Gossip was a strange thing. Jeong-Jeong, were he writing this narrative, might compare it to fire. It had a life of its own, it grew and changed and consumed as only a living thing could. It spread quickly, dangerously, impossible to control and all too often destroying everything it touched. It was dangerous, best avoided, best snuffed out before it grew too large to extinguish.
It would be a rather apt analogy, all things told.
Rumors, similarly, were also a lot like weeds. If you did not nip them in the bud as soon as they appeared, before you knew it they would be everywhere. They spread with uncanny ease, taking up all available space and choking out more desirable plants. If you failed to stop them before they could spread, then either you learned to live with them or you got down on your hands and knees and started the long, hard, dirty work of digging up the entirety of your lawn or garden.
And it really was strange how quickly these things could travel. Spy masters with networks more vast and tangled than a modern celebrity's friend list on a social networking site, dedicated couriers and specially bred messenger hawks trained to take the swiftest routes physically possible with only the barest amount of rest, and still simple gossip traveled faster than could possibly be tracked, or matched, by even the best intelligence networks in the Four Nations - almost before it was here, it was already there.
It seemed impossible how quickly simple barroom tales and idle rumors could travel, or how far and wide they could spread. Or how they could change in the spreading. Like living organisms mutating and evolving from one generation to the next, the tales that were told of Sokka son of Hakoda in that bar that night grew and changed with every retelling - and there were many retellings.
One slightly scrawny engineer became a dangerous firebender became several firebenders became an entire army that he fought off with nothing more than a boomerang and his wits. Two female compatriots became two scantily clad female compatriots became two well-endowed scantily clad female compatriots who were also his secret lovers and part of a vast harem of beautiful and dangerous ladies from every corner of the world. A desperate attempt to catch Ozai or stop the fleet became a daring effort to blunt the tip of the proverbial spear that was the Fire Nation's air force became a perfectly executed plan to hold off the entire rest of the army while the Avatar dealt with the Fire Lord alone.
The tale, you might say, grew in the telling. As it spread from one ear to the next, it became gradually more embellished, more fantastic. As it traveled up the coast and further inland, people who had met Sokka over the course of his travels with the Avatar added their own anecdotes and perspectives to the continually evolving legend.
"That guy with the boomerang? I remember him. He warned our village of a plot to blow up the dam upriver and helped us evacuate. Saved our skins, he did!"
"That kid was a damn fine fisherman, a real natural. Brought in a shark with his bare hands!" ("No he didn't, you crazy old coot!" "Get off my back, woman!")
"Sokka? Ohhh yeaahhh, I remember him. He's that kid with the arrow tattoo on his head, right?"
"I heard his first lover was the princess of the North Pole, but she sacrificed her life to become the Moon Spirit. They say he still longs for her embrace on nights of the full moon, too! Isn't that just the most romantic?"
"I remember that boy, helped save my hide. Fought off a swarm of canyon crawlers in nothing but a loincloth, I tell ya!"
"Haha, man he was a real chatty guy, wasn't he, Lilz? Yeeaaahh. A real funny little guy, that Sokka, with those big pointy ears and them fuzzy little paws. And he could fly! Maaaan, I'd never seen a monkey that could do that before! (...Well, okay, there was this one time...)"
"Thanks to the help him and his friends, myself and our village's other earthbenders were able to escape from that Fire Nation prison barge. His sister motivated us to rebel, and his ingenuity provided us with the earth we needed to fight the guards - the coal they were using for fuel!"
"He helped me perfect my hot air balloon design, before it was stolen by the Fire Nation!"
"SEEEECREET TUNNNEEEEEEEL! SEEEECREET TUNNNEEEEEEEL!"
"THE BOULDER suspects that there may be a THING between him and the BLIND BANDIT. But you did NOT hear THAT from THE BOULDER."
"You didn't hear it from me, but word has it that, this Sokka dude? His girlfriend is some sorta crazy hot amazon chick who can jump, like, ten stories into the air."
"I'm tellin' ya, man, that kid's the one pulling the Avatar's strings. It makes sense. Think about it."
"I hear he's part of some sort of ancient secret society spanning all across the Four Nations."
"I hear he's its leader."
And on it went. Like a snowball rolling down a hill, the legend of Sokka grew larger and larger as it traveled, gaining more momentum with every retelling. From Yu Dao barflies and rumormongers, the tale passed to traveling merchants and sailors, who carried it with them as they continued along their trade routes.
Over land and sea it spread, the tale thriving in bars and taverns and inns and docks, where it passed from the tongues of merchants to the ears of locals, who themselves shared the stories with their friends and their families, and other merchants traveling by other trade routes. This process repeated itself many times, the legend of Sokka Hakoda's son, friend and adviser to the Avatar, vanquisher of the Phoenix King's fleet, defender of the Earth Kingdom, and Hero of the Hundred Year War spreading throughout the land.
And who can say how or why his tale managed to grab the hearts and minds of the people so? Perhaps it was because this Sokka, like so many others, was a non-bender, and yet in spite of that still able to stand proudly - as an equal - alongside the likes of the Fire Lord, and the Avatar. Here was someone like them, someone who had been born with no special gift (save perhaps a certain knack for resourcefulness), no bending, and yet had still been able to make his way alongside the greats of his era.
To non-benders the world over, the tale of Sokka was, perhaps, something that gave them hope that they too could make a difference if they tried, that they too could become great. To the downtrodden masses, it represented a hope that one day the wounds of the war could be forgotten. After all, had not Sokka also lost loved ones to the Fire Nation? Had he not also fought them wherever he could? Yet now he was accounted a friend of the Fire Lord, a fellow liberator of the Fire Nation. If he could forgive and forget, than maybe so could they.
Put frankly, to them he became as much a symbol as a man. He was like a living legend, a modern day folk hero. He was larger-than-life, but he still felt approachable. And perhaps that, more than anything else, was what made his tale so beloved, so compelling. He was, ultimately, underneath all of the enshrouding myth and memetic mutation, simply just another Average Joe, like you or me. Not a banished prince, or a destined savior, or a prodigy bender; he was just a guy with a boomerang.
...and it was also still one HELL of a tale.
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