A/N: Is this…a plot? I know, I'm as surprised as you are. First of a three-parter.
Remembrance I
It comes to Korra in a dream.
She stands on the beach with water lapping at her feet. The ocean stretches forward and to either side as far as she can see. She knows it is a dream because the colors of the water and of the sky and of the sunlight on the sand are too vibrant to be real, and there is a sharp quality to the scene, as if an artist has painted it by slashing across the canvas. The scent, too, is strange, not the smell of salt but of camellia sinensis, the funeral flower.
Tentatively, she takes a step forward. The water certainly feels real enough. She scoops it up with her fingers, watching the droplets catch the light as they fall. This is a dream, but so realistic it cannot have come by naturally. Someone has led her here. But who? And why? The Spirit World is shaped by the emotions of its inhabitants; the more intense the emotion, the more intense the shaping. In the past she has been guided by desperation and desire, but desperation is absent now and desire is sated. What secret part of her heart has been tugging her forward? What secret sadness has escaped her notice?
"Korra? Korra!"
She wakes to Asami shaking her shoulder. The roar of water subsides, the sunlight dims. Korra blinks.
"About time you woke up," Asami says. "I've been calling your name for the last five minutes."
Korra sits up and rubs her eyes. Asami hands her a basin of water. Korra washes her face – warm water, unlike the water from the ocean. The world is trying to tell her something. What is she missing? She feels as if she is listening to someone speak behind a screen, their words just barely indistinct but they are speaking about something vitally important, the most important thing in the world, and if she can just make out the words then all the world's mysteries will be laid bare.
"So, where are we going today?" Asami says.
Korra sees the redness in Asami's eyes, and understands.
"You decide today," she says. "I'll follow you."
Asami raises an eyebrow. "I don't know anything about the Spirit World."
"It doesn't matter. Go anywhere."
The world will lead.