Title: Folklore
Author: SplishySplash
Genre: Comfort/Romance
Pairing: Makorra
Rating: K
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Summary: Korra tells Ikki an old water tribe story.
Korra was tired.
She had just got back from a long week of grown up meetings in Ba Sing Se and physically, mentally, and emotionally, she was exhausted. It was late at night and the dormitories were silent as she padded up to her room. Slowly she slid the door open to see that her bed was occupied and she smiled softly as she pulled the door shut behind her.
The moon lit up the room and made the sleeping figure's face glow, his face free of worry and childlike. She quickly stripped down to an undershirt and shorts before she crawled into bed with him, almost immediately he lifted his arm and wrapped it tightly around her. "I've missed you." He said, his voice heavy with sleep.
She tucked herself deeper into him and entwined their fingers together. "I didn't mean to wake you." She whispered.
Mako pressed a small kiss to her neck. "I was waiting for you." He said with a yawn. "I must have dozed off." He shifted so that she fell onto her back with her shoulder into his chest in order to kiss her properly.
Korra indulged in his kisses, especially going a week without them and after a while she pulled back and he laid back down, burying his face into her neck with a hand across her stomach. "You know Tenzin is going to kill you for being in here, right?"
He shrugged. "I don't care, I missed you." He said, pressing his lips to her bare shoulder.
"I missed you too." She answered and slowly began to fall asleep with Mako in tow.
She wasn't sure how long she was asleep when she heard her door slide open, tensing just a little bit thinking that it was Tenzin but concluding that the master Airbender was just as wiped as she was. Korra opened an eye and was surprised to Ikki standing in the door way with tears streaming down her face with her red blanket in her hand. "Korra?"
Korra sat up slowly as to not wake Mako. "Ikki? What's wrong?" She asked softly, the little girl padded across the room into Korra waiting arms. Ikki cried softly into her neck with her little arms wrapped tightly around her neck as Korra held her tightly.
"I had . . . a nightmare." She said pulling back to wipe her eyes. "Can I sleep with you?"
"Of course. Do you want to talk about it?" She asked and gained a strong shake of her head as she ran her hand through the free falling curls. Korra scooted over, closer to Mako who had woken up in the process, to allow space in the small bed for Ikki. The girl wrapped her arm around Korra's waist as she tucked the girl into her side. Ikki still shook against her, it must have been bad to rattle her this much. "Do you want me to go get your mom?"
She shook her head and closed her eyes against her neck. "I want my Korra." She mumbled and it made the Avatar smiled. Mako smiled against her, but didn't move and the room fell into silence. "Korra?"
Korra hummed. "Yes Ikki."
"Did Mako have a nightmare too?" The young girl asked and surprisingly Korra didn't tense, only brushed her bangs off of her forehead. Mako listened intently how she would handle the situation, but then again Korra handled the children like magic.
The older woman laughed and squeezed the girl tightly. "No, he didn't have a nightmare." She explained. "He missed me a lot while I was gone."
"I missed you too." Ikki whispered, her fingers played with the end of Korra's hair. Silence surrounded them once again and Mako had thought they had fallen asleep, he tightened his grip on her. "Can you tell me a story?"
Korra sighed before started her story. "Once upon a time in the South Pole lived a king and a queen who had a beautiful daughter with really rare skill, she was a hairbender."
The king and queen had tried for years to have a baby and for years they had prayed to the moon spirit. On the snowy day of the winter's solstice, they were blessed with a girl who they named after the moon spirit Yue.
Like her namesake, she had magical hair. It wasn't white as snow, but it grew when she wanted it too. Sometimes she grew it long to the floor, other times it would be short and spikey. It could be used as a rope or it could be used as a hammock, she was a silly little girl.
As she neared her betrothal age, she was surrounded by suitors who offered the family riches in exchange for the hairbenders hand in marriage. Her hair was tougher than any string out there and there could be some good profit for her hair and so the lines went out the door with selfish suitors.
To save his daughter from thieves, he soon placed her into a tower built of ice and snow to hide her away. If a man genuinely wanted to for her heart, he would work for it.
/
"They locked her in a tower?" Ikki asked.
Korra nodded. "Yeah, because everybody wanted her hair and her dad wouldn't let her go to anybody, he wanted somebody worthy of her."
Ikki's face fell. "Do normal dads do that?"
Korra chuckled. "Probably, I mean the second that you start to like boys is the moment your dad is going to lock you up." She joked and Ikki made a face. "I am just kidding."
Ikki's face fell. "Oh." She said, she wasn't into the romantic side and didn't care to be locked up. Mako laughed, but disguised it as a cough. "Your dad didn't lock you up, right?"
She shook her head. "No my dad didn't lock me up in a tower."
Ikki snuggled deeper into Korra's side and took Mako's hand in her own. "That's good, but I bet Mako would find you easily." She commented and it made his heart soar, he could feel Korra turn and look at him as he pretended to be asleep.
"In a way, he did find me." Korra mumbled to herself.
/
For days the girl lived in the tower alone and for days Princess Yue prayed for an escape to the moon spirit, who did not grant her wish immediately. She prayed for her knight in a heavy parka to come quickly.
/
"Is Mako your knight in red scarf?" Ikki asked.
Korra sighed. "Yes he is." She answered and he smiled against her. One thing he admired about Korra was her honesty and no matter the situation, she came out with her honesty intact.
"Good, because I like him." Ikki said candidly.
The Avatar chuckled. "I'm glad."
/
Just as days turned to years as she looked over the ice covered tundra she saw a figure struggle towards her tower.
The young man, a water bender Jiang Hai had walked for a hundred miles to the tower. He had saw the young princess as a child and had been struck by her beauty, but most importantly her heart. She had given him a blanket, when he was near frozen to death. He vowed that he would marry this girl one day.
He had arrived on the suitor day, the poorest of a hundred men who was going to offer her riches he was a little put down because he couldn't offer her more than his love. The king offered a quest, he who can reach his daughter can have her hand.
Jiang Hai was a survivor and didn't give his hopes up.
He started his trek through the tundra. Day after day after day until he finally saw the large tower off in the distance and he started to run. Not before a pack of wolves chased after him. Yue gasped as she watched helplessly from the tower.
But he stopped running and was surrounded by the wild dogs. In his bag he pulled out some meat and fed the wolves instead of fearing them.
Yue prayed to the moon spirit for thanks as she watched him cross the ice for what seemed like hours and soon he stood at the base of the tower, breathlessly. Yue peeked her head out the window and her smile lit up the night.
"I am Jiang Hai and I am here to rescue you from this tower." He introduced loudly. He circled the tower looking for a door and the door that he did find was frozen over. He was puzzled, how was he going to get up to his true love?
His matches supply wouldn't last through the thick ice and he wished for a brief moment to be a fire bender. The idea clicked, he could make his own ice stairs out of water bending. With flawless form he summoned the ice to listen to his command, but it didn't work.
So he tried again.
And again.
/
"He gets up there right?" Ikki asked, interrupting the story and Mako bit his lip to hide a laugh at the face Korra made. "I mean they put her up there somehow. . ."
Korra huffed. "If you wait, I will tell you."
/
"There is a spell on the ice." Yue shouted down to him and he wasn't going to allow himself to be discouraged.
"Yue, my love. I will get up there somehow." He announced and took a step back to survey just what he was dealing with.
He could climb.
He got just above the ground before his glove froze to the tower and he fell off. His efforts were not going to go in vain.
He remembered her special talent. "Yue, Yue, let down your hair." He pleaded and waited, she lowered a braid out of the window and slid it down the side of the tower. He climbed the soft locks into the window to see the most beautiful girl in the entire world. "I've come to marry you, Yue.
She threw herself into his arms and cried a batch of happy tears. "I've been waiting for such a long time for you." She said, but she didn't realize that she didn't pull her hair back in and someone climbed up the luscious locks too.
He was about to seal it with a kiss when a man appeared in the window. "Hands off my girl." Said the nameless man with a sword in his hand. "I have traveled for days to marry the hairbender and I am not going to let you stand in my way."
Jiang Hai stood in front of Yue protectively. "You don't want her, you want her hair." He accused and the man smiled with a crooked grin.
"I hear it is the strongest thread in the world." He said and swung his sword at Jiang Hai. "I will fight you for her hand in marriage."
The first man did not want to fight, but knew that the other man wouldn't back down. Instead of using his waterbending, he brandished himself a sword and they began to duel.
/
Korra stopped talking for a bit, she was trying to find the most child friendly way to tell the story. "They . . . fought until Jiang Hai stood in front of the window and the nameless man knocked him out. It's really a lot more bloody, but we'll keep it at that."
Mako smiled and he knew that the child had long fallen asleep, but Korra hadn't realized it as she continued her story.
/
The man stood over Yue, who cowered in the corner with tears down her face. Her love had fallen out of the window and this man was going to make her his wife.
"You are a pretty little thing." Commented the man, what he didn't know that Yue had another gift given from the moon spirit. Waterbending. She bent the water from the dripping faucet over him until he was frozen solid.
She rushed to the window to check on her love, praying to the moon spirit that he would be alright and much to her surprise, he was sitting in the snow surrounded by the wolves he had fed earlier. She lowered herself to the ground with the use of her magic hair so learn that the elder wolf had given its life for Jiang Hai so that he could be with the Princess.
The princess, ever so excited threw herself into his arms and cried happily as she declared her love for him.
/
". . . He kissed her as they walked into the sunset and they lived happily ever after." Korra concluded the story, to see the little girl had fallen asleep with her head on Korra's chest and an arm around her stomach.
Ikki had taken his hand inside of her own in her sleep as it rested on the Avatars stomach before he kissed Korra on the side of the head. "Good story." He whispered.
She startled a little bit, she didn't know that he was awake. "I didn't mean to wake you." She said softly.
With another kiss to her head, he smiled. "It's okay." He answered. "Water tribe folklore?"
She nodded with a yawn. "Katara used to tell me stories all the time when . . . I was training and away from home." Korra said softly, not wanting to walk into a heavy topic so late at night. "The hairbending girl was always my favorite story."
"I liked it." He said into her ear, Korra turned and kissed him gently on the lips. "Because it seems like I became the hero in that story."
In the pale moon light he could see her blush. "Well you need to get your ears checked because the story wasn't about you."
It wasn't often that he made the strong willed Avatar blush. "Oh I believe it is." He teased and the little girl moved next to them and so he sobered up as Korra yawned. "I also believe that you should get some sleep."
He could see that she wanted to argue with him, but she decided against it. With a final kiss her eyes fluttered closed and she soon fell asleep. Mako allowed himself to watch her sleep for a few moments, it was really a tender sight to see her hold the young girl to her and unconsciously chase her monsters away and he was glad that he got to be the one to chase her monsters away.