Summary: Life goes on in Republic City, and Korra, grown up, pays a visit to her predecessors to ask for… a special kind of advice. Five avatars, and she makes six. "It's high time you met the ones who came before you."
A/N: wow why did I do this.
Korra's first visit to the Spirit World had been on a cliff above an arctic ocean, the breezes battering her hair and frosting the tears on her cheeks. Her second had been in a wild fever dream the night after: the land empty and haunting, the shadows filled with forms of avatars past, the winds singing lullabies in the ancient tongue of her people.
The third had been in the pavilion of Air Temple Island half a year later, as Tenzin steadied her shoulders in late afternoon light, and the chirp of gulls along the bay had melted, like a lucid dream, into the dense rustling of a spirit-infested jungle.
After that, the visits were easier. She learned restraint and distance, patience and calm. When she cried from desperation, the Spirit World's constancy soothed her; when she cried from heartbreak, Aang was there to dry her tears.
"What am I supposed to do?" she'd asked him, rubbing hard at her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Take care of yourself," he'd said, grinning and clapping a hand on her shoulder. "Keep your chin up. And when you're happy, let us know."
Years passed, Korra meditated and grew, life in Republic City changed. The first night she was overtaken by nausea, she was happier than she was calm, and she knew exactly what she needed to do: bring a mat and a blanket to the pavilion in the dark, and by moonlight, find her way back to the Spirit World. A hand over her stomach, a hand on her knee. Deep breath.
"It's high time you met the ones who came before you," she whispered, and then she closed her eyes, and let herself fall.
i. yangchen
She was gold-cloaked and slender and Korra thought she was beautiful in a distant way she couldn't quite place. She appeared before her like settling mist, her forehead high and bare, her eyes closed, and the whistle of the breeze at her back.
"I am Avatar Yangchen," she said, her accent tinted with the mountain dialects of centuries ago, and Korra wondered how they could possibly be the same person.
"That's awesome!" said Korra, leaning forward with her hands on her knees, and was suddenly aware of how brash her own voice sounded. Her boots and her long bare arms felt huge and clumsy. How were you supposed to talk to your own spirit in a completely different body and mind? Korra bit her lip and leaned back again. Restraint.
"As the Avatar, you have the power to call on all your previous incarnations for advice," said Yangchen, and from any other mentor it might have been expectant, but from her it was simply a statement. An opening.
Go, Korra, go. "Did you ever have children?" she blurted out before she could change her mind.
Yangchen shook her head, a serene smile still spread across her face. With two slender fingers she plucked at the deep orange cloth draped over her shoulders. "I was an Air Nomad. At twenty-seven I took the robes of a lama. I remained celibate until death." When she raised her chin again, her lips were still curved halfway into a smile. "Take care," she said, so softly Korra wondered if it might have been a trick of the breeze.
As she faded back into creamy mist Korra pulled her mouth to one side in confusion and wondered how the Air Nomads did it.
ii. kuruk
Korra felt a welcome rise in her throat as she saw the fur-lined blue parka of the man in front of her, and she let a smile break across her face.
"I'm Avatar Kuruk, from the Northern Water Tribe," he told her. Korra smiled a little harder. He reminded her of her father, with his wide-set, glittering eyes and his strong jaw. Her mind was clear now, and she knew what she wanted to ask.
She stretched out her fur-wrapped legs long in front of her and leaned back on her hands. With Kuruk, it felt like she was home again, in her element. They met eyes across the space between them, and his smile was warm.
"Do you know what it's like to have children?" she asked, drumming her fingers against the rock.
An eerie silence as Kuruk's eyes moved lower to her belly, and when something hard cracked in his eyes, Korra knew she had asked the wrong person.
"I know what it's like to be in love." He sighed a sigh that was wet with ocean and Korra felt it shiver deep in her navel. "I almost knew what it was like to be married. To have a family and progeny, perhaps. I might have known." There were flashes of something she could just barely glimpse: a lovely woman clad in indigo, the lull of something older than time, the steely glimmer of many legs.
Koh the Face Stealer.
Korra blinked twice and looked up to meet Kuruk's eyes, and in shock, noticed faint tears that tracked their way down his broad cheekbones, as if he carried the sea within him.
"Avatar Korra." His voice was dark and heavy. "I wish you luck."
iii. kyoshi
Her presence was there before she actually appeared. Even though she was made of mist, solidness radiated off of her in waves that shook the ground around her floating image.
Korra wasn't sure whether she should have laughed or trembled in fear.
"Avatar Kyoshi," the woman stated, her voice comfortably low. The tilted eyes bore straight ahead at Korra, right through her skull. "Let me tell you about my daughter," said Kyoshi.
Korra was at first curious as to how she'd known what she was about to ask, but upon seeing the look in Kyoshi's eyes, wasn't curious anymore.
Still—
"You lived until you were two hundred and thirty!"
"And Koko lived even longer. She was a credit to me." Kyoshi cleared her throat and bore on. "I was not the sort of girl who drew stares on the street. That was before they told me I was the Avatar, of course." A pause, and her white-painted cheekbones rose in what could have been a semblance of amusement. "They feared me. They told me I was too strong for them."
Her red lips finally curved into a smile, some expression of ease. "The Earth Kingdom is large, anyway. I found a woman I loved, I had a daughter. I died old, and my daughter died even older." She looked again, straight into Korra's eyes. "I have one piece of advice for you."
Korra grinned a little nervously and scooted inches closer.
"Korra, when I was young as you are, the one thing I learned was that morning sickness and airbending never mix."
And then she was gone, mist spreading flat and low over the damp earth, and Korra allowed herself a wider grin.
"Thank you, Kyoshi," she whispered, tracing pictures in the sand, "But I had to learn that the hard way."
iv. roku
First the edge of the red robe appeared, and then the memories.
"Ta Min," he said, and his voice was deep and hoarse and generous, his brow arched in benevolence. "I married her."
"You look exactly like the paintings in the history books," Korra told him, "Avatar Roku." When he nodded, a strange feeling of ease settled over her. "You and Ta Min had children, didn't you? Princess Ursa?"
"Princess Ursa was my granddaughter," he said gently, and suddenly Korra wished she had studied the history books a little bit longer.
"Any advice for… that sort of thing?" she asked, wanting to smack herself on the forehead, and when Roku looked at her quizzically, she gestured wildly with her arms. "Children? Stuff… you know?"
He shrugged, gold eyes smiling. "You're the Avatar," he said simply. "Everyone's gonna be attracted to you, as I'm sure you've figured out by now. You've just got to deal with it."
Korra nodded along with him before she realized she was supposed to be laughing, and her bold chuckle joined in with his laughs. She put her hand out between them, the smile welcome on her face. "I got it, Roku. Thanks."
"I can see that," he said, placing one misty hand on her wrist. "If it gives you any comfort at all, you're not doing a bad job. You'll make a fine mother one day."
v. aang
Korra allowed herself a moment of relaxation before meeting her last visitor. Sprawled on her back (not her stomach, not in this condition), she hummed a tuneless melody to soothe herself and gazed up at the sky. If she squinted hard enough, she thought, she could see herself sitting tall and alone in the pavilion on Air Temple Island, the sun barely cresting over the bay.
"So, Korra," said a bright voice behind her, and Korra pushed herself up and whirled around to see someone flying towards her, squatting low on a whirling ball of air.
"It's you," she said, a smile breaking across her face. "Hi, Aang."
"Avatar Aang," he said, winking and clearing his throat. When she looked close, his form shifted and blurred: sometimes a man, sometimes a boy, but the cheeky grin was there always. "What's up, Korra?"
"I thought of a question," she said, placing a hand on her belly. "You had three children," she said, squinting a little at him. "And you were young."
Aang nodded and laughed nervously, a boy again with a smooth child's face. "What could I do?" he said, putting his arms into the air. "I had to repopulate my race. And more than that, Katara was easy to love. And even easier to—"
"I get it," said Korra, nodding emphatically to cut him off. "Thanks, Aang."
"It's no problem," he said grinning and flushing red, his skin darkening and aging and stubble spreading over his chin. "Thank you for coming."
He got up and dusted himself off, and it was then that Korra noticed the sky bison that stood behind him: Appa, at once a pup and a bull, nuzzling Aang's shoulder affectionately. "It's time for you to go home," Aang said, coming to Korra and taking her hand. "Out of this primordial spirit womb, and back into the daylight."
But before that, they would rest.
Korra stretched herself out on the grass, the breeze playing over her face and through her hair in patterns that Aang must have been directing. She placed a hand on her belly, and suddenly Aang was leaning over her, his face a man's but his smile the same as the boy who had once stopped the war.
"Can I touch it?" he said, and she grinned and nodded.
"It's so amazing," whispered Aang, his voice every inch a boy's, and Korra rested her head back on the grass and chuckled.
"Yeah," she said.
They sat together for quite some time after that, the heartbeat between them thrumming through Aang's fingertips, through Korra's smile, through the murmurs of an unborn baby, through the pathways and rivulets of chi.
Through the membrane, through the portal, through the gateway, to where Korra opened her eyes with sweat on her palms, a strange calmness in the back of her throat, and what must have been a beautiful dream.