She looked down the edge of the cliff, almost a full 200 feet above the icy cold southern waters.
Perfect, she thought, a sad smile appears on her chapped lips, a lone tear racing down her cheek.
An avatar without the four elements to bend is an avatar without meaning. At least, that's what she's convinced herself.
Taking a final look at Naga, her heart breaks into bits as she remembers all those that she cares about. Mom. Dad. Tenzin. Bolin. Asami. Mako...
I'm sorry. I'm sorry I've been avatar, and I'm sorry I've been a terrible friend.
Unable to help herself, she breaks down in tears, blurring her vision. But nothing is stopping her from inching closer to the edge.
She squats down to calm herself while staring at the roaring water below.
At least I'll be in the water, She tries to reason. Her birth element. The one she has lost all connection to.
Her finger runs across the snow, forming characters on the ground before she gets up from her position.
Finally, she takes a huge breath, clearing her eyes of tears. Bravely looking into the darkened horizon, her right foot moves another step forward.
The world needed a new avatar. One that could stop crimes, save people. One that could bend all four elements.
Goodbye.
She takes another step forward and it is all that it takes. Korra is sent plummeting in the ocean, waves covering all signs of her suicide.
Korra had killed herself.
And no one had been there to stop her.
"Send out a search party! We have to find Korra!" Tonraq orders with a strict voice.
It has been two days since the disappearance of the 17 year old avatar, everyone was very concerned.
Perhaps she had run away, like Aang had as a kid? Was she trying to hide from them, ashamed of losing her bending? Maybe she just needed to get away from all of the things that have happened.
But what she had done was nothing close to what they had imagined.
The search took days. Not that they were to blame. They were searching for the wrong person. It would be impossible to find the Korra that they all cared for and loved deeply. She was already gone. All that was left was a cold shell of herself, probably at the bottom of the unforgiving ocean.
They didn't know that of course, that is, until they arrived at a cliff.
The White Lotus had found her pet polar bear dog that day, chasing it as started to run away. And Naga has led them to that very spot.
Footprints were spotted, even though faint after being covered up by days of snow, leading towards the very edge.
All guards immediately raced back to the compound to report of their discovery, hearts pounding, out of breath and extremely worried.
Katara, Pema and Lin were the only ones who remained back at the healing hut, while the others went in separate groups to search the frozen sites of the South Pole.
Seeing panting White Lotus members burst through the doors was both worrying and relieving at the same time. Finally after almost a week they had found something.
"What did you find?" Lin cuts straight to point, voice strict, as usual.
"We...we..." One of them started, words between pants, "there were footprints...leading toward the edge of a cliff. They looked days old, and were definitely... female. We think... they might be Korra's."
The three women were nothing less than shocked.
"Gather the rest and show us the cliff. We need to know what has happened to Korra." After days of absolutely no news, this was definitely what the chief of police was hoping to find out.
Everyone was gathered around the site, devastated. Although all of them were praying to Yue that no, these were not her footprints, and yes, she was okay.
But deep inside, they knew the sad truth. The South Pole was pretty isolated. It couldn't have been a coincidence.
While some of them investigated the marks in the snow, the rest stood at a side, trying their best to accept the reality. Korra was dead.
Mako was looking at the snowy ground, fingers brushing its surface.
He had confessed his feelings to Korra and even though he knew she was having it hard, he had no idea she would do anything as stupid as to attempt suicide.
The fire bender let a tear escape his eye. He had lost her.
That was when he spotted something, right before the cliff ended.
Words. Words, though utterly difficult to read or spot, for that matter, were words nonetheless. And also undeniably in the Avatar's handwriting.
Oh no.
All colour was suddenly drained from Mako's face.
No. No. No. No. No!
Asami had noticed how he was staying so unnaturally still, staring at the same spot of snow. She rushed by his side.
"Mako, what's wrong-" She immediately stops at what she sees. "No." It comes out barely a whisper as her voice softens.
Everyone else is soon muttering the same word again and again at what Korra had written in the snow.
'Find the next avatar for me.'
She was found unconscious, lying on the shores of the Earth Kingdom by a poor elderly couple.
How she avoided immediate death from the impact of falling right into the thunderous waves or drowning into the depths of the water or even escaping death by extreme hypothermia was a complete utter mystery. Not to forget the fact that she had went without food or clean water to drink for almost 10 days, as well as how she managed to appear half way across the world.
At seventeen years of age, maybe the spirits forbade her from dying as youngest avatar in history. Or maybe her "Avatar powers" gave her the ability to survive the entire way. No one really knows. After all it was 'impossible'.
Though barely breathing, she was alive nonetheless.
Of course, you couldn't possibly expect for her to have gone through what she did and come out completely fine and unharmed.
No, she was far from being herself. From being Korra.
She looked like a skeleton, skinny to the bone. There was almost no inch of her skin that was free of cuts, bruises or any other form of injury. She was very pale, her clothing torn and tattered, hair all over the place.
And the worst of all was something entirely different.
She had lost all her memory.
With absolutely no recollection of being the avatar, of her life in the South Pole or Republic City, or even knowledge of her own name, she wasn't Korra anymore.
The old couple who found her took her in. They mentioned something about how the old man, Shen,was also adopted as a child.
Neither of them had recognized her as the avatar.
So from then on, Korra lived as an ordinary earth kingdom citizen, under the name Xuan, known as a non-bender (after all, she had not discovered her ability to air bend). Shen and Yan-Li had provided her with decent food and clothing, despite their financial difficulties, and Korra was eternally grateful.
She had also found out that Shen and Yan-Li's only son had died months ago, followed by his wife during childbirth just days before. So she, in return for their kindness, treated their newborn grandson, Hui, as her own baby brother.
They lived together in a small hut in the village, Korra helping her elderly guardians to work in the farm, earning a huge portion of the family income.
Life was peaceful and happy, though simple and slightly exhausting.
Too bad it wasn't hers.