author's note | this is a side project of mine that i will probably be updating whenever i get the inspiration. i don't have a set plan for it, so...
Transcend
Canon/speculative/AU.
One hundred universes, one hundred lives, one hundred instants. One hundred moments telling of the lives of the four main LoK characters. (They're not necessarily related.)
Various pairings.
cover image credit to Witek ("Northern Lights, Spitsbergen" | Canon 5D, Tamron 14.3.8)
傳說
Part One – Legend
[theme set alpha]
(prompt #30)
.
I. Star
korra
genre: spiritual/angst | speculative
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[i will be chasing the starlight
until the end of my life]
.
.
Her mother always used to tell her when she was a little girl that the twinkling dots of light soaring high above them in the night sky, those things called stars, were each a different spirit. And they were always watching. Always, always watching the humans still alive on the earth, the humans who leave their footprints down in the Material World below.
Korra promptly announced that this had to be a gross violation of basic human rights, as a breach of a right to privacy in one's life. Or something deeply philosophical like that in four-year-old speak:
"Does that mean that the stars watch us go to the potty?! Thas' really, really weird."
"...Good night, Korra."
Her mother gently kissed her on the tip of her nose and turned her into bed.
.
It was only after her teachers from the White Lotus start mentioning Avatar Aang as her predecessor that Korra realized, with the naïvety of a five-year-old, Does that mean that Aang is a star?
.
Being the Avatar came with a lot of perks.
She was the master of all four elements. Water, earth, fire, and air. (Well, supposedly air. She hadn't ever been able to produce even a single puff of wind in all of her sixteen years of life.) Almost universally adored. Her parents, her teachers, the White Lotus. (All right, so what if her firebending master had had it out for her ever since that fateful day she almost seared his ear off?) Arguably the most powerful being in the world.
Korra was the Avatar. So Korra was all of this and more. Korra was a living embodiment of a legend, a timeless legend whose unknown beginning stretched back thousands of years ago.
And of course, Korra was the successor of Avatar Aang. Avatar Aang who defeated Fire Lord Ozai when he was twelve years old, Avatar Aang who's so much better than her in every single damn thing she can cook up, Avatar Aang who never ever had anger management issues and when he did he got over them quickly and learned from his mistakes, Avatar Aang who could cook fruit pies and had probably never made something inedible in his life.
Here she is. Korra, thirteen years old, the Avatar from the Southern Water Tribe, who has yet to leave this hellhole they call a White Lotus Compound and achieve anything in life, Korra who excels at everything she does and doesn't try to remain modest, Korra who had plenty of anger management issues and sets fire to anything (or anyone) she disliked, Korra who couldn't cook a thing and could even burn tea and didn't even know how she did that.
Korra isn't the story of Korra's life. Aang is the story of Korra's life. Everything she does is measured against his towering achievements. Meaning that her passing her waterbending master test with flying colors at the tender age of nine was nothing compared to Aang's achievement of connecting with the very Avatar Spirit itself. (Because passing a waterbending test when she was nine definitely had everything to do with total spiritual enlightenment.)
Avatar Aang was never as reckless as you, they said. Why aren't you as good as him, they said. You must be the worst Avatar ever, they said.
This is exactly why Korra fucking hated being the Avatar.
Because it wasn't ever Avatar Korra.
It was always Avatar Aang.
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The stars were especially pretty tonight, Korra had noticed. They were like gleaming chips of ice scattered across a intricately woven midnight blue tapestry, several thin and dark gray wisps of a cloud lethargically swimming through the fresh air.
She was going to take her earthbending master test the next day. And she promised herself that she would pass it. Because that's what Avatar Aang would do.
He would pass it.
That night Korra wondered whether or not he would be watching her from the sky tomorrow, even though the stars were not present during daytime. She wondered what he thought of her, and she wondered what he was like.
That night Korra cried and wondered whether or not one of the stars in the millions rising above her was watching her cry. This of course caused the tears to stop from flowing. Because Avatar Aang never cried.
Right?
Avatar Aang was perfect. He was oh-so-definitely perfect. So Korra had to be perfect. Because she's the immediate successor of Aang. She can't be the one to soil his achievements and his legacy.
Right? I have to be perfect.
She looked up.
The stars twinkled brightly in the night as they always did. And they gave her an answer that she didn't and couldn't believe.
Korra looked down at her ratty sealskin boots and decided that the stars had to be playing a joke on her now.
Avatar Aang was probably laughing.
.
From the Spirit World the bald man with a blue arrow tatooed on his forehead watched the Water Tribe girl stare at the stars through a thick haze of mist.
Avatar Aang was very much not laughing.
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Korra passed her earthbending test the next day.
Now all she had to do was master firebending and earthbending and defeat and remove the bending from a psychopathic Fire Lord who was dead, and then she would be like Aang.
Just. Like. Fucking. Aang.
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The stars tried to tell her that, "No. You don't have to be perfect. Because you don't have to be Aang. Aang doesn't define you, he isn't you. You don't have to be anyone else. You don't have to emulate anyone either. You don't have to be anything.
"All you have to be is yourself."
.
The stars have been blacked out by Vaatu's darkness when she loses her connection to Raava and then regains it once more.
And when Raava and Korra reunite Aang isn't there anymore. Neither is Roku, nor Kyoshi, nor Yangchen. She's lost all of them. Her connection to her past lives. Even if she wanted to access their knowledge she couldn't. Because she's a new Avatar. The first Avatar in the second age.
It hurts, but it's okay.
And it hasn't been Aang, or Roku, or Kyoshi ever since.
It's only Korra.
Just.
Korra.
.
.
[far away from the memories
of the people who care if i live or die]
end notes | ...i like writing korra like that. ;_; and i know that aang isn't as perfect as i listed, but i'm assuming that this is what the white lotus told korra when she was training about her famed predecessor...
if you want to see korra with her hair down again, read, rate, review, and fav/follow!