Failure

a Legend of Korra fanfiction

Spoilers for Season 2 Episode 10

What do you say when you've failed? What words can express the pain, the anger, the shame that come with failure? When you're alone, you scream and curse. You slam your fists into the wall, as if you can beat back the failure.

If I were alone, I would do just that. I would rant and rail against myself, against the world for my weakness.

But what can you do when you're facing someone you love and admitting that you failed them? What can you do but say you're sorry and hang your head? But even that is a little hollow, isn't it? I want to shout to the heavens with frustration that I had let that man use me again.

But I can't. Because I'm not just facing Tenzin, my respected airbending teacher. I'm facing Tenzin, father of Jinora. Jinora, my friend. The little girl I failed. I'm facing her father, and any words I can muster desert my tongue far too soon, so nothing comes out.

Jinora is lost to the spirit world. Because of me.

Because of me, both portals are open. Because I wasn't careful.

If I hadn't angered those meerkat spirits, we never would have fallen into the twisting corkscrew river. If we hadn't fallen in the river, Jinora and I never would have been separated. If we hadn't separated, Unalaq wouldn't have found her alone and unprotected. If I hadn't panicked, the spirits would have been peaceful and Jinora would be safe.

If only I could undo it. If none of that had happened, things would be so much easier.

Instead though, I'm trying to find the words to somehow make that horrified look in Tenzin's eyes disappear. If the words could make the pain in a father's eyes disappear, I would trade all my power for them. Just to keep from watching my teacher's heart break at my hands.

Why? Why was I such a failure at everything? Why is it that everything I do seems to backfire in my face?! Why did I fail so much?!

If I try to seek help for my family and tribe, I get possessed by darkness. If I try to bring peace between the water tribes, I only cause war. I set out to bring peace to the spirits, and I only bring us closer to the brink of disaster.

How long have I been failing? Just this year? No… I failed with Amon. I failed with airbending. Raava deserved a better host than me. I was the worst Avatar ever.

But didn't this really all lead back to one huge failure on my part?

My spiritual connection. I had always brushed it off, dismissed it. It hadn't been fun to learn. So I had ignored it, let it be my Achilles heel. Now it came back to bite me in the butt. If I had invested more in my spirit training, I would have been better prepared for the spirit world.

If I had tried harder to connect with the spirits, maybe Jinora would be here.

But I hadn't. Now an innocent girl was paying the price for my failings as an Avatar.

Spirits, was she scared? Was Jinora crying right now? Or had Unalaq destroyed her soul?! She was probably terrified and wondering if I was going to rescue her. She was waiting for me, and I was letting her down.

I have never felt so helpless as when Unalaq held her in his power. No bending, no power. Nothing to help Jinora as her eyes pleaded with me for salvation. Because the Avatar saves people. I am the Avatar and I should have saved her. But instead, I have to barter for her life. Even so, I still failed to save her truly. I only gained her temporary salvation by opening the spirit portal. But at what cost?

Now the whole world rested on the precipice of doom. All humanity stood on the brink of destruction because of me and my choices, my failings.

But the bitterest pill by far to swallow of this failure is the look in Tenzin's eyes. The eyes of a father. Scared, worried, sad, angry, desperate. All those emotions at war in them. The eyes that beg me to tell him that this is all a dream. That his daughter isn't lost to him forever.

And I finally find the only words I can manage. The only words that could ever begin to convey all the pain and shame I feel at failing him. At failing Jinora. At failing Raava. At failing everyone.

"I'm so sorry."

A/N: It's been a while since I've posted something. But this episode just hit me. The feels all around. Seeing Iroh again made me squee loud enough to wake up my mom. But more importantly, that ending. As soon as Unalaq showed up, I just felt it start twisting up my insides. But that last scene especially. It unleashed plot bunnies to feast upon my brain.

Urgh! the feels... I just had to get them out so I stopped working on drawing commissions just to write.