This chapter holds a trigger warning for discussion of self-harm. Please don't read the end if this will upset you. I don't want anybody to feel hurt or experience unpleasant memories.


Sometimes, Korra feels a little ambitious.

Sometimes, she thinks that she can actually hunt and bring down a full-grown deer-rabbit. Normally, when this impulse kicks in, she shakes her head and stifles the urge with some difficulty, telling herself to be content with small and medium-sized game. This isn't a Water Tribe leopard-seal season; she doesn't have anything to prove to any other hunters. But she wants to try it anyway, just so that she can say that she is capable of hunting large game. Her dad was a pro at it; he had taken down a polar leopard, for the spirits' sake. Her grandfather had been just as good, and his father before him. Hunting greatness runs in her family.

She tells Sitka to be very quiet and shows her some bushes that she can hide behind. Then she climbs a tree, and points her bow and arrow at the deer-rabbit grazing down in the meadow, focusing intently on her target. Korra pulls the bow harder, and harder, getting ready to strike, and then-

Something pulls in her shoulder blade. Painfully.

She misfires, and falls out of the tree with a yelp of horror and dismay.

It's not a long drop, thankfully, and it's cushioned by the foliage of several branches. Korra lands mostly on her arms and knees, which is painful but not permanently damaging, and then she groans at the spasm the impact sends through her aching right shoulder blade, collapsing facefirst onto the ground.

She tries to reach over and heal herself, but her hand can't make proper contact with the pulled muscle. It's a failure of human design, that most people can't touch most of their whole back easily. Korra groans again, halfheartedly kicking her legs against the ground. "Kill me now, please."

Sitka makes her way out of the bushes, looking at her in a concerned manner, and then licks her face.

"Go on," Korra says, pointing. "Your mouth is this close to my neck."

Sitka barks once and runs around in a circle, wagging her tail.

"I'll take that as a no, then." Korra stands up, wincing, as she gathers her bow and arrows and her bag of today's already-caught prey, moving gingerly in an attempt to prevent more pain from lancing through her shoulder and shoulder blade. She talks to Sitka as they make their way back to town, as she got into the habit of doing with Naga, ever since she had been a little girl.

"So clearly, my back is permanently damaged." Korra leaps over the stream, balancing on a rock with one foot, before hopping to the ground. "You would think that would force me to abandon my dream of becoming the first ever professional female boxer, right? Wrong. I will fight through the pain and prevail." She squints thoughtfully into the distance. "…I still don't know what my ring name should be, though."

Korra sighs happily at the memory of that night, content despite her aching shoulder and general soreness after the fall. She and Tarrlok had returned from their trip just over a week ago. She remembers standing near the rail of the ship on their way back, admiring the way the setting sun looked against the ocean, and trying to catch glimpses of dolphin-eagles off in the distance. Tarrlok had wrapped his arms around her from behind, holding her close in an affectionate hug. Was it a good birthday? he asked quietly.

She twisted around, stretching up to kiss him on the lips. Yes, she said, and it had been the truth.

Korra touches her necklace self-consciously as they enter the familiar atmosphere of the town again. Something subtle and intangible had shifted between them since the night Tarrlok had - well…proposed? They don't treat each other any differently, but it just feels different. Like this is the real thing, rather than just a twisted arrangement with both of them trying to make the best of their warped situation by taking comfort in one another. This is how I wanted it to be, he said later that night, kissing her tenderly. Before I hurt…before everything that happened in City Hall.

Korra's lips twist at the memory, and she forces herself to push it aside as she enters the butcher's shop. Kamlai, the butcher's wife, is working this shift, and she waves at her and Sitka as they come in.

"I have one hog and a pygmy bull pig," Korra announces, slinging her bag onto the counter and excavating her game from it. "I tried to bring down a deer-rabbit, but that didn't work so well."

Kamlai laughs, inspecting the hog and the pig. "Those things weigh as much as you do, you wouldn't be able to carry it back in one piece. Stick to medium game, you do that perfectly."

Korra pats her injured shoulder ruefully. "I think I will. Do you need any help skinning and cleaning them?"

"Not today, Lanh's going to come by in a few minutes. Thank you, though. And by the way, that's a lovely new necklace you have, dear," Kamlai says, smiling at her, counting out her fee and sliding it over to her. "The color suits your eyes."

Korra blushes slightly as she puts the money in her pocket, before reaching up to brush her fingers against the stone; wincing at the way it pulls at the muscles in her shoulder blade. "Thanks. Taruq made it for me as a birthday gift."

"It's beautifully done. I remember when Niran would take the time to do things like that for me." Kamlai sighs ruefully, wrapping up some pork-poultry and sticking it in the freezer. "You're a lucky girl, Senna. Enjoy it."

Korra smiles - if only you knew - and leans down to pet Sitka. "I am. Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow, Kamlai. Have a good day!"

Kamlai waves to her, tossing a bone across the counter to Sitka, and the two of them leave the small shop, breathing in the fresh air, a nice change from the overwhelming meat smell inside the shop. Korra leads them home, Sitka trotting at her side. It's nice, having her as a hunting partner. She takes down small game by herself, making her job much easier, and she likes having a friend to spend the long hours in the woods and meadows with. It had been sweet of Tarrlok to find Sitka for her. He does a lot of nice things for her, honestly, trying to make her feel comfortable and at home. And the thing is, it had worked. When she thinks of home, now, she thinks of the South Pole and Republic City and the small home that she and Tarrlok share; the safe place that is uniquely their own.

She sighs softly, reaching up to rub her aching shoulder with one hand, while trying to unlock the door with the other. Sitka shoves the door all the way open with her nose and bounds inside the house, excited because Tarrlok is already home. Korra follows more slowly, kicking her boots off and heading toward the bedroom.

"Korra?" Tarrlok calls, from the down the hall.

She rolls her eyes, even though he can't see her. "No, Nini the Water Tribe ghost, here to feast upon your soul," she replies sarcastically, tossing her bow and arrows into the corner of the room as soon as she steps inside.

Tarrlok grimaces at the way a few of her arrows fall out of the quiver and spill over the floor, as he removes his jacket and hangs it up inside the closet, before holding a hand out to her. "How was your hunt?"

"Not great," Korra replies glumly, taking his hand and standing on the tips of her toes to kiss him on the cheek. "I did something weird with my bow and arrow and pulled the muscles in my shoulder blade. My hand can't reach over to heal it properly, see?" She looks at him over her shoulder and pouts, before an idea suddenly occurs to her. "Hey, can you use bloodbending to make it better? Like how you do when I have headaches?"

Tarrlok frowns, touching the area lightly, prompting a sharp hiss of pain. "I don't like using bloodbending on muscles, and it will probably hurt you too. However," - he smooths his fingers through her wind-tangled hair - "we can try getting rid of it the traditional way. A hot bath should relax the strained area. Do you want me to get one started?"

"Sure." Korra reaches up with her good hand, running it over his shoulders and the back of his neck. "You feel a little stiff too. It'll be good for both of us."

Tarrlok leans down and kisses her on the forehead. "It'll be ready in a few minutes, then."

He goes to the bathroom to get everything started, while Korra picks up her arrows and then wanders into the kitchen for a drink of water, before icing her back for a few minutes. When she returns to the bathroom, she finds the air almost completely obscured by steam and overwhelmingly fragrant. "You didn't use any of the peppermint oil, did you?" she asks suspiciously, hanging back. "You know I don't like feeling like I'm taking a bath in toothpaste."

Tarrlok sighs, from in the direction of the bath. He happens to like peppermint oil, for some unfathomable reason. "No, it's just lavender, so it's safe to come inside, Princess Korra."

Korra makes a face, before stripping off her clothes and joining him in the bath, which is just big enough for the two of them. The water is slick with the lavender oil she likes and almost painfully hot, but it feels good against the spasming muscles in her shoulder blade, and all the breath leaves her body in a contented sigh as she settles beside him. Normally, on the occasion that they take baths together, she likes to shampoo Tarrlok's long hair until it's a mess of foamy suds, scraping her fingernails against his scalp until he glowers at her and complains. Then she dunks him violently under the water until his hair rinses clean, in sharp contrast to the careful, sedate (boring) way he washes her hair. Today, though, she can't lift her arms easily because of the muscle strain, so she settles with snuggling against Tarrlok while he tells her a story about how a violent all-out brawl broke out on the playground today over which student would be allowed to take the class pet - a toad-lizard named Spot - home the next week.

"Jatu really knocked out Rak's front teeth?" Korra asks disbelievingly. "But doesn't he weigh like fifty pounds? His arms are noodles."

Tarrlok sighs, taking one of the bottles of massage oil from the shelf mounted against the wall. "Yes, just before I could get to them in time. I was distracted because two of the other children were telling me a story about the kitten they found in the alley behind their house. You don't know how hard it was for me to restrain the impulse to pull Jatu and Rak away from each other at a distance with waterbending ropes - in any case, I'm going to have a talk with their parents after school tomorrow. Their fighting set a terrible example for the other children, and this should never happen again."

He starts massaging the oil into her shoulder blade then, his strong hands and long fingers expertly kneading the pain away. The words that had been about to come out of her mouth melt, somewhere along the way, into a moan of relief. Tarrlok keeps rubbing her back, and all the breath leaves Korra's body in a long sigh as she leans against his chest, closing her eyes in pure contentment.

"Be careful tomorrow," she mumbles. "Jatu's dad is pretty scary. You remember when Emi and Lanh told us about the time they had a run-in with him at the restaurant, right?"

"Don't worry about me," Tarrlok replies, sounding both amused and flattered by her concern. "Just relax."

The exhausting day, combined with the heat of the water, the fragrance of the oil, and the steady, soothing pressure of his hands on her skin take their toll, and the last thought that crosses her mind is how much better her back feels already.

Korra opens her eyes again at the sensation of a warm, sultry, jasmine-scented summer breeze stirring her hair, because that's wrong, that can't be happening, it feels so different from the spring breezes that rustle the leaves on the trees in the town where she and Tarrlok live. And when she opens her eyes, she freezes, because she isn't even in the bath anymore. She's standing in the outdoor entrance hall to a magnificent mansion, more grand than anything she has ever seen before. It's the definition of opulence, from the cream marble floors to the ornately carved dark redwood doors - and from the red and gold decor and the weather, and the tropical trees and flowering plants that surround the entrance hall…

Korra tilts her head, listening hard, before turning to her right. She hears the ocean, the familiar, reassuring sound of waves crashing into the sand, and she can actually see the beach from here. "I'm in the Fire Nation, right?" she asks herself quietly, hardly able to believe it. It looks like Ember Island, the place that Master Katara had told her about. That would make sense; she's dressed again - thankfully - in a Fire Nation-style red dress that leaves her midriff bare, with heavy gold bracelets and armbands around her wrists and upper arms. Korra stares, taking it in, stunned, and she opens her fist, trying to make a small flame blossom in her palm.

Nothing happens, no matter how hard she tries, and her suspicions are confirmed. She's in the Spirit World again, even though this place couldn't be more different from the meadow that she had materialized in last time. She had tried to make the connection to the Spirit World during meditation for months, ever since the last time she had seen Aang - but after the repeated failures, she had been forced to conclude that her lack of spiritual development made it so that she couldn't make the journey to the Spirit World unless one of her past lives wanted her there. So Korra tilts her head back, craning her neck and shielding her eyes with her hands as she searches the gold-violet sunset skies for any sign of Appa, but she can't see him anywhere. Finally, she turns back to the open double doors in front of her, staring inside curiously. There's no wariness inside her. Actually, there's a little bit of a magnetic pull. Even though she's never laid eyes on this place before, it feels like home.

Korra steps inside, glancing around at her surroundings, her gaze gravitating to the massive, spectacular crystal chandelier hanging above her. She stares for a few seconds, aware of the fact that it must be worth more money than her parents had ever possessed, and when she looks back down, there's someone in front of her.

She reacts to this surprise as gracefully as she reacts to most other surprises - jumping backwards with a yelp of shock, stumbling in her unfamiliar sandals and nearly tripping on the hem of her dress; narrowly avoiding landing flat on her back on the floor, before settling into a defensive fighting position. The woman in front of her just laughs, reaching a non-threatening hand out to her. "Welcome to my home, Korra. I hope you'll think of it as your own."

Korra looks at the woman cautiously, reaching out and returning the grip. Her first, instinctive question is how did you know my name, closely followed by who are you, but the second she looks at her - really looks at her - those questions fade, only to be replaced by a sense of unmistakable familiarity. She recognizes her from ancient portraits in her history books, and she's pretty unmistakable, by virtue of the fact that she is probably the most beautiful woman that Korra has ever seen. The portraits really didn't do her justice.

"Avatar Rei," she says, startled, letting go suddenly and sinking into a deep bow. Well, this had been the last thing she had been expecting. She feels painfully self-conscious all of a sudden, remembering what Aang had told her about Rei the last time they had met; about the horrific circumstances under which she had unlocked the Avatar State for the first time. She had felt it so keenly in that instant, the smallest echo of the horror and pain her past life had gone through. "It is such an honor to meet you," she continues, with feeling.

Rei places a hand on Korra's shoulder, gently guiding her upright. Her palm feels warm and solid and disconcertingly real, considering the fact that she has been dead for more than four hundred years. "The honor is mine. I'm so glad that you could join me for tea today."

Rei leads her to a sitting room, where two steaming cups of plum tea sit on the lacquered table, beside a jade teapot and two plates of coconut cookies. The breeze from the open window stirs the cream chiffon curtains. Korra takes a seat on one of the sofas, gratefully accepting the refreshments, and she is surprised to learn that it is actually possible to eat and drink in the Spirit World. Everything seems to taste better here, actually, and avoiding the temptation to cram three cookies into her mouth at the same time is a struggle.

"You have a beautiful home," Korra says, trying to be polite - just barely remembering to not talk with her mouth full - as Rei sips her tea. For the first time, she takes a moment to wonder what she's doing in this beautiful home. From what she understands, it is fairly rare for Avatars to communicate with people in the cycle who were not their immediate past life…unless, for some reason, their spiritual guide thought that another Avatar was better suited to give advice in a particular situation.

"Thank you," Rei replies, smiling slightly and running her hand over the red velvet of the armchair as if reminiscing about something. "It's a replica of my family's summer vacation home on Ember Island. It's very close to my heart."

Korra nods, fascinated by the new information on the Spirit World. Until recently, it had been a total mystery for her, just like it had for everybody else. It's comforting to think that those who have passed on can recreate the environments they loved, where they spent the best parts of their lives. Her mom had been so distraught after her mother - Korra's grandmother - had passed, and she makes a note to tell her mom, the next time she comes to visit, that Gran-Gran is probably happy, living in her little igloo near the river and the otter-penguin dens, reunited with Grandfather again.

And then Korra remembers that there isn't going to be a next visit, that she can't see her mom and dad again, that she won't ever be allowed to write to them again, and it's like she can't make her lungs draw another breath. Rei sees the expression on her face change, and she gets up, coming to sit beside her on the sofa. She rests a hand on her back, offering some quiet comfort, and it's so reminiscent of her mom - it's the closest thing that she's had to a motherly touch since she left the South Pole and her mother; since she last saw Pema in Republic City - that she bites her lip hard, trying her best not to cry.

"I'm sorry," she says, her voice cracking, turning away. "I don't know what's going on…I'm not normally like this, I swear…"

"You don't have to apologize," Rei replies softly, and she rubs Korra's back as Korra swallows over her tight throat, trying to fight through the wave of melancholy. "There's nothing to be ashamed of. I know that you're in a very difficult position on the mortal plane."

Korra sniffles, feeling herself losing the battle against the tears. If anything, that makes it worse - that all the other Avatars before her can see her confusion and cowardice, and know how pathetic and messed-up she is. Look at her, she imagines them talking amongst themselves. Falling in love with the man who kidnapped her - what is wrong with her? How did the cycle go so wrong? As if her spiritual failure and attitude problems and total inability to airbend wasn't enough. What a coward, running away from her duties and responsibilities, when all of us faced equal dangers with so much more courage.

Rei frowns, as if reading her mind. "…Did you know that I ran away, once?" she asks, after a long while. "Centuries before Avatar Aang ever did, so he wasn't the only one, contrary to popular belief. I wasn't sure if that made its way to the history books."

Korra swipes at her eyes with her wrist as she looks up, distracted. "What?" she replies unsteadily. "I didn't know that, so I guess it didn't."

Rei pulls out a handkerchief from one of the pockets of her silken red dress, offering it to her. "It was after the battle at Serpent's Pass, after a very traumatic experience." She pauses, her lips twisting bitterly, and Korra can't help but think back to it - in her lessons, all she had been taught was that Rei had been taken prisoner by an enemy general when she was fifteen, and she awakened the Avatar State for the first time to defeat him and free herself. Years later, during her previous trip to the Spirit World, Aang had told her the full truth. The general had raped Rei and fully intended to kill her, and it was her pain and desperation that drove her into the Avatar State as her last means of self-defense.

Despite her best efforts, Korra shudders, unable to imagine the physical, emotional, and mental agony that the other woman must have gone through. She rests her hand on Rei's tentatively. "I am so sorry."

The words are painfully inadequate, and Rei just nods, her golden eyes sorrowful. "I came here, to the last safe place, with my dear friend Liling. The war was still going on, of course, but at that point, I couldn't have cared less. The Fire Nation was burning and hundreds upon hundreds of people were dying by the week, but I didn't want to go back there, or to any other nation. I fully intended to abdicate all of my responsibilities - all I wanted was to stay here with her, for the rest of my days. Because what had being the Avatar brought me, aside from fear and pain?" She shrugs one shoulder, staring out the window. "The revolutionaries kidnapped my father and older brother and held them prisoner for two years, in an attempt to manipulate me into surrendering, and then they took me prisoner, and…"

She trails off, and the words strike a painful chord inside Korra. Rei smiles slightly, blinking hard at the same time. "I understand, Korra. I do. And I would never, ever judge you for everything you're feeling and what you're going through."

The words ease some of the crushing pressure, the guilt and self-loathing inside her, and for the first time since coming here, Korra's shoulders relax slightly. "But you did go back," she says quietly, trying to piece it all together. "You helped end the war, you negotiated peace between the enemy forces and prevented the Fire Nation from splitting into two. What…what happened?"

"The war kept raging on, and Liling's entire family was killed in an attack on the capital," Rei replies simply. "It was - that was when I started to feel guilt for what I had done. I had escaped, I was finally safe, but thousands of other people were being harmed, and the fact that it hit so close to home finally helped me realize how terrible that was. As hard as I tried to rationalize things, I couldn't forget that I had the power to at least try to stop the bloodshed. So I went back."

Korra shakes her head, struggling to wrap her mind around it. "You must have been so scared," she mumbles. "After everything that had happened…"

"Oh, I was. I was absolutely terrified. But at the same time, I knew that I couldn't live with the guilt of doing nothing."

Korra stares at the floor, her hand clenching into a white-knuckled fist around the handle of her teacup. "That's how I feel every day," she manages, her voice barely audible, her throat tightening again. "On some level, I know that I should go back to Republic City to try and stop Amon, but I - I'm so scared. He said he was going to destroy me, he wants to kill me." She wipes her eyes with her wrist, before remembering the handkerchief. "He could have done it on Memorial Island. He could do it at any time he wants. I hate saying it, but he's a better fighter than I am, especially since I haven't been able to go into the Avatar State. He overpowered me so easily, I was totally defenseless - if he had pulled out a knife, or hit one of my chi points hard enough…"

She falls silent, the memory of her whole life flashing before her eyes as he reached toward her, and her acute terror in that moment, making her nauseous. Rei squeezes her cold, clammy hand, the warmth reassuring, and Korra shakes her head again, numbly. "And I don't want to die. It scares me. I'm only eighteen, there's still so much that I want to do and experience. And then I feel bad for being such a coward, and guilty for wanting to turn my back on the world and live my own life."

"There is nothing weak about what you feel," Rei says calmly. "There is no shame in it. To fear is only natural and human. But I know that you have tremendous amounts of courage as well, Korra. You have the true spirit of a warrior inside you, just like Kyoshi."

Korra shrugs, looking down at her hands. "I know I used to. But I don't feel that way anymore. Not since-"

Not since that night in City Hall, the first time she had learned what it felt like to be truly and completely powerless. Not since all the times after that, when Tarrlok had used bloodbending to force her to run away from Republic City with him and be a fairly cooperative hostage. Not since the countless instances when he had overpowered her attempts to fight and escape, turning her own body against her and forcing it to betray her, even when she thought that she was safe. Not since the afternoon, early on, that Tarrlok had seen her trying to send a letter to her parents at the post office, came in and interrupted her with some fake story about how a water pipe in the kitchen had burst, flooding the room, and could she please come help him clean it up - and then, once they were alone, he stood really close to her and told her that if she ever tried to break the rules again, he would find out, and she would return to a more traditional imprisonment situation, like the kind she had experienced in Republic City. Not since the times she had tried to tell him her point of view, and convince him that they needed to go back, only to have him never listen to her and win those fights, time after time, until it got to the point that she didn't even want to bring it up.

She drops her head, staring at the ground in defeat. She hadn't been that brave, tough-as-nails girl - Kyoshi come again, Master Katara would say fondly - in months. Not since Tarrlok had taken her captive, and slowly and steadily chipped that fighting spirit down to nothing.

"Is that what you really want?" Rei asks gently. "To give it all up, and permanently resign your responsibilities as the Avatar?"

Korra frowns, confused. "I do," she replies, thinking of everything Tarrlok had told her - but then, reflexively, she thinks of her parents and the airbender family and Mako and Bolin and Asami; Master Katara and the little children in the South Pole; the Wolfbats, who hadn't deserved what they had got; and the fifteen metalbending cops that had been kidnapped, and all the other people of the world, who rely on the Avatar to maintain balance - "…but no," she sighs. "I don't. Even though I have - these periods of selfishness, I guess - I still care about everything that's going on in Republic City, and I want to put a stop to it. Nobody should have to live in fear just because they happen to be a bender or a non-bender. I don't want the world to be permanently knocked out of balance, like it almost was during the Hundred Year War." She stares down into her cup of tea moodily. "Tarrlok says that I should just let the United Forces or one of the other nations step in, but I don't think they will. When there's a war in the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation and the Water Tribe don't get involved, do they? This won't become a worldwide problem until Republic City falls to Amon and it's too late."

She curls her hands into fists, cracking her knuckles out of reflex. "The thing is, though," she admits, her shoulders slumping, "even though I do want to go back, and I think I have a different plan on how to stop Amon from doing what he's doing, I don't know how to. I'm back to square one, where I was when Tarrlok first brought me here." She gestures tiredly. "And it's so exhausting to just be at that impasse."

Rei fidgets, looking a little uncomfortable, for the first time. "I don't mean to be insensitive," she says carefully. "But you do realize that Tarrlok has been exploiting your fears and vulnerabilities for quite a long time, with the intention of suppressing and eventually extinguishing the part of your identity that has to do with being the Avatar, yes?"

Korra opens her mouth, but no sound comes out for a few moments. "Yeah," she acknowledges, with some reluctance. Spirits, when Rei says it like that, it makes it sound like she's being brainwashed. "It's only because he loves me, though, and he wants to keep me safe."

Rei frowns a little. "Whatever it may be, it's your life, and you have to be the one in control of it, with the power and freedom to make your own decisions. Nobody else."

"How do I take back control, though?" Korra asks, looking at her past life beseechingly. "It's not like I wanted this, like I just chose to hand it over to him - I just got tired of fighting, because he wouldn't let go, no matter how hard I tried."

Rei smiles sadly, reaching out and cupping the side of her face in one hand comfortingly, for a brief moment. "I think you already know the answer to that question."

"I don't," Korra replies, puzzled. "I don't understand."

"You will," Rei says, "in time. Now be brave, young Avatar. Remember that you are not alone, that you will never be alone, and that we are all looking out for you. I know that you have the strength to face the challenges that lie ahead."

Before Korra can even say anything, her surroundings begin to fade, just like they had last time, though Rei's last words echo in her mind even as everything else goes black.

When she opens her eyes again, feeling utterly drained despite the nap, she's back on the mortal plane, wrapped in a soft blue bathrobe and resting on the bed. The pain in her shoulder blade is completely gone, and the air around her smells like Northern Water Tribe five-flavor soup. Korra lies still for a while, replaying her interaction with Rei in the Spirit World in her head down to the last detail, trying to come to terms with everything she had said and everything she had heard.

How do I take back control, though?

I think you already know the answer to that question.

I don't. I don't understand.

You will, in time.

Korra grimaces, throwing her arm across her forehead in frustration. Someday, when she is the next Avatar's spiritual guide, she will not give them ambiguous advice. She'll just come out and say everything she has to say, and save her successor a lot of headaches.

Her train of thought is interrupted when Tarrlok comes in to check on her, and he smiles a little upon seeing her awake. "I was just going to wake you up."

"How long have I been out?" she asks, trying to sound as casual as possible. He has no idea that she can actually connect with the Spirit World, if only rarely.

"About half an hour. How does your shoulder feel?"

"Much better," Korra says emphatically, reaching an arm out to him. He joins her on the bed, wrapping his arms around her, and as she twines her fingers into his hair and holds him close, she tries to puzzle out what Rei had said.

"Good," Tarrlok says, his voice muffled by her hair. "Be more careful next time. I hate to see you hurt."

He leans down and kisses her, and she reciprocates a little belatedly. "Are you done with the soup, or is there anything I can help with?" she asks afterward, rubbing his shoulders.

"I'm just about to stir-fry the tofu, nothing strenuous."

"Don't forget to put the basil in it. Actually, I'll come and do it."

Tarrlok ruffles her hair affectionately before leaving the room, and Korra slides out of bed, retrieving a fresh dress from the closet. It feels nice to move and reach for things without that awful pain in her shoulder blade.

Be more careful next time. I hate to see you hurt.

She sighs, leaning against the closet door. As much as she likes feeling loved, she still hates when he says things like that - it's just too ironic, coming from the person who had put her in this situation and, in doing so, caused her more pain and anguish than anybody - even Amon. But the sentiment had been genuine. She still remembers the effect her breakdown had on him; how truly worried he had been when seeing how much pain she was in, when she couldn't stop crying and had rejected food and all of his attempts to comfort her.

You can talk to me. You can tell me what's wrong.

I don't want to, she had sobbed. I'm just so tired.

Tarrlok's shoulders tensed up ever so slightly. Tired of what?

She could barely catch her breath between words; she was crying so hard at that point. I'm tired of hurting, tired of being the Avatar, tired of being me, tired of everything. I just want it to stop.

He flinched, when she said that. It will pass, he told her sharply. This will pass. Don't say that.

The next day, he hadn't wanted to go to work. He'd told her that he didn't want to leave her alone. She just didn't want him around, because having him nearby hurt. Tarrlok had sat on the bed, in front of her, and made her look at him and promise that she wouldn't do anything to hurt herself. Not today, not ever. Korra didn't resist - she'd barely even listened to what he was saying, just nodded and said yes at the appropriate times - and did it just so he would go away. She had fallen into a troubled sleep just afterward, and she hadn't thought much about it again, until now.

When she had recovered, she noticed that the cleaning supplies and the knives in the kitchen mysteriously returned to the places they had once been, and so did the fan that hung from the ceiling in their bedroom. She hadn't even noticed that they had been gone.

I don't mean to be insensitive, Rei had said. But you do realize that Tarrlok has been exploiting your fears and vulnerabilities for quite a long time.

It was true. It was the undeniable truth, and she had allowed him to do so - she had let down her guard - because she loved him and trusted him. He had done it to keep her safe and with him, because it served his own interests, on an emotional level as well as a calculated one.

Korra laces up her dress blindly. The thing is, she's not the only one with fears and vulnerabilities to exploit. And he's not the only one who has interests to serve. As much as she dislikes it sometimes, as much as she wishes otherwise, she is the Avatar. It is an undeniable part of her identity, just like how she'll always be Water Tribe, no matter how far she moves from the South Pole. She has responsibilities; she has people to protect. It's her job to help people live in harmony and maintain the balance, and the way Amon is trying to deal with the conflict between benders and non-benders is not the right way. She won't let the world fall out of balance on her watch. She doesn't want to be remembered as the vanished Avatar, the one who had allowed this to happen.

The idea forming in her mind is messed up. It's wrong. But so was what Tarrlok had done to her, deliberately playing on her deepest insecurities and fears, things she had confessed to him and only him, because she had come to love him.

She makes her way into the kitchen and stir-fries the tofu with mint, dropping it into the soup, as Tarrlok prepares Sitka's dinner, her usual fish and vegetable stew. When they're both finished, she pushes him against the counter and hugs him tight, nestling close. The impact makes all the breath leave his body, and he leans down, kissing the top of her head. "What was that for?"

Korra can hear the smile in his voice, and she swallows over the lump in her throat. "Sometimes I just can't contain my love for you, tigerbear," she replies dryly. Tarrlok laughs, and she closes her aching eyes. I'm sorry.


The two of them break the surface at the same time, making the race as as to who can complete the fastest clam dive an official tie. Tarrlok rakes his soaked, disheveled hair out of his face and tosses the clam back into the sea, gasping for breath, his eyes stinging from the salt water. Korra splashes him, before waterbending herself out of the ocean and close to fifteen feet in the air, aided by a spinning torrent of water. She releases the technique with a splash in midair, swan-diving down into his arms with a wolflike howl of exhilaration.

He tries his best to catch her, using a move that looks lovely in ballet but doesn't translate well to real life, and the impact knocks both of them several feet underwater in a tangle of limbs. They make their way to the surface together, dripping and exhausted.

"I think you broke my ribs," Korra gasps, wrapping her arms around his neck. "You're so stupid, just because you can do a stupid waltz doesn't mean you're a trained dancer-"

"I think you broke my collarbone," Tarrlok replies ruefully, rubbing his collarbone, equally out of breath. "And just because you can waterbend doesn't mean you're an aquatic acrobat."

Korra pouts at him. "Even?"

"Even," he agrees.

They drag themselves up to the sand, fingers intertwined together. Korra bends the water off her body and out of her hair before pulling on her dress, and Tarrlok does the same, sighing with gratitude for the warm fur of his anorak. They sit nestled against the rocky outcrop of the cliffs, the same place that they've shared so many intimate conversations. Korra wonders out loud whether there are eel-sharks or other dangerous beasts in these waters that she can wrangle and ride, and Tarrlok wonders out loud how such a seemingly normal young woman can be such an extreme thrill-seeker.

Korra lapses into silence after a while, and Tarrlok takes her smaller hand in his, squeezing it lightly. "Is there something on your mind?"

She turns toward him, the moonlight reflecting in her eyes, and glinting off the carved stone on her necklace. "Actually, yeah," she says, after a brief pause. "…I was just thinking about my mom and dad. I wish I could have told them about you." She touches the necklace lightly; absentmindedly. "I know they wanted me to be in a relationship as great as theirs, and find some amazing person to settle down with someday."

Tarrlok hesitates, momentarily lost for words. "They seem like good people," he settles with, finally. He tries to avoid thinking about them, the people who raised Korra with such love and made her the irresistibly bright, happy, vibrant person that she is.

Korra nods sadly. "They are. Even if they don't know the details, I just want them to know that I'm alive, and I'm happy, so they don't have to worry anymore." She closes her eyes, a frown knitting her brow. "Think of how upset your mom was when Noatak disappeared," she says, her voice barely audible, and Tarrlok can't help but flinch. "It's like that. Except that they know I was kidnapped. Everybody from Republic City would have told them that you were some kind of psycho violent bloodbender. They've probably spent the past six months thinking that their only child is being held captive by somebody who's hurting her and torturing her every single day. If she's even alive. Can you imagine?"

Korra looks at him bleakly, the wind stirring her hair, and again, Tarrlok has no words. "…I can't," he manages, at last. For just a second, he puts himself in their shoes; if he and Korra ever had a daughter - a little girl with Korra's eyes and smile - and Amon or whoever else took her away, like he had done to Korra-

He has to abandon that train of thought because the wave of mingled revulsion and rage that sweeps over him is too great to bear.

"Can I write to them?" Korra asks quietly, tugging on his hand until he looks back at her. "It'll just be a few lines, just the basics, to tell them that I'm okay. I won't give away any information, I promise, and I'll borrow the onion merchant's car and drive for however many hours I have to and send it to them from some other post office. Please."

Tarrlok hesitates for a few moments, unsure of what to say, feeling a terrible, creeping sense of discomfort spread over him. "I don't think that would be a good idea, sweetheart," he replies tentatively. "Even if you drove for three hours, it would give them an idea of our general vicinity, which would make it easy for them to track us down."

He expects Korra to argue, to glare, to snap or sulk resentfully. The way her face falls - the way the hope drains from her like water down the sink - is worse. She looks so disappointed and crestfallen that it hurts, as she turns away, and all he wants is to take it back and give her the answer she had wanted; the answer that would have made her face light up with joy. He wants to surprise her, to say not only can you write to them, but we'll go and see them when summer comes. But he can't - it's impossible - and in that instant, Tarrlok feels as trapped as she does. He wraps his hand around the back of her neck gently, drawing her close, pressing a kiss against her forehead. "I'm sorry that it has to be this way," he tells her softly, meaning it more than he ever has before. "I really am."

She doesn't respond, save to lean away from him, nestling into the rocky outcrop behind them, and closing her eyes. Tarrlok strokes her hair in a tender, wordless apology, until she drifts off to sleep.

He stays still for a long time, unable to come to terms with the sorrow and regret that has lodged into his chest like a cold, hard stone, making it difficult to breathe in again. At long last, he stands, pulling the hem of his loose Water Tribe pants up his shins, before returning to the water to stand in the shallows, not far from Korra. The gentle waves lap against his legs, sand shifting underneath his bare feet, and his gaze is drawn, steadily and inexorably, toward the full moon, bright and silver against the dark sky. Like all waterbenders, he can feel its pull tonight; feel his powers spike. Korra is several feet away, but he can sense her breathing, the beat of her heart, the rush of her blood through every artery and vein and capillary in her body, as closely as if she were pressed beneath him, his lips brushing the pulse point in her neck.

Tarrlok closes his eyes for several moments and then opens them up again. For the first time since childhood, he wishes he had been born a non-bender, like his mother. A non-bender, who would feel nothing when looking at the moon, except appreciation of her beauty. Not the water in everything on earth - the ice, the snow, the sea, plants, animals, humans - calling out to him. Everything would have been so much easier and less painful. Non-benders had no capacity to learn bloodbending, obviously. As angry as he had been with Korra in City Hall that night, all he would have been able to do as a non-bender, was intimidate her and make a few threats. Crass, perhaps, but forgivable, and nothing he could have been imprisoned for, in any case. A dramatic improvement on abduction and holding her captive.

Tarrlok looks back at Korra, curled against the rocks in a small, miserable ball, and his chest tightens. This can't be the reason he was born a waterbender.

"You're right, you know."

He turns around sharply, startled, and he nearly falls over when he sees it - her, he corrects belatedly. The ethereal, pale form of a woman, several feet in front of him, the hem of her gown floating above the water. Tarrlok freezes, stunned and frightened all at once. This can't be real, this can't actually be happening, but then he remembers stories Noatak had told him, about how the Moon Spirit had appeared to Avatar Aang and saved him from drowning at sea, in a particularly violent storm. He's not an Avatar, he's nobody particularly important, but-

He doesn't look back at Korra, but he's still conscious of her presence, still peacefully asleep and unaware. As ridiculous as it seems, he has forgotten what she is; the bridge between the Spirit World and their own; the reincarnated spirit of the planet itself.

"Yue," he croaks, voice hoarse with disbelief. He doesn't kneel so much as his knees actually give out beneath him.

"Tarrlok of the Northern Water Tribe," she greets, and there is great sadness on her face. "You're right. This isn't why you were born a waterbender. Your bloodbending is a terrible misuse of the power granted to you."

"I never wanted to learn it," he blurts, desperate to distance himself from Yakone and even from Noatak, his lost brother, who had reveled in the absolute power and control it bought him.

"I understand that. You were just a child." The look in Yue's eyes softens momentarily. "But now, for everything that has happened in the past six months, there is absolutely no excuse."

Tarrlok closes his eyes again, shamed by the weight of her condemnation. "I had no choice," he says, for the hundredth time - to Korra, to himself, now to her. "It wasn't something I wanted."

"You did have a choice, and you obviously did want it," Yue replies evenly, folding her hands into her wide sleeves. "The alternative was to admit to what you had done, when Councilman Tenzin and the others came to confront you. And you started panicking and having second thoughts the minute you locked Korra up in that cabin. You could have turned around then, and tried to negotiate a peace with her, but you didn't do that, either. You had at least two chances to choose between what was right and what was easy, and you chose the latter both times."

He can't protest, he can't argue. She sees right through him, and Tarrlok shakes his head, confused and upset. "I know that what I did was wrong," he says, through gritted teeth. "That's why I haven't used bloodbending in months. I love Korra. I won't ever hurt her like that again."

"No," Yue snaps, her eyes glittering with sudden anger, and the waves washing over his feet seem to become stronger; the water colder. "You don't love her, and you should stop lying to her and telling her that you do."

Tarrlok stares, taken aback. "Excuse me?" he asks tersely, and only the need to be respectful to the ancestral spirit of his people makes him hold his tongue. You're a spirit, what do you know of love?

"Love is unselfish, and everything that you've done with Korra ever since you met her has been motivated by selfishness," Yue says, her voice rising. "Love is sacrifice. Love means letting go, even when all you want is to hold on." The expression on her face darkens, and all of a sudden, Tarrlok remembers that she had been a living, breathing girl once, more than seventy years ago; a girl that, if Noatak's stories were to be believed, had a brief romance with Councilman Sokka. "Love is about wanting and doing what's best for the other person. How is this - kidnapping her, holding her hostage, keeping her against her will, isolating her from her family and friends, deliberately manipulating her, forcing her to be somebody who she's not - what's best for her? It has been psychologically and emotionally damaging, and you know it."

Tarrlok narrows his eyes, exhaling slowly. "At least she's safe here-"

"You would be doing this even if Korra wasn't in danger from Amon or anybody else," Yue says coolly. "The only difference is that this situation makes it so much easier for you to confuse her and make her think that this is what's best for her."

Tarrlok remains silent, unsure of how to respond, and Yue shakes her head. "At this point, the least you can do is be honest with yourself."

"What do you advise I do, then?" he asks, looking up at her.

"I advise that you try and undo some of the wrongs you have done, for your own good, and hers," she replies levelly. "It's not yet too late to turn back, Tarrlok. Not everybody has this chance."

Tarrlok hesitates, again. "I…"

"I know that it's hard," she says, beginning to drift backwards, further away from him. "I know that you're frightened. But you must keep in mind that there will be consequences, if you continue down the path that you are on."

He wants to ask her to wait, to ask her what she means, but she vanishes, and all that faces him is the empty ocean, and the rays of the moon glittering on the dark surface.

Tarrlok stands still for a long time, lost in thought. Finally, he turns around, slowly making his way toward the sand. He touches Korra's shoulder gently, and she stirs, blinking up at him tiredly.

"Come here, sweetheart," he says. She places her hand in his and climbs to her feet, but she doesn't lean against him like she normally does. He leads her back up the beach, toward the shortcut that will lead them home. They walk in silence, and she turns back as they leave, glancing regretfully at the sea.


Korra meditates on her plan for nearly a week. She refines it, abandons it, modifies it, doubts it, and hates herself for coming up with it, in turns.

It makes her terribly uncomfortable, and more than a little sick, every time she thinks of it. It's so - low, cunning, manipulative, exploitative.

It's everything that Tarrlok can be at his worst. It's everything that he's said and done to her, in her most vulnerable moments, ever since he first took her captive. And the thing is, now, it's her only chance at regaining her freedom and regaining control of her life.

So she decides to do it, to act at the end of the week. When she thinks of what is at stake here, indecision and failure to act isn't an option. Even though she hasn't been able to get her hands on another newspaper, she can sense that the situation in Republic City is getting more and more tenuous. She lies awake for hours at night, unable to control her anxiety, as she thinks of the airbender family and Chief Beifong and the missing metalbending cops and Mako, Asami, and Bolin.

Korra shuts herself in the bathroom five minutes before Tarrlok is due to get home from work, and coldly, clinically rolls the sleeve of her dress up to her elbow, before creating a thin, razor-sharp blade of ice with her waterbending. She takes the blade and presses it to the soft, sensitive skin of the inside of her arm.

This isn't the first time she's been in this position. It had happened a few times, during the weeks she had been going through that emotional breakdown. All she had been able to think of, then, was how badly she wanted to escape her own skin; how badly she wanted to be free of all the pain and confusion and self-loathing that threatened to crush her under its weight. She had wished she just could cut it out of her, like slicing the rotten parts away from a fruit.

She hadn't ever actually cut, though. The first time, Sitka had come into the bathroom and pawed at her leg, looking up at her with such a heartbreaking expression that Korra had slid from the edge of the bathtub to the floor to hug her, and had then wept into her fur for an hour. The second, third, and fourth times, Sitka had scratched at the closed bathroom door in an obvious panic, and that had made Korra think of how Naga would always look out for her, and that made her think of her parents, and she suddenly lost all will to do what she had intended.

This time, unlike the previous times, she acts, refusing to flinch back from what she has to do.

Korra does it quickly, unable to hold back a hiss of pain. When it's done, she rests the blade on the side of the sink, where it will be clearly visible, and heats her index finger with firebending. She presses it to her skin until it burns enough to leave a mark. The pain is enough to bring tears to her eyes, but she doesn't falter. She stays still until she hears the front door open and shut, and then she washes the blood down the sink, and heals the cuts most of the way.

"Korra?" Tarrlok calls. "I'm home, sweetheart."

His normal tone shifts, then, into the almost-baby-talk that he uses whenever Sitka greets him. Oh, hello, Sitka sweetie, how was your day, spirits, that is a large bone. Did you hunt that jackalope all by yourself? I think you did. Who's a good girl?

Korra closes her eyes, resting her aching head against the mirror at her side. I'm sorry, she thinks, miserably.

"Korra?" Tarrlok calls again. "Where are you?"

"I'm in here," she replies hastily, her voice shaking, casting one last look around at the scene she's set up. "I - don't come in. I'm washing my hands."

"Sitka sneezed on my face, I need to wash it," he says, from the other side of the door. "Are you all right? You don't sound well."

"I'm fine," she says, taking care to sound anything but.

Tarrlok comes in, as she knew he would, and finds her healing her arm.

The stunned expression on Tarrlok's face, as he looks between her wrist and the ice blade on the counter, is almost too much to bear. "What are you doing?" he asks, and his voice comes out small and frightened, making him sound like the scared teenager who found his mother's lifeless body lying on the bathroom floor.

"Nothing," Korra replies hastily, melting the blade with a sweep of her hand, turning them to water that runs down the sink.

He grabs her hand, pulling her toward him so hard that it makes her stumble, and yanking up the sleeve of her dress to reveal the three mostly-healed cuts on the inside of her arm, as well as the fingerprint-sized burn marks in between them. Tarrlok's grip falters, and he couldn't have looked more shocked and horrified if she had created an ice knife with waterbending and stabbed him with it.

He presses a gentle finger to one of the cuts, staring down at her helplessly, and Korra can read the emotions on his face as easily as if he were an open book. "How long have you been doing this?" he asks numbly, his voice barely audible.

She looks down at the floor so she doesn't have to look at him, shrugging one shoulder. "A while."

The silence hangs over them, thick and suffocating, for several moments, before she hears the small, choked sob that tears its way free of his throat. Tarrlok pulls away from her and actually flees, slamming the bathroom door behind her so hard that the small room seems to shake. Korra grips the marble counter, steadying herself and trying to regain her composure, taking a few deep, calming breaths. She opens the water and heals herself with it, until the skin on the inside of her arm is as fresh and unmarked as a baby's.

She leaves the bathroom, looking around cautiously. The bedroom is empty, as are the rest of the rooms in the house. Sitka paces in circles around the kitchen, whining in distress and scratching at the glass door, and that is how Korra finally finds Tarrlok in the back courtyard, sitting on the rusted porch swing, his head in his hands, shoulders slumped. The swing is too small for them, the fabric that covers it hopelessly worn and outdated. She had offered to give it to one of the neighbors, whose grandson had come to stay with them, but the woman had shaken her head, offering a motherly smile. Keep it. It'll be perfect for your children to play on someday.

Korra hesitates for a few moments before joining him, placing a tentative hand on his back. She remembers thinking once before that there was just something wrong about the sight of Tarrlok crying, and that hasn't changed.

She lets him cry for a long time, until there are no tears left, and he looks at her through red-rimmed eyes. "You promised me that you wouldn't ever do anything to hurt yourself," he says quietly, his voice threatening to break again.

Korra winces at the memory. "I know."

"Then why-" He stops, fighting to pull in an unsteady breath. "Were you trying to-"

"No."

"Why?" Tarrlok asks again, his voice cracking. He takes her hand in his and squeezes it, then presses it to his face for a few moments. "All this time, I thought that you were all right. I thought that you were happy. Why would you do this to yourself?"

Korra closes her eyes, and his words send her back to all the darkest times of the past six months. To the scalding hot showers, the temperature so extreme that the water had turned her skin red, and scrubbing herself with her nails so hard that it left angry marks all over her body. To the long runs in the forest, an attempt to distance herself from her own feelings and leave it all behind, where she had pushed herself so hard that her chest, lungs and ribs, had screamed with pain and felt like they were going to burst. The grueling exercise routines, running through a hundred forms in a day and doing long, punishing punching drills for hours, until every muscle and bone in her body ached mercilessly. The times when she went swimming in the ocean before Tarrlok got home from work, and only Sitka's presence nearby prevented her from swimming far out, to where the sea got rough, and letting the current sweep her away. The times she was alone, and she would scream into her pillow with fury and sorrow and confusion until her throat ached and her voice was raw from the strain. To the hours, during the worst part of her depression, when she would sit on the edge of the bathtub and rock back and forth, her head in her hands, overwhelmed by the desire to rip herself open, from her chest to her toes, so she could finally be free. And the times, then, that she had held the ice blades and placed the point to her skin, and thought I want out, I want out, I want out, a million times over, but never actually made a cut.

"Because it hurts," she says quietly, looking down at her hands. "It hurts so badly, and this is the only way I can deal with it."

Tarrlok wraps an arm around her waist, pulling her close, trying to offer some comfort. His breathing is still a little unsteady. "I'm sorry," he replies, closing his eyes, an expression of self-loathing twisting his face. "I'm so sorry."

She remains silent, and he sighs. "No matter what I do, you can never really be happy here, can you?"

There's no accusation or anger in his tone, just a resigned sadness, and Korra shakes her head, after a few moments. "No, I can't. And - and it's not you," she adds, shrugging helplessly, gesturing back toward the house. "It's this."

There it is, the hard, ugly truth, lying out in the open between them. He pulls back; puts his head in his hands again. "Yue was right," he mumbles tearfully. "I've been so selfish. But I'm not like Yakone. I can't do this, I can't keep you and watch you be miserable and drive you to - to…"

Korra reaches out and pushes a loose lock of hair behind his ear tenderly. "I know you're not. You're a better man than that." And that is exactly what she has been counting on. It makes her feel dirty, exploiting Tarrlok like this, manipulating the one trigger that is guaranteed to play havoc with his emotions - but still, on the inside, she's trembling with exhilaration. Freedom is so close that she can taste it.

She leans against him, taking one of his hands and pressing it between both of hers. "Take me back," she tells him, almost seductively, "return the Avatar to Republic City in the city's time of desperate need, and you'll redeem yourself. It's just like what Fire Lord Zuko did when he betrayed his father and allied with Avatar Aang to teach him firebending. Zuko did terrible things when he was Aang's enemy, but once he saw the error of his ways and worked to right the wrongs he had committed, Aang and the others forgave him."

Tarrlok looks at her blankly, taking it in.

"You'll be a hero," Korra says softly. "This is your one last chance to finally be the city's savior, just like you've always wanted to be." She lets that sink in, before going in for the kill. " And I'm the Avatar, I'll use my influence to make sure that you get total and complete clemency for everything that happened before we left."

Tarrlok inclines his head, obviously lost in thought. It looks like she's getting through to him, and finally, he blinks at her, looking like a lost, tired child. "I can trust you," he says, with just a little uncertainty.

Korra leans close, kissing him on the cheek. "Of course you can."

Tarrlok wraps his arms around her, pulling her close, and the swing creaks. For a few long moments, there is silence, and she feels him swallow over his dry throat. "Then it's settled," he says quietly. "We're going home."

She leans her face against his chest, hiding the smile that curves her lips. "We're going home," Korra echoes, and for the first time in more than six months, it feels like she can breathe again.


to be continued


Firstly, thank you so much to everybody who reviewed! I always love reading your thoughts.

A couple of notes for this chapter: As I have mentioned in a reply to an ask on Tumblr (on my blog), I do not think that it is beyond the realm of possibility or terribly out of character to think of Korra wanting to self-harm as a way to cope with the depression, anguish, confusion, anger, self-doubt and loathing, and all the other negative emotions that she has felt since Tarrlok has taken her captive. As a result of Stockholm Syndrome and a lot of other things, the Korra we see in Strings is not canon-Korra. Even taking canon-Korra into consideration, a lot of viewers have speculated that she may have briefly considered committing suicide by jumping off the cliff in the moments before she sat down and wept, and Aang appeared to her in a vision. She felt hopeless and overwhelmed by sorrow, and Strings-Korra has gone through a lot of the same emotions, and more.

Another question that some of you might have is why Korra references so many feelings of depression and possible suicidal ideation during the end of the chapter, when we usually see her feeling happier, doing things like going on adventures with her friends and having diving competitions and lighthearted chats with Tarrlok. During the past few chapters, ever since Part 4, Korra's narration has focused more on her interactions with others, with brief introspection and insights into her feelings. The reader sees her with others, when she is usually happier, but the feelings and emotions Korra references here are the dark thoughts that surface and that she goes through during the many hours that she's alone, "behind the scenes", which I haven't really been writing about.

As always, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, my ask box on Tumblr is always open. The URL is lantur dot tumblr dot com and the link to ask me stuff is at the very top of the page. :) Any and all feedback would be very much appreciated.