Wow, hello again! It's been too long. And hello new fandom! I've had some ideas floating around in my head for a while so decided to write them down, essentially. This will be a three-part story, as is my wont. Both of the parts after this one will have to do with this one, so I will be publishing them on the same story.
This chapter was inspired partially by this post (only7korrafanarts . tumblr post / 24990201914 / i-couldnt-resist) and, a little more heavily inspired by this post (isaia . tumblr post / 22438805457 / self-soothing-fanart-of-little-korra-with-her). Please do yourself a favor and check them out, if you haven't already! Therefore, most of the main ideas in this chapter aren't originally my own, nor are the characters. The Naga headcanon (which will make more sense in the next chapter), which I believe we all have some version of, is, however, mine.
That being said, enjoy!
She was absolutely rambunctious, a trait undoubtedly from his side of the family. Senna no longer had time to fix her hair or help prepare kins, or tidy the house or even cook, really. Between the two of them they were lucky enough to sleep a full night before their young but energetic toddler was up and about, at the ass-crack of dawn. If she wasn't so damn cute, if she wasn't such a reflection of him, and if she didn't pass out in the strangest of places, at the strangest of times, he would have (maybe) been mad. Even with all of the constant running around, the quick naps caught between taking care of her and making sure she didn't accidentally blast a hole in the ice outside of their home and fall into freezing cold waters, it seemed even Senna couldn't really be mad at Korra, just slightly frustrated and completely dumbfounded on the girl's seemingly endless energy.
It made Tonraq proud, really. His daughter was going to give the whole world hell when she grew up, and he wouldn't have it any other way. He often, in a bid to give Senna time to rest and perhaps feel somewhat normal again, took Korra out onto the ice and snow to teach her how to fish, to teach her some of the Southern water tribe's customs, tell her some of its stories, and generally educate her. Of course, he would sometimes turn it all into a game: keeping the attention of a toddler like Korra wasn't an easy task, but it was one he knew how to handle, becoming animated and using voices to keep Korra's eyes glued to him. Occasionally, he would use his bending. And every once and a while, he would teach a bit to Korra.
She was an extremely fast learner, for her age. As soon as she started walking and talking, they started going on these little excursions (where she dragged her own sled, happily showing off some of Tonraq's strength, another source of pride for him), and Tonraq explained to her that there was a good chance that she would be a waterbender, like him. And the huge grin on her face when he showed her what that looked like….something as simple as forming a snow ball with his hands, melting it, swirling it around in the air and forming it into a snowball again, told him that he had his daughter's attention. He tried to incorporate waterbending as often as he could into his stories and teachings. He bent the water around fish, explaining to her the importance of the fish meat and the animal itself to the Southern Water Tribe, as well as the fishing technique with water bending: how Master Katara, who Korra had only briefly met, had started learning her waterbending this way, how it was important to let the water flow around the fish, as though it was still swimming. How it was important to only trap the fish they needed, and no more. These lessons were sucked up into the little vacuum that was his curious little daughter. She stared with wide-eyes and insisted on doing whatever it was her father was doing. Even if she didn't get the bending the first time, she had the motions down by the end of their first three-day trip.
And she had the bending down by the end of the third. He'd had some kind of tip-off from Katara, who was kind enough to read their baby's aura before she was born, that Korra would be a bender (though Katara never actually said the words). He remembered the look on Katara's face, grave, actually, her hand on Senna's expanded belly.
"She's powerful," was all Katara said, offering Tonraq a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. He wasn't sure, at the time, why she was so affected, but both he and Senna were so happy with the news that he hadn't really taken any notice of the matriarch's reaction. Only when it came time for the birth did he consider the expression, wondering as his wife was in labor for hours if it was something he should have worried about.
But everything with the birth went fine. The healers who delivered her called Tonraq in and he saw, for the first time, his new baby girl, whose frame was already strong, and her blue eyes clear, a dark tuft of hair matted to her forehead. He'd realized that Katara was right: he could feel it as he held this tiny little girl, he just knew: she was strong. Maybe it was just the feeling of pride that overtook him, looking at his daughter, but he just knew she was destined for great things.
And he hadn't been wrong! He'd made a mental note, as they walked back from that second long trip out onto the frozen tundra, to speak with Senna about Korra's bending. It was already amazing. Korra'd managed to catch a fish (a small one, but a fish nonetheless) on that trip, spinning it in a clumsy ball of water that was consistently wobbling all over the place. By their sixth excursion, she'd managed to not only control the water and catch a decent-sized fish, but she'd also broken the ice to get to it, something he hadn't taught her and that startled him completely, when he heard the crack and the happy "Got one daddy!" And on the seventh excursion, when Korra blasted a hole in the ice (somehow), was when Tonraq and Senna had to keep a much closer eye on her when she was at home. And that was no easy feat.
Somehow, and he wasn't sure to this day how, they lost Korra for a moment. If he was being honest, they lost her more times than they could count, but she generally turned up a few moments later. But one day, she didn't, and they became worried when after a few minutes of silence, they realized there was no possible way that Korra was hiding in the house or in the near vicinity. She liked to play hide and seek, especially once she realized it gave her parents a heart attack, if she could stay quiet longer than thirty seconds (which wasn't often). But that day had been different. She'd been disappearing on and off, for the better part of a week at that point, and though they'd not thought much of it, the prolonged silence on that day made them worry immediately. Though they'd learned to be extremely vigilant parents, sometimes they just couldn't keep up with their little ball of energy. And Tonraq was out the door immediately after they searched every nook and cranny of the house, calling Korra's name the whole time, and found nothing.
After working all of their neighbors into a frenzy, and trying not to panic themselves, Tonraq spotted his daughter, holding tightly onto something that was her size, easily, and waddling with it towards him in the afternoon light. She couldn't have been gone for more than a few hours, but it had honestly been some of the longest hours of his life. He was angry, relieved, scared, frustrated, and utterly confused. His fatherly instinct was to yell, but that was dropped immediately when he realized his fearless, stupid daughter was carrying a polarbear dog cub, nestled close to her chest, half-dragging the poor thing through the snow.
"Daddy, it's sad and sick and it was alone! Can we keep it?"
He had been rendered utterly speechless. He had no idea how his daughter had found a polarbear dog cub, let alone managed to drag it all the way home (they were not light creatures, even at such a young age). It had indeed been sick, probably left by its mother after a storm, though how Korra had managed to keep it alive, he had no idea. How she even managed to find it, he had no idea and he didn't pretend like he did. Korra got a talking to by just about everyone in the village, about how she should never, ever go off alone like that, and the dangers, especially of a wild polar bear dog.
But Korra insisted it wasn't wild, it was her friend, and she'd been taking care of it ever since she found it, though she was vague on those details when pressed ("I found her!" being the only response to Tonraq's persistent "How?!"). Tonraq tried to explain that when it was healthy again, it wasn't going to think of her as a friend, and if it's mother came looking for it, she had put the whole village in danger, but Korra was adamant about the dog's nature and refused to let it go, calling it Naga and stubbornly sitting outside with it even as night fell. Tonraq didn't see her do it, but at some point she water-bent them a little shelter (Tonraq had taught her on their third excursion that an ice or snow shelter helped to block wind and keep the temperature cold, but prevent the people inside from being too cold) and had started a fire.
After much debate with Senna, and indeed, much (neither of them got any sleep that night, between arguing and taking turns looking after Korra), Tonraq decided that he would camp in the direction Korra had come from and make sure there was no mother looking for her cub. After a week of nothing, he returned to Korra sleeping peacefully in her bed, the animal curled up next to her, and a sheepish Senna saying the cub had barely eaten and it seemed better to take it inside, and that Katara had come by to see what all the fuss with the neighbors was about. Though Tonraq's word as the chief was law, Katara's word would always outrule his, simply because she was the true guide of the water tribe, and Tonraq knew to respect his elders, let alone one such as Katara, who had helped shape the very society they now lived in. As such, though Katara wasn't actively running the tribe, she still made it her duty to know what was happening with her people, and hubbub about a polarbear dog in their presence wasn't going to go uninvestigated.
In a surprising twist, Katara had apparently smiled at little Korra and her polarbear dog, and told Senna that the cub would do no harm to Korra. It was weak and in need of the nourishment Korra was offering, as well as perhaps it offering her something similar in the future. The last part was cryptic, but Senna figured if Katara thought it was safe, then Tonraq would too. He didn't exactly think it was safe, but he begrudgingly allowed the animal to stay, though once Naga was healthy, he insisted on her staying outside.
And, he hoped, really, after his daughter had brought home and started to train a polarbear dog, that maybe his daughter could take it easy for a while with the surprises. But, of course, she was his daughter, and she was nothing if not persistent in her quest to make Tonraq apologize to his parents in his head if he had been even a fraction of the terror his child was. He loved her dearly, but he could already feel his hair turning grey, though that didn't stop him from being proud of his little girl, or keep him from preparing for another excursion with her. He was torn about whether or not to take the polarbear dog, which had already grown considerably, though he hadn't thought of a way to tell Korra that she might not be able to bring her new pet. On the one hand, he figured she might not mind: that way, they could focus on her bending, which he made a mental note to speak with Katara about, to see if they could get her into training with the older master. But on the other hand, the bond Korra had already with Naga was strong, and he knew in a way he was powerless against it, though he wasn't sure why he knew. Just a feeling. But that didn't stop him from whistling along to a Watertribe song, a Northern one, as he packed the skins and wrapped blubber nuggets to take with them. Korra watched from where she was perched atop a chair, looking eager.
Tonraq had just finished packing the matches when Korra said, "Mommy, Daddy, I'm a firebender!"
To which Tonraq chuckled, and Senna too, from where she was packing a few extra water skins on the couch. "Of course you are, Korra!" he said affectionately, jokingly going along with his daughter's absurd declaration.
"Wanna see?!" she asked, excitedly, to which both he and Senna nodded.
"Of course!" her mom said, amused, "Show us honey!"
"Okay…" Korra said, trailing off. She jumped from the chair and cupped her hands closely, making a face as she concentrated. Tonraq smiled at Senna, who smiled back, but the expression quickly changed with the quiet "whoosh" and the yellow and orange life that was dancing in the palms of his daughter's hands.
Senna's dumbstruck expression, he had no doubt, mirrored his own, and she stuttered out "F-f…fire?" to which he could only stare dumbly back at her, then to Korra, then to his wife again.
Needless to say, they didn't end up going on their trip, instead contacting Katara immediately. The matriarch was quick about arriving, and she was also quite tactful, more tactful than Tonraq would have been, he had to admit, when she asked Korra for a bending demonstration.
"Okay," Korra'd said, with a shrug, and promptly stomped into a horse stance, pulling up a fraction of the floor as though she had done that before (Tonraq was around 99% sure that she had not, in fact, ever done that before).
"That one is new…" he managed quietly to Katara as she thanked Korra with a smile and walked away to speak with her parents.
"You have an Avatar on your hands," Katara smiled, this time the smile reaching her eyes and making them crinkle in the corners. "And quite a handful, at that. She's already quite adept, it looks like."
When pressed, a little later by a curious Tonraq, about how she figured out she could earthbend and firebend, Korra had merely shrugged and happily said "Naga showed me!" and that had been that, he didn't get another thing out of her. She apparently didn't think it needed more explanation, and Naga didn't really tell him anything, though he had secretly asked her one night, when he went out to feed her.
Tonraq made sure to take his daughter for a few other excursions after that. With a grasp of fire, water, and earth, their home, though they had told Korra multiple times, no bending in the house, had become a war zone and their daughter, privy to what an Avatar was and that she was, in fact, the next one, used every opportunity she could to remind them of that. So of course, there was no hiding it, and they sent notice to the White Lotus, as advised to do by Katara, though she had never told them when to do it. But they knew word would get out soon, considering how often their house would catch on fire or would suddenly jut up several feet in the air, because Korra finally figured out how to move lots of earth at once.
He knew his time with her was precious, then. It wouldn't take too long for the White Lotus to make their way to the South Pole, and so he squeezed as many excursions in as he could. Two with Naga, and one without. And on the one without, the last one he had with her, Tonraq felt the heartache of true love, and true loss. He had been right, all along, to think that his daughter was destined for great things. He had been right in feeling her strength, despite her tiny size, when she was born. He supposed he somehow knew, deep down. He had to have known, right? And yet the life he and Senna had built, with their balls-to-the-wall rambunctious daughter…the life they hoped to build, could no longer come to fruition, and he would be separated from his Korra much sooner than originally intended. The thought weighed heavy on his heart. Katara had told them of Aang's wishes for the new Avatar, her training, the isolation. He knew it would be for the best, but that didn't make the weight on his heart any lighter. Now his daughter had a truly great destiny, the greatest. But now she also had a very heavy burden to bear.
But for that day, she did not have to bear it. For that day, she was little Korra, happy and care-free and with her father to give Senna a little time to clean the house before the White Lotus' scheduled arrival in a little under a week (and boy, would she ever need that week!) For that day, she was his little girl, and he could not have been any prouder, watching his little Avatar running ahead of him.
No, he couldn't be any prouder.
And there you have it, that's chapter, or I suppose, part, one! The next one will show what Korra was up to that week she kept disappearing on her parents, and then the next, will deal with Katara. I hope you guys enjoyed it!
I want to give a huge shout again to the two artists who helped inspire this part of the piece, tumblr users isaia and only7korrafanarts, and encourage you to check them both out!
Until next time, readers! Reviews are lovely and appreciated, but not required.