Holy first fanficthing ever! (please be gentle..? :T) Working with episode 4 of LOK. I thought the psychological subtlety of the episode was really lovely. Maybe I'll write a real storything next...? Still a bit early in the show so we'll see.
Disclaimer: I own no characters and certainly not this storyline. All belong to Bryan Konietzko & Michael DiMartino.
My closest companion is a nightmare
All week Korra tries to focus on training. Her spiral airbending footwork traces serene loops over the ground. Korra's face is still, and one might almost believe she is tapping into the calmness of the element. Korra's eyes are tight at the edges. Her careful movements are borderline obsessive, as if making these spirals will overwrite something unpleasant carved on the stone. Tenzin watches and thinks that Korra's concentration looks oddly like a distraction.
The days progress in tense monotony. Korra's brittle concentration lessens somewhat as she dresses for Tarrlok's party- her party- and Naga grins in approval. Careless of her formal dress, Korra hugs Naga tightly but fends off slobbery kisses. As Korra leaves the island, she absently turns back several times, as if looking unconsciously for a sight of her friend.
She almost doesn't recognize Mako when he walks up, and she certainly does not recognize the woman hanging off his arm. The only thing that really registers in the ensuing encounter is that Mako got run over but is fine. She's glad he's fine. Really glad. But as he melts away into the crowd, Korra finds that Mako is another person, like almost everyone else she greets at this party, who seems to leave a bitter taste in her throat.
Every little encounter sticks a barb in her that would have set her flaring except for the feeling of quiet numbness she cannot shake off. Perhaps the oddness of having a gala in her honor is getting to her. I want to leave now. The thought drifts lightly across her mind, barely even there.
Tarrlok brings her to the news media. Their flashes strobe over the thickness in her head. The lights and questions strip something away. She feels like some hunted animal, slipping on the ice, facing a ring of Southern Watertribesmen with silent spears leveled. Suddenly, she finds solid purchase and can surge against her interlocutors. Korra's blood seems to flow again. "I am not afraid of anyone!" The words ring in her head, and she can believe them. The Avatar serves Republic City. The city needs her. She is the Avatar. She is not afraid of anyone.
Korra could have looked small standing on the steps with Tarrlok a couple feet behind looking entirely too satisfied at the reporters surging at her feet. But Tenzin was so taken in by how firmly she set her shoulders that he almost missed her falterings. The legend of his father and all the Avatars before lived in this girl. Her presence was enough to fill the room by itself. The way her hands tried to grasp the air as she cast around before the glare of camera bulbs seemed entirely incongruous. Only later did Tenzin remember this scene and start at how terribly alone Korra looked in that press of people.
Once Korra is committed, something hardens inside of her, and her desperate concentration takes on a lethal edge. She loses herself in the fight and the chase. Adrenaline sets her body thrumming. She feels remorseless, vicious. Movement has always freed her and tonight is no different. Winning feels so good, but, strangely, not as good as always. It rings hollowly inside her, so she crushes that ringing too with the grim satisfaction she grips tightly in her hands.
It is as if she hasn't stopped chasing Equalists down dim corridors. Korra gives herself to a searing momentum and rushes headlong towards her challenge to Amon. She can take him by herself, needs to take him by herself. Something quivers inside Korra, and she stamps on it ruthlessly. She is the Avatar, and the city is depending on her.
Somehow, Tenzin cannot stop Korra. His father's monument glows in the dark, seeming to stand alone in the night. Korra's small boat disappears towards it, another singularity in the water.
Avatar Aang's island sits so quietly in the bay, distant from the lights and sounds of the city. Korra wants to keep moving, but there is nowhere to go. The night feels slightly chill and alive with flitting shadows. Korra wants to fight now, to run and attack now. She misses the sensation of racing across the water and itches from the stillness.
She wants to feel scorn at Amon's no-show, but she can't even feel relief. The numbness clutching her heart since that awful night only grows more leaden as Korra turns to leave. Time seems to warp when cords trap her feet and drag her easily into a scene from her nightmare. As Korra slides on the cold floor, she wonders for a moment if this isn't a dream that Naga will soon lick away. That thought vanishes like a snuffed candle as she lashes out at the chi blockers with some emotion she doesn't want to identify. Korra is surrounded again, an echo of the party, but this time the people attack her physically. Her flames are as effective defense now as her stumbling words were at the gala. It ends all too quickly, but in this awfully real dreamscape the seconds stretch interminably. When she comes to, Amon appears specter-like, as if summoned from the darkness around her. Korra's mind does not come up with words anymore but something inside her skull seems to make a high, keening sound that skitters on the edges of sense. Amon's touch on her face is like a seal of death and she almost thinks she dies as he strikes her shoulder like a snake bite.
Korra wakes on the floor of the building with the weight of Avatar Aang looming above. The room is so completely empty, her crumpled body small. Then a shadow dancingly materializes, and this time it is Tenzin, Tenzin! He kneels beside her, helps her up, speaks to her. Tenzin is looking at her, Tenzin fills the room with her, and the light Korra can conjure is hardly anything compared to Tenzin's relief, Tenzin's being there. Embracing him opens something in her. The warmth of his body reminds her of Naga, Naga soothing her unsteady gasps after she woke up sweating in the night. Tenzin's gentle arms are so different from the deathly black cords of the Equalists that Korra knows she cannot stop the tears running down her face even if she wanted to. Unbidden, Korra remembers Katara talking about healing water, water washing the bad away. So Korra weeps unrestrained in Tenzin's arms, and the fist of numbness around her heart slowly dissolves.
Tenzin says, "admitting your fears is the first and most difficult step to overcoming them". In that moment, Korra cherishes above all else having someone to admit her fears to.