author's note | oh spirits, here i go. T_T i present to you:
THE LEGEND OF KORRA
REDUX
气 | BOOK I
Air
Canon/AU.
A story of a hot-headed girl, her polar bear dog, two street rats, a heiress, and their vendetta against a masked man who has the power to take away bending. Whatever can go wrong?
Undecided pairing(s).
cover image credit to maxbat
气
Book One: Air
Prologue: Eternal
[the sharp knife of a short life, oh well
i've had just enough time]
.
.
Avatar Korra was one of those people who refused to take no as an answer to anything.
Sometimes this can be a healthy trait.
Other times...not so much.
.
Imagine this:
Once upon a time there was a baby with dark brown hair and blue eyes the color of the sea born to two loving parents in the howling blizzards of the South Pole. And these proud new parents named their girl Korra.
Korra of the winds that carry whispered secrets along their folds, Korra of the rocky earth, Korra of the raging flames, Korra of the high oceans that crashed and howled against cliffs of ice. Korra the Avatar.
Of course, none of them knew it at the time.
Now, this little girl who had perfect and doting parents lived a perfect and happy life filled with perfect triumphs and glories. She never wanted for anything, she was a bending prodigy, and everything came to her as easily as one would pick up a wooden block from the ground.
Can you imagine this? Can you picture it clearly in your head?
Good.
Take that image and smash it to little bits.
.
"Once upon a time" actually happened. But "once upon a time" is also a brilliantly masterminded façade, because Korra may have been a bending prodigy (if you forget about the elusive element of air) and she may have had a perfect and happy life (because having that perfect life ripped away the moment she stepped foot in Republic City is always something to be happy about) and she may have never wanted for anything (except for, you know, those little things called acceptance and love and legacies that always slips out from the cracks in her cupped hands) and everything may have come easy to her (Aangwho mastered all the fucking elements when he was twelve and defeated Fire Lord Ozai while he was at it) and maybe she had doting parents (the parents whom she almost never saw), but Korra has no way of knowing that she would die someday in the near future and if she did know she probably wouldn't care because Avatar Korra was already doomed to be done with life even before she came into the world.
Being that this whole mess all started in another "once upon the time" scenario in which a Fire Nation princess known as Azula shot a bolt of lightning at a certain Avatar Aang that killed him instantly.
While he was in the Avatar State.
.
Raava and Vaatu, in all pf their twenty millennia of battling for control of the world, would have never dreamed of a human bridge between the Material and the Spirit Worlds. Because Raava and Avatar Wan was all one huge accident. And accidents, as coincidental as they are, never come without consequences.
.
There was a boy born in the Northern Water Tribe by the name of Noatak and he had a strange, peculiar gift that no one, including himself, would find out of until some three decades and eight years later when a girl whose name was Korra discovered that no matter how hard she tried she couldn't airbend.
.
Avatar Korra wasn't supposed to be born.
Avatar Korra was an anomaly of nature.
Avatar Korra wouldn't take no for an answer.
Avatar Korra would have to take no for an answer when she discovered the truth about Aang and the cost of his evading death.
Avatar Korra was once a proud teenager, but then the funny business of the Avatar State happened and her soul was damaged beyond repair.
.
Avatar Korra doesn't know any of this right now.
Avatar Korra hasn't been born yet and already the spirits have laid down the groundwork that is the base of a long and stormy road called Korra's life.
The start of the road of storms bears the story of a hot-headed girl, her polar bear dog, two street rats, a heiress, and their vendetta against a masked man who has the power to take away bending.
Whatever could go wrong?
.
.
[and maybe then you'll hear the words i been singing
funny when you're dead how people start listening]
.
.
next chapter: welcome to republic city
end notes | as usual chapters will get much longer from here on out (not that i have any written proof...yet, :P), meaning slow updates. the beginning of Air will be pretty canon-compliant, but as it progresses it will deviate from the plotline (so far i've planned much more than twelve chapters for that matter). and if i ever manage to finish this (unlikely at best), i will probably be rewriting Spirits as well, as a sequel to this. (and meanwhile i'm yammering in the chapter about "korra's destiny blah blah blah death blah blah blah avatar spirits blah blah blah")
read, review, fav, follow—do whatever you need to do! constructive criticism is, as always, greatly appreciated! :)