Title: Discordia (Iroh's odyssey)
Rating: M
Pairings: Korra/Mako and Korra/Iroh
Notes: This story is still working itself out so be patient with me while I find my bearings with it.
"Interchanging mind control
Come let the, revolution takes its toll
If you could, flick the switch and open your third eye
You'd see that, we should never be afraid to die" – Uprising by Muse
Chapter 1
Robes of crimson and gold rioted around his movements, whipping back from the force of his pace as he hastened down the hall. Lights powered by electricity dotted the walls with an unnatural white glare that hurt the priest's eyes, too used to the dark of the caverns under the temple.
His footfalls echoed against wooden floors, heavy and loud, his usual grace lost in the rigidity of his spine. He was flanked by the usual faceless flunkies of the revolution, soulless eyes staring at him from behind green goggles. His fist tightened around the scroll in his hands and he shifted his jaw until it cracked painfully. The sooner it was delivered the sooner he could return to the tunnels and chambers beneath their feet, hidden away like a secret when he once sat in a position of power and lived happily in the glow of the sun.
His element was only an old friend to him now. It was rare to feel a perfumed breeze upon his skin, to feel the connectedness of all things. Meditation had become his reprieve rather than his spiritual source. He had suffered a near fatal disconnect, a shredding and tearing apart of his most basic self. He had been cleansed of his impurities. The ability to control air was only a memory, just another thing lost to the war. A problem that had been solved.
It was ironic, then, that the Equalists would so depend on her.
They turned the corner and Tenzin had to shield his eyes from the amount of light, one of the Equalists laughing at his movement. He cracked his jaw again, stubbornness shining through the motion.
Large wooden doors loomed in front of them, what was once the office of a councilman now looked unfamiliar to his gaze. It was no longer a place of peace and quiet to do his work, now it was a home to the leader of the new regime.
The doors opened inward and Tenzin suppressed a shiver as he walked inside, there was no unnatural light here, only candles and small flickering flames. It only enhanced the darkness that he could feel in every corner, death lurking like a dream. Air Temple Island had become haunted by war, loss, greed, and injustice.
Air Temple Island had become haunted by Amon.
The doors closed quietly behind him, shutting out the extra light from the hall. He knew from experience that his escorts would be waiting on the other side to return him to his prison.
"Has she spoken?" the voice was deep and gravely, booming authoritatively behind the protection of a mask. Candle light washed over white porcelain, highlighting a fearsome disguise of red and black paint. The mask glowed yellow in the dimness, a floating, pale oval shining out of the darkness that surrounded it from both the wearer's black ensemble to the pitch of the room.
His eyes appeared black in the almond hollows on either side of a regal white nose. He appeared as a spirit, a ghost, a haunted man who had brought his demons upon them all.
"She has, just this morning," the priest confirmed, his eyes darting to the other man in the room; another green goggled follower, crueler than the rest, the Lieutenant.
"You've interpreted the vision?" Amon pressed further, pulling Tenzin's attention back to the glowing mask. He gripped the scroll tightly, his fingers tensing and un-tensing around the paper.
"I have."
A flick of gloved fingers was his indication to read the now crumpled scroll and he unfurled it with quick, practiced movements.
He didn't need to read the words from the paper; they were burned into his mind. Horrifically branded on the inside of his skull and tattooed upon his skin like a suit of suffocating guilt.
He should have stopped it, they should have known, they should have foreseen… It was his job to interpret her words and he hadn't wanted to believe. Hadn't wanted to accept what her vision of ghosts made of flesh and a city of bones could mean.
This time there was no ignoring the signs. No ignoring the truth of her visions.
The ocean would turn to fire, vessels sinking under the flames. Amon's victory would be assured in a cacophony of death and destruction. The last remnants of the resistance would fall. There would be a bride with green eyes and chestnut hair. There would be a sacrifice.
There was nothing that could be done to stop it now.
…
Four months later
There was a time when the tunnels and chambers under the island had not been a prison for the Oracle of Air. Instead, she had lived in the temple above, and had only traveled deep into the caverns once a month to receive the prophecy of the divine. The divine was the one who managed the balance between all things, whom the priests and priestesses called the Avatar but whom the Oracle knew to only be the energy that connected all things. The divine was neither a person nor a thing; it was everything and nothing all at once. Starlight and starkness, water and fire, air and earth.
It was neutral in all things because it was a part of all things.
The oracle of Air was known to have the closest relationship to the Avatar spirit. She was the only Oracle able to bend all four elements and there was only one born every generation. Only one who could receive the Avatar's full truth and pass on that information.
The Divine did not live in a linear time line; instead the Avatar was omniscient, able to see deep into the past and far into the future. Able to see all possibilities at once and extrapolate the most likely in any given dimension. And there were many dimensions, multiple bubble universes all connected through the elements and the atoms that were shared across endless space, traded back and forth from flaring nebula to exploding star.
Although the Oracle of Air knew these truths, the Avatar never burdened her with the weight of all of that knowledge. The Divine understood that she was mortal and that, as a result, her mind could only handle so much. So the Oracle received messages through a sieve, only gaining the insight that the world currently needed to stay on the right path. This was what her job was meant to be.
The Equalist revolution bastardized these rituals, forcing her to live in the small stuffy chambers that smelled of sulfur and tightly packed earth. They demanded that she attempt to maintain a near constant connection to the Divine, commanded that she give them the answers that they needed to win their victories.
Every day she would prepare herself for the ritual that was only meant to occur once a month. Every day she would risk her health and her mind to the exhaustion of connecting. Every day she grew weaker. The divine hadn't spoken to her in over a week and she knew that Tenzin was becoming worried. They both knew that her life would be forfeit if she did not provide them with their prophecies.
"Are you ready?" the soft melodious tones of Pema's voice floated in and Korra shut her eyes as she nodded.
The Air Priestess began the now daily process of braiding the Oracle's burnished hair into a thick, waist length plait. She coated the strands with scented oil, slipping her fingers through the strands as she worked.
Korra reached for a grape off of the plate that another priestess had delivered that morning and she pressed it into her mouth, barely tasting the sweetness as she popped through the thick skin.
Two times a day, her food was delivered to her chamber, set outside of the rock wall so that the priestess wouldn't risk seeing the Oracle.
It was an old tradition, only the Head Priest and Priestess of the Order of Air were allowed to gaze upon her. They were her greatest confidants and only friends. Tenzin and Pema.
When she had lived above ground she was required to wear a veil of lace and silk if she was to ever leave her rooms, but down here the veils were largely left behind.
A heavy sigh escaped her throat as Pema helped her into one of her divination robes. It had once been one of her favorites, a confection of turquoise colored silk with blood red piping and embroidered leaves that reminded her of autumn.
Pale fingers tied the belt at her waist in an elaborate knot and Korra looked into Pema's grey eyes, lost and searching.
The older woman's expression softened at her and she pressed her palm to the darker skinned girl's cheek. "It will be ok," she assured and it took all of Korra's strength to not collapse into her arms.
She could feel tears prickling at her eyes.
"Will it?"
"Yes." Pema reassured, her eyes burning into Korra's entreatingly before she stepped to the side, reaching for the golden crown that the Oracle wore when facing the Divine.
Korra closed her eyes, as the crown was settled on top of her hair, resolve setting in her shoulders.
"It's time," Pema whispered and Korra squared her shoulders, her chin lifting as she moved to the back of her bedchamber and with an effortless twist of hand, shifted the rock that blocked the entrance to the main chamber aside.
She moved past the small vestibule, earth bending the rock back into place after a quick nod of farewell to Pema. She would be locked inside until nightfall, whence she would normally awaken from the trance, reenter her room and eat again.
Everyday had been the same for the last six months. A short amount of time considering the war had begun nearly ten years ago. Before she was orphaned and taken in by the Church of the Order of Air, before she had been trained as an air acolyte, and then ordained as a priestess. Before the previous Oracle had shed her mortal coil and before the Divine had called to Korra in her dreams and gifted her with the knowledge of all four elements.
As the Avatar was neutral, so was it the duty of the oracle to be neutral. Her gifts were to only be used for peace and only during ritual.
Korra stepped lightly into the main chamber, knowing the room like the back of her hand. She moved to the abalone shell by the entry, lifting a bundle of white sage and sweet grass and lighting it with a spark from her breath. A kiss of fire.
She carried the shell and incense with her. The main chamber was small and intimate and only the Oracle was ever allowed within its walls. She spun in place, once, twice, a trail of smoke twirling around her and diffusing into the air before she sat on the stone tableau in the center of the room. Abalone shell, sage, and sweet grass set aside.
Even the way that the Oracle sat was a ritual in and of itself. She sat lightly, right foot tucked under her other leg while the foot of her left leg was placed flat on the ground. Her back was ramrod straight and her right hand was palm up against her leg, fingers curled inwards in a mudra that signified fire. Her other hand was held up to her chest, middle finger curved downward and thumb out in a gesture signifying air. The placement of her feet signified water on the right and earth on the left. It was in this position that she was ready to accept the presence of the divine.
She closed her eyes, breathing in deeply through her nostrils and out through her mouth. Clearing her mind and gaining focus.
All around her, the chamber was alive. Fresh spring water ran in rivulets down the limestone walls, pulsing with life as she meditated until the water was rushing in sheets.
The familiar feeling of warmth spread up from her toes and into her spine and when Korra opened her eyes again the room was filled with light. Veins of quartz crystal glowed from every wall, sparkling and shimmering under the water.
She breathed out again, allowing flames to dance at her fingertips before shooting her arms outwards until the flames licked at the walls and clawed at the ceiling turning the water to steam. A quick rush of air came afterwards, spiraling from her palms and pressing the steam into the limestone until the pressure was near to cracking and then she was pulling it all in to her body, allowing the heat to rush over her like a sauna. Letting the culmination all four elements caress her skin and enter her pores.
She inhaled the vapors that she had created, her body already succumbing to the numbness and intoxicating effects.
Sometimes the Avatar appeared to her as a ball of light, other times as an animal, or a man or woman. But the divine always came with a zephyr of sweet air, like apple blossoms, vanilla bean, and sugar cane. Like eucalyptus and grass after rain. Like life.
Life rushing into her mouth and down to her lungs, filling her up with pure experience until her eyes glowed white with knowledge.
The Avatar was here.
The chamber walls were vibrating until the quartz crystals, imbedded in the stone, were singing like a tuning fork beside her ears. Today, after weeks of no message, no joining; today, the divine was hitting her with a rush of information. Pressing upon her in wave after wave until she could feel tears running down her cheeks. Until she was sure that she would burst. It was too much.
She was suffocating, her bones burning away as easily as dry wood. Her chest crushed under the weight of it all, like heavy stones. She was drowning in an ocean of knowledge, an ocean of desperation and sadness.
I don't want to see this! She screamed in silence.
She gasped for breath as she fell to the floor, fingernails scrabbling for purchase in the stone and skin rubbing raw as she writhed in terror.
I don't want to know!
The acrid smell of blood filled the air and she wasn't sure if it was the visions or if she was bleeding, if she was dying from this. Because she must be, it hurt too much. Her head was splitting open, as if the divine had sliced her open with an axe and was stuffing the wound with…
Discord and Destruction and…
Enough! Please! I don't want to know anymore!
And then the essence of life was leaving her, unplugging itself from her body and leaving her to collapse, swallowed by the darkness.
I'm lost. I'm lost.
Everything is lost.