chapter one: wake-up call
"aaaaaaahhhhhh" Korra screamed, jerking up in bed
"Mmmphh" a muffled voice groaned next to her, slender arms moving up to unwrap herself from the blankets and pelts she was wrapped up in, "Korra?" The woman's voice whispered
"Ugh" Korra groaned, still panting and trying to breathe deeply as Tenzin had instructed her to do so, "s..." She was hyperventilating and as such her words wouldn't come out. She wanted desperately to apologise for waking her girlfriend up but she was just as desperate, if not more so, to ask Asami to hold her tightly. "so..." she facepalmed in frustration at not even being able to speak
"it's otay, Korra" Asami whispered, trying to calm her panicking girlfriend down. It had been several years since Korra had had a dream like this and Asami couldn't help but wonder which it was, Amon, Unalaq, Vaatu, Zaheer, Kuvira, her Shadow self or Tokuga. Asami couldn't help but shed a few tears, as she always did when her Korra woke up screaming like she did moments ago. "Korra... I'm here"
Korra breathed in deeply when Asami began to rub her back, "t... Thank you" she gasped before she began to cry.
"Korra..." Asami whispered and pulled her girlfriend back into her arms and held the vulnerable avatar tightly, so tightly in fact that anyone less strong than Korra would have had difficulty breathing.
"it was horrible" Korra whispered, horribly aware that she'd probably woken the entire Sato mansion with her airbending enhanced scream
Sure enough there was a knock on the door seconds later and Senna poked her head around the door before she almost got barged out of the way by Tonraq who tore into the room topless, his hands encased in ice and prepared for battle. "are you alright, Korra?!" Senna inquired while looking daggers at her husband who looked a bit sheepish before he sat down on Korra and Asami's bed and began humming Korra's favourite tune.
"mom... Dad..." Korra whispered, "I'm sorry, did I wake you?"
"nonsense" Senna laughed, "the little tyke has been making sleep nigh on impossible"
"Oh?" Korra looked guiltily up at her mother
As if right on cue there was a flurry of movement outside the door before it got banged open again by two youngish children, Yue and Hiroshi. "mommy?" Yue, the older child called, slightly scared by Korra's crying. She had always thought that Korra was unstoppable and fearless.
"Mommy?" Hiroshi had jumped on to the bed and wriggled his way into his adoptive parents' arms, quickly followed by his older sister. They had both been found on the streets by Mako nearly a year ago and Mako had approached the girls first because he knew how desperately they both wanted children
"mommy's fine" Asami tried to soothe the children but neither looked convinced and were both hugging Korra tightly. Korra, Asami noticed had cried even more when she had the children in her arms.
"well at least..." Tonraq began before he was interrupted by a screaming cry, "spirits!" he exclaimed before he ran off and returned with Korra's sister in his arms. Tonraq and Senna were in their late forties and had sought Katara's advice before they conceived their second child nearly two years ago. Unbeknownst to everyone else outside of the family, Korra had a twin sister who had died shortly after birth, even Korra was unaware of this. Tonraq and Senna had intended to tell Korra when she reached the age of eighteen, but due to her experience at Zaheer's hands, they found themselves unable to do so. They simply could not justify adding another trauma to her growing list of traumas. Amon's revelation, Amon's ambush, Amon's bloodbending and success at breaking her connection with three of her four elements, Unalaq's kidnapping of Jinora, Vaatu's success at destroying Raava which Korra was powerless to prevent, her loss of her past lives, Zaheer's team's infiltration of Zaofu and kidnapping attempt, her and Asami's near death experience in the desert, Zaheer's attempt to kill her father, the red lotus' poison and Zaheer's attempted murder of her and the avatar cycle. They simply couldn't add yet another to that list, especially now they knew how their daughter reacted to trauma, they had, after all, been forced to watch their daughter sink further and further into despair and depression. They figured that Asami was the only reason she didn't give up completely, even if Korra wasn't consciously aware of that. He shared a look with Senna who looked back just as concerned before she walked over and poked little Mikiso on the nose
"Did your noisy sister wake you up?" Senna cooed to the baby and took her from her husband. She had mainly used that as an excuse to put some distance between herself and her daughters and grandchildren, "that dream was pretty awful" she whispered without moving her lips.
If Tonraq hadn't been standing as close as he was, he wouldn't have been able to hear that comment. "that narrows it down to one of three things then" Tonraq whispered back, following his wife's lead.
"yup" Senna lent forward to plant a kiss on Mikiso's cheek, "either something happened to Asami or the kids, or it was Zaheer, or..." neither of them dared mention it in present company else they might get awkward questions about why they'd both broken down from both Asami and Korra, as well as the kids.
"oh damn" Tonraq sighed. That was a day he wished he could forget, in a way he envied Korra and her amnesia about what had happened that day, even if she did still get terrifying dreams that she couldn't quite remember when she woke. "that was the worst day of my life" he sighed, a tear running down his cheek.
"don't I know it" Senna replied quietly, vaguely aware of the conversation over by the bed
"I remember red.. red snow... But nothing else" Korra had said to her girlfriend
"Shit" Tonraq muttered before Senna and he moved quickly out of the room and into the hallway, thankfully Korra and Asami were too busy looking into each other's eyes for comfort to notice
"well that proves it then" Senna muttered while she passed Lin's room, she was the only other person to know what had happened that day.
Tonraq knocked on the door, "come in" Lin's voice echoed out and when the door was opened and she saw who it was she whispered "again? After all these years?" she had obviously been woken up by the very same scream that had woken them and knew immediately what had happened when Tonraq had knocked on her door
"I'm afraid so" Tonraq replied as he shut the door