Prompts: Postcards, Hakoda, "If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were" - Khalil Gibran. Element used: Fire. Word count: 2,655
Why did today have to be so long? Any other day but today, when her back was killing her and her feet were sore. Long meetings, reading over several documents, working mindlessly on her inventions. The day dragged on longer than it was suppose to. It felt good to finally leave her company for the day and make her way home. She was surprised when her butler was standing outside waiting for her. Normally, he'd be at home getting things prepared for dinner or cleaning something but she wasn't about to question why he decided to drive her home on one of her most stressful days. After all, driving was just another stress for her. Her feet cried out in pleasure when she was able to sit in the back of her satomobile and lean back. Maybe tonight could be a night of pure relaxation.
The steps to her house were much longer than she remembered. She groaned every other step on her way towards her front doors. This day was making her seriously consider downgrading to even an apartment. There was too many spaces for her feet to touch.
She wanted to collapse as soon as she walked inside her home. Her butler immediately took her things while she trudged all the way to her library, deciding the stairs were too much for her at the moment. A long sigh escaped her lips as she fell back on her couch and propped her feet on her coffee table. Her library was quite impressive. An entire wall was filled with books from the ceiling to the floor. There were loveseats scattered throughout the room since many of her servants enjoyed reading as their pastime. It was one of her favorite places to relax since it was always quiet.
Her eyes closed. She sunk deeper into the couch. This was pure bliss. She almost dozed off when something, or rather, someone, interrupted her.
"Hey, Asami! Welcome home! Dinner will be ready in a few!"
Her eyes snapped opened. In the doorway stood Korra, wearing an apron. Her short hair was unkempt, indicating that she had been busy doing something rather stressful for her.
Asami started piecing together everything. "Korra? What are you doing here?" She sat up. Her voice seemed alarmed. Not that she wasn't happy to have her friend over but Korra wasn't exactly the type of know how to take care of a house, especially when it came to cooking. After the defeat of Kuvira, the Avatar had been eager to be more expressive with her feelings towards people, which included trying to do nice things for her friends but it almost always ended badly.
"Well, I figured after a long day of work, you'd like to come home to a home cooked meal made by someone close. I told your butler to pick you up so you wouldn't have to drive home and you could get right to relaxing."
Asami immediately stood up and moved towards Korra. "That's sweet of you but why don't you-"
Korra cut her off when there was a loud 'ding' noise coming from the kitchen. "Oh, hold that thought." She watched her friend run off towards her kitchen. Her butler took her place in the doorway, holding a tray of different drinks.
"Lady Korra has made some drinks for your relaxation." He said.
Asami eyed the drinks in the small glasses carefully. They were a wide range of different colors from blue to yellow to red to orange. A few were clear and one even looked like it was glowing.
"I'll just take the water." She said as she picked up one of the clear liquids. She gave it a small sip then immediately turned her head to spit it out. "That is not water!" She cried out while she held her throat in a coughing fit.
Suddenly a loud explosion was heard from the kitchen. No one moved at first but when they caught a whiff of smoke, they ran to the kitchen, though the butler had to carefully put down the tray of drinks before he did so.
Inside the kitchen was an entire mess. Dirty dishes were everywhere. Flour was on the walls. Somehow fish sauce got stuck to the ceiling. Now, the kitchen was filling up smoke while Korra was hunched over coughing violently.
"What happened?!" Asami cried.
She didn't have time to look around before Korra pushed her out of the kitchen.
"I..I don't know. I tried to turn the stove on and something exploded."
Asami turned around and placed her hands on her hips while giving Korra a hard look. "Did you try to use fire bending?"
"Um…." Korra looked around awkwardly as she scratched the back of her head. "Perhaps…"
Now she was beginning to understand why Mako and Bolin were hesitant to let Korra do one of her "good deeds" for them.
Sighing, she placed her hand on the water tribe woman and began pushing her towards her library. "Let's have a chat while the smoke clears out."
Korra seemed a little uncomfortable as they both sat in the library. She was apologizing for the mess she had made.
"No offense, but, you know you're not exactly the best chef in town." Asami said. "You can the manifest spirit of chaos, but dumplings aren't your thing."
Korra chuckled. "I just thought I'd give a try. Especially after I messed up everything with Bolin and Mako."
"What do you mean?"
"Well…"
Flashback
Bolin opened the door to his apartment. It was good to be home finally. It wasn't quite dark yet which meant he still had some of the evening to himself to relax. Varrick had been nice enough to buy Bolin an apartment in town. Not rent, but buy. He still wasn't sure how that worked but he didn't question it. The apartment wasn't huge but for him and Opal's visits, it was just enough. It had a kitchen to the left, a sitting and dining area when you first walked in, and then towards the back was his bedroom and bathroom. He had shelves on one of his walls that consisted of all his knick-knacks and postcards from Opal.
Wait….shelves?
Bolin blinked as he watched a female with a hammer turn around to greet the male.
"Hey!" Korra said with a smile on her face.
"Um..hello. What's going on here?" He asked with confusion as he closed the door and stepped closer to her.
"Varrick gave me the key. I built you a shelf so you could put stuff on it. I also have dinner on the stove."
Bolin glanced over to the big boiling pot on the stove. It was spilling over and the flame looked dangerous high to him.
"Please tell me you're not using fire bending to control that flame." He said with concern in his voice.
"What's wrong with that?" Korra asked as she examined the shelves she built. The shelves suddenly gave way and fell straight off the wall as if nothing was holding them up in the first place. Some glass shattered and all the postcards ended up in the floor. To make matters worse, there was a loud explosion from the kitchen. Bolin and Korra immediately ducked as the pot flew across the room and hit against the wall, leaving a small dent. The water and contents, which were a bunch of dumplings, spilled all over his knick-knacks and postcards. Korra tried to pull the water off as quickly as possible but the damage was already done.
"No! My postcards! My precious Opal! What have you done?!" Bolin said dramatically as he fell to his knees with his hands clutching the hair on his head.
"I'm sorry! I didn't know!" Korra said as she placed her hand on his shoulders.
"They were so special to me. She wrote to me every night since she left to travel. Nothing could fill the void in my heart now!"
"Want to go to over to the Air Island? Pema's making roasted hen and sweet buns."
"Oh, I love her sweet buns!" His demeanor suddenly changed to someone happy and cheerful as he followed her out of the apartment.
Asami stared at Korra, who had a sheepish smile on her face.
"You messed up his postcards from Opal?" She asked.
The Avatar shrugged. "Not all of them! It went better than what happened with Mako."
"Oh no."
Another flashback…
Mako was laying on the couch in his new apartment, reading some book out loud. He had the day off and decided to have some time to himself, especially after the whole fiasco with Kuvira.
"I longed for her, every day and night. The moon offered no comfort and the sun could not warm me the way she did. It was like my heart was a phantom but I could still feel it haunting me with memories of her touch, her smile, her love. It is said that if you love somebody, let them go for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were. How could I let go the most beautiful thing on this Earth? I had no choice…"
A tear slid down Mako's face as he kept reading. It was a weird habit of his he picked up a couple of years ago. He enjoyed reading sappy love stories, journals, and poems out loud though the last thing he'd want to do is admit it. He turned the page..
"Hey, Mako!"
The sudden intrusion of the voice made him fall off the couch. He looked up to see Korra leaning against the back of the couch with a smile on her face.
"Korra?! How'd you get in here? And when did you get in?"
"Bolin gave me the key. I've been in your room cleaning up."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"I thought I'd do something nice. Is that Hakoda's love journal?"
Mako's face started turning red as he tried to hide the book behind his back while standing up. "W-What? No. I. What did you do to my room?"
"Come see." Korra walked around the couch and grabbed Mako's hand before pulling him in the direction of his bedroom. "I even got you a new lamp!"
Upon opening the door, Mako looked unamused at what he saw. His blanket and pillow cases were swapped out for some bright yellow fractal pattern. His nightstand and dresser had been painted a sick green color. Although his room was nicely organized and extremely clean, the sight of his room made him feel nauseous. Korra was not exactly gifted with home decorating and design.
"Uh…" Mako began. His eyes wandered around as he tried to figure out what words to say.
While he was distracted, Korra snatched the book from behind his back and began flipping through the pages.
"This IS Hakoda's! How'd you even get it?" The smile on Korra's face grew wide.
"Katara let me borrow it. Don't touch it. She'll kill me if something happens to it!" Mako went to snatch the book but Korra moved out of the way and went to the strange lamp sitting on his nightstand.
"I made this lamp!" The lamp was an odd shape. It was lumpy and awkward. The material wasn't right either. It looks like it was made out of some kind of clay-like material only it was transparent but foggy. Mako started questioning whether the lamp was even safe.
"Uh..Korra…"
"And look, you can use fire bending to control it. Watch." Korra rose her hand up slowly to make a flame slowly flicker inside the lamp. "You can make it as low or high as you want."
"Korra, I don't think-"
She bent the flame bigger, alarmingly bigger. A weird smell started to permeate the room and the lamp itself was starting to burn bright orange.
"Is..that suppose to happen?" He asked with alarm.
"No…Not really."
There was an explosion. Korra bent earth from the ground to shield herself and Mako but the earth shattered easily against the explosion and sent them backwards. Suddenly the room was in flames with sparks flying. Mako sat up and watched in horror as his bed was engulfed.
"Korra!"
"I'm sorry!" She cried. One of the sparks flew towards them, landing on Hakoda's poem journal and igniting a fire. She released it and watched it go up in flames.
"No! Katara's going to kill me!" Mako grabbed a fistful of his hair as he watched Katara's precious book burn away. Korra had gathered up some water and was extinguishing the flames, using her fire bending to control the rest she couldn't.
After 10 minutes, the flames were gone. Mako's bedroom looked like it was burnt to a crisp. Blackness was everywhere. He wasn't sleeping here tonight, that was for sure. Korra was holding the burnt remains of Hakoda's journal.
"Great. My bedroom is a mess and Katara is literally going to murder me." Mako sighed.
Korra frowned and placed her hand on his shoulder. "Want to go over to Tenzin's? They redid some of the rooms."
"Well, their beds ARE comfortable." He shrugged and followed Korra out of the room.
Asami was staring at Korra once again, who was laughing nervously from telling the story. No wonder Mako and Bolin didn't want her in their homes.
"I tried." Korra shrugged. "I'm sorry, Asami. I knew you were working so hard at Future Industries, I just thought you'd be happy to come home after a long day and not have to worry about so much."
"Korra, I do appreciate it. I really do. Just..next time, maybe you could just take me out to a nice restaurant?"
Asami's butler entered the room with a tray of cupcakes in hand. "The only thing that survived were these desserts."
"Oh, my cupcakes!" Korra jumped up and grabbed the tray from the man's hand. She had a grin on her face. At least something went right that day. "Try one."
Asami examined the cupcakes. They looked fine but she was hesitant to try them knowing Korra's skills in the kitchen. Still, not wanting to upset her, she took one bit into it. The flavor was alright. At first. The cupcake was hard and almost impossible to chew. A look of disgust briefly spread on her face but after her eyes glanced up at Korra, she faked a small smile but didn't say anything. Korra's grin grew even wider as she assumed the non-bender actually enjoyed them.
"Also, you have visitors." The butler said before he stepped out of the doorway. In walked Mako and Bolin, who waved to the females.
"Hey, what are you guys doing here?" Korra asked.
Asami took the opportunity to spit out the cupcake and chuck it in a random direction. It smacked against one of her statues with a small 'thump' noise and knocked it over. Everyone briefly looked in her direction but she put a small smile. "Yeah, what are you guys doing here?"
"We heard Korra was going to attempt to cook so we thought we'd come by and take you two out for noodles."
"I'll have you know.." Korra lifted a finger to make a point, then quickly put it down as she slumped over in defeat. "Fine."
"That sounds great." Asami said as she stood up and began to follow the group out. "Hey, Mako, why are your clothes wet?"
"I don't want to talk about it."