<div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/e/ed/Warrior_Sokka_by_Mandy_Mo.jpg)</div><strong>Name</strong>: Sokka<br/><strong>Location</strong>: On a boat! (http://youtu.be/R7yfISlGLNU)<br/><br/><hr/><hr/><br/>He was studying a book on Pai Sho when he noticed the ship change course.  There were little notations on the edges of the pages from the previous owner that he had been copying to hold his own against Iroh at the game.  Whoever had owned the book before him had been almost as good as the Dragon of the West, himself.  Maybe better.  Sokka was only just beginning to understand the strategies as they were laid out.  Some were more complicated.  Whoever had put it together had put as much work into Pai Sho as his sister had put into bending…<br/><br/>His sister.  When he thought about her the necklace tied to his wrist always seemed to tighten.  Zuko had told him about the Phoenix Queen's… perversions… sometimes it wasn't always better to be a woman held captive by the Queen.<br/><br/>But last Sokka had heard, Katara was some representative on Azula's cabinet.  Iroh and Zuko had spies near enough her to assure Sokka she was safe and cared for, relatively speaking, but nobody could get close enough to her inconspicuously to inquire about her state of mind.  Was she okay?  Was she holding out hope?  Did she even know her brother was still out there?  The fact that Azula had her wife's sisters guarding Katara, Iroh had told him, seemed to imply that she hadn't been brain washed like so many of the others in the cabinet they'd heard about.  But that didn't mean she was safe.  And he wouldn't think she was until he saw her with his own eyes.<br/><br/>He probably noticed the change in course before anybody else.  He'd grown up on the water, he noticed every wave that rocked the boat.  Iroh had tested him once… if they were in the southern seas, Sokka could sit in the bowels of the ship for days at a time and pinpoint their location with startling accuracy just by the way the boat rocked and how cold the hull was to the touch.  He could listen with his ear against the hull and hear the songs of the whaliphants in the water, and he understood them enough to know when they were warning of Phoenix Empire ships patrolling for them.  Who knows how great a hunter he'd have been with just a few more years under his father's tutelage.  Sometimes he thought it was the only reason Zuko kept him around.<br/><br/>"Why are we changing course?" he kept asking everybody he ran across in the corridors.  Nobody seemed to have a satisfactory answer for him.<br/><br/>Iroh would know, he thought.  More certainly than even Zuko would know.  The painted slut might know…<br/><br/>Sokka wouldn't call her that to her painted face, of course.  The Kyoshi warriors were deadly, and he had no urgent desire to see his own beating heart.  He'd been watching them fight.  Especially their commander.  He absorbed what he could.  When he finally convinced them to let him participate in the training he'd slowly gotten to a point where he could beat some of the weaker members… and hold his own against some of the more experienced girls.  But any time he'd had a battle against their commander or her elite guard, if he wasn't allowed to use his sword or his chu-ko-nu, then he went down faster than he did playing Iroh at Pai Sho.<br/><br/>No, he wouldn't call her the painted slut to their face.<br/><br/>To her face, he called the commander…<br/><br/>"Sifu," he pushed his way closer to Suki of the Kyoshi Islands. "Why are we changing course?"<br/><br/>She was his master, and he had learned almost half a decade ago that some people are due the proper show of respect no matter what your personal feelings about them are.  He wasn't always good at it, but he had learned to hide at least the majority of his contempt for people.  Especially women.