Korra's heart jumped to her throat as she heard a loud crash. She heard cursing. Then, even more destruction to the object that made the frightening crash. After that, the worst part, came the dreading laugh that boomed from the persons mouth, echoing and bouncing off the walls, looking for an escape.
The cackling settled in the middle of the room, content.
Silence.
She shifted in the uncomfortable, yet comforting silence.
'Daddy's drunk again…' The alert five-year-old speculated.
She shivered again at the thought of the loud laugh, hairs all over her body standing up in apprehension. This wasn't just any laugh.
It was a booming, rowdy, nefarious laugh. The one that you didn't want to hear coming from your dad. It wasn't a laugh she ever heard from her mother. Her mom had a sweet, kind laugh that you basked in. She could talk for hours and you would never want her vocal cords to stop spouting the honeyed sound.
Speaking of her mother, in which she missed dearly, she wondered where she had gone. She had been away for a long time. More than what the blue-eyed innocent five-year-old was comfortable with. She knew she had been gone for days, because quite a few different moons had risen and she had not made an appearance to Korra's bedroom to kiss her goodnight.
Or, to tell her how she didn't need to worry about her dad. He wasn't himself, he would return in the morning.
Or, how as soon as her mother had enough money, they would leave as soon as possible.
Korra didn't understand her mother's bipolar attitude towards the situation. One night, tears would be streaming down her face, landing on Korra's blanket in a salty mess. During those nights, she would spout to Korra how she was so sorry she chose the wrong father for her sweet daughter. How, they would leave when they got the chance.
The very next night, she would kiss her daughter goodnight. She would babble on about how he's changing. He will, he is changing for the better. This is a turn for our family. Korra long forgot about the traditional bedtime stories about rabaroos, and instead became accustomed to these 'new' stories.
Except, it was the same two stories. Korra admitted it got kind of boring to listen to the same story more than three times, but she stayed quiet, glad her mother was tucking her into bed.
It was an endless two-part cycle, and her mother would come into her room on the third day with the familiar tears streaming down her face.
One night, a screaming match started. Their voices caused the house to quake. Korra tried to shut the sounds out, burying her face in her pillow. However, it only muffled the sounds.
The sound of flesh colliding with flesh with wicked intent was so loud it penetrated Korra's barricade. She heard her mother scream, and her honeyed voice was no longer so comforting. Korra clenched the sheets, stuffing her face further into the pillow, hoping to just simply become part of the fabric.
She heard her mothers sobs, and much shuffling around the house. Korra picked up on niblets of the strained conversation.
"You can't just leave!" Her drunken fathers voice boomed.
No response.
More shuffling, and the rubbing together of fabrics.
Korra picked up on only half the sentence,
"... not coming with you. She's staying right here, with me."
"You'll be damned before I leave Korra here!" Senna challenged.
Korra didn't hear the rest, she quietly sobbed herself into a labored sleep. Korra still wondered many days later why her mother didn't take her. As much as her innocent vocabulary was constricted, she was pretty sure her mother meant she wasn't going to leave her there.
However, she was quite here, missing her mother.
The void silence left all the room in the world for loud noises. The silence left her wondering if her father had possibly passed out. If he had, that could be the brighter side of tonight's situation. However, it could also mean she was on her own for the rest of the night, which was a scary responsibility to the young girl.
She was scared out of her abundant thoughts by her door sliding open so fast and with so much force it caused the walls of her room to shake with diluted strength.
Her father stood in the threshold. His dazed eyes looking about the room. He finally spotted the young girl on the floor. The rage in his eyes bloomed, and she was trying to prepare herself for whatever barrage he would throw at her.
"Whatya doin' out of bed? Go to bed now!" He lazily pointed to what he thought was the cot on her floor, but instead his pseudovision made him wrongly point to the wall.
Korra understood what he meant anyway, and scrambled to retreat to her cot. She snuggled under it in fear, turning on her side to face the wall, begging silently for him to leave.
To her revelation, he served obediently to her mute pleas and left the room, sliding the door closed behind him, still slightly fueled by anger.
She let go of the oxygen that she had imprisoned in her lungs with a sigh, her heart still thumping against her ribcage vigorously.
She was about to withdraw from reality to the comforting arms of unconsciousness, when something caught the curiosity that was always present in her eyes. She looked over in the diagonal corner from her, and saw something… floating.
Her bright, blue eyes squinted to see something small floating in the corner of her room. It was insanely bright, causing slight discomfort in the young girls eyes.
It was white, from first visual impression. It had blue specs decorating the entity all over. It had funny tentacle-like things, which made Korra slightly giggle.
Her blue eyes glossed over, "It's okay. I won't hurt you."
Her tiny hands beckoned the floating entity over to her, very inviting. The spirit suddenly started flying, making a beeline for Korra.
The spirit stopped right in front of her, and Korra gazed at it for a while. Her eyes had recovered from the previous blinding brightness of the spirit, and now she explored the spirit with intense eagerness.
The blue specs had turned into impressive blue shapes, ones Korra had never seen before.
"Wow. Those shapes are pretty." Korra admitted, her eyes still trying to perceive what the entity looked like.
No response.
"You don't talk much, do you?" Korra questioned.
Still, no response.
"It's okay, we can be friends. I am shy, too, so no one wants to be my friend." Korra said. This time, she didn't expect a response, and asked, "Can I touch the shapes?"
The manner in which the spirit moved made Korra perceive it had nodded in approval. She stuck her tiny index finger out to touch it.
What she didn't expect was for her tiny finger to penetrate the spirit. Her finger suddenly got very cold.
Korra took her hand back quickly, giggling with immense entertainment.
"That's a cool trick! Can you do another?" Korra asked.
The spirit stilled for a few seconds, then brightness Korra couldn't even imagine illuminated from the spirit, making the whole room that was once midnight black turn into a startling white space.
Korra shielded her sensitive blue eyes from the spirit.
The light dulled within seconds, and Korra's eyes adjusted back to the dim light her sensitive eyes approved of.
"Wow! That was cool!" Korra giggled in excitement.
Korra tried to return the favor, "All I can do is this."
She held out her palm, and within milliseconds a bright flame was born in her hand. Her bright eyes trailed about the flames that was licking at the oxygen in the air.
She retreated to a memory, still looking at the flame.
"My mommy and my daddy don't know I can do this though. They might be mad, because all they would talk about was how they can't wait for me to be a waterbender." Her face softened at the mentioning of her mother.
Suddenly remembering what her mother taught her about not being selfish in the conversation, she looked over at the spirit that had mirrored her interest in the flame.
"Does your family know you can do that?" Korra asked.
Instead of receiving an answer, the spirit retreated to a cup of water Korra had from last night's late-night thirsts. The spirit pushed the cup filled with liquid over to her.
She diminished the flame.
"I'm not thirsty." Korra stated bluntly.
The spirit shook what she thought was its head. The spirit pushed her right hand up, over the cup of water.
The spirits intentions clicked in her mind, "I told you. I can only do this." She introduced the flame to the spirit once again, "See?"
The spirit pressured her, as it pushed the cup of water, once again, closer to her. She diminished the flame once again, and sighed. "Okay, I'll try. But i'm pretty sure the rule is you can only bend one thing." She informed the spirit, looking down at the cup of water.
She put her hand over the liquid, which even in its transparency, still looked black against the darkness in the room. The only exception was the spirit illuminating the side of the cup with its mysterious brightness.
After several minutes of trying to bend the element, she dropped her arm to the side of her.
"See? I told you I can't do it." She said, shaking her head.
The spirit was really pushing it on her, as it gave one final shove of the cup towards the young girl. It almost tilted over, barely balancing on the edge of its rim as it got pulled back down on its foundation.
The dark liquid sloshed around in the cup.
"Fine. I'll try one more time." Korra sighed, lifting her hand back up over the cup.
She actually focused this time.
Focus on the liquid inside of the cup, how cold it feels as it goes down your throat and it touches your skin.
How water is the element of tranquility.
Her stunning blue eyes hardened on the stress of concentrating.
At first she thought it was the malevolent dark tricking her eyesight, but she gasped in pure shock as the liquid was slowly being lifted into the air by an unseen force. The more she moved her hand up, the higher the liquid levitated. Her mouth was open in awe.
She stuttered, "I-I can't believe… that I-I'm doing this!"
For fun, she dragged her wrist around, and the liquid followed.
She flung the water up and down, side to side. She made it turn into a thin line of floating liquid, and she danced around as the water flowed eagerly around her, to her doing.
Her hand started getting tired, and the water was now dripping everywhere due to its sudden loss of coordination by its instructor.
She guided the water back to its home, and it settled back into the cup.
The spirit looked pleased.
Korra looked down at her hands in astonishment, not believing she had just done that.
"I can't wait to show my mommy this trick!" Korra giggled, delighted to make her mother proud when she was to return.
The spirit blankly resided.
Korra suddenly noticed her fatigue in the midst of her excitement.
She rubbed her eyes, yawning.
"Oh! Are you able to spend the night?" Korra asked the spirit with drowsy elation laced in the question.
The spirit simply lay down next to her head, close for comfort.
"Goodnight."
Korra woke up early the next morning, finding the spirit was gone. It made her upset that their sleepover had ended prematurely without her knowledge.
It was nice to make a friend though.
Later that night in the darkness of midnight, she was about to doze off.
The same bright light that had captured her attention the first time, caught it like a fish on a hook the second time.
The spirit resided in the parallel corner to her.
And in its possession was a pebble made out of pure earth.
.
.
.
Hey everyone! I honestly don't know what kind of fever I am running, I am just in a one shot kind of mood.
(Yes, I know, this contrasts to the Makorra theme I have stuck to. Gotta break some barriers sometimes.)
Story overview;
This took on a different perspective contrasting to what it really was like in the show. As we could all tell, Korra was a total daddy's girl in the TV show. I decided to modify his behavior a bit. I don't think I'll ever disclose what happened to Korra's mother in this one-shot, so I will leave it up to you to dream away.
The idea of this isn't that Rava just randomly showed up. Rather, Rava had been reborn into Korra. And now that her father is becoming a threat to her life, the Avatar Spirit must do everything to protect the avatar. That includes comforting a young girl who is in emotional distress. I still managed to keep young Korra in character, while making her extremely innocent. Therefore, Rava must also protect her innocence from being destroyed by her alcoholic and narcissistic father.
Incase you didn't get the ending, it was meant to foreshadow that Rava would be teaching her she can bend all of the 4 elements. Korra knew about the fire element first, after hearing stories about how a war was like over 80 years ago. And maintaining Korra's innocence, she immediately went to how she was excited to show her mother she can waterbend. Staying in character, she wanted to make everyone proud.
(I am not really sure if I broke the rules of how the avatar learns the elements by having Korra be able to bend fire first, instead of her natural first element, (water). If I broke that rule, I am sorry!)
Reviews would be greatly appreciated!