Katara looked down at the little girl holding her hand. "Don't worry little one, your parents will visit often."
The toddler swung her free arm at her side. "I'm not scared!" She declared proudly.
Katara smiled, "oh you aren't are you?"
Korra looked up at her with a look of deadpan seriousness, comical on the child's roundish features. "I AM four now. I'm not a baby."
"No no of course you aren't."
Korra looked around the white lotus compound. It had been built starting a few months after Avatar Aang's death but had remained mostly empty until Korra had been discovered a few months before. She had only visited a few times but after the kidnapping attempt everyone had decided it would be safer for the child to live there. Korra didn't really understand it, she just saw it as going to some super cool avatar warrior training rather than the complete lifestyle change it would turn out to be.
Katara, however, wasn't happy about it. Korra was a child and needed her family not a glorified prison. The girl was her husband's legacy, yes, but that only made her believe this more. Aang wouldn't have wanted anyone to have to live the way the Order was insisting. Only until she's older and doesn't need constant protection they had said. Essentially, they were talking away Korra's childhood, just as the war had taken the childhoods of herself and her friends.
It was so against the teachings and culture of the Southern Water Tribe and of the Air Nomads. It didn't sit right with her, but her vote was but one against a sea.
Korra tugged on her arm. "Yes dear?"
"Master Katara are you gonna teach me water bending or just healing people?"
Katara knelt besides her. "I'm going to teach you just about everything I know Korra."
Korra's face lit up and she stamped her feet in excitement. "Can you show me how'ta bend ice and do the octa-octo- Oca'pus form! And-!"
"One step at a time," Katara assured, resting her hand on the girl's shoulder, "how about we show you your new room first?"