The first thing she does, when she opens her eyes to the room full of danger, is spill out her rage and breathe fire.

From the pit of her stomach, pumping through her blood, the heat of her fire burns forth and erupts in a scream of rage and despair that she cannot hope to contain. Fire has always been her natural element: it's the core of who she is, of what she can do, of what she is capable of. She comes from the Water Tribe; she wears their colours and she belongs proudly to its heritage, but fire is her beginning and her element, and right now, it is her very essence.

The bonds tighten against her skin, chafe against bruises and cuts that have not begun to heal, and the weight of her body drags down against her, painfully stretching out the length of her limbs. Her chest burns – with rage, with fire, with pain – and she pulls against the metal chains, inhales, deep and strong, spits fire again and again until she feels like she's burning up from the inside. She is powerless to stop them and powerless to punish them, and it eats away inside of her until all she can do is blow smoke.

"When I get out of here," she promises, her words tinged with hysteria and a fierceness that belies her struggle. "None of you will survive!"

She is rage incarnate; a flame, burning bright, contained, but only for so long. Fingers digging into the palms of her hand, body coiled, tight as a wire, and she believes her words, with everything she has. You killed my father!

They have underestimated her: they always have. They called her fierce, and strong, and powerful, but they tempered it with lacks finesse, lacks discipline, headstrong, cocky. They tied her up and thought themselves clever, they doused her flame and considered themselves the victors. They attacked her as the Avatar – they forgot that she is Korra, too.

And when she burns, she engulfs them all, smolders and rages until she burns them all with her. The flame burns up, fierce and strong, and she breaks free of her chains, shows them what it means to try and capture fire.