Avatar: The Last Airbender
the heartless and the gentle
by sokkaesque
[Sokka is five when the first mark appears. It writes itself in a deep red like a wound, as if someone had carved the word “nonbender” in a messy font across the knuckles of his left hand, as if it was handwritten with a knife. When he asks his mother, as she applies salve on Sokka’s knuckles, she sighs deeply and says nothing for a few moments. “Sometimes, spirits don’t make much sense.” Sokka has yet to turn thirteen when he wakes up screaming in pain, about ten soulmarks all over each other between his left shoulder and his ear, red and vivid like burning flesh. Among the few words that are somehow possible to read out of the disastrous scribbling, “disrespectful” and “coward” and “burned” and “sorry sorry sorry” are the ones that stand out the most to Sokka. He thinks, at the tender age of twelve, whoever did this to his soulmate will be sorry too, one day. A month after Hakoda leaves him with the job of the protector at the age of thirteen, Sokka realizes, with a bitter taste in his mouth, that he’s got more soulmarks than his entire village combined.] Or, to have a soulmark is to carry the vilest things that your soulmate believes about themselves on your skin.