Korra wasn't the first to see the shadow, but she was the first to start looking for it.
It was the old men who had seen it. They lived on the edge of the ice past the shore. Past that was the ocean, and the whole rest of the world.
Korra wasn't allowed to go to the shore. She did, but she wasn't supposed to. There were lots of reasons, including the old men themselves.
They lived on the ice past the shore because they were made to. They were too old. Couldn't make as much as they took, like children. Korra asked if she would have to live with them if she didn't grow up fast. Daddy said the old men were sivunituuguruk, stubborn. They couldn't change.
"Things change, Korra, or they die," he told her. "They live alone to keep the rest of the village safe."
"It's mean." Daddy was Chief of the whole village. He had once said that being Chief was like being Daddy. Sometimes you had to be a little bit mean. Korra had still been mad at him for being punished. She hadn't talked to him for a whole day.
"Korra, nutara," her mother said, "in the old days, before I was born, they would push the untukkanat, the old -"
"The old men," Korra said impatiently.
"They would push them off the ice."
"Now they have canoes, and a radio," Daddy said. "See? It's not so bad."
Korra didn't have a canoe. She visited the old men by swimming. The water was black and freezing cold. She wasn't strong enough to swim all the way with just her body. But if she used bending, then the water wouldn't push against her when she swam. It would push with her.
She was a bender. It meant she could control one of the four elements. A lot of people in the South Pole were waterbenders. Other places in the world there were firebenders and earthbenders. Since she was a waterbender, when her arms carved through the water and her legs kicked, and the wave shot out behind her, it flowed up and around and swept her forward.
She was also a firebender. But she couldn't show anyone that. A hundred years ago firebenders had been at war with waterbenders and the whole world. Once one of the men on the merchant ships that came to buy salt for metal, and toys, and tools, and fabric so they didn't have to sit on animal skins like the old men had in their canoes, had firebended to keep warm. A mob had thrown him into the black ocean. Daddy hadn't even done anything to stop it, although he helped get the man out after. Firebenders didn't firebend at the South Pole if they weren't stupid. Korra wasn't stupid. She kept it to herself.
Besides, who had ever heard of anyone who could bend two elements? The Avatar could bend four. But he had died when Korra was born. If she could bend four, she would be the Avatar and everyone would like her even if she was a firebender. Since she could only bend two, she kept to just waterbending.
Even with bending, the water was so cold it froze her bones. She could make it warmer with bending. But if she did, she would get tired. Making the wave was just using the water around her, but heating it up took something from inside her. So she swam, and froze, and shivered on a sheet of ice, and swam again, until she reached the old men. She would drag herself onto the ice and go straight for the whale yak jerky. It was dry and salty and so tough it hurt her jaw. But she was too hungry after swimming to care.
She didn't visit them just for the whale yak jerky. They had a radio. The sound was scratchy. It was like trying to listen to people while an owl wolf was growlscreeching in her ear. And no one could agree on what channel to listen to. But when she was on the ice beyond the shore with the old men, she could hear the world.
Sitting under the Earth, on the South Pole, she imagined the words of the world flowing down like a waterfall. Korra soaked in it.
She didn't understand it. Names. Bending competitions. Something called the United Regrowlscreech of Nations. More names.
Meaning was in the way they said it. Fear. Anger. Sometimes excitement, during the bending competitions. Almost everything else was fear or anger. Sometimes both.
"Kuviruk," said Natsiq, one of the old men.
"Huh?"
"'She weeps.'"
"Who?"
"You, girl."
She didn't understand.
He dragged a callused, black finger down his cheek in imitation of a tear. "Lonely girl."
Korra scowled. Natsiq was crazy. They were all crazy, the old men. They went crazy alone out here. Even with each other they were alone. Cut off from the village. Listening to crazy words on the radio. She was supposed to stay away from them.
"I'm not lonely," she said. "I have a mommy and a daddy and lots of toys, and I think I will leave and go play with them."
"I have a new story."
Korra sat up. She finished chewing the scrap of whale yak jerky in her mouth. She came for the adventure, and the whale yak jerky, and the radio. But mostly she came for the stories.
The old men knew so many stories. They always had new ones. There were stories about the Avatar, how he saved the world in a hundred different guises. Stories about people who weren't even dead like old lady Katara, how she became Inua of Waves. But mostly stories about the spirits.
Stories about how the world was back when spirits walked among men, and even before, when spirits walked in the sky over men, and even before before, when there were no men at all, just the spirits, and the stars, and all the stuff the blackness in between the stars was made of, the stuff that connected the universe.
Sometimes they made up stories. She could always tell. "Sagluruk!" she'd shout. You liar! They made it a game. Which stories are true and which are false? She was never wrong.
"This story is about a shadow," Natsiq said. "I saw the shadow on the shore. It looked out toward the ice. Then it vanished among the caves."
"What was it?"
"Maybe a spirit."
"No," Korra said immediately. Natsiq laughed.
"No, I didn't think it was a spirit. It must have been an animal.
"Fox monkey?"
"It was bigger."
"Shore shark?"
"Not as scaly."
"Tell me what it was."
"I don't know what it was." Natsiq's mouth stretched wide. Two black teeth grinned at Korra. "It was a shadow."
"What's the story?"
"It came. It went. That's all."
"But how does it end?"
"I don't know. I didn't see it end."
"That's a bad story," Korra said, but she was thinking about the shadow. She decided she would find out what it was.
She went home. Her mother asked her where she had been. She said she had been at the shore. She asked where Daddy was. Her mother said he was working. Someone important from far away was coming to visit the village.
They ate turtledeer soup. Korra was in her sleeping bag by the time Daddy came home. She shut her eyes and didn't answer when he touched her arm. Daddy slurped his soup while she lay in the dark, thinking. Tomorrow she would go to the shore and find the shadow.
Daddy was already gone when Korra woke up the next day. She finished the turtledeer soup with Mother.
"Go play with the other children," her mother suggested. She took the bowls and began to bend the ice under her into water, washing the soup out. She froze what came out. Later she would put it on the bending river to the ocean. The fish would finish what Korra wouldn't.
"Don't like to," Korra said. She was stronger and faster, and a better bender, than the other children her age. The older children weren't as good as bending as her either. But then they would just play games where you couldn't bend. Since they were bigger, they would win. She didn't like that. Someone was always unhappy when she played with them.
She got to the shore an hour later. First she watched the caves. Animals used to live in them. But the village was growing. Women were having lots of babies. Her mother said it would happen to Korra too. She couldn't imagine it, being fat like that. She couldn't even imagine being as heavy as a regular grownup. They couldn't run lightly or jump without making a sound.
All the children needed more space. So the animals had been pushed out of the caves. Hardly any lived there now. They kept to the shores, and the deep desert, where the snowstorms were bended out of nothing by the ice spirits that lived there. Humans stayed away.
Hours passed. Since it was night, the stars were bright. Korra knew all the constellations. The ones in a row were the Runners. And over there were the Dogs, and the Nephews and Nieces chasing after them. The Old Woman, which always made Korra think of Katara, who was the best waterbender in the village and the whole world, and the Murdered Man. There was supposed to be a fox in the sky too. She had never found it. She tried to find it this time. But it wasn't there.
The moon was barely a sliver tonight. That made it hard to see. The shadow might have come and gone already, and she would have missed it staring at the sky.
The whole day wasted, for nothing! Korra peered at the shore in frustration. It was too gloomy to tell, but she thought she could see a shape by the water. Her heart jumped.
It was looking out toward the ocean. She wondered what it was. Too squat for a monkey penguin. Too wide for a crab cat.
It was just standing there, looking. She wondered why.
Watching the ocean with the shadow was strangely peaceful. Korra felt her eyes growing heavy.
Her spot against the bank was warm and comfortable. The faint starlight glittered off the black ocean, making little jewels on the waves. The dull, familiar beat of the water sloshing against the ice was lulling her to sleep.
What are you waiting for, little shadow, she thought as she closed her eyes. Don't you know I'm looking for you?
She awoke because someone was shaking her arm, gently. It was Daddy.
She blinked at him and rubbed her eye as he sat down next to her.
"Sometimes, when I'm feeling like work is annoying, I take a little fishing trip," he said. "I take a boat, and a rod, and I go to sleep."
"How do you fish if you're asleep?"
"I don't." He didn't laugh, but there was laughter in his voice. It was deep like the waves against the shore, steady and familiar.
Korra looked out. The shadow was gone.
"Were you going fishing?" Daddy said.
"Yes."
"Did you forget your rod?"
"I don't need one!"
He squeezed her shoulder. "That's right. You're a great little bender. And great benders need sleep." He picked her up and stood in a single motion, tossing her over his shoulder like a net of fish. She laughed and grabbed his hair, and swung one leg around his neck and sat.
"How's the throne, princess?"
"Hairy," she grinned.
His boots crunched the ice as they walked.
"Why don't you play with the other kids your age?"
"They don't like it when I win."
"You don't always have to win," he said gently.
"I don't try and I still win."
"You're too good, my little ananjiak."
"Star," she said automatically.
He squeezed her leg. "That bird there."
"Nauyak."
"And that one?"
She peered. "Naatak?"
"You think so?"
It was only a shrinking black shape against the sky. "Yes. It didn't make noise when it flapped its wings."
"Pisaasuktuk! What a hunter you'll make."
She studied the top of his head. His hair was thick and black. Hers was browner like Mother.
"Am I going to be chief one day?"
"You'll be something much greater than chief."
Her heart leaped. "What?"
"You'll be whatever my daughter, Korra, decides she will be."
Korra's hair blew over her face. A wind was stirring, though the air had been still all day. For some reason she couldn't explain, she raised a hand to the stars. A rush of air swirled through her fingers.
Oh, she thought. I can bend three elements.
The next day Arnook came. Korra watched by her mother's side as Daddy greeted him off the boat. Arnook was a lot shorter than him, and had a thick brown beard. He wore a blue cloak with white sleeves. With his stocky build and hunched posture, he reminded Korra of a waddling penguin sloth. She put a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter.
"It's good to see you again, Tonraq son of Massak," Arnook said. "The North hasn't been the same since you left."
Korra looked at her mother. Daddy must have visited the North Pole before she was born.
"I'm sure my brother is looking after things." Daddy and Arnook clasped arms and exchanged gifts. More people dressed like Arnook came off the boat. They brought with them fish from the North Pole, swimming in circles in floating spheres of water. These were given to the angakkuqit. They were a bunch of old men who wore too many feathers. Daddy had gotten mad when Korra had said as much out loud.
Old lady Katara was there too. Arnook bowed to her. "The White Lotus, as ever, humbly requests your membership. Your husband, the Avatar, learned our secret rites and ways, and led us in his time."
"I well remember," old lady Katara said. "I'm too old to be learning rites and secrets. My place is here by the ocean, teaching new benders under the long moonlight."
Korra watched impassively as Arnook exchanged words with all the important people of the village. He had a funny way of talking. She wondered if he was stupid.
Arnook had all the young children line up next to each other. Hardly any of them were older than she was. Older boys and girls watched by their parents, looking angry or jealous.
"Well," Arnook said. He stood in front of them and bounced his hands off his legs. "I don't suppose we'll need to supply our own water for this test."
There was some laughter from the adults. Korra didn't get it. The whole South Pole was made of water. She was starting to wonder if he seriously was an idiot.
"For those of you who don't know, I'm Arnook," he said to the children, "I'm the head of the White Lotus, a group of people who travel all around the world helping people. We don't belong to any nation, and we accept anyone, water or earthbender, or firebender, and nonbender." He spread his hands out, palms up. "I'm a nonbender myself. But I'm not here looking for new volunteers. I'm here looking for the Avatar."
A murmur swept the row of children. Korra relaxed at once. She could only bend three elements, and the Avatar could bend all four. This test had nothing to do with her.
"The Avatar died six years ago," Arnook said. "Avatar Aang practically created the modern world. I was his friend, and I was saddened to hear of his passing."
Standing near the angakkuqit, old lady Katara's face was a heavy cloud. Korra didn't know why she had looked at her just then, and returned her attention to Arnook.
"Well," Arnook said. He clapped his hands together. "The world needs a new Avatar. Since Avatar Aang was an airbender, the cycle of elements says the new Avatar will be a waterbender. We didn't find him or her the last time we passed through the South Pole. Our search took us to the edges of the vast Earth Kingdom and to even the smallest, most difficult to reach islands of the Fire Nations. Now we're back." He made a smile. "Maybe the Avatar is standing in front of me right now."
The boy next to Korra wriggled excitedly. She wondered if he had to pee.
"The test is simple and harmless," Arnook said. "Bend the four elements. Don't cry if you fail, okay? There's only one Avatar."
Arnook started at the far end of the row of children. She watched him present with two of the White Lotus people some kind of box to the boys and girls, one by one. It took forever. Some of the children cried when they failed. Korra didn't understand why. Didn't they already know they weren't the Avatar?
They came to the boy who needed to pee. They opened the box. Inside was a little bowl of water, a little bit of strange ash, some embers, and a sort of small bell-looking device.
He couldn't even bend the water. Korra watched him sniffle back to his mother while Arnook and his people moved in front of her.
They opened the box. Korra was trying to understand the ash. Weren't the embers fire?
"Just bend, if you can," Arnook said. He didn't sound expectant.
That got to her. She could bend really well, better than any of the other children, and she could do three elements. That was only one less than the Avatar.
She made a fist over the little bowl of water. It turned to ice. She felt the heat pulled out of herself, but her heart felt warm.
Next was the ash. She set it on fire.
Arnook yelped. One of the White Lotus people stumbled over nothing.
The crowd of people from the village burst into noise. They were saying things like, "Did you see that?" and "She's the Avatar? Little Korra?" Daddy was moving toward her. Old lady Katara was smiling wide as the crescent moon.
"You can firebend?" Arnook said. His voice was calm, but it was calm like her mother trying not to shout. The excitement underneath was palpable.
"Yes," Korra said, and suddenly felt very stupid. Now the whole village knew she was a firebender. She might get pushed off the ice. Maybe Daddy would push her off. She bit her lip as the tears welled up.
"There's never been - but just in case - can you bend the other elements?"
"Not earth," Korra said in a strangled voice. She felt childish, and that made her want to cry even more.
Daddy was near her when one of the White Lotus people put up an arm. Daddy stopped. She burst into tears.
Daddy shoved past the White Lotus person and grabbed Korra. He knelt in front of her and hugged her to him. "Why are you crying, my ananjiak?"
"Because I'm a firebender and you're going to have to push me off the ice," Korra sobbed into his chest.
"Nonsense," he murmured, stroking the back of her hair. "You are the Avatar. I am more honored than you can possibly know."
Mother knelt behind her. Her arms encircled Korra's waist. "Don't cry, Korra, nutara," she said. "Do you hear the village? They are so happy."
Korra wiped her tears on Daddy's coat and waited until she was done sniffling. She drew out of his chest and nodded, aware that her eyes were red and her cheeks blotchy.
Arnook gently moved between them. "What's your name?"
"Korra," she said in a raw voice. She looked sullenly at him.
"Can you finish bending the elements? Next is earth." He gestured to the strange ash.
"Oh," she said. She wiggled her fingers over it, not really sure what to do. The earth wiggled back.
"Fire."
She made the embers glow red and spark.
"Air."
She held the tiny bell-thing in her palm. A wind swept through it and gusted up her arm.
"You are the Avatar," Arnook said.
"Why do you say words weird?" she said. "Are you stupid?"
Arnook wasn't stupid, he said. He was from the North Pole, and that was how people talked there.
It had been very confusing. The whole village wanted to touch her and see her. People asked her for good luck. She said okay. They asked her for good winds. Daddy said to stop asking her for things. Old lady Katara had nodded at her and smiled but hadn't come over. The angakkuqit put feathers on her. They itched.
Some children looked unhappy. Others wore sickening grins. Korra knew what they were thinking. She had only beaten them because she was the Avatar.
Most of the South Pole didn't have any villages or people. They only lived mostly near the ocean. Into the deep ice was the desert, and the raging, howling, never-ending blizzard. It was the spirits of the winter, of ice and snow, the old men said. They were saying to people, this is our land. Don't come here. Only the wild animals that people had pushed out of the calm ice lived there, like the polar bear dogs.
Korra didn't know why she was thinking about the desert.
She was tired of standing. She wanted to go to the shore. She wanted to swim. The old men would like to hear that she was the Avatar. They would tell her stories about herself. The things she had done that she had forgotten because she had been a different person when she'd done them.
There was a dinner. It was in the big ice hall where Daddy ate when important people visited. Korra had never been inside. She sat in the middle of the long high-up table, Arnook on one side and Daddy on the other. She caught Katara's eye and looked away, face burning.
The rest of the village sat in the rows of tables below. They wouldn't stop looking at her. Why? It wasn't like she was different than she had been yesterday.
Arnook stood up and said some stuff about how she was the Avatar and that was good. Big fishes were brought out, including the ones from the North Pole. They were cooked and served as soup and fillet. Korra wasn't hungry.
"Eat," Arnook said to her. He smiled. "The whole village is watching."
Korra put fish into her mouth and chewed. It didn't taste like anything. Maybe people from the North Pole talked weird because they ate bad fish.
End end end end end, she thought. Finally it did, but it still didn't, until Daddy shouted at everyone to stop bothering her and go celebrate outside. Finally it was just Korra, Daddy, her mother, Arnook and his White Lotus people standing behind him, and Katara sitting at the long table.
"Katara," Arnook said, "it pains me to say this, but you were the previous Avatar's wife, not the current one's. Though you will undoubtedly teach her waterbending, you are not yet her master. I must ask you to leave."
Korra felt a hot wave of anger. She wanted to stand in front of old lady Katara and say something brave, or maybe just burn Arnook's beard off. But she didn't, and Katara left.
"Avatar Korra," Arnook said, "today has been a big day for you. How do you feel?"
"Fine."
"Fine?"
"I don't know."
"Of course you'll have to get used to it! You have a lot of time. The White Lotus and I will be staying to help you learn everything about being the Avatar. Doesn't that sound nice? I was friends with Avatar Aang, you know. He was a great man. I learned a lot from him, and I will teach as much as I can to you."
"It's been a long day," Daddy said. "You should get some sleep. We all should. Arnook, my own tent can fit you."
"We will sleep on the ship," Arnook said. "Tomorrow we can set up tents, and in the meantime I will send word for a ship to bring something more permanent."
"She's still just a girl, isn't she?" her mother burst out. She looked ready to cry. "She's still just my girl."
"Avatar Aang stressed to me that the next Avatar should have a normal, happy childhood," Arnook said somberly. "Senna, I assure you I intend to follow his will to the maximum."
"I'm tired," Korra said.
"We're going to bed," Daddy said. "Come on, princess."
"Can I still be a princess?" she said as she walked hand-in-hand with both her parents.
"Yes."
An owl flapped silently across the night sky.
"But I don't want to be a princess."
"Then don't be," her mother said. They all laughed.
Korra pushed open the tent flap. It wasn't any different than it had been the day before. Her sleeping bag felt just the same as ever.
I'm the Avatar, she thought. Nothing's changed. I'm still me.
She must have slept lightly, because the draft from the tent flap opening woke her. She heard Mother's light snoring. Korra had said she snored once, and Mother had said she didn't, and Daddy had laughed and said she did, and kissed her on the mouth. Mother had pretended to push him away but she hadn't really tried. It was gross. Grownups did things like that sometimes.
There was some cold whale yak stew in the pot. Dinner for tonight. Her mother hadn't known Korra was going to be found the Avatar.
Korra put on her boots and fur coat and went outside.
An owl hooted at her. Wispy black clouds drifted overhead.
It was cold. She hugged her arms around her chest. There were footprints in the ice. People acted like they couldn't see them. But Korra could feel the way the ice was pressed in. They led to the shore.
Korra climbed the ice bank and looked at the black ocean. The starlight on the water glittered like little jewels.
There was a boat on the water, and a man in the boat. There was a rod in his hand, but by the way his head was tucked in, it looked like he was sleeping.
Korra ran home. Inside the tent was a strange and alien place, at once so small it choked her and so big she felt dizzy. She kicked off her boots and buried herself in her sleeping bag, eyes shut, face pressed against the rug. She breathed the familiar scent of sweat and loose hairs and spilled soup.
It wasn't enough. She pulled the bag over her head and tried to sleep.