Notes: This was written in early 2013, so not a trace of Season 2 is to be found here.
A recurring dream: you climb down a ladder in a dark narrow space that goes on forever, and then some more. You don't think you'll ever reach the bottom, and as you keep on moving downward, rung after identical worn rung, you start to hope you'll never reach the bottom, afraid of the ladder but more afraid of it ending. And it's just when you start to hope you realise with a hollow, horrible certainty that the bottom is only just below you, that it's lying there in the darkness just out of sight.
At the bottom of the ladder you are waiting for yourself.
You have no idea who you are or what you want from yourself.
You pad through the halls of the air temple as quietly as you can, the night stillness magnifying every creak of the floor until you're certain you've woken every single person in the building. But there's no point in trying to go to sleep right away, you know from practice. You've tried, and tried some more, usually until you want to scream in frustration and sometimes until you actually do. Night after night.
The dream is actually worse than nightmares you've had before. Nothing happens in it, but it's full of a kind of sense of threat that you have no idea how to deal with. There's a weird horror to the ladder and the darkness and your helpless inability to stop, to go up or find another route, to do anything to escape from yourself. Not to mention how messed up wanting to escape from yourself is.
The slow, creeping horror of the dream can stay with you all day. It curls around you as Tenzin gives you a lecture, sits huddled in the pit of your stomach while you try to laugh at Bolin's jokes. And if this is what it feels like to be a success, a fully functioning Avatar with airbending and glowing eyes and everything, you just don't even want to fucking know how being a failure feels.
The kitchen is safe, you can turn on the lights without waking anyone up, so that's where you head. Water, something to eat, somewhere other than your room to sit for a while. You'll either start feeling sleepy enough to go back to bed or you'll have to give up and go kick something out by the edge of the island until you're too tired to stand and, more importantly, too tired to think.
But the kitchen lights are already on, and you don't even realise until you've started to open the door, too late to just go another way and pretend you'd never planned on getting water. At the table Asami sits, dark-eyed, hands wrapped too tightly around a cup of tea, hunching over it and letting the steam rise against her face.
She looks up before you can leave.
"You too, huh?" she says, and, "there's more tea in the pot."
You nod, wordless, and sit down awkwardly. You let her pour you tea.
You wonder if she's slept at all, and how often she sits here; you remember how flawlessly beautiful you thought she was at first, how she scared you a bit, made you doubt yourself. And OK, she's still beautiful, sitting there in a dressing gown with her hair hanging in untidy waves over one shoulder. Tired and maybe worried. She's still about a million times better than you and it's still hard to look away.
What you really wonder is what makes her be so nice to you. But introspection doesn't suit you and anyway it's way too late at night, so you don't think too much about the way your hands brush against each other as you take the cup of tea, the way Asami lifts her hand away only to stroke it quickly across the back of yours, fingers drawing warm lines on your skin.
You just sit beside her and fidget in the silence, because even though you're bad at silence you're not sure how to break it or what you'd even say.
But whatever she sees in your face it makes her sigh and say, "oh Korra. What is it?"
"I'm fine," you say, look away sharply, afraid to be seen through and afraid to see yourself.
Silence.
"You know, not being fine isn't failure," Asami says, very quietly.
And you're really bad at people, but the short answer you were reaching for is cut off by something in her tone of voice. As though, maybe, she's trying to convince herself too.
"Hey," you start, frowning, trying to figure out words on the go - never the easiest, even less at this time of night.
But Asami is too fast for you again, or maybe you're too slow. You miss the moment.
"I don't know about you, but sleep feels like a lost cause," she says, false-bright. "Want to go for a walk?"
A part of you wants, really really wants, to accept. But you're nervous too, and you don't know why, and you hate nerves so damn much. It's the dream, maybe, still holding onto you. "I think I should go," you say. "But, uh, thanks for the tea."
You don't even know what you feel when Asami just nods and starts clearing away the cups.
By the time you make it back to your room you're sure you made the wrong decision. But you can't really run after her now, can you.
You lie awake in the darkness of your room until you hear the door to the building opening again, which has to be Asami coming back, doesn't it. She can't have gone far, not in her pyjamas and a coat. And you find yourself hesitating. But bad impulse control has to be good for something, doesn't it?
You get yourself out of bed and through the door before you have time to think about it, rubbing the back of your neck awkwardly as Asami looks at you, questioning.
"Hey, um," you say. "Want to come in for a bit? If you still can't sleep."
You count to five in your head before Asami smiles, steps towards you. "Well, I was planning to go and stare at the ceiling for the next few hours, but if you're offering."
"Sure," you say, grinning and trying not to feel scared at the same time, and go back to persuade Naga to make some room.
It's maybe an hour later when you realise that the sickening aftertaste of the dream is gone. You're just feeling almost hyperactively overtired, all the way through exhaustion and out the other side. Asami is curled up on your bed, watching you tell your best penguin story with a sleepy, pleased expression.
Right then, for that moment, you're weirdly, unexpectedly happy. And you find yourself thinking, everything I need is here.
Even if you're not really ready to think about what that means.
You don't sleep until it's getting light, sitting on the floor with Naga as a pillow. You're so tired that you don't even remember that you're meant to be getting up in an hour to train.
But you don't dream.
[fin]