a work of heart
Summary: No mother should ever have to learn that her daughter's destiny is to be slaughtered. / Or, a closer look at Jinora's side of things. Anchorverse auception, set during Sea of Chains. Extremely belated Christmas gift for Kuno-chan.
Disclaimer: I do not own The Legend of Korra, nor do I own the Anchorverse or any of its auceptions—those belong to Bryke, words-with-dragons, and Kuno-chan. I'm just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.
Once there was a girl who was meant to die and—
Yeah.
There's no good way to end that story, is there?
Here's another story.
Once there was a beautiful princess who lived in a kingdom far, far away and had everything that she could ever want. Books and toys and clothes and jewelry—nothing was too extravagant. Yet despite her circumstances, the princess was profoundly unhappy. Never smiled, never laughed. When asked why, she would stare out the window of her bedroom at the sea in the distance and murmur that there was nothing to smile for, and everyone treated her like a glass trinket ready to break at the slightest touch.
Suitors came from far and wide to see her, to try and make the princess smile like it was a game and she was just a prize to be won. She saw her dowry in their eyes, in their bad jokes, and refused to participate in conversation no matter how much her parents the king and queen pressed her. Think of the kingdom, they told her.
She woke up on a dark and stormy night to see a servant tending to the fire. As no one was allowed into her room without her express permission (except her parents and the suitors they dragged along, but she valued what crumbs of privacy she could snatch), she demanded to know what he was doing.
"Tending the fire, Majesty," the servant said. "It's cold in the servants quarters and I thought you might be cold up here too."
She had had things done for her all her life but never had she been handed a favor. A kindness like no other. "Thank you," she said.
The princess and the servant talked long into the night, and the next night, and the next night. She found herself sharing secrets about herself that she'd never spoken before, like how she loved walking in the gardens during the spring and how her first memory was her father taking her to the newly-built library in the castle. And in return, the servant told her about his life. He was an orphan who sought adventure, who was passing through until he could find a better job.
"I want to travel the world," said the servant one night, who she had come to regard as a friend. "To see sights that no has seen before. I've been saving up money to buy a boat of my own—with my inheritance from my parents and my wages here I might have enough soon." And he smiled at her, sure and steady. She was grateful that the darkness concealed her blush. "I wouldn't mind going with a girl like you someday."
With a girl like her, whose only expertise was in ladylike (befitting of a princess) activities like rearranging flowers and playing the flute, who would prefer to keep her head in a book than make conversation with visiting nobles. He liked her. "I would like that," she said. "To go with a boy like you."
The next morning her parents found her bedroom empty with the window open and a note resting on the sheets. This time I didn't think of the kingdom, it said. I thought of myself.
Jinora remembers curling up under the covers with her siblings as a child and listening to Uncle Bumi recite the story of the princess and the servant. Her father hadn't liked it, though he'd refused to say why. But the story had given her comfort when her parents had introduced her to LingShi, when she had felt her spirit crumbling beneath her—to think of the servant and the princess sailing the sea on a tiny boat made for two, talking to each other, respecting each other, utterly in love.
In another world, the princess will meet a servant who is unafraid to challenge her and respects her when she rises to his jibes. They will argue with each other for days and days until the tension between them will thaw and turn to friendship, and between blood and the stars and stories and music nights, they will fall in love and sail the seas on a ship with their entire family aboard, uncles and grandpas and children and all. The princess will think of herself before the kingdom and will never be happier.
Jinora just wishes that Nima could have a story like that.
When Jinora's seventeen, she has her destiny read by an old woman in a village called Makapu. Her mother is with her father on business and she and her siblings have been given free reign for the afternoon. She'd stumbled upon a little shop that smelled of spices, and to this day she remembers sitting down in a squat little armchair and extending her palm and waiting, waiting, waiting—though for what she doesn't know.
She's not supposed to believe in this stuff. She's Jinora Gyatso, daughter of the governor, a perfect lady who knows when to nod and smile and only believes in the truth, not fake things like this that her father will most definitely disapprove of. But she waits, excitement and nerves thrumming against each other, and at last the woman speaks. "I see now, child," she says. "I can see numerous paths ahead of you. Some bleak. Some lead to adventure and love and bright days."
"How do I get one over the other?" she asks. Love and adventure and bright days sound wonderful when her present is Lingshi's oilslick smile and months that will pass like a series of identical soap bubbles, one after the other.
"You must follow your heart." She nods, though she doesn't know what opportunity she will have to do so. "Heed me, child. It will not all be perfect. No matter what path you choose, you will know sorrow. You will know pain. But you will know love as well."
Later Kai will reveal that a seer saw good things in his future as well, and Jinora goes to bed that night thinking of her destiny for the first time in years. Love and adventure and bright days, all for the cost of following her heart and the occasional pain and sorrow.
Here's the thing.
Destiny is not always nice. Destiny can be rough and cruel and has all of the humanity of a storm. Destiny does not care what path it sets you on; it just drops you off at the starting point and waves you off, and no one is immune. Not even death can stop destiny from having its way with you.
In the end, everyone dies. It's one of the only things that we can be absolutely clear on. You are born, you die. The bit in the middle is yours. It's the only bit you get. Do with it what you will. That's where you can fight your demons and fulfill your destiny.
Jinora knows destiny. She knows how it will raise you up and hold you in a grip tight enough to bruise. She knows this, she knows, and yet—
No mother should ever have to learn that her daughter's destiny is to be slaughtered.
Nima takes after both of them in beauty and brains and spunk. Carefree and full of laughter and spirit, all she wants to do is dance. Jinora loves to watch her dance through the years, loves to watch her get better. At ten she had been forced away from her passions into long, boring teas with potential suitors, and she's beyond grateful that Nima will never have to go through that. Her baby is a pirate through and through.
The crew of the Waterbender are willing to raise hell to protect one of their own. Momo takes a blow for Nima in battle and emerges with a scar on his throat. Nah Jah dies. Tikaani is sold into slavery and rises from the ashes as a Pirate Lord, and she doesn't have to lie for her family and friends to know that she's never been the same since. And Nima—Jinora's baby just gets quieter. She lets her emotions out through her dancing and Jinora sees pain. Sees sorrow. Sees despair.
She remembers holding her daughter in her arms and soothing her while Kai had gone to find Quil. Quil, the bastard with a sharp smile and blood dripping from his hands, the monster from her daughter's nightmares that she wishes she could chase away.
Picture the most horrible person you can imagine, she remembers Skoochy saying solemnly while Kai had been fighting for his life. Quil's their worst nightmare.
And Nima had cried, mumbling something about blades and bad men and destiny, and Jinora had put the pieces together and had gone bloodless white under her tan.
He's after me, Mama, he's after me, it's my destiny, the seer said so—
What is, baby? What's your destiny?
To die, Mama. To die.
The princess puts herself over her kingdom. Chooses happiness over her family. She thinks that everything will be alright, a happily ever after straight from fairy tales and fables. But real life isn't always like stories. The servant is plagued with nightmares and survivor's guilt that love can't always chase away. Monsters are real and alive and will eat up anyone who gets in their way, and the princess and the servant and their friends and family can't protect their children from the horrors of the world no matter how hard they try.
She just wants to dance, Kai, she just wants to dance—
The devil wants her daughter, and she thinks, Like hell—
The devil wants her daughter, and she thinks, I am a mother and I will protect my daughter even if it costs me everything I have—
The devil wants her daughter, and she thinks, I will find a way to save my daughter from her destiny even if I have to kill you myself.
Here's the thing.
What's meant to be will always find a way.
Nima and Kai fight, Kai stays silent, Nima runs, and Quil catches her.
That evening, tied up on the sand as a hostage with her husband, Jinora comes face to face with her daughter's corpse. Her eyes are shot open in horror, the green of her irises glossed over in their terrified state. Her brown skin is pale from the blood loss. The ends of her hair, of her beautiful hair, are caked together with blood. While Kai spits vengeance and fury Jinora collapses into a puddle of tears and denial. My baby my baby my baby please Spirits please no—
Her daughter's destiny can't be death. She's so young, she had her whole life ahead of her.
All Nima had wanted to do was dance, and now she's dead at the hands of the devil.
She's going to kill Quil. When the time comes and she's strong enough to stand, she's going to kill that son of a bitch who dared to touch her daughter, who dared to haunt her waking moments and her sleep. She will track him down and flay every inch of skin off his body and then she'll feed him to a pack of wild dogs, preferably while he's still alive. She is a mother and her daughter is dead, and hell hath no fury like a mother scorned.
But she's weak with grief and her plans of vengeance never string together. A bounty hunter saves them. They return to the ship and share the news with their family. Quil gets away.
It's my destiny, she can hear Nima saying. It's my destiny to die.
Jinora sobs with the intensity of someone vomiting on all fours.
Once there was a princess who runs away with a servant and lives happily ever after.
Once there was a governor's daughter and a pirate who fall in love, have three children, and dream of living happily ever after like the stories foretold.
Once there was a girl who was meant to die. Despite her mother and father's best efforts to help her avoid her destiny she dies screaming, begging for mercy at the hands of the devil, and her body is flaunted to her grieving parents before being thrown into the sea for the fish to eat.
And her mother cries, and her father lashes out, and her siblings and family grieve, and a bounty hunter regrets, and the devil grins, and the girl—
The girl lives.
But unbeknownst to her parents, that's another story.