In her dreams, Korra saw frenzied images of Aang's first mission as Avatar. She felt his hopelessness in the final days before Sozin's Comet, and his elation when a Lion-Turtle taught him the lost art of bending the energy inside a person. Watching the conclusion of his fight against Ozai, she wished that she had been stolen away in the night by a great spirit, and wasn't simply left with two crazy old men. On the eve of her great crisis, where were the spirits of the world to come to her aid? Her negative emotions spiked images of her own life, and her time in Republic City. Scattered amongst the general turmoil, there were a few happy memories, and she held those close as the night drew to a close.
When Korra work up the next morning, she was drooling into her pillow and still extremely groggy. It took her upwards of fifteen minutes to fully shake off the long night of sleep, and even longer to realize that the reason she had woken up was because of bright sun shining in through a window of her hut. She worked herself up into a frenzy, pacing back and forth in the limited floor space she had, going over her jumbled memories from the previous night.
'If only it really was just a bad dream,' she bemoaned, referring to what seemed to be the last weeks of her life. She'd gone from a cocky bending prodigy to a beaten shell of her former self in as long as it took her to get to the bottom of Amon, and to add on to her failings in Republic City, she was now out in the middle of nowhere with no way back home. Just what did they think happened to her when she mysteriously vanished?
She managed to get a few paces out of her front door before she noticed one of the men from last night sitting cross-legged on the beach near her hut.
"Ah, Avatar Korra. You slept in this morning," he noted, opening his eyes from meditation, and patting down his robes as he stood up. He rubbed at his long beard absently, gold eyes gleaming in the sun.
"How long were you waiting out here?" She asked, worried, for some reason, that she'd made the man wait. She squashed that emotion down when she realized that he was very likely one of her captors.
"Not very long at all," he confessed, smiling benevolently at her. She noticed how his face creased up when he did so, and she pondered on how many times he'd smiled that same smile in life for his entire face to be so full of laugh-lines.
"Now, I am sure you have many questions," he said, pressing on to more important matters. His face took on a stern note, and she felt self-conscious in front of him. She waited for him to continue speaking, to tell her that now was not the time for answers, but he didn't. He simply quirked a brow and looked at her expectantly, then burst out into a belly-laugh when she blushed.
"Do not be so hesitant to ask, Korra."
"Why am I here?" She blurted out, altogether too quickly and too loudly.
Ignoring her faux pas, he spoke, "to regain your bending, of course."
"I haven't regained it yet," she informed him, hands on her hips.
"You are very impatient," he chastised, "a common trait amongst those who seem to have their destiny thrust upon them."
As if sensing that their conversation might stretch on for a while longer, he sat back down and unpacked a kettle from his knapsack. Pouring out water from a satchel, he patted the ground in front of him. Still wary, Korra took a place across from him on the sand, and watched as he prepared tea.
"We don't have a fire-" she started, but stopped as soon as she saw steam coming out of the clay. He'd heated it himself.
"Who are you?" She asked, "You dress like you're from the Earth Kingdom, but you just firebended in front of me."
"That is a question I cannot answer. You will come to regain those memories as you come to know yourself."
"So I know you, but I don't remember you?" She pressed on, hands on her knees as she leaned forward. Passing her a hot cup, she took it with a hurried, 'thanks'.
"In a way, yes." He allowed, but said nothing more on the matter. When she was sure she wasn't going to get him to out himself, she switched back to lighter topics.
"Noatak said you taught him how to make tea," she said, in a way that made it clear she didn't quite believe it.
"The art of brewing tea was one I dedicated my life to. I would be doing that young man a disservice if I did not try to pass on my knowledge," he replied, mischief twinkling in his eyes. Korra realized with a start that she'd started to smile along with him, and quickly corrected her lips into a frown.
"Why is he here?" She asked, and he knew that trying to dodge this question like he had previously would only lead to distrust and strained relationships.
"I truthfully do not know. He came here some time before you did, but time passes differently here. It could have been a month or a decade."
"He doesn't look a day over twenty," she said, seeming skeptical, "if he was here for a decade, I'm sure you would have known."
"I do not spend all my time here, but I do know that his physical age does not define him," he confessed, "I feel that my companion may be able to provide you with more adequate answers. I can tell you is that Avatar Aang brought you here, and that he likely also brought Noatak."
"I don't know how much you know about what's been going on in Republic City," she said, feeling a tirade coming on, "but that guy is bad news. Somehow he's not really the same guy he is there, because he was like forty there, but he's not really forty here, and he takes people's bending away, and he's evil, and he tried to take over the city, and-" she cut herself off, at first to take a breath, but then to scowl at the man facing her, who was chuckling into his hand.
"You think this is funny?" She snapped, realizing just how silly she just sounded.
"Not in the slightest," he joked, shaking off the last of his giggles.
"Seriously, this is bad news. The version of him I know is still out there, somewhere, and he's going to try to take over the city again! I need to get my bending back and get back to help as soon as I can."
The potbellied old man opened his mouth as if he were about to speak, then snapped it shut. He repeated this process a few more times until a snarky, 'say it already!' from Korra got him to stop long enough to think.
"I am not sure you are quite ready to hear this," he warned, "but his being here most likely means that Noatak is dead."
She didn't know how to respond to that. If Amon was dead, why was a younger version of him here? She didn't think too deeply into if before her head started to hurt. Whatever was going on
"I'm not dead, and I'm here," she informed him, and he nodded genially.
"Yes, but you are the Avatar. Your spirit moves most freely as the bridge between worlds."
"Are we in the Spirit World then?" She asked, not fully buying into the idea that she was somehow in the Spirit World, let alone that Amon had died. In fact, she remembered bending last night, and had seen this man bend right in front of her! As far as she knew, bending didn't work in the spirit world.
"In a way," he responded, but once again said nothing more. Her hands shot up to her hair and she yanked on it, letting out a frustrated groan.
"If we are in the Spirit World, how are you bending? How did I bend?" She said, speaking more to herself than to him.
"As you spend more time here, I am sure you will find the answers that you seek," he consoled, placing a warm hand on her shoulder. Shaking it off, she rose to her feet, half-finished teacup left on the ground.
"Enough of these riddles. If you won't answer my other questions, at least answer me this: how am I going to get my bending back?"
His face lit up, as if she'd finally asked the right question. Her face mirrored his, as she realized that he was actually going to help.
"That is up to you to determine. We can only help as much as you will allow us to."
Her face fell. She realized, after she started to sulk away back to her house, that he hadn't even answered her final question without more riddles. Useless old man.
Korra spent the better part of her morning in meditation, trying in vain to make Aang speak to her again. She hadn't even wanted him, specifically, out on the cliff, but he came nonetheless. He even said she was more connected to her spiritual self! Yet now, sitting cross-legged on the beach until her butt was sore, and her foot fell asleep, she couldn't get so much as a peep out of him. Her limited contact to previous Avatars, snuffed out before she even really got to use it. Was she no longer fit to be Avatar? The thought frightened her more than anything she'd ever considered before.
She spent her time 'meditating' focused more on her own shortcomings than solving her inner turmoil. She was an Avatar of action! Meditation was for guys like Tenzin and Aang, not her. She had more important things to do with her time than sit around all day and let her thoughts fester. Had Aang really found time for this on his strict deadline? She imagined he had, but then again she also assumed that he had the entire world supporting him, except for the one man who wouldn't ever back down peacefully. Why didn't she have a support net like him? Sure she had her family and friends, but Amon had a huge base of support in his fight against benders, and therefore his fight against the Avatar. What kind of Avatar was she if a masked megalomaniac could convince the better part of Republic City to follow his plans?
It wasn't much longer until, sun directly overhead, Korra dropped any pretense of meditating, and rolled ungracefully onto her back, staring up at the sky. She layed like this for what felt like hours, but was likely only a few minutes, until her doubts started to creep up on her again. Even as a child, she'd never felt this detached from the other elements. When she tried to call up fire, water, or earth, all she got was a scrunched up face and a headache. She thought about how Aang must have felt, the entire weight of the world on his shoulders, but only air to fight back until he learned the other 3. It was ironic, how the always mellow, flighty airbender had undertaken the biggest burden any Avatar had in recent history. Her own problems, defending one city, seemed scant by comparison. She was embarrassed again, that he could do so much so young, and she, pampered by some of the best professional teachers possible, already a young woman, could do so little.
A shadow cast over her field of vision, leaving an almost sinister silhouette. When she sat up, she saw it was the other man from the prior night, carrying armfuls of fruits.
"I thought you might be hungry," he explained, and tapped his foot awkwardly. He seemed less enthusiastic than last night, and more bashful around her.
"Do you have any meat here? Noatak mentioned there was nothing to hunt, but I don't think I could get by on just fruit," she said, erasing the awkward silence. He looked flabbergasted that she'd asked, and stammered out apologies.
"I never thought you'd ask for meat," he nearly whispered, seeming to be mesmerized by her very existence. The hard edge his voice had the night before was all but gone, and he looked saddened.
"Why wouldn't I want to eat meat?" She questioned, looking at him like he was crazy, "are you some kind of vegetarian or something?"
"M-me? No, no, nothing like that," he sputtered, looking about as uncomfortable as anyone she'd ever seen.
"Would you want to go explore the island?" He asked, looking hopeful.
She was going to simply decline his request, but when she saw how excited he looked, she couldn't contain the burst of anger that rose up.
"Are you nuts or something? You're part of the group that brought me here, I'm sure, you called me Aang last night, and you seem confused that I like other types of food that aren't island fruit. Now you want to go exploring?"
At his downcast eyes, she realized, finally, what was going on. He'd called her Aang. Aang was a vegetarian, she knew. Clearly, this man knew Aang when he was alive.
"Are you serious? Do you think I'm Aang or something?"
His lack of response was evidence enough for her.
"I'm not him! I will never be him! I won't ever be the hero he was, and I won't ever be whatever he was to you!"
She regretted what she'd said when he looked at her like a beaten polarbear-dog.
"You're right. I'm sorry," he conceded, shoulders deflating.
She exhaled sharply through her nose, but didn't let her tone slip, or the sternness leave her voice.
"Do whatever it takes to get me out of here. I'm not going to learn anything around the three of you," she commanded, crossing her arms across her chest.
"I'm afraid I can't do that-" he started, but she cut him off before he could give her more excuses.
"I don't care what it takes, old man. Between you, the fat one, and him, there's no way I could even meditate here, let alone relearn the other three elements!"
"I think that if you stay for a while, you will see that there is still much to learn," he said, almost as if he was reading it off a script. She knew that the other man had likely told him to say as much, and she felt the fire in her belly rekindle as she realized she was being patronized.
"You're two feeble old men, and the guy who lives in that hut," she pointed for emphasis,"is about the worst possible teacher I could imagine! If anything, I'll just get fat and old from sitting here too long, like you two lugs have!"
"I would hardly say that I'm fat," he said, attempting to lighten the mood. She nearly screamed.
"I'm going to beat the stuffing out of you, you useless bag of bones!" She howled, charging him.
Noatak heard the commotion from outside his hut as soon as she'd raised her voice the first time, but he remained silent and contemplative long into her tirade at the second man.
He was, in many ways, as much prisoner here as she was. When she'd heard the first of the two elders explain that he was likely dead, he fought through Korra's words to find meaning. He was rampaging around Republic City? He stifled a snort. That was about as likely as her being the Avatar! Aang was certainly still alive, but even if he'd died, this girl was in her late teens, and Aang definitely hadn't been dead for long enough for the next Avatar to be this old. Last he remembered, he'd been walking through the blizzard on the final night before he'd never see his family again, and woke up here. He realized that it very well may have been a long time since he'd come, since he felt a little taller, a little stronger, than he remembered. His clothes seemed to fit perfectly, but he could tell that he was at least a little more grown than he'd been. Did that lend credence to the idea that he'd spent years here? He wasn't sure.
In the same vein, had he really died? He'd walked out into the blizzard and woken up on a beach. It had never quite added up, but now especially he questioned the reality of his situation. Did time pass at all in the afterlife? If he had really been dead for decades, he supposed Aang could've died and had his successor, but even then, why was his afterlife with two strange men on an empty island? None of this made much sense to him, but then again, nothing really made sense on the island.
He thought back to a brief talk with the two men he'd had, at some point, and had informed them about visions he was getting in his dreams. They nodded sagely and told him to simply try and decipher their meaning, but he'd yet to have any luck. He saw images of what he could only assume was Republic City and of a masked man, who he, since Korra had arrived, was starting to think was him. He saw the way the man moved, and it was all familiar to him, but he'd never really placed it until now; he felt a strong attachment to that man, but had no justification in his hypothesis. In any event, it certainly felt right. What was curious to him, was that he'd never seen himself bending, or bloodbending. Korra had mentioned something about taking other people's bendings away, like Aang had done to his father-
What felt like a bolt of lightning shot through his head, and his thoughts, which were starting to form clear images, jumbled into static and nonsense. He wasn't able to do more without risking another headache, he assumed, and tried his best to will away the migraine which was setting in.
He knew that, despite what his mind told him, he knew this girl was the Avatar. Either that, or it was the most elaborate prank ever pulled, orchestrated by some strange airbender and two old sages. Somehow, there was an Avatar that wasn't Aang, and she was outside, bickering with the deranged old man. Worse still, the cycle of Avatars should've meant the next Avatar was a Water Tribe avatar, and even if this Avatar had only learned one element, it should've been water, rather than air, seeing as that would have been the place she was born. None of this added up to him, and the closest he could figure was perhaps this was Aang's daughter, called 'Avatar' for some reason dealing with her parentage. She looked like a waterbender, but Aang had married a waterbender, or so his father had told him. He assumed it was possible for her to inherit her mother's looks and her father's airbending. Peeking his head up to a window, he saw the two starting to really argue, with the old man seeming to want anything but a fight.
'Serves him right,' Noatak thought, smirking. If those old geezers wanted to play games with him for all this time, it served them right. He was glad that she was going to stand up to him, but realized only a second later how disastrous that would probably be. If his bloodbending didn't work on them, and if they were strong enough to beat back his waterbending, he wasn't sure how she'd fare.
A more wicked part of him seemed to whisper, 'let her fail on her own. Perhaps they will even kill each other and both be out of your way.'
He narrowed his eyes and decided not to interfere or warn her. In this case, he wanted to see what she was capable of, and perhaps what one of the mysterious men was hiding. He had hoped that her arrival would bring some answers to the fore, but at the very least she was entertaining him, even if she didn't know it.
As Noatak watched on from the window, Korra slammed the unsuspecting earthbender back with twin-blasts of air from her fists. Eyes widened in shock, they hit him head on and he was launched backwards into a dune. Springing forward, she followed up with two more air-jabs, pounding the old man farther into the sand, until only his legs were visible. Breathing heavy, Korra came down off her adrenaline rush a little, and realized that she just might've killed the man. He hadn't moved in a while, so she started to tentatively step forward, never leaving her stance, to inspect the damage she'd done. Had she looked more closely, she would have noticed slight rumblings in the sand.
She reared back in shock as the entire dune seemed to erupt, spraying sand in every direction, including at her. She felt it get into her mouth and hair, but managed to snap her eyes shut before she was blinded. Cracking them open, she saw him standing before her seemingly unhurt. If anything, he seemed to be a little more energetic than he had been before.
"That was awww-ful," he criticized, "you hit like a girl!"
Laughing at his own joke, he squeezed his eyes shut to accommodate a body-wracking laugh, more snorting than chuckling, as the girl fumed. Any sympathy she'd felt washed up in an instant. Although she hadn't killed him yet, Korra was starting to think it sounded pretty appealing.
"Graaaa!" She screamed, whipping up swirling winds around him, binding his limbs and lifting him up in the air.
"There! Not so snarky now, huh?" She gloated, panting slightly from the exertion. She was a new airbender, and hadn't ever really tested her limits before. She was worried that she was fast reaching them. She focused all of her energy on keeping him locked up in place, even as a small voice told her it was a fruitless endeavor. She assumed it was her mind playing devil's advocate, but the hazy image of this same man bound up in an iron casket told her otherwise. The image was gone as quickly as it had come
"I've got your limbs bound up, and you're not touching the ground anymore. Give up, you never stood a chance," she said, smirking. This was surprisingly easy, she knew, but she should have expected it. The guy was ancient and decrepit, he was never going to put up a real fight for the Avatar. Even Chief Beifong couldn't bend without moving, and Korra knew from experience that eartbending couldn't be accomplished unless you were in contact with the earth you were trying to bend.
She was preparing to demand his surrender when she felt herself hoisted off the ground by streams of sand, binding her in much the same way she'd bound him.
"Wha-What!?" She screeched, losing her hold over his prison. His cackling picked up again, and she saw him lifting his chin up defiantly. She realized too late that she shouldn't have underestimated him. He slammed his chin down, and her sand restraints took on a solidity she hadn't expected or imagined possible.
"How did you do that?" She demanded, not even fully comprehending what had just occurred.
"Face bending, of course!" He said, as if that were the answer to all her troubles. Staring him down and realizing he was serious, she yelled out in frustration, breaking her own sandy tomb.
"Stop playing games, let's go!" She ordered, charging him again. She realized now that he'd likely been bending for far longer than she had. Without access to the Avatar State or the other three elements, she would have to rely on the advantage she did have: at a fraction of his age, she would certainly be more physically able to fight, and she pressed this advantage by coming into melee range. She'd seen how effective he could be at range, but with an old body like his, he wouldn't be able to keep up with her up close. She was impressed with herself for thinking of this in time to utilize it: without the advantage she would receive from close-quarters combat,
she didn't know how much longer she could last against him.
She was surprised once again when he didn't make any attempt to keep her back. Korra wasn't one to question a gift, and grinned when she realized she could end this whole thing with one shot. It must have been his advanced age that stopped him from reacting quickly enough to her, as she was sprinting forward at full speed, with a small jetstream to run through. He started to shrug off his robe as she charged him, but she didn't let that stay her path. She was going to hit him hard, and hit him fast, using the air as an extension of her fists; Korra was horrified when she realized just what she'd gotten herself into. Once his robe was off, she saw his torso for the first time, and couldn't stop from gawking. He perceived her hesitation and grabbed her outstretched hand as she was passing him by, forcing her off balance with a quick strike, and slamming a pillar of sand into her back to launch her farther forward.
"Just what are you?" She asked, both embarrassed and scared. He was, by far, the most muscular human being she'd ever seen. Without an ounce of fat on him, he was basically just a ball of muscle and crazy.
"A feeble old man," he said, echoing her sentiment from earlier, "who's about to teach you a lesson in respect!"
From then on Korra was on the defensive, dodging sand blasts and occasionally rocks, all the time having to put up with his cackling and heckling. She saw now why Noatak couldn't fight these two men: even one of them was a master bender she was having trouble fending off.
Seeking refuge behind a thick palm tree, she felt blast after blast of earth his the trunk, and she realized that he intended to knock it over (probably for sport) rather than simply slide around it to continue his assault. He was giving her a moment to think, whether he knew it or not, or at least a minute to contemplate her mistakes before he picked up again. What confused her the most was that he didn't seem to be tiring out at all. Was that the mark of a master?
She wasn't faring quite as well. Already scraped and panting, she felt sweat cling to her eyebrows and sting her eyes. He was relentless, and she regretted ever picking a fight with him. Worst of all, she hadn't even managed to land a hit since he started coming at her! She'd shot blasts of air his way, but he seemed to always hit harder, breaking through the concentrated air with heavy rock. How did Aang manage to fight with only air when he was the Avatar? It seemed impossible; even smaller stones were breaking right through it, and her air-augmented strikes did little to the earthbender in front of her.
Noticing that the pounding on the treetrunk had stopped, Korra peeked her head around it, only to dart back behind as a large rock punctured the trunk and sent the tree toppling over. When Korra realized she was hiding behind what amounted to a stump, she came out from behind the mangled tree and saw the old man sitting cross-legged in the sand chewing on what looked like a crystal. Making a face of disgust, she caught his eye and he waved to her.
"I got hungry, so I'll give you a breather!" He called out, chomping on the colored crystal with gusto. He was eating sloppily, chewing with his mouth open, eyes closed in appreciation for the rock he was eating. Korra was almost naive enough to believe that it was eating rocks that made his earthbending so strong, and hoped that this wasn't how she was supposed to get her bending back. Once in a while, he scratched at his back or waved over whenever he caught her looking at him, but otherwise didn't move much at all.
She fumed, but wasn't stupid enough to attack him again, knowing exactly what that had gotten her the first time, and everytime after that. Korra wondered why she wasn't able to get to him. Tenzin would have been able to at least hold his own, and he'd never shown any real difficulty when confronted with earthbenders. Was her own airbending really so weak that she couldn't fight this guy, even though she was the Avatar? She thought back to her musings earlier on the beach: was she no longer fit to be Avatar?
"To have a chance, you're going to need to think differently than you usually would," he instructed, finishing his snack and rising to his feet.
Korra nearly bit off her own tongue as the floodgate that had been blocking the memories from her past lives seemed to come undone all at once. Her retort died in her throat as she struggled to make sense of all the images, scenes, people, and places she'd gotten all at once. With a new sense of clarity, she raised a shaky finger to point at her opponent, and had to stifle a gulp.
"I know your name," she whispered, eyes wide with shock.
