if you don’t always know how to show it! You can be funny, even without meaning to, and you make kind gestures with everything you do.
So this letter is something of a dare to myself. If we make it through the comet tomorrow, I have to tell you how I feel. If you make it and I don’t, I guess you will never know, and perhaps you will be happier for it. If I make it and you don’t, well, I’m trying not to think about that.
Oh, you’re standing up now, I’d better finish this letter before you come over here and see what it is that I’m writing!
See you on the other side,
Love, Sokka
Dear Zuko
Are we going to talk about it? I can't believe we kissed, it was everything I imagined and more. I can’t wait to see you again, and maybe kiss you again? Spirits, my heart is soaring. Aang has defeated the Fire Lord, we’re on our way back to you and Katara. See you very soon!
Love, Sokka
Dear Zuko,
Mai??!!
Love, Sokka
(drunk)
Dear Zuko,
Wowwww, I can’t believe you would do that to meee! I thought it meant something to you, but I guess I was wrong. Maybe I was just a convenient warm body to you. At least you have good wine in the fire palace. Maybe i’ll drink all of it. You deserve it if i do. You broke my heart.
Love, Sokka
Dear Zuko,
I’m sorry that you and Mai broke up. I guess she’s with Ty Lee now? I can’t help but wonder who you’ll be with next.
Yours hopefully,
Love, Sokka
Dear Zuko,
Being back in the southern water tribe without you is strange. Even though it's only been a few days since you left after your last visit, it feels like years. I can't believe how much I miss you when we're apart. Of course now that you're the Fire Lord you can't spend all your time with me, and I can't spend all mine in the Fire Nation, but sometimes I wish we didn't have to do this at all, and we could just run away together without having to fix the world again.
The first new baby was born in the village this morning, the first person in the Southern Water Tribe to have come into a world where there is no war. Isn't that amazing to think? Someday all of us will have kids of our own, and I hope with everything in me that they will live in that world, too.
Do you want kids? I don't suppose you have a choice, being the heir to the Fire Nation and all! I want kids, I think. I'd love to have kids together, you and me.
Who knows, maybe one day we will!
Love, Sokka
Dear Katara,
I hope you and Aang are doing well! Aang sent me a portrait of Appa, at least, I think it’s meant to be Appa, looking pissed off to be outside in the rain! I hope you at least waterbended him dry after that! Poor boy!
The fire nation is fine, hot as always! Zuko says they don’t really have seasons here like we do at the South Pole, it’s always the same temperature year round. He says it’s because Agni smiles on them all the time, but I think it’s more to do with the rotation of the earth, like we saw in the planetarium in Wan Shi Tong’s library. To cope with the heat, I have taken to having cold baths all the time. Well, that’s maybe not the only reason…
I thought that spending a couple of years apart would make my thing for Zuko go away, but if anything, it’s stronger. When I’m with him, my heart feels like it’s beating out of my chest, Toph keeps giving me funny faces, I think she can hear it. When we’re apart, I feel like I’m drowning. He’s doing such amazing things, Katara, you should see how he rules. He looks so perfect in his fire lord robes, well, i guess he really was born for it!
Ugh, this is way too sappy. I’ll write you another letter I guess.
Love, Sokka
Dear Zuko,
I'm sorry about what I said last night. Of course I'll tell you this in person the next time I see you, but writing these things down helps me plan what to say. I'm sorry that I didn't trust you
Dear Zuko,
It's been weeks since we last spoke
Dear Aang,
I know we've talked about this before but I need your help
Dear Zuko,
How could you
Dear Zuko
It's not fair
Dear Zuko
If you'd just talked to me
Dear Zuko
I'm sorry-
Dear Zuko,
It was so good to see your face
Dear Zuko
Why didn't you tell me you were going to be married?
Dear Zuko,
It seems like forever ago that we were just two young, scared boys, sharing a stolen kiss in the hours before a battle that could have been the end of either one of us. Can you believe that that was the last kiss I’ve had? I know I talk a big game, but none of the girls from the Northern water tribe are as good as Yue, none of the boys from the earth kingdom have the same spark that I look for in a man, and no one from the Fire nation is you. I think about that kiss all the time, did you know that? I don’t know whether you even remember it that well, you were out of your mind with stress and I was just a form of stress relief I guess. I hope your new wife is as good of a kisser as you are.
Love, Sokka
Dear Zuko,
Izumi is the best baby in the world, don't tell Aang and Katara! Your soft smile when you hold her is the sweetest thing I have ever seen. It’s a privilege to be able to see it. I hope to see you with many more children in the future. I only wish that I could have a place in your family, that I could be the one by your side.
Love, Sokka
Dear Zuko,
When I heard what happened I was so scared. I know you've had assassination attempts before, but none of them have come this close, I've never come this close to losing you before. I don't know what I would do if I lost you before I had a chance to apologise, to tell you how I feel. I know that this isn’t the first time I have written a letter like this, spirits know I have kept enough of them, but I have to write these things down or I feel like I’ll explode.
Please, I’m praying to the spirits to keep you safe. Perhaps it’s selfish of me to want you so much, and it’s cowardly without a doubt to keep this a secret in the way that I have. I just need more time to figure out what to do, and to tell you the way that I feel about you.
Love, Sokka
Dear Zuko,
I know we’re both getting on in years, but I still feel the same way that I always have. I’ve been in love with you forever, Zuko, ever since we were kids. It may be foolish to hope, but now that you’ve stepped down from the throne, maybe, we could share what’s left of our future together.
This letter is a promise to myself, the next time I see you, I’m going to tell you this. Maybe, if you feel the same, this won’t be in vain.
~
Zuko stared down at the handful of paper held too tightly in his fist. His vision blurred and he blinked quickly to clear it, but realised that rather than tears, it was smoke rising from the smouldering letters he was holding. With a gasp, he extinguished the flame, smoothing the papers flat again so that the achingly familiar handwriting was visible once again. His eye flicked over the lettering, searching desperately for more meaning, for it to say something else, anything else, but he knew the words they contained more clearly than if he had written them himself.
His first thought was "I have to talk to Sokka about this". But even as it entered his mind, his heart constricted painfully in his chest and he almost staggered under the pain of it.
"Zuko?" Katara was at his side in an instant, reaching out to steady him, her lined face filled with deep concern and aching sympathy.
"Katara-" he gasped.
"What are you looking at?" She asked, gently. Wordlessly, he held out the letters, and she took them, her eyes flicking quickly as she scanned the pages. He watched her face change from concerned curiosity, to consternation, to devastating pity as she finally raised her head and met his gaze.
"Zuko-" she said again, her voice cracking as she handed the letters back to him.
"I didn't know!" He croaked, taking them and holding them close to his heart. "I didn't know- how could I not know? How could he not tell me?"
"I'm so sorry…"
"You knew…" Zuko remembered that a couple of the letters had mentioned that Sokka spoke to Katara about this, one was even addressed to her, and Aang had been Sokka's confidante in this, how long had he known? "You both did. How could you not tell me?"
"We didn't know that- Zuko, I'm sorry, it's so foolish now…" tears are sliding down her cheeks now, landing onto the pages of letters that slid to the floor while Zuko was reading others.
"All this time, all these years, I loved him too." And Zuko squeezed his eyes shut, and let his own tears fall.
~
Dear Sokka,
I hate poetry. I always have, I've never understood it. Why would you write a poem to say something in pretty, concealing words, when it's much easier to understand something if it's spoken to you plain? It's like concealing the meaning under layers of fancy wordplay, like saying "we're all going to die and life is meaningless" is an easier pill to swallow if it's sugar coated with a rhyme scheme and a pleasing metric rhythm. Poems have always felt a lot like lying, to me.
But I guess that's something I've been doing a lot of lately, anyway. Lying.
You love poetry. Before I knew anything else about you, before I stopped hating you, or pretending to, I knew that you liked beauty, and art. You're really the opposite to me in that way: you understand the meaning of things, and you appreciate the beauty in everything that's worth your time, and you, somehow, taught me to do the same, and for that I should really hate you, but I can't, because you are the most beautiful, the most meaningful, the most worthy of my time and my thoughts.
I never understood the purpose of music until I heard your laugh, pure and unfiltered delight.
I never understood art until I saw you paint: not the picture you were aiming for, but the passion, the joy of creation, expressed more clearly on the page than anything I've seen in life
I never understood dance until you took my hand for the first time and I never wanted to let go.
I never understood poetry until you spoke to me, and suddenly I wanted to speak in rhyming couplets and measured haiku to let everyone know that my heart was hiding the truth in beauty.
Ah, look at me now. I can't send this, of course. What would you think of me if you read this letter? "The new Fire Lord revealed to be a hopeless pining mess" I'm sure you'd tease me. Or perhaps you'd never speak to me again.
Someday, once the world is set to rights and the Fire Nation is stabilised again, I will tell you how I feel. Maybe I can abdicate the throne and I can live with you in the Southern Water Tribe. Maybe we could run away from everyone and live together, just the two of us. Maybe we'll adopt seventeen children and raise them to build a better future where benders and non benders from all four nations can once again live in harmony.
But for now, signing off this letter you will never see,
My endless, undying love is yours,
Zuko.
I don’t know why I’m writing this. You’re literally sitting right across from me, on the other side of the fire. You could see me writing this, I guess you probably think I’m writing strategy plans, huh. Well, it’s better that you think that, because there is no way I’m letting you know what I’m actually writing! I guess I’m writing this rather than talking to you because writing things down helps me get my thoughts straight. Maybe this is just me planning what I’m going to say to you later! Spirits, I hope I get the chance to say this to you.
Ugh, not like that!
You just smiled! I love your smile. The way you duck your head like you’re trying to hide it, but you shouldn’t, because it’s radiant. I wish I could draw what it looks like but even my artistic talents couldn’t capture it well enough.
Anyway, what I was trying to say, is this.
Zuko, since we’ve been traveling together, I’ve come to think of you in a different light. When you held my hand at the Boiling Rock, and when you trusted me to catch you even though up until then we had been on opposite sides of the war, I think that’s when it started. Ever since then, I’ve watched you, the way you interact with the rest of our team, you’re so gentle and you care so deeply, even if you don’t always know how to show it! You can be funny, even without meaning to, and you make kind gestures with everything you do.
So this letter is something of a dare to myself. If we make it through the comet tomorrow, I have to tell you how I feel. If you make it and I don’t, I guess you will never know, and perhaps you will be happier for it. If I make it and you don’t, well, I’m trying not to think about that.
Oh, you’re standing up now, I’d better finish this letter before you come over here and see what it is that I’m writing!
See you on the other side,
Love, Sokka
Dear Zuko
Are we going to talk about it? I can't believe we kissed, it was everything I imagined and more. I can’t wait to see you again, and maybe kiss you again? Spirits, my heart is soaring. Aang has defeated the Fire Lord, we’re on our way back to you and Katara. See you very soon!
Love, Sokka
Dear Zuko,
Mai??!!
Love, Sokka
(drunk)
Dear Zuko,
Wowwww, I can’t believe you would do that to meee! I thought it meant something to you, but I guess I was wrong. Maybe I was just a convenient warm body to you. At least you have good wine in the fire palace. Maybe i’ll drink all of it. You deserve it if i do. You broke my heart.
Love, Sokka
Dear Zuko,
I’m sorry that you and Mai broke up. I guess she’s with Ty Lee now? I can’t help but wonder who you’ll be with next.
Yours hopefully,
Love, Sokka
Dear Zuko,
Being back in the southern water tribe without you is strange. Even though it's only been a few days since you left after your last visit, it feels like years. I can't believe how much I miss you when we're apart. Of course now that you're the Fire Lord you can't spend all your time with me, and I can't spend all mine in the Fire Nation, but sometimes I wish we didn't have to do this at all, and we could just run away together without having to fix the world again.
The first new baby was born in the village this morning, the first person in the Southern Water Tribe to have come into a world where there is no war. Isn't that amazing to think? Someday all of us will have kids of our own, and I hope with everything in me that they will live in that world, too.
Do you want kids? I don't suppose you have a choice, being the heir to the Fire Nation and all! I want kids, I think. I'd love to have kids together, you and me.
Who knows, maybe one day we will!
Love, Sokka
Dear Katara,
I hope you and Aang are doing well! Aang sent me a portrait of Appa, at least, I think it’s meant to be Appa, looking pissed off to be outside in the rain! I hope you at least waterbended him dry after that! Poor boy!
The fire nation is fine, hot as always! Zuko says they don’t really have seasons here like we do at the South Pole, it’s always the same temperature year round. He says it’s because Agni smiles on them all the time, but I think it’s more to do with the rotation of the earth, like we saw in the planetarium in Wan Shi Tong’s library. To cope with the heat, I have taken to having cold baths all the time. Well, that’s maybe not the only reason…
I thought that spending a couple of years apart would make my thing for Zuko go away, but if anything, it’s stronger. When I’m with him, my heart feels like it’s beating out of my chest, Toph keeps giving me funny faces, I think she can hear it. When we’re apart, I feel like I’m drowning. He’s doing such amazing things, Katara, you should see how he rules. He looks so perfect in his fire lord robes, well, i guess he really was born for it!
Ugh, this is way too sappy. I’ll write you another letter I guess.
Love, Sokka
Dear Zuko,
I'm sorry about what I said last night. Of course I'll tell you this in person the next time I see you, but writing these things down helps me plan what to say. I'm sorry that I didn't trust you
Dear Zuko,
It's been weeks since we last spoke
Dear Aang,
I know we've talked about this before but I need your help
Dear Zuko,
How could you
Dear Zuko
It's not fair
Dear Zuko
If you'd just talked to me
Dear Zuko
I'm sorry-
Dear Zuko,
It was so good to see your face
Dear Zuko
Why didn't you tell me you were going to be married?
Dear Zuko,
It seems like forever ago that we were just two young, scared boys, sharing a stolen kiss in the hours before a battle that could have been the end of either one of us. Can you believe that that was the last kiss I’ve had? I know I talk a big game, but none of the girls from the Northern water tribe are as good as Yue, none of the boys from the earth kingdom have the same spark that I look for in a man, and no one from the Fire nation is you. I think about that kiss all the time, did you know that? I don’t know whether you even remember it that well, you were out of your mind with stress and I was just a form of stress relief I guess. I hope your new wife is as good of a kisser as you are.
Love, Sokka
Dear Zuko,
Izumi is the best baby in the world, don't tell Aang and Katara! Your soft smile when you hold her is the sweetest thing I have ever seen. It’s a privilege to be able to see it. I hope to see you with many more children in the future. I only wish that I could have a place in your family, that I could be the one by your side.
Love, Sokka
Dear Zuko,
When I heard what happened I was so scared. I know you've had assassination attempts before, but none of them have come this close, I've never come this close to losing you before. I don't know what I would do if I lost you before I had a chance to apologise, to tell you how I feel. I know that this isn’t the first time I have written a letter like this, spirits know I have kept enough of them, but I have to write these things down or I feel like I’ll explode.
Please, I’m praying to the spirits to keep you safe. Perhaps it’s selfish of me to want you so much, and it’s cowardly without a doubt to keep this a secret in the way that I have. I just need more time to figure out what to do, and to tell you the way that I feel about you.
Love, Sokka
Dear Zuko,
I know we’re both getting on in years, but I still feel the same way that I always have. I’ve been in love with you forever, Zuko, ever since we were kids. It may be foolish to hope, but now that you’ve stepped down from the throne, maybe, we could share what’s left of our future together.
This letter is a promise to myself, the next time I see you, I’m going to tell you this. Maybe, if you feel the same, this won’t be in vain.
~
Zuko stared down at the handful of paper held too tightly in his fist. His vision blurred and he blinked quickly to clear it, but realised that rather than tears, it was smoke rising from the smouldering letters he was holding. With a gasp, he extinguished the flame, smoothing the papers flat again so that the achingly familiar handwriting was visible once again. His eye flicked over the lettering, searching desperately for more meaning, for it to say something else, anything else, but he knew the words they contained more clearly than if he had written them himself.
His first thought was "I have to talk to Sokka about this". But even as it entered his mind, his heart constricted painfully in his chest and he almost staggered under the pain of it.
"Zuko?" Katara was at his side in an instant, reaching out to steady him, her lined face filled with deep concern and aching sympathy.
"Katara-" he gasped.
"What are you looking at?" She asked, gently. Wordlessly, he held out the letters, and she took them, her eyes flicking quickly as she scanned the pages. He watched her face change from concerned curiosity, to consternation, to devastating pity as she finally raised her head and met his gaze.
"Zuko-" she said again, her voice cracking as she handed the letters back to him.
"I didn't know!" He croaked, taking them and holding them close to his heart. "I didn't know- how could I not know? How could he not tell me?"
"I'm so sorry…"
"You knew…" Zuko remembered that a couple of the letters had mentioned that Sokka spoke to Katara about this, one was even addressed to her, and Aang had been Sokka's confidante in this, how long had he known? "You both did. How could you not tell me?"
"We didn't know that- Zuko, I'm sorry, it's so foolish now…" tears are sliding down her cheeks now, landing onto the pages of letters that slid to the floor while Zuko was reading others.
"All this time, all these years, I loved him too." And Zuko squeezed his eyes shut, and let his own tears fall.
~
Dear Sokka,
I hate poetry. I always have, I've never understood it. Why would you write a poem to say something in pretty, concealing words, when it's much easier to understand something if it's spoken to you plain? It's like concealing the meaning under layers of fancy wordplay, like saying "we're all going to die and life is meaningless" is an easier pill to swallow if it's sugar coated with a rhyme scheme and a pleasing metric rhythm. Poems have always felt a lot like lying, to me.
But I guess that's something I've been doing a lot of lately, anyway. Lying.
You love poetry. Before I knew anything else about you, before I stopped hating you, or pretending to, I knew that you liked beauty, and art. You're really the opposite to me in that way: you understand the meaning of things, and you appreciate the beauty in everything that's worth your time, and you, somehow, taught me to do the same, and for that I should really hate you, but I can't, because you are the most beautiful, the most meaningful, the most worthy of my time and my thoughts.
I never understood the purpose of music until I heard your laugh, pure and unfiltered delight.
I never understood art until I saw you paint: not the picture you were aiming for, but the passion, the joy of creation, expressed more clearly on the page than anything I've seen in life
I never understood dance until you took my hand for the first time and I never wanted to let go.
I never understood poetry until you spoke to me, and suddenly I wanted to speak in rhyming couplets and measured haiku to let everyone know that my heart was hiding the truth in beauty.
Ah, look at me now. I can't send this, of course. What would you think of me if you read this letter? "The new Fire Lord revealed to be a hopeless pining mess" I'm sure you'd tease me. Or perhaps you'd never speak to me again.
Someday, once the world is set to rights and the Fire Nation is stabilised again, I will tell you how I feel. Maybe I can abdicate the throne and I can live with you in the Southern Water Tribe. Maybe we could run away from everyone and live together, just the two of us. Maybe we'll adopt seventeen children and raise them to build a better future where benders and non benders from all four nations can once again live in harmony.
But for now, signing off this letter you will never see,
My endless, undying love is yours,
Zuko.