A/N: First attempt at sharing my writing, and pleased for it to be a Korrasami fic. Trying to make it as close to canon as possible, but you know, this "kid's" show would be completely dropped if this pairing were to be shipped on air.. sadly. Nevertheless, hope you enjoy!
The first rays of sunlight have barely settled on the silent city, showering sleepy homes and buildings with brilliant gold, when Asami is pulled away from her dreams by strings of consciousness.
She opens her eyes slowly, her pupils quickly adjusting to the familiar sight of her bedroom wall. To the side lay her wardrobe, filled extravagantly with overpriced clothing made of silk and fur and lavishly-manufactured fabric.
At the back of her incoherent mind, thoughts circle lazily on the choice of ensemble she would wear today, and when she would actually find time to sort out the garb which she plans to donate to the Earth Kingdom's currently frenzied people.
Her eyelids are heavy, and the striking emerald of her irises are once again blocked from the world when she lets them droop back down, unwilling to fight the need for sleep which she lacks so much of. But she does so anyway.
With a sigh, she pushes herself up and sits on the edge of the bed, eyes never opening. Breathing steadily, she counts down from ten and lists the ten things she is thankful for today – a habit she had adopted to stabilize her emotionality every morning since the betrayal of her father. While it is now merely a practice she has gotten used to, it was previously one she clung on to desperately to keep herself from spending her days weeping.
Asami notes the orange shining through the lids of her eyes.
Ten. The sun is bright, and the day is going to be lovely.
Her legs kick out into the air.
Nine. It feels good to be alive and moving around.
She remembers Tenzin and his family, Mako and Bolin.
Eight. I am welcome in this home, where I am among friends and family.
She wonders what the day has in store for her.
Seven. New experiences await me today, like every other.
Confidence manifests itself as she recalls the latest advancement of Future Industries, mostly due to her wits and intelligence.
Six. There is still much to do for the company- Okay, no, maybe that's not really something I'm looking forward to right now.
Frowning, she remembers the string of events two months prior and shudders.
Five. I am safe and everyone I love is safe.
In particular, she remembers one sun-kissed girl with dazzling azure eyes that are so deep, one can drown in them.
Four. Korra is safe.
The corners of her mouth turn up to form a small smile.
Three. I get to see her.
Her heartbeat quickens a little. She could feel it through her chest and she shudders.
Two. I get be there for her.
Asami's eyes open, and she stands hastily, half-jogging to the restroom to freshen up.
One. Right now.
The soft click of the door wakes her from an untroubled sleep. She may be facing the adjacent wall, but she already knows who had come in unannounced, and what she has brought with her. Eyes open, she waits until her friend takes a few steps towards her bed before she turns and greets her with the best smile she could muster in the groggy state she is currently in. She has always hated mornings, and she always will.
"Good morning," Asami says in a jovial tone, not really looking at her as she props the tray of food she is carrying on the bedside table, and grabs a chair to sit on. "Hope you had a good sleep."
Korra notices her lack of nightmares as she stretches her aching arms, yawning loudly. "Great sleep. You?"
Asami's eyes finally meet hers and, as usual, the blue-eyed girl cannot bring herself to look away. "Me too." She looks away and furrows her brows. "I dreamt about Naga and Pabu. They were a crime-solving duo or something like that." She shuffles and a sheepish expression crosses her face. "I swear, I have the weirdest dreams. They could talk and walk upright. They were even wearing detective outfits!"
Korra couldn't help but laugh. Asami had told her about her dreams before, and many of them were just as amusing as this one. "Yeah, you do." Fighting her body's tiredness from the intense physical therapy session the day before, Korra sits up with a bit of a struggle. From the corner of her eye, she notices Asami's arms reflexively reach out to help her and then freeze as the older woman remembers the Avatar's thirst for doing things on her own.
"Still sore from yesterday, hm?" Asami asks. If she feels any concern, her face does not show it.
Satisfied and grateful, the shorter woman nods her head before letting out an exaggerated groan. "Katara made me do like twenty pull-ups. Twenty. After not doing pull-ups for so long, you know how.." She struggles for the appropriate word. Korra knows pain – she probably knows it much better than anyone now. To classify the throbbing in her muscles from overexertion yesterday as pain would be like comparing the yellow of lemons to the crimson of blood. "..Intense that is? Gran Gran is crazy."
Asami chuckles softly, and to Korra's ears, it's like the beautiful ringing of wind chimes. "Sounds like you're getting your old strength back," she says happily, bending forward and resting her chin on her hand. "Before you know it, you'll be bending like you used to."
At this, Korra turns away and frowns, feeling the stinging behind her eyes. She remembers what her waterbending master had told her yesterday, having finally concluded the actual severity of her leg injuries. "Katara says it will take at least a year for my legs to recover. And by that I mean just to stand. My legs will be thin sticks by then." Removing the blanket covering her limbs, she stares longingly at them. They've already begun to lose all the muscle she's built up in her seventeen years. "Bending is going to have to wait a while."
The older woman, consumed by guilt, absentmindedly places her hand on Korra's. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be.. You know, insensitive. I just didn't know."
With the contact, Korra had pushed her oppressive feelings to the back of her mind and analyzed the sensation of Asami's callused fingers on the back of her much more callused hand. She still can not explain the sudden pounding of her heart in her chest and the rush of blood to her cheeks whenever her friend touched her, despite it being weeks since she first noticed her body's responses.
In spite of the substantial distraction, some part of her still manages to catch the engineer's apology, and her feeling of remorse.
Immediately, she feels terrible for subjecting her friend to her own depressing emotions. After a few weeks of lashing out at everyone post-battle with Zaheer and keeping to herself, she had realized that she needed her friends now more than ever and made a personal promise never to victimize them with a toxic attitude ever again. This may not be one of the same awful situations as before, but it still hurt to see the look of regret on the other woman's face. She waves her hand carelessly, allowing a breeze to rustle Asami's raven hair. "It's fine. I mean, I can still bend with my arms at least." In case that isn't enough to reassure her, she shows off a dazzling grin, albeit it never quite reaching her eyes.
Asami, seemingly flushed at the sudden blow of wind past her, returns a smile of her own, which is far more sincere. Then her eyes widen and dart to where the two women are touching. She awkwardly pulls her hand away, leaving Korra very relieved, and mildly disappointed. "Oh, um, you should eat. Pema made you sea prune stew. Which is probably cold now, damn."
The Avatar laughs quietly, lighting a small flame on the edge of her finger and arching an elegant brow at her friend, as if to say: Bending, remember? She reaches for the bowl on her bedside and places it on top of the flame, a small smile plastered to her face as she watches steam dissipate into air. "Breakfast in bed, the salvation of all mornings."
Three years later...
Asami jolts awake with a start. After a half minute of panting and inwardly calming herself down, she sighs and swings her legs over the side of the bed. She had grown to hate the piece of furniture long ago for being much too large and having too much space for a lone occupant, but she couldn't be bothered to purchase a new one. Her nails dig into the soft mattress covered in velvet as she recalls the nightmares that have plagued her for months, reliving them over and over when sleep takes her consciousness away.
They were always the same. The always provided the same gruesome detail that one would believe to be real. They always frightened Asami, ate away at her sanity until she awoke sweaty and stiff and utterly horrified. Sometimes she cried. But today, she doesn't.
Instead, she glares at her alarm; She had beaten it by a minute. When it does ring, she lets it go on for a while, immersing herself in the piercing drone so that the nightmare may fade into the edges of her mind, never quite leaving but at least allowing her to focus on the tasks at hand.
Today, she has a lot of things going for her: The grand reopening of Republic City's Central City Station in which she will be prominently featured as the head of the project – the amazing visionary, as some people called her, the reunion dinner at Air Temple Island in the evening, and lastly, perhaps most importantly, seeing Korra for the first time in three years.
Korra.
The name sends a whirlwind of emotions through her, and she feels overwhelmed enough to drop back down on the wretched bed and cover her face with a silky pillow.
She remembers the day long ago, when the famed Avatar had left Republic City – and along with it, her old life, her old friends, and her. Korra had left her. Of course, back then, she hadn't known that, since the wheelchair-bound woman promised an absence of only "a couple weeks".
And so, Asami, having been raised in an industry that demanded patience, waited a couple of agonizing weeks for her friend's return. She sent letters along with Bolin, which were never returned. A couple weeks turned into a couple months, and she still got up every morning hopeful that the day would see Korra on her doorstep, sporting a bright and enthralling smile – one that she had consistently given Asami alone after Zaheer seemed to have wiped it away completely from display.
It took a year to break her, to finally lose hope of the woman she inexplicably longed for coming back to her. She had spent weeks mulling over whether or not to get on a ship and to the South Pole, where the apparently 'still recovering Avatar' – as Tonraq had put it in one of his letters to Tenzin – was sure to be situated. But during the long wait she had endured, she had realised and understood the reason Korra had rejected her offer of accompaniment in the first place; Asami had a life in Republic City. In need of a friend or not, Korra couldn't allow her to leave everything behind just like she had.
And she probably knew that she wasn't coming back, at least not soon. Maybe that was why she had convincingly declared a supposed return date. Asami, had she known Korra was going to take three years to recover elsewhere, would have packed everything and joined her in an instant, and nothing the younger woman said or did would have stopped her.
Despite feeling a sense of betrayal at this realisation, the industrialist knew that Korra had been right to refuse. Her company, as a result of her working so hard to occupy her thoughts while Korra was away, had spiraled back to the top in a matter of months. As badly as she wanted to be there for her friend, she simply could not stray too far from her destined path. And judging by the Water Tribe girl's decision to forget them all – evident in her disinterest in communicating despite having the means – she was probably not wanted in the South Pole anyway.
So she stayed, and her company blossomed even more. Now, she is the woman everyone in Republic City looks up to, aside from Korra herself. And really, it is hard not to with the latter, considering she has a giant statue in a park, which, bears even her name.
Asami passes by the statue everyday, unable to help herself, because in spite of everything, she truly misses her. And tonight, she is finally able to see her again, in all her animated glory and not the lifeless figure surrounded by shades of green. But she wouldn't know what to do when she does.
A forced smile, perhaps. An accusing stare. A hug, or a caress? The sleepless woman is torn between showing affection to her long lost friend or planting a seed of animosity that would portray all the distasteful emotions Asami felt at her departure. She'll decide upon it later, she figures.
Removing the pillow to get a breath of fresh air, she is surprised to feel a chill on her face, and realises that parts of it are moist with fresh tears. Wiping them away, she sits up and smashes her alarm clock a little harder than she should have, putting an end to its blaring noise. She absently looks back on a morning ritual she used to carry out unfailingly, once upon a time, when she thought Korra hadn't given up on them. But it became increasingly difficult to find optimism, when the one person who inspired it had vanished from her world. The habit was dropped a couple years ago. Instead, she puts on a mask, and wills herself to survive another day.
The opening ceremony of the new railway system went by without a hitch. Deafening cheers and long-lasting applause sought their way to Asami's ears, and people exclaimed praises meant for her and her work. Humble and incorruptible despite her fame and wealth, the woman of the hour did not let them get to her head. She graciously thanked her supporters, patiently addressing and interacting with them one after another - brief congratulatory chats that satisfied them more than herself.
Still, she made sure to keep a pleasant smile on her face throughout all the hand-crushing handshakes, uncomfortable half-hugs, and straight-out disturbing inquiries she encountered.
However, this one was too much to bear.
Asami found herself stuck in conversation with none other than the spoiled, narcissistic, good-for-nothing future King of the Earth Kingdom she had heard so much about from her occasional bump-ins with Mako. And spirits, was her ex-lover right.
"I do like the idea of putting you on a train and sending you far, far away," she says truthfully with as much disgust in her tone as her polite nature would allow her.
The obnoxious prince doesn't catch the drift and continues on with an introduction that is appropriate for first-time meetings, but completely unnecessary this time around.
"I'm Prince Wu," he declares arrogantly, a small bow making his shorter form seem even shorter. "Future King."
Asami could only raise an elegant brow at him. "Yeah, I'm aware of who you are," she replies as nonchalantly as she could, dragging out the 'yeah' to make it obvious that she is unimpressed, and for that matter, uninterested.
Yet again, he refuses to acknowledge this and continues on an egoistic monologue of him being just like the average guy, yet more than the average guy.
"Superhuman," Asami repeats, unable to believe his guts and choice of words. She is more than used to getting hit on by insistent men who do not know when to quit, but this is just testing the boundaries of her tolerance.
"So what do you say? Can I show you a low-key night out with a superhuman soon-to-be king?"
And just when she thought she's had enough, he goes on to do something that strips her away of all reservations set by her business-like demeanor – his eyebrows. They move up and down in a supposedly macho fashion that makes Asami want to gag and slap him so hard, she'd send him to Ba Sing Se herself without the use of the new railway system.
As she was about to do just that, Mako came in to save the day – and not just for the irksome prince, but for Asami as well, who probably would have been locked in Earth Kingdom prison for years had she done what she had so badly wanted to do.
She watches His Royal Cockiness walk away on account of a summon by President Raiko, but not without first sending a flying kiss her way and a promise to return.
"He's a real charmer, huh?"
Rolling her eyes, Asami turns to Mako, unsure of what to say. "He's... Something."
They talk briefly on how Mako puts up with protecting Wu, whose self-importance would never help him fix a kingdom in shambles. In fact, as far as she knows, he would make things worse.
She chuckles at the detective's attempt at humor. "It's good to see you, Mako. It's been too long," she says honestly. It's been a couple months since they had last met, and she suddenly remembers his brother, whom she hadn't seen for more than twice that length of time. "You hear from Bolin lately?"
"I haven't talked to him for a while, but he's coming in a few days for the coronation." He pauses, a smile forming on his face as he says, "And Beifong told me that Korra is getting in tonight."
The excitement in his tone is contagious and Asami soon finds herself brimming with anticipation, even though she still hasn't resolved the kind of welcome she is going to give the Avatar when she arrives. "I can't wait to see her." Bittersweet memories materialise in her mind, and she thinks back to a time when all seemed right in the world. "It's gonna be weird, having the old Team Avatar back in the city after all these years."
A/N: Wanted to write all the way till the crew discovers Korra's running away, but that will have to wait till next chapter which will hopefully be out soon after the second episode. Thanks for reading!