Disclaimer: ATLA and LOK and all characters therein are not mine.
A/N: I know. I know, I know, I know.
I didn't want to do it, either. I swear I didn't. But the story wouldn't let me write it any other way.
A Change in the Wind
XXXIV. The Wind Changes Back
As the power of the Avatar Spirit flooded his body, a power he dimly recalled feeling only once before, Aang cried out—in shock, in denial, in purest sorrow. That scream was echoed by a thousand other voices, all of them ringing just as raw, and one of those shadows now belonged to Korra.
Appa, sensing his master's distress, came to an uncertain halt, hovering above the smoking turmoil far below, but the monk took no notice of this, bowing his head into his hands as agony tore relentlessly throughout his system.
Maybe somewhere in the darkest corner of his heart, he had longed to be Avatar again, but not like this! Never like this!
Not at her expense!
Geez, Sifu, don't beat yourself up about it. It's not like you killed me, eh?
Aang blinked. Did he really just hear…?
Again, arriving in his brain without ever registering in his ears: I know, I know, the situation could be better. But that's the breaks. Ozai's dead, at least. We just need to take care of his fleet.
"Korra?" he breathed, so astonished that he could hear her voice at all that her name stumbled, unthinking and only half-formed, from his tongue.
Heh, yeah, it's me, she confirmed with a chuckle that was as inexplicable as her voice. Who were you expecting? Well, I guess Roku or Kyoshi or any of the others…alright, it's a really long list. Although, who else calls you 'Sifu'? C'mon…
Bewildered, he stared blankly across the sky. "H-How're you talking to me?"
You're in the Avatar State, right? We're connected by the Spirit, I think. I mean, the other Avatars never really talked to me unless I consulted them, but…I thought I'd have a go at it. Try to ease the transition for you and all, y'know, 'cause warfare's not really your forte and yet you're smack in the middle of it.
He blinked and directed his gaze downwards at the battlefield. "Yeah, not really my forte at all," he agreed weakly. "You…do you have a plan…?"
'Course! she agreed, adding, I may be down, but I ain't out.
Aang hesitated, his hands tightening their grip on Appa's reins. "And you'll help me?" he wondered, caught between the edges of apprehension and hope.
He could just imagine her grinning as she replied, Let's kick some ass, Sifu.
And strength infused his thin frame, warm and buoyant and so very different from the stark heat of the Avatar State itself. This, he recognized, was a strength that was all Korra's, composed of her typical near-reckless surety and something more besides. Something fiercer, something more genuine, something that encapsulated the whole of her essence.
"Oh," he realized softly, and he flexed his fingers into unfamiliar fists that nevertheless suddenly felt very, very natural. "This is what it feels like to have a warrior's heart. It…oh, it burns…"
Supported by Korra and all the generations that preceded them both, Avatar Aang descended into the chaos.
Katara called up a temporary ice-shield, hunkering down behind its faceted face as fire flared on its far side, steadily melting it back to liquid. But she was already counterattacking, summoning forth water whips from the demolished wall's icy heights and accosting her enemies while remaining safe behind cover. She was rewarded with a curtailed cry, which she didn't properly hear over the roar and clamor of battle, but the flames ceased their attempts to burn through her shield, and she knew her victory was sound.
Straightening once more, she upset the ice beneath her foes' feet, causing them to slip about in an ungainly mess, and as they were so distracted, she pummeled them with frozen rain—each droplet a vicious little dagger.
A Water Tribe warrior came running up behind her, ducking an arrow that had just snuck over the wall top. "Katara! We need you!"
She abandoned her post without a breath of question and attached herself to the warrior's heels as he led her across a narrow, temporary ice floe that bridged the harbor. She had been called like this several times, and the occurrences were growing more frequent—a trend that she acknowledged grimly as a prelude to defeat. As far as she could estimate, they'd already lost more than a third of their forces, verging on half.
They needed Korra! But she was—Katara shook that thought from her mind before it had time to wholly implant. Korra was fine; if she could handle two thousand soldiers simultaneously, she could handle Ozai.
When the Southerner arrived at the harbor, it was to the sight of wounded men. Several of Yugoda's healers were already treating them, but they were being overwhelmed by the numbers, and Katara hastily waded into this different battle, tucking loosened hairs behind her ears and bending healing water to her hands. She had not labored long—but she had labored very efficiently, as three warriors were already returning doggedly to the front—when a cry went up along the wall defenders.
"The Avatar! It's the Avatar!"
She was here!
Katara nearly snapped her neck, she twisted to look so quickly, but her face-stretching smile faltered somewhat when she saw Appa swooping across the ice. Fire was descending from the saddle in great plumes, the like of which only the Avatar State could truly sustain, but it struck her as strange that Korra would have bothered locating and then utilizing the sky bison…
Her confusion only lasted until Appa banked into a turn and soared back for another pass, and then it morphed into despair. The beast had but one passenger, and while it wasn't Korra, Katara saw that it nevertheless was the Avatar: Aang's eyes and tattoos shone with unmistakable power.
But…but for Aang to be Avatar, that had to mean that Korra…
That Korra…
Katara's heart lodged in her chest, and she stared wide-eyed at Aang's second firebending foray as if waiting for her vision to concede to its deception. Surely, none of this could actually be happening; it all had to be some sort of trick, a ruse to throw off the Fire Navy. It had to be!
The only deception, though, was the lie she told herself, and she sank to her knees as the truth crept in from the periphery of her awareness, colder than any ice and more destructive than any fire. Suddenly, though, she jerked to her feet as her denial rallied a final defense—she hadn't heard any thunder! She'd been listening for it, not that she could've missed it, but she'd been paying especial attention because she was certain that only its herald would indicate Korra's defeat.
And she hadn't heard it!
She scrambled away, knocking into healers and warriors alike as she bolted from the battlefield; her boots crunched on the ice-crusted snow as she took the steps leading up from the harbor two at a time, and then she was blurring into the city, trying to remember where in its unfamiliar expanse she had last seen Korra, when Korra had…when she had…
Katara wavered, clapping a tight hand over her mouth to contain the scream, and her teeth sank into the leather of her glove. That confession…no, it didn't have to mean goodbye! Maybe Korra had just wanted to say it; the spirits knew that Katara longed to say it back to her. It didn't have to mean anything else!
It didn't!
She jerked back into motion, spinning bewildered through the deserted city until she caught sight of damage to the buildings, of half-frozen puddles strewn across the roads, of icy whips raised from the otherwise liquid canals. Soon, the damage worsened; a whole section of the city, two tiers high and eight houses wide, had been melted into a twisted hill, and there were…there were smoke- and bloodstains streaked across its steep length; a solitary set of footprints, as if someone had been chased all over its face by a phantom; and something yet seemed to be present at its crown…
Katara clawed at the snow in her frantic ascent, unable to use her bending to accelerate her progress; she didn't remember anything—not how to think, not how to breathe, let alone how to bend. The freezing substance burned her frostbitten fingers, but she wasn't aware of that, either, not when she caught a glimpse of a blue-garbed figure, prone in the snow. The wind, almost gently, teased at the dark hair, the fur collar, but that was the only movement.
Korra herself remained so very, very still.
A sob rose up, filling all the space above her lungs, and Katara slipped right off the edge of reality.
A nightmare she'd had long ago, in the very beginning, coiled back to her—the far-cast shadow of a premonition. Korra, dead. And this was…this was…
Korra. Dead.
"No…"
The sob burst in her throat, and she heaved for breath she'd never be able to draw cleanly again. Desperate and buzzing, she tried to tell herself that this was just another nightmare, just another horrible, horrible, horrible dream that she would be able to wake up from. Yes, she shakily endeavored to believe, I'll wake up, and Korra will be there, and she'll tell me—she'll tell me—
But she knew, in the hollow, bleeding remnants of her heart, that Korra would not be there.
There would be no words.
There would only be silence, awful and empty and everlasting.
The shock of the revelation shivered through her frame, rippling with all the vengeance of an earthquake bent on the destruction of its bed, and she tripped, shuddering, on her breaths again, stumbling on each and every one. And then she was stumbling on her feet instead, boneless and tripping here as well, and she even fell, more than once, more than twice, but somehow, her legs carried her in half-steps and staggering lurches to her girlfriend's side.
She fell one last time, and her hands stretched out, tentative but unstoppable. Her fingertips brushed against Korra's hair, her cheek, and she choked anew on a sob—the warmth was already fading from her skin.
It was already almost gone.
"Wake up," she wept, her vision blurring until she could hardly see; everything was just a smear of blue and white and red, red, red. "Spirits, please, for me…wake up…"
But Korra never stirred.
Aang deflected yet another volley of fire, astonished by the power that rose so easily to his fingertips, pleasantly baffled by the reality of bending something other than air. But mostly he was cognizant of the thousands of Fire Navy troops convened on the ice below him, and he swallowed against the fear in his throat so that he could speak.
"Korra?" he wondered. "I know you have a plan, but…if it's like what you did earlier…I mean, I wish to do my part and save your people, but I do not know if I can kill so many to—"
Sifu, don't worry about it, she dismissed. I took that into account. You won't have to kill any of them.
He perked up cautiously. "…I won't?"
Nope, not a one. Unless they're really stupid, of course, she conceded. Then they might die by accident? But they'd kinda have brought it on themselves, so… She trailed off, into what Aang imagined must have been a shrug. How're you feeling? Strong enough for the finale?
"I'm a little tired," he confessed, "but it is not severe enough to hinder me."
Well, it's a good thing you're on Appa, Korra chuckled, 'cause this is gonna wipe you out.
Zuko's hands went white-knuckle tight on the ship's railing as he watched Aang firebend—that had to be Aang, right? On Appa? There was no way that was Korra, because she was supposedly fighting Ozai elsewhere, according to Aang himself, so…
With stilted motions, he half-turned to say over his shoulder, "Er, Uncle? You might want to come out here…"
"What is it, my nephew? You need to call off the attack before there are more casualties," Iroh remonstrated, but his disapproval faded into nothingness as he, too, beheld the impossible sight.
As they both watched, Appa curved away, soaring over the city and gaining appreciable height and distance before he swooped back, diving down with all the speed of a hunting hawk. Streaking above the bay, Aang drove deep cracks into the ice-sheet, disrupting the very ground beneath the Fire Navy soldiers; panic filled the ranks almost instantaneously, and a clumsy rush began as they all sought to outpace their comrades to the safety of their ships.
Appa turned aside at the foremost destroyers, seeking altitude once again, and he returned to the ragged wall fronting the city, only to press his attack anew. He flew more slowly this time, though, and zigzagged back and forth as Aang shepherded the troops into a full retreat by splintering and melting the ice behind them. The Fire Navy was chased until the last one hundred feet, and then Appa pulled up and away, roaring out a final warning before he aimed for the collection of allied forces obviously arrayed on the centermost destroyer.
Zuko and Iroh retreated into the bridge as Aang vaulted off the saddle and onto the balcony, still radiating all the intensity that they'd ever felt from Korra; his eyes, too, remained bright and blank, but he focused on them nevertheless.
"Fire Lord Ozai is dead," he declared without preamble, his voice thunderous, and his expression crumbled as he concluded, "And so is Avatar Korra."
Even though he had already suspected Korra's death, Zuko still reeled from hearing it put so plainly, and he shuddered even further from the news about his father. He felt…he didn't know how to feel about it. Relieved, perhaps? Sickened, certainly. Sad…? Why did he feel sad? The man had been a monster…
"Wait, what's this about Spitfire?"
Zuko whirled around, catching a glimpse of Iroh doing the same in his periphery, and beheld Toph and Sokka standing at the top of the tower's staircase, only just arrived in the bridge—presumably to meet Aang and, at least on the earthbender's part, in no way prepared to receive this news.
"And who the hell is talking, anyway?" Toph continued, her cheeks reddening as emotion welled up. "'Cause it looks like Feather Foot, but it sure as hell doesn't sound like him! Own up, you imposter!"
But the monk only shook his head. "It's me, Toph," he said, as quietly as he was able with his past lives' resonating echoes. "Aang. I am Avatar now that Korra…well. I am Avatar now."
Sokka caught Toph under the arms as she lost all the strength in her legs, even though he appeared like he wanted nothing better than to collapse, too.
Iroh, though, maintained something of a level head, and he cast a shrewd glance at the Air Nomad. "If you are Avatar again, then I did hear Korra correctly back in the Si Wong Desert. She had discussed the possibility of you succeeding her with her past lives. I can see spirits, although I cannot hear them, so I was partially witness to the conversation." He paused. "She seemed to think it the best opportunity for you to revive your people."
Aang didn't answer right away, seeming distracted by something else, and he nodded. "Yes, that is correct. It also seems that you were not wrong, either, when you once referred to me as Avatar."
The old man shook his head in a solemn but not dismissive way. "Considering the circumstances, I dearly wish I had been wrong about that."
Aang accepted that with a subtle dip of his head, but by now Toph had struggled back to her feet, the tears coursing down her cheeks in raging rivers. "Wait, wait, wait—no offense, Feather Foot, but Spitfire doesn't have to be dead! She—she did whatever she did to me! Restarted my heart! I mean, c'mon, I was dead, but hey, I'm still kicking! We just have to go find her, wherever she is, and you can do the same—or we can find Ice Queen, and she can—"
"No," the Avatar interrupted, lifting an arresting hand. "It has already been too long to revive her, and even if it hadn't…her death was not as simple as yours. There were many factors, none of which can be reversed now."
"How do you know?" Toph all but howled, looking ready to throw something at him, and given her metalbending prowess, that could have ended up being the entirety of the bridge.
Aang simply tapped his glowing arrow tattoo. "The Avatar Spirit has passed on to me. Korra is one of my past lives now, and as such, I can communicate with her."
Sokka cleared his throat, but it was still all gravel as he said, "She…she always seemed so invincible. Is she really…?"
"I'm afraid so," Aang wretchedly confirmed, and he turned his unnerving gaze on Zuko. "I can bring you all to her, if you wish, and I imagine you, Zuko, will want to claim your father's body."
The firebender swallowed but gave a stiff nod, although he held up a hand as he walked back to a console. "Yes, but there is something I ought to clarify first," he said, and he lifted the intercom to his lips and stared off into space for a long moment before he could speak. "Attention, all hands. Attention. Lord Ozai is dead. Admiral Zhao is dead. Commanders Dhin, Chu, and Zel are all dead. This is Prince Zuko. I am taking control of the fleet, and as such, I am ordering a full retreat. I repeat, a full retreat. All other orders will now come from myself or General Iroh only. Prepare for departure."
He lowered the intercom and exhaled a long, low sigh, but then he straightened his shoulders and faced the new Avatar once more. "Now we can go."
Aang bowed his head in acknowledgement of that and, still wearily holding onto the State with a tenacity that could snap iron, he led them all aboard Appa and flew them away. It was a brief trip, taken over the broken ice and the stained snow and the trackless water, and Aang directed them with unerring accuracy; still a product of having Korra in his head somehow, Zuko assumed.
She would know where her own body was.
Appa landed about halfway up a melted slope in the city, and Zuko caught onto Toph's collar as she was about to jump heedlessly into the snow. She scowled at him darkly and tugged on the fur, striving to break it free of his grip. "Whoever you are, I don't care if I'm blind down there! Lemme go!"
"I can't," the prince denied, and he lifted his gaze back to the sight that had compelled him to this action in the first place. It was heartbreaking. "Katara's already here."
The earthbender sagged, all the indignation evaporating, and she curled back into the side of the saddle; surprisingly, in a show of sympathetic solidarity, Sokka wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Even more surprisingly, she didn't object.
Zuko untangled his fingers from her coat and dropped over the side himself. He sank in the snow halfway to his knees and trudged forwards, his gaze flitting occasionally to the supine form of his father but mostly lingering on the two Water Tribe girls. Korra remained as she had fallen, and Katara had slumped at her side and buried her face in a shoulder that couldn't protect her anymore. She shivered so hard it seemed as if her edges were blurred, and whether that was from the cold or the sorrow, Zuko could not discern.
He wanted to go to her and, in the absence of any words existing that could make a difference, wrap her up in arms that could still comfort and maybe, just maybe, take a little bit of her pain into his body, where it could no longer hurt her. He wanted to so badly; he almost diverted from his course. But he didn't.
This was their last embrace, Korra and Katara's.
He would not trespass on something so sacred.
Instead, he walked past, wincing at every loud crunch of his boots on the ice-crusted snow, and approached the body of his father. Ozai was sprawled on his back, his eyes glassy and gold and fixed on the sky, and there was a black, black hole burned into his chest; Zuko took it all in unblinkingly, his expression pulled taut and a curious ringing echoing in his ears. He still didn't know how to feel about this.
He might never figure it out.
Crouching down, Zuko reached with steady fingers and slid the fastening pins from his father's crown, and he lifted the entire ornament free and considered it with that same taut look, that same curious ringing. Blood was spattered across its shining gold face, and for a sharp moment, he considered dropping it in the ocean. But then he loosened—he didn't relax, he just…loosened—and he tucked the crown inside his coat for safekeeping.
It belonged to the Fire Lord, and he wasn't the Fire Lord yet. Let there be a time of emptiness, a time of recompense, wherein no one sat on Agni's throne, and no flames lit its face. Let Fire be dead for a time before it rose again in a phoenix's resurrection.
"Was it everything you wanted, Father? The world, and its conquering? Or did she make you regret it before the end?" Zuko mused softly, and he glanced over his shoulder at Korra's still form. Hatred, old and liquid as lead, filled his jaw. "She deserved better than to die by your hand. Everyone you ever killed or ordered thusly deserved better than that." He took the crown out again, examined it again, and regarded his father's face again as well, but for the last time. "I have heard, though, that cowards die a thousand deaths, and heroes die just once. I hope that's true, because that means Korra's resting easy, and that you never will."
Straightening back to his full height, Zuko traced a finger along the crown's edge, his gaze farther away than the anchor in his hands. "Fire will become a great nation," he murmured at last, "but not because it is the only one."
And with that, head bowed, he walked away and never looked back.
In solemn silence, Aang conceded Zuko and Iroh the use of Appa to bear the Fire Lord's body back to the fleet, so that it could be interred anywhere but here, so that it would not forever sully the sea. He assisted in the transportation of the body, though, as that was easy enough while still in the Avatar State; all he had to do was waterbend the snow beneath Ozai's corpse and maneuver it to the saddle.
He would be exhausted soon, Aang knew; he could already feel the State sinking into his bones as it searched for more strength to sap, as it drained him to his deepest dregs. But for now, there were things he had to finish, and he could not afford to fall into a dreamless sleep, not when nightmares were yet plaguing the waking hours of so many others.
Alone on the bloodied hill with Sokka and Toph, the new Avatar bit back a sigh and exchanged a sorrowful glance with the Water Tribe boy. "I suppose I should…speak to Katara," he ventured, half-wishing for opposition.
But Sokka simply nodded, his eyes so red, and settled his arm back around Toph's shoulders; she still didn't protest this comfort and actually turned into his side to shed her tears into his coat.
Aang capitulated to his undesirable duty, and he walked up the pockmarked slope, as light-footed as ever; he barely left any prints in the snow as he crossed the long distance to the waterbender's side. As with Zuko's close passage, Katara didn't stir from her grief when Aang imposed on her space, but she did finally look up when he touched the most tentative hand to her arm.
For a moment, with her vision veiled by unstoppable tears, Katara regarded him blankly, but then she must've understood what she was seeing—or who she was seeing—as she stumbled to her feet. She swayed once she got there, her limbs cramped and frozen, but she reached out anyway, a grasping sort of motion that she truncated halfway through, and the air hissed through her teeth as she inhaled the piercing cold with an abruptness that intimated she hadn't been breathing for hours.
And she stared at him with more intensity and desperation than Aang had ever glimpsed, and suddenly, he knew why—she was looking for Korra in his eyes.
He didn't know how to tell her that she wouldn't find the other Avatar there.
Sifu. Let me talk to her.
Aang frowned slightly, distressed by the request and not entirely certain what to do with it, anyway.
Again, soft, insistent: Sifu, please.
"Korra," he whispered, cautionary.
Katara sharpened, like cut glass. "Korra?" she echoed, wariness sparking as it scraped along the edge of hope.
Aang opened his mouth to dismiss, to deny, to spare her the pain, but he hesitated as whispers flitted across his mind and tore his attention back away.
Sifu, please, I'm begging you. Just this once. I need to talk to her.
Please.
He bowed his head in acquiescence, his eyes slipping shut, and when they opened once more, they blazed even brighter for a splintering second before a terrific windstorm enveloped his thin frame. Katara staggered backwards with a curtailed cry of surprise, her arms coming up to shield her face, and when she lowered them again, she lost all the strength in her body and toppled to her knees.
Korra stood there, exactly where Aang had been; the breeze still tugged at her clothing, at her hair. Her mouth tilted in an apologetic half-smile. "Hey, Tara."
A strangled sound bubbled from the waterbender's lips, and she could not lever herself off the ground, no matter how much she longed to spring to her feet and bury herself in an impossible embrace.
Korra's smile angled a little more, a fracture in her face. "I can't stay long," she explained. "It's wrong to use Aang like this, but he is the Avatar now, and as one of his past lives…" She trailed off, her brow wrinkling faintly as she considered herself thusly for the first time—as a life that was past. "Well, I guess it is an ability of mine."
Tears flooded unchecked down Katara's cheeks, and she could only throatily repeat the dead Avatar's name.
Korra's expression straightened now, buoyed on a swell of determination, on the resolve to see this final conversation through. Her voice, when she spoke, acquired gossamer cracks. "There's so much I want to tell you—a whole lifetime of words. But I'm drawing the biggest blank," she revealed with a humorless laugh. "Maybe I'm just terrible at goodbyes, or maybe there's no way to condense a lifetime into a few minutes' speech. I don't know. I do know, though, that…I'm sorry. I should've been stronger; I should've fought harder…"
Trailing off again, Korra shook her head, a dismissive swing to one side. "No, that's not right. Maybe I could've been stronger, but I could not have fought harder. I gave that battle everything I had—obviously, considering," she added with a weak wave at her actual body, dead in the snow. A moment ticked by, unheeded, and then she blurted, so raw, "I didn't want this to happen—I wanted to come back to you. I wanted—I wanted to spend…every moment with you, every last one, and I didn't mean there to be so little of them, I swear I didn't. I wanted forever. With you. Please…please know that, Tara." Tears flared fitfully in her own eyes. "I would do anything to come back to you, but there's…just nothing I can do about it now. It's…it's all too late."
Katara rocked, listless, on her knees. "Spirits, Korra, what am I supposed to do without you?" she croaked, shards of emotion sticking in her throat like knives.
Korra offered the smallest shrug, the weakest smile. "Live, I guess."
She stared at the other girl for a long, creaking moment. "How?" she pressed, extending her hands in plaintive supplication.
"However you like. The world still needs you."
"I still need you!" Katara cried, finally making it to her feet. She stumbled closer, but not close enough to touch; she wavered on the fringe, a hair's-breadth more than an arm's-length away. "You know that, right?"
"Of course I know that," Korra said, hushed, her shoulders creeping up from the strain. She slumped then, a small but profound collapse. "I'm…sorry for that, too."
Something drained from Katara as well, leaving her little more than a wisp. "Don't be," she chided gently. "Please, don't…don't be sorry for being someone I…" She fell silent. She couldn't say it.
Korra regarded her, dipped her head, swallowed: tacit agreement.
Katara nodded in blurry acceptance of that, and the silence stretched between them, choked with the hollow husks of words unsaid, heavy with the thousand paths left untrodden. But there was an understanding here as well, a last shared sympathy between two hearts that would never beat in tandem again—not everything could be articulated, but not everything had to be.
Some things just were.
And some things…well, they never were.
Eventually, Korra whispered, "I have to go."
Katara felt her throat swell shut, and her head wobbled in stifled reply. She seized a last strand of desperate strength, though, and choked out, "I can't believe you're leaving me—that you've already left, that this is all just…just…I…I kinda want to hate you for that, but I can't." Her chin quivered, and she clenched her jaw tight to still the tremors, her teeth aching, before she loosened like a sail that had lost the wind.
"I can't hate you for anything, Korra," she whispered in bereft conclusion. "It seems all I can do is love you."
Korra's brow creased, but it was a momentary thing, and the rumpled skin smoothed back out. "Take care of yourself, Tara," she remarked, the words deliberate but light. "I'll be very upset if I see you soon."
Katara conceded that with a dull nod, and then the faintest of hopeful smiles twisted her lips as it occurred to her to wonder, "But…you will see me…one day…?"
Korra mirrored that smile only in the cerulean depths of her eyes, where it was the most sincere. "Yes," she promised. "One day."
The gale returned then, roaring and howling and transformative. When it died, Aang was there once more, and he stood stiffly until the white faded from his arrows and irises; then he wilted, burdened by the weight of the most ancient and layered of souls.
A final whisper in his mind's ear, now from so far away: Sifu, thank you. And…keep an eye on her for me, will you? For old time's sake?
"It is the least I can do," he murmured, and he was aware that his hands were shaking. He clenched them into fists, but that did not relieve the tremors. Unguided except for instinct, he reached out for Katara, and she stared at him with bloodshot eyes before willingly burying her face and her tears in his coat. Curiously, his shaking eased, even if his burden did not.
Katara's fingers tangled in the thick material, and the air hitched in her throat. She tried to draw comfort from this, tried to convince herself that since he was an Avatar, too, that somehow, this was the same…
It wasn't the same. It wasn't the same at all.
But this was all she had left, so she clung to him, anyway.
In the aftermath of the battle, in the muted pall of victory and beneath the slow evening sun, the city was silent, and the palace even more so. Yue could have sworn she heard the echoes from her every last breath as they glanced off the icy walls, but something about the silence seemed contrived, as if it were not so quiet and that she was just interpreting it thusly.
But it was never going to be the same here again, she knew—it was always going to be quiet now. She came to a stilted halt, despite not having reached her destination, and pressed a hand to her chest; her heart stuttered beneath her coat, beneath her skin, and she drew several breaths in an effort to calm its distress. Her success seemed marginal at best, but she persevered regardless, striving to overcome her crippling weakness as she concluded her journey down the hall to a familiar room.
She'd been here often during Korra's absence, just straightening things up, relieving the thin layer of dust that persisted in accumulating. Back then, though, she'd always been careful to keep a positive outlook, to consider herself but a temporary caretaker of this space because its true master would one day return and resume her reign.
But now…
With a fresh sigh shuddering around her chest, Yue stepped across the threshold and glanced about the room; the black koi doll was where she expected it to be, lounged near the pillow of Korra's bed. Once, in a saddened childhood, the young Avatar had not been able to sleep without it, and Yue didn't want her sister to have bad dreams now just because she had left this talisman behind.
Before she could start towards the bed, though, there was a sniff, and the blankets shifted, and Yue nearly jumped out of her skin. But it was only Katara, not a restless phantom, and the Northern Princess pressed her hand back to her chest and blurted, apologetic and off-guard, "Oh, I…I wasn't expecting anyone to be here!"
Katara let out a laugh that far more closely resembled a sob. "Well, of course. Why would you?" she croaked, the broken shards of her heart echoing like wind chimes in her voice: mournful and pitched up too high. "There…there shouldn't be anyone…spirits, I'm sorry," she said, changing tracks halfway through as her train of thought derailed. "I shouldn't be here, either. It's just…oh, spirits, it still smells like her, you know? And…it's…it's warm, and I know it's all just my warmth, that she didn't leave any behind, that she couldn't, but it's…it's almost like it's hers. It's a lie I can believe because she…she was always so warm. Right up until the end, she was always so…"
Delicately, Yue lowered herself to sit on the edge of the bed, and after she lifted the stuffed koi from its rest on the furs, she dared to trace a sympathetic hand along Katara's hair; the other girl trembled beneath her touch, on the verge of being shaken to pieces by her grief.
Her own grief would come, Yue knew, but at the moment, the shock was still too great to permit tears. So she shifted her hand across silken strands again and murmured, "We'll be returning her to the sea at midnight, along with all the other honored dead. That's why I came here, to get this," she explained, hefting the koi in indication, even though Katara never raised her head to see and would've been blinded by tears if she had. "I imagine Captain Damuk will want to claim her sword, but…if you want to keep anything else, you are more than welcome to."
The Southerner shook her head, dismal and unfocused. "I wouldn't know what to take," she whispered, "but thank you."
Yue lingered on the way the blankets were snarled in Katara's fingers, and she offered softly, "Her tunic's still in the war room, where she left it. If you…wanted something that smelled like her, that is, and was more portable than the entire bed. Something that you could…well, something that could wrap you up and keep you warm."
The roughest sob clawed its way out of Katara's throat, and she curled more into the furs in abject agony.
Wincing at the strength of that reaction, the Northern Princess got to her feet and hugged the koi tightly to her chest. Before she left, though, she was sure to say, "I'll fetch her tunic for you. And please, stay here for as long as you wish. S-Someone should. It…shouldn't be empty."
A light died in the depths of her sapphire eyes, and Yue's forehead crumpled.
"Oh, spirits…" she breathed, the sorrow setting in, "I can't bear for it to be empty."
The unsetting sun hovered once more on the horizon, painting the cloudless sky sullen gold, and high above, the moon hung in solemn observation, pale and half-hidden in day's unending light. The ice flared like fire, too, and where shadows were cast, they were dark russet pools, echoing the blood that had coated the snow and, in some places, still stained the crystalline facets.
The crippled Fire Navy fleet had long since retreated under the command of Zuko and Iroh, but another fleet waited at harbor, this one composed of canoes and crewed by the dead and intended for only one destination.
Crowding the waterfront, the survivors prepared to send their fallen comrades on their last voyage: warriors in full paint and battle dress, returned civilians swathed in finest somber furs. Chief Arnook and Princess Yue had claimed a spot at the center of the harbor, where they presided over the ceremony; nearby, Avatar Aang stood with his hands clenched white-knuckle tight on his staff, and in his shadow, Katara and Sokka and Toph waited. The earthbender was overcome with emotion, silent and not-so-silent sobs alike wracking her small frame as tears guttered down her cheeks, and next to her, in striking contrast, the waterbender was a statue.
Katara just stood there, arms loose at her sides, her expression cast somewhere fainter than bleak. She couldn't believe she was seeing this once more. Somehow, she thought she'd be able to get through her entire life without ever again returning a loved one to the sea…
What a naïve thought that had been.
Drained of tears, she could no longer cry, and her dry gaze never wavered from the vessel anchored to the ice behind the chief; she knew well its occupant, its eternal captain. She was but distantly aware of Sokka's arm wrapped about her shoulders, and even less cognizant of Arnook's ritual speeches. She only properly woke to the circumstances when the chief approached her with a sympathetic cast to his expression and a ceremonial knife gently extended.
"Yue and I discussed it," he said, so quietly that only she could hear. "The honor of the last rite is yours, if you wish it."
Katara accepted the knife, even though her fingers were so numb in their mittens that she couldn't feel the carved bone hilt, and her legs were still number as she ventured to that central canoe, catching glimpses in her peripheral vision of others also advancing and taking up positions next to their respective ships. She would be the first, though; she would lead the rite, if only she could find the strength to do so.
She descended the shallow snow steps, following the angle of the vessel until she reached its prow, which jutted out into the frigid sea. The water lapped around her ankles, slow to soak into her boots, and only now did she dare to look inside the ship.
Outfitted in full battle armor, Korra lay on her back, her hands folded on her chest and on the hilt of a sword fine enough to belong to a hero—the etchings of the elements in its reflective steel surface were rivers of darkness—for as Korra had lived a warrior and died a warrior, Damuk had seen to it that she was honored as such. Other weapons and tokens crowded the inside of the canoe—a pair of stuffed koi, one white and one black, were amongst them—and Katara thought, not for the first time, that she'd had nothing to place here, nothing to lay beside the Avatar to accompany her on her last journey.
Everything they had shared had been insubstantial.
No, Katara corrected in the hollow silence in her head. Not insubstantial. But intangible all the same.
Her gaze was drawn back to Korra's face, the solemn set of it, the stillness of it. That was the strangest aspect, the one that convinced Katara deep in her gut that everything was wrong here: Korra had never been still. She had…she had just never been still.
Katara opened her mouth, as if she longed to speak, but she knew there were no words she could possibly say. So she sealed it again in a tight, thin line and simply leaned over the vessel's side to brush a farewell kiss to Korra's brow.
Her skin was filmed with frost, and it burned Katara's lips, harsh as sunlight.
A jagged sob caught in the waterbender's throat, and she straightened somewhat, shifting her focus aside to the hide hull of the canoe, which was susceptible to the fine edge of the knife as she carved a small hole below the waterline. Immediately, chilling liquid began to seep in, and Katara retreated, her own body feeling as cold as Korra's, as cold as if she had submerged herself in the arctic water and left herself to drown.
Everything in the ships had been lashed down tightly and festooned with weights, fallen warriors and tokens alike, so that it would all sink down to sleep in the unfathomable, frozen darkness. The surviving waterbenders stepped to the fore and gently ushered the silent fleet out of the harbor and into the open sea; Katara raised the wave beneath Korra. The ships traveled far, becoming little more than dark smudges on the ocean's fractured golden face before they succumbed to the weight of the slow water filling their hulls and sank far beyond the grasp of the sun and the moon and the living.
As that was the unspoken conclusion, the crowd dispersed in degrees, but Katara remained for untold hours, her gaze fixed on the last point she had seen the Avatar's ship. Only now did she realize she had indeed left something with Korra; the emptiness in her chest confirmed that.
She crumpled to her knees, her soaked boots frozen solid by now, her face chafed from the wind, and the air was so cold that she could barely breathe; it stripped her throat raw and seared her eyes, and only this pain dredged up tears. Even then, they refused to fall, crystallizing along her lashes and fringing her vision with ice.
When Sokka set his hand on her shoulder, she didn't react to his touch. "C'mon, little sis," he whispered. "Let's get you somewhere warm."
She blinked slowly, the frozen tears splintering and dusting her cheeks with snow. She had difficulty finding her voice, and even when she did, it was little more than a croak. "Promise me something, Sokka."
He didn't even consider refusing. "Anything."
She swallowed. "Whenever I die, even if it's a hundred years from now, can…can you bring my body back here? Can you return me to this sea? I…I want to sleep here. Until the end. With her."
His hand flinched away. "Katara," he breathed, surprised by her grim acceptance of the inevitable future, heartbroken by her motivation.
She turned her ice-streaked face to his, eyes resolute and pleading and tinted gray in this sullen half-light. "Promise me."
His lips pulled tautly, his jaw seeking to fuse with the rest of his skull, but at last, he managed to nod and whisper, "Alright. I promise."
Something in her soul settled like an anchor finding its bed, and she returned her gaze to the empty ocean, gilded as ever beneath a sky of perpetual dusk.
Tentative, his hand returned to her shoulder. "You really loved her, didn't you," he murmured.
"Yes," Katara replied. "I do."
Slowly, as if awakening from the longest and deepest sleep, Korra opens her eyes once more, except now they don't reflect the sky and snow and cliffs of the North Pole. Now there is nothing but the waving golden plains of the Spirit World, endless and unchanging, unbounded by horizons and time.
She blinks, pushing herself up onto her elbows, and gazes across the gently rolling grasses, their motion and soft susurration homage to the sea. Everything here is colored with shades of saffron—the sky above, the scudding clouds, even her own body has acquired sunset hues. It's warm, soothing somehow, and terribly beautiful.
"Welcome, Avatar Korra. You have done the title great honor and tipped the world back towards a balance that has long faltered."
She jolts to her feet and turns around quickly; the voice originated in the form of an elderly firebender, whose solemn face is creased in a rare smile. Instinct provides answers where her own knowledge is patchy at best, and she smiles in return and says, "Avatar Roku! You did it—with Aang, I mean. You made him Avatar again! I cannot thank you enough." And she sinks into a deep and heartfelt bow.
He returns it with more stiffness but no less sincerity, and a suggestion of that smile is still hovering about his lips when he straightens. "It was only due to your championing that we decided as such. I believe, though, that he will prove himself long before the end. He has grown much in wisdom since he was initially chosen, and now I think he is finally ready to carry the weight of the charge."
"He won't let you down," she promises him anew, and she glances around the tranquil scene. "So, uh…what happens now?"
Roku shrugs vaguely. "You have become a past Avatar; your strength and guidance will be called upon to advise and assist all future incarnations. You will be permitted to appear to them in visions, but you will not be able to truly exist in the physical world ever again."
Her eyes dimming, Korra nods, little bobs of her head. "Yeah, I…I understand." She exhales, heart-heavy, and straightens the fall of her tunic with more interest than the task truly warrants. "Is there really no way…?"
Sympathetic, he nevertheless shakes his head. "I am sorry, Avatar Korra. The Spirit may be eternal, but we all must pass on. I left many loved ones behind when I died, and indeed, I left the entire world in distress, but even with that failure, I could not force my way back."
She closes her eyes, the skin straining around the corners, and swallows more than once. Her voice trembles as she attempts to reclaim some steadiness until it cracks along the edges. "But I'll still be able to help Aang, at least, if he needs it?"
Roku allows that with his own nod. "Should he call upon you specifically, you may answer, or if we perceive a threat here in the Spirit World that has not yet become obvious in the physical plane, you may go to him unprompted. As his immediate predecessor, much of this responsibility will fall to you."
Determined as ever to undertake her duties to the fullest and recovering some buoyancy in its wake, she smacks her fist into her palm. "I'll be the best past life he's ever had," she remarks, more cheerful again, but it is a passing thing; curiosity and something close to trepidation steal the levity from her expression. "So, I know you're here 'cause you're an Avatar, and the same goes for me, but…what about…y'know, normal people? Are they…here, too?"
He considers this briefly, his weathered face pulling into a thoughtful frown. "Hm…well, some of them do not persist in their more earthly forms—those that are content with their passing, who feel fulfilled in spirit, exist primarily as spiritual energy, furthering the balance between the worlds. But there are those who maintain homage to their physicality like you and I, and they can be interacted with, yes. To whom do you wish to speak?"
Korra simply looks at him, words failing her.
In the next instant, it doesn't matter, as a Water Tribesman appears at Roku's side, and his handsome face is sporting a grin. "Try not to be so dense, Roku!" he teases, and he offers Korra a friendly salute in greeting. "Even I know what she's after, and I'm way older than you. I'm Avatar Kuruk, by the way, if you don't remember," he adds helpfully.
She salutes, somewhat weakly, as there's no strength in her limbs—which is strange in and of itself, she thinks, since she shouldn't really be able to become tired here, but then she recognizes that this isn't a physical weakness, anyway. This is purely emotional, and so should affect her spirit. "You can show me to them, then?" she croaks.
He extends a hand. "Come with me."
Korra studies it for a doubtful second, but then she reaches out; as soon as their fingers touch, the world swirls about them, running like a watercolor left in the rain. While she's not aware of any vertigo, the younger Avatar nevertheless feels a sense of disorientation at the rapid movement, for she perceives that's what this is—the landscape rushing by, despite the fact that she feels herself to remain stationary.
And then, in the condensed space of a second, they have arrived. Here, there is no longer waving grass, but the honey-tint remains, infusing itself in the snow and the sea. People are moving about, wandering between igloos and tents and generally appearing to go about their lives as if they were still existing in one of the poles, and Korra's knees nearly give out on her.
Kuruk settles a strengthening hand on her shoulder, and she turns to him pleadingly. "I don't…oh, I don't even remember what they look like, or what their names are…how am I supposed to find them…?"
He tightens his fingers. "Their names are Tonraq and Senna," he explains softly, "and you'll know them when you see them, never fear."
She stares at him for a second longer. "Thank you," she finally whispers.
He lifts his hand and nods at the village. "Go on, then," he says, just a hint of teasing in his tone. "Haven't you waited long enough already?"
Her gaze shifts away, tracking faces and struggling to reconcile them with memories that simply don't exist, and she staggers into their midst, stumbling over her feet as she first walks but then runs, runs and runs and runs until she'd be heaving for breath if she needed to draw any. She is cast curious looks by passersby, but none of them are right, none of them are people her heart can recognize—
She skids to a stop, the snow plowing beneath her boots, and she stares, oh, how she stares, her arms limp at her sides and her jaw sagging open. Tears fill her eyes, sudden and overwhelming, but she hardly notices the droplets as they fall in rushing rivulets; she doesn't notice anything but them.
Her parents.
The woman is slight but sturdy, and the mere way she is standing translates to more than a bit of feisty strength that Korra knows well; the man is chiseled, in that he appears to have been carved directly from stone, he is so imposingly large and obviously powerful. They are speaking to each other easily, laughing as they exchange good-natured jibes, and as Korra watches, she abruptly feels very small.
When she glances down at herself, she realizes that this is because she is very small.
Overcome with desires rooted in her childhood, Korra has regressed to a child in form as well; she flexes her pudgier hands and pats absently at her knee-length parka, which still would barely have fit her normal-aged head, and when she looks up this time, her parents are staring back.
Senna actually slumps to her knees, her hands flying to her mouth. "Oh, it can't—Korra?"
A sob catches in the girl's chest, and she rushes forward, heedless and with her heart in her throat. "Mom, Dad!" she cries, and she throws herself into the longed-for embrace of her mother's arms. They close about her tightly, warm and safe and just everything, and she's aware of the embrace being augmented as her father kneels down and engulfs them both in his bear-like form.
None of them even think about moving away as time refuses to really pass, but eventually, Tonraq eases back and Korra raises her head. She only realizes that she's her usual age again when she goes to wipe away the tears and notices her fingers are longer and thinner once more.
"Oh, geez," she says, smiling so broadly her face ought to hurt, and she looks at her parents in turn. "I…I have so much to tell you guys, it's kinda ridiculous. I don't even know where to start…"
Tonraq ruffles her hair with a hand bigger than a plate, and Senna reaches out after a hesitant instant to trace the curve of her daughter's cheek. "The beginning, darling," she suggests. "Tell us everything. We have plenty of time."
Korra looks at her for a moment, and then she laughs, laughs because it's so, so true.
They have all the time in the world.
Curious qualities of the Spirit World notwithstanding, Korra still has been speaking for a good long while, her stories animated by vibrant language and frequent bursts of pantomime as she encounters parts that are better shown than told. As she's closing in on her Avatar's journey, though, and begins to relate her voyage to the South Pole, she is pulled to an abrupt halt as some of the story, it seems, walks by in the distance.
Korra's on her feet before she's even aware that she wanted to stand, because this glimpse…this glimpse looks almost exactly like Katara, and her heart stalls in her chest.
"Oh, spirits," she whispers, swaying, and she steps over her father's bent knee as she hastily exits their family circle.
"Korra, where're you going? I'd say you look like you'd seen a ghost, but that's kinda par for the course around here," he remarks, swiveling to follow his daughter's retreat.
She glances briefly over her shoulder, raising her hands to reassure them. "I'll be right back, okay? I just—I just gotta do something!"
Her parents have little choice but to accept that, and they shrug as they exchange bemused looks. But Korra is already moving on, dodging around other Tribesmen and ducking behind a tent, in pursuit of a figure who is more myth than person. She doesn't really know what she's doing; all she knows is that she has no choice—she has to do this.
Jogging the last few paces, Korra cuts the woman off, blocking her path with hands upraised once more. "I'm so sorry to bother you," she blurts, stumbling inelegantly over the words, "but I have to ask—you're Katara and Sokka's mother, aren't you?"
The Avatar doesn't really have to ask, though. Katara is the spit and image of this woman—minus two decades, of course—and even if she weren't, Kya retains possession of a very familiar piece of jewelry. The carved medallion gleams golden in this light, and Korra's gaze lingers on it as her own words whisper back to her.
You already have a necklace that you cherish. I would never dream of replacing it.
And here it is, finally, around the neck of the woman who prompted so much emotion…
Korra can scarcely believe it, even now, and she raises her gaze with difficulty as tears begin to blur.
Kya blinks back at her, her eyes still blue as ice despite the saffron surroundings, and she gasps. "You…know my children?" she says, her voice cracking as her composure is all but lost.
Korra grins, wobbly. "Yeah, you could say that," she replies, so soft, and her smile strengthens as she beckons the woman to follow. "Come with me, and I'll explain everything…although, just a head's up, it's going to be a very long story…"