A/N: I was hoping to hang onto this one a bit more to edit it, but I'm excited for what's coming up in the chapter after this one. I also just realized, at 11 PM, that I have to start and finish and entire project by tomorrow, and I'll be busy the next few days. So I posted it despite some of my misgivings.
A quick note for continuity's sake: wizards and witches canonically live longer than muggles.
"It's alright," he said, lowering his wand. The protego maximum charm fell away and he felt very, very tired. Around them, the blue light flickered and receded back into the young girl. Her eyes glowed brightly before she slumped forward onto her hands, breathing heavily. Tears made uneven tracks down her cheeks. A few trees around them had disintegrated into smoking, wooden fragments at the strength of his shield charm.
"I can't do it, Tenzin," she mumbled, the words slightly garbled in the mess of her tears. Her hair had come loose during the lesson and it stuck to her wet skin.
Awkwardly, Tenzin inched forward. None of his training had prepared him for dealing with a crying ten-year-old he didn't know very well. He crouched down and put his hand on her thin shoulder, relieved when she didn't immediately erupt into blue light.
They had only been working for a few days to get the blue magic under control, but they hadn't made much progress. If Korra was to return, in any capacity, to the wizarding world, she would need to be able to control whatever strange magic the tear had imbued her with. Unfortunately, she didn't seem to remember what happened at all, her last memory being a strange tale of a fight against some dark magic, wild creatures, and then a harrowing flight to the tear itself. After that, she had said, was darkness, long and long and long, until she'd awoken to Katara's kind face.
He offered a small consolation: "We have time." He wasn't entirely sure it was true, but it would have to do. They had a short year to prepare Korra for enrollment if she was going to live any kind of normal life.
"Goodbye, Korra."
And Tenzin felt personally responsible for making that happen.
Sitting back on his heels, he pondered the young girl, whose breath slowly eased into normal patterns. She wiped her hand on her nose and sniffed loudly. He wondered what his father would do, in this situation. Something noble and heroic, he supposed.
His father…
An idea came to him.
"Let's go see about some dinner," he said, helping her to her feet. "Then I think we'll go visit an old friend." It would be dangerous, and he was sure the organization wouldn't be pleased at his reckless creations of portkeys, but it might've been the only chance they had.
"The light is eating at her from the inside out," his mother had said as she packed her things. "I don't know what will happen, but if we don't control it soon…"
It might've been Korra's only chance.
The past couple of weeks seemed to have been some sort of test for Tenzin, forcing him to interact with people he had once been close to.
"You're lucky I was fond of your dad, sourpuss," the old woman said, her foggy eyes staring at his shoulder. "I have a busy job, you know. Even if they are just waiting around for me to retire…or die. But it'll be at least forty years before that happens." When he began to speak, she held up her hand. "I don't know what you're up to, and I don't care, so save your breath." He let out the breath he'd taken in order to speak. She paused and tilted her head in what he recognized as curiosity. That boded well, at least, if her aggravation with him didn't. "What's your name, kid?"
Tenzin felt the girl shift next to him. Though she was still frightened by the ordeal she'd gone through, he sensed a stubbornness and strength about her, and he glanced over to see her clench her jaw.
"Korra," she said, stepping forward. The city lights reflected off the murky water and onto her dark skin, and the night seemed to recede a little when she moved. Tenzin swore he caught a hint of blue. He glanced around, still uncertain whether it was wise to return to New York soon, but also knowing they had little other choice. They would leave as soon as possible.
Toph hummed. "So you're the 'girl who died,' huh? Tiny thing." Without warning, she pulled her wand out of the inner pocket of her robe and pointed it directly at the girl. "Stupefy!"
Immediately, the bright, violent blue light enveloped the girl, exploding out of her in a massive concussion. Tenzin managed to cast a shield charm around himself. Still, he felt the blast pushing him backward, the blue searing into his eyes, overwhelming him, singing in his veins the way magic had when the tear was open—
And then it stopped. Panting, he lowered his arms, his wand sparking slightly from the overflow of magic. Toph stood unruffled and threw her head back as she laughed into the night sky, her wand shimmering with a cold and unruly blue.
"Toph!" Tenzin managed to yell. His lungs clenched with exhaustion. "What—I'm sure a muggle saw that—" He glanced at the seemingly deserted buildings nearby.
"Relax, sourpuss," she said with a chuckle. She spread her hands and the blue dissipated from her wand. "No muggles here." She crouched down and tapped her wand on the ground. "Checked already. Well," she continued, sitting back on her heels with her head cocked in Korra's direction. "At least you brought me something interesting this time." The girl was crying again and shaking violently, the final blue tendrils evaporating like fog into the night. "Even if she is a crier."
At that, Toph's wand suddenly went spinning through the air and hit a wall with a quiet thud. Her head whipped around to the girl, whose eyes shone briefly before the normal, vibrant blue returned to her irises. "I'm not a crier," Korra said thickly, stumbling to her feet. She swayed slightly but managed to stay upright. For the first time that night, Tenzin saw the sarcasm drain out of the Head Patroller's face, and he thought it might have been surprise that flickered across her mouth.
Then she chuckled. "Come over here, kid," Toph said, lowering herself slowly to the ground and crossing her legs. She seemed unconcerned that her blue Patroller robes were most likely getting dirtied, but that wasn't a surprise to Tenzin. Toph never seemed worried about getting dirty. Hesitant to approach the woman who had unceremoniously attacked her, Korra paused and swayed a little on her feet. "Come on, come sit down. I'm tired of standing. I stand all day." A meaningful tilt of the head in his direction. "You too, sourpuss. Story time."
Sighing, Tenzin drew nearer and sat on the ground next to her, trying not to think about how dirty it probably was. Korra looked between them for a moment before hesitantly approaching. He nodded to her and, with an exhausted grunt, the girl fell to the ground in a sprawl of limbs. For a moment he was worried she'd collapsed, but she rolled onto her stomach and rested her head on her hands. Tenzin was beginning to realize that Korra, for all of her peacefulness while unconscious (dead some part of him corrected in curiosity and horror), had a decidedly…not peaceful personality.
"You know why he brought you here?" Toph asked, jerking her thumb toward Tenzin. Sometimes he was almost frightened by her unerring ability to locate people, and she had once explained it had something to do with the way she could feel magic, that it seemed to hum in the air and the ground around them.
Korra paused, her blue eyes drifting shut for a moment before she refocused them with effort. "To help me get better?" she hazarded.
"Close enough," Toph said. "I'm able to detect the flow of magic better than anyone else in the world. I think Mr. Sunshine, over here, thinks I can maybe sense what's going on with you so we can block it or something." Tenzin stiffened at the new nickname, but Toph merely continued on, though he caught her thin lips quirking. "Unfortunately, he's wrong."
He felt his mouth drop open. "What—"
"Of course I can feel what's going on. I can feel it a lot better when I have my wand, which some kid happens to have knocked away." Korra looked a bit sheepish at that. "But there's nothing I can do to help you."
Fear overtook the girl's face and she pulled herself to her knees. "But—but there has to be something. It's…horrible. I can't control it," she said, her eyes watering again, though she stuck her chin out defiantly against the tears threatening to overwhelm her.
"Easy there," Toph said, and to Tenzin's surprise she reached out and placed a hand on Korra's shoulder. "Listen, you know magic's linked to emotions, right?" The girl nodded silently. "I'm going to assume you're nodding."
"Oh—uh, yeah," Korra mumbled, perhaps not having seen the fogginess of the woman's eyes before.
"Whatever that magical pillar of nastiness was," Toph tilted her head meaningfully in Tenzin's direction, "or whatever his people know about it that the rest of us don't, it obviously super-charged everyone, right?" Korra nodded, then stopped suddenly and squeaked out an embarrassed "yes," having forgotten the other woman couldn't see her. "Whatever you did when you closed it, it super-charged you with this blue magic. Which you probably guessed. The problem is you haven't learned how to control magic, yet, and you're too young for a wand. The blue stuff is what happens when you think you're under attack or you're afraid. Most kids just fly away or turn their attackers into pigs or something, but you turn into a giant magical bomb.
"I can sense the magic in you. It's sitting all coiled up right…" Toph lifted her hand and tapped the girl on the forehead. "…here."
"In my brain?" the girl said, going cross-eyed as she looked at the hand.
"Sort of," Toph continued. "The extra magic's all over, like veins, but it's mostly in your head. You're scared." When the girl opened her mouth to argue, Toph jabbed her finger into her forehead, making her tumble back onto the pavement with an 'oof.' "And you're scared of the blue stuff, too—don't argue, anyone with eyes—" she chortled a little to herself— "can tell. So you get scared, and then the blue magic takes over, and then you're afraid of the blue magic, so that just makes it worse. And then you nearly fry the rest of us."
Korra scrambled back to her knees, leaning toward Toph anxiously. "But I can't stop that!"
Tenzin frowned too, pulling at his beard in thought. "I was hoping there would be a spell, or something, that could block it."
Shaking her head, the Head Patroller got to her feet slowly. "Too damn old," she said with a grunt, various joints popping. "There might be some spell to dampen magic I don't know about," Toph admitted to Tenzin's surprise. "Though that's unlikely if you ask me. And if Katara couldn't think of a potion…well, best thing to do is accept it, kid. Accept that you're scared. Accept that the blue stuff isn't going away. Don't try to control it. Use it. Let it flow through you."
Tenzin stood too, pulling Toph to the side as Korra sat dejectedly on the pavement, looking at her hands. "Toph," he said, and she frowned at him. "No, listen—my mother said that the magic is going to consume her, eventually, if we don't get a handle on it."
The old woman merely chuckled. "You better get to work then, right? Isn't that your mystery job?" He turned to her in surprise. "Oh, I don't know anything more specific. Katara was annoyingly vague about what it is you and whoever it is you work for do, back when we were still fighting all that dark shit. But only my eyes are blind, sourpuss. I know they chose you to protect her for a reason. I know there must be a reason she needs to be protected. And I know that anything to do with you goes over my head at the station."
"But—"
"That's all the free advice you're getting from me tonight, and I'm only doing it for the kid. She seems tough." She reached up to pat his cheek patronizingly, missing a little and crushing his ear instead. "Anyone tell you you got huge ears? Must've gotten that from Twinkle Toes. Anyway, I have a real job to get to in the morning. Good luck, kid," she called to Korra, and then Disapparated with a crack that echoed off the surface of the nearby river.
For a moment, he simply stood, staring at the space she had just occupied and feeling entirely unsure of whether any of that was actually worth it. He heard Korra groaning as she got to her feet and he turned to her.
"Wow, she's cranky," she said, and for the first time in weeks, he laughed.
"You don't know the half of it." He walked over to her, grabbing her elbow as she swayed slightly. "Let's get back to the house before you keel over."
It would be months before Korra could channel the blue magic.
