Disclaimer: I don't own Legend of Korra, because if I did, they would have some interesting and diverse pairings. Like…Asami and Bolin.
Really can't decide which characters I love most here, but I like Asami, which surprises me because she's not usually the type I cheer for. I kind of hope they go more in depth with her character. This one-shot takes place after The Aftermath.
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She watches the mansion's lights blink into dark obscurity as the airship flees this…this hellhole; this scene of destruction that once held everything she loved. It still holds her love; she suspects her father is still beneath the very grounds she roamed as a schoolgirl, the streets she raced, the home she knew for only forever. She absently wonders if he's beneath her bedroom, with the old wooden vanity that held that treasured bottle of rose petal perfume that was one of the few dim memories she kept of her mother. Or maybe below her bed, with the dip in her mattress from where she liked to sleep so she could see the stars outside her window. Or perhaps under her desk, where she used to write all her letters, paint all her dreams, and wish for a little bit more, because her father didn't quite give her everything like everyone thought he did.
For a single heartbreaking moment, she speculates if, out of desperation in letting the Avatar get away, he'll burn the estate into a crumbling ruin for being a loose end. That her entire childhood might be going up in smoke as she looks on.
She stares through the glass, but she doesn't really see anything. Everything she (should) could love is behind her right now, frantically discussing options, plans, theories. She thinks she could love them, if they ever really accept her. Because now she's the traitor's daughter, and there will always be a little doubt if she's really on their side.
She means to prove every little doubt wrong. Her father may have given up on benders, on faith and understanding, but she knows she's met some worth keeping and she means to keep them, even if it costs her her past.
Maybe, now that she thinks about it, she didn't have anything worth saving anyway. For all the riches her father had, he couldn't seem to buy time to be with her, couldn't buy affection and the loyalty he had thought he would get from her tonight. He had loved her, yes, but he couldn't provide enough of that hesitant, blinded love. This, she thinks somewhat bitterly, may well be what she's been looking for all along, passion and adventure and people who just might love her because of what she's done and not because of who she is. This could be her life, and she does want it.
But Asami still looks back, and she watches the lights of the mansion, all the stars she's ever known, fade into the rest of the glittering cityscape. And she closes her eyes, because she's done regretting and all that's left for her is the fight.
She intends to win.
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