/* Part two of this rather important two-parter :D thanks for reading! Hope you enjoy*/
Fireside Tales Part 2
~Sydney's Tale~
"I have a story to tell," Sydney said. "My story is about…well…who I am, and how I came to be here. Perhaps there is something within this tale that may help you, Korra."
"My name is Sydney. I have the memories of what happened to me before I met Bolin, but that is all they are to me right now. Just memories. Recordings. The events do not affect me emotionally now. I just know they happened. This was a result of the Clasma disrupting my identity. Anyway, I used to be a pretty normal girl. I lived in Republic City with my parents, and I went to Crownsville High School, and I had friends and lived a pretty normal life. Enjoyed the nightlife on the weekends and worked hard in school to get into a good college somewhere. I never thought I had a relatively exciting life until I came into contact with the man named Zolt.
"My parents owned a small hardware shop on La Street. They would ride on the city bus with me and get off the stop before my high school to go to work. They both worked to keep the shop running, and they sold their car because our family was seeing tough times and money was an issue. But my mother and father worked hard to make sure that I got a good education and that I would be able to go to whatever college I wanted, so I never complained. I never minded the frozen dinners at night, the bus rides to and from school, the few and cheap presents I got for my birthday. I really feel I learned the value of family and love because of this. Material possessions never appealed to me. They never seemed to me to be a sign of love. My mom and dad sacrificed a lot for me, but whenever it was brought up, they would say it was not a sacrifice. They said the hard work they put in to their jobs and the luxuries they had cast aside, the hours they spent making sure the house was clean and sanitary for me and their constant motivation for me to do well, they did so for the purpose of ensuring that I would have a good, safe and secure life. Since I was more important to my parents than anything, my happiness meant that giving up those things was not a sacrifice because the end goal would be something better than any of those pleasures would ever be.
"My parents were good people. Great people. They never let these tough times get them down, and soon business picked up. My dad had invested in a new marketing model that, I guess, really worked for him. Business was booming. And they were able to meet the demands of the people. It seems they just needed recognition to get off the ground. Soon my parents had several hardware stores around the city and even a few in other cities. He changed the name of the store from our family name to a more standard name, Home Depot. Maybe you guys have heard of it? It doesn't matter, the store isn't the point of my story. Like O-Ren's dad, my parents started with nothing and got somewhere. They were driven, mostly driven by the necessity to uphold my well-being, and in the end they made it. They succeeded and we graduated from paper plates and frozen dinners and public transportation to the finest China and sirloin steaks and private vehicles.
"So my family gained a reputation. Our company was the number one hardware store within a…something radius I don't know. We were pretty well-known I'll put it that way. So well-known that we got the attention of the Triple Threats, a mob that was very involved with several industries in Republic City, the hardware industry interestingly enough was one of them. They were a mob that deeply relied on their bending as a means of power over others, as a means of extortion and generating fear. Regressing back to the days of cavemen who subjugated others by using their God-given powers to intimidate their enemies. I thought we had moved past those primitive times, but apparently not, because that is exactly the kind of negotiating the Triple Threats were prone to doing.
"The Triple Threats stopped seeing returns from the companies whose managers they were extorting. The managers said they were not getting as much business because my family's superior company was stealing it all. It was very pleasing to my dad. It was competition, and he was just better at business than they were. That is how things go, but the Triple Threats did not see it that way. They came to "settle things" with my parents. You know, tell them how things worked. My dad told them to piss off. He wasn't afraid of their bending, and he said he was not scared to have them thrown in jail for blackmail. In case you never met my dad, he can be very intimidating and when he sees bullshit like what they were feeding him, he won't hesitate to tell them what is what. So those two scared Triple Threats returned with more people, and again my dad scared them out of his office and hired some security to keep any Triple Threats away from his office.
"Well, Lightning Bolt Zolt wasn't liking these things that he was hearing. He sought to bring down my family's business so he could get what he wanted. So he could maintain his level of power. He sent out his men to follow my mom and dad when they weren't at work, so my dad started carrying a gun around with him. I wasn't really aware of most of this when it was happening. It seemed like the situation was under control and soon the Triple Threats stopped bothering us. My mom would still make sure she knew where I was when I left for school. I would have to call her when I went out with my friends to give her updates on things, and if I didn't call they would come looking for me. I trusted my parents and knew they were only doing it to protect me so I complied and even started going out less because I knew it worried them.
"Well there was one time. It was my friend's birthday, and she was having a birthday party at a club in town. I was invited and I wanted to go, so the usual rules were in effect with my parents. They even had the club hire one of our family friends to be the bouncer to look after me. I knew the guy, Binh, and he was a nice guy so I was glad that he would be there. When I got there, a huge line had formed, and what was weird was that Binh wasn't the bouncer. It was someone I didn't recognize. Maybe Binh was inside? That is what I thought until this strange bouncer made eye contact with me and told me I could cut in line. Not my friend, the birthday girl, just me. So I go in and they lead me upstairs to this room where it is just me and this older looking guy. It is a pretty nice room with a bunch of couches, and buckets with ice and alcohol. The guy smiled and asked if I wanted a drink but I said no. I didn't know what was happening, and being my age I definitely wasn't accepting drinks from a stranger.
"The man got up and introduced himself as Zolt. He told me Binh was laid off for the night. Zolt's bouncers guarded the door and wouldn't let me leave.
"'The name is Zolt,' he told me, 'And if you're wondering why this is happening, you can blame your parents for that. They don't seem to realize the parameters of the playing field in this city. There are certain industries that are in my domain. It helps to have me on your side to keep the competition down, but somehow your family company slipped past my surveillance. Not good, my dear, not good. We'll see just how much your dad cares about your company.'
"Zolt proceeded to beat me up pretty badly. He ripped my clothes of and gave me several burns. He had some authority in that specific club but none of my friends knew. I was bruised, burned, disoriented, and nearly naked, then they just toss me out of the club and into the rain. I sat in an alley and cried for a good while before I returned home. My dad was furious when he saw my state. He requested an audience with Zolt once and for all. Zolt required my father and mother to speak with him. I lied in my bed, traumatized, while they left to settle things. I can't imagine what that must have felt like for me. I refused to do anything. I lost all motivation to live. I wouldn't really snap out of that state for a while.
"My parents met with Zolt and his Triple Threats with the intention to give him whatever cuts of the company he wanted. Secretly, they would find a way to bring him down, but until then, they would give in to his demands so that I would be safe. They weren't going to deal with his violent methods of business. My dad was positive he would be able to get Zolt thrown in jail.
"Zolt agreed. My family's company gave a good amount of its profit to the Triple Threats for my protection, when really it was just protection from the Triple Threats themselves. Our lifestyle slowly degraded and was heading toward the way it was before. My father spent all of his time finding ways to expose Zolt and dissolve this mess, so that he could be free to do his business and make his money without a gun to his head to give it away. It was morally wrong, he would say…
"Zolt found out my father's motives. He requested a meeting with my parents. This was not long before Zolt was kidnapped by Amon actually, if I recall correctly. In this meeting, he told my parents that he could no longer trust them as business partners. There was no place for 'conniving rats', he said. My father's intention of getting Zolt behind bars meant he was no longer of any use to Zolt, and Zolt wouldn't have my parents back on the street knowing what they knew. Threatening me wouldn't do it anymore. Zolt concluded my parents had to die in order for him to feel secured in his ownership over this industry.
"My father was ashamed at himself that Zolt discovered his secret plans to take him down. Maybe he was bluffing that he knew, but whatever the case, my parents would not allow me to be in danger, so they agreed. My father's last words were directed at Zolt, whose hands began to burn with the fire that would incinerate my parents.
'I am ashamed at what benders like you have come to,' my father said. 'Your threats and violence and illusion of power do not bring the human race forward. You do not seek to advance life. You want to destroy it. You have chosen death. What kind of system is this where you, the bender, the one with the illusion of power because you can shoot fire, because you were born with this ability over an element, should automatically have power over the one who has worked hard for his earnings, who has worked harder than you will ever work and deserves a life of happiness and prosperity while you deserve to rot in your disillusioned vision of a world where you always get what you want because you can kill. Because you can kill, you deserve everything? Because bending establishes ruler and servant? You seek a primitive world without reason and justice, and because of that, you have given up your own humanity. I will not sink to your level. You will see. Your terrorism can't support you forever. Killing solves nothing. The strife will continue, and soon it will catch you, Zolt, and you'll realize you've spent your whole life depending on a power given to you by gods. Soon you will realize you have no real value.'
"My parents were killed, but his words didn't just pass through Zolt's head. Soon he lost his bending, and with that he lost his identity. His sanity. I had changed during this time. I was trying to overcome the depression. The tragedy of being abused by someone, and losing my parents, the two people who gave their life for me to survive. I felt so alone. I had no one. I was losing myself, my sense of purpose. I tried to hold on to whatever I had left to define myself…
"I tried to kill myself one day, and it just my luck that I was rescued and somehow fell into Graft's care. He was omnipotent I tell you. He must have been impersonating a doctor. The doctors saved my life, and then he swooped in and got me. He knew that Clasma was the quick fix to this, to my damaged mentl state, but all it was it melded together my own personality with that of Yakone's, the dead blood bending mob leader. Graft knew what I had been through, and wanted to give me the powers and make me an equal to Zolt. Give me the powers that allowed Zolt to dominate. Reverse the positions and make me the king while others became my servant. My subjects.
"I learned how to waterbend. It felt powerful, but it didn't feel right. I didn't want this power. It wasn't natural that I should just suddenly obtain these abilities. Graft kept telling me that now I could take what was taken from me. My newfound skills excited him. He couldn't be happier that his experiment worked, and that I actually was able to maintain most of my identity in the process. He said that this bending would make me rule. But I had done nothing to rule. I had not achieved anything or done any work. Such a right or position like that can't just be given to someone. Someone can't just be given power. It isn't…natural. It just…opposes humanity fundamentally.
"Graft didn't keep me in a cell the whole time. He initially injected me with Clasma, to give me the power of Yakone, but I still retained my memories. He was very nice to me at first, and once it was certain that I had the ability to bend water, Graft brought me to a room where I was face to face with the very man responsible for my parent's death.
"Zolt, in all his nonbending glory, sat before me, sobbing and scared. No power. No longer in his domain. My servant subjected to anything I decided. Graft told me to tie the loose ends. He told me that I had power over him now, that I could realize my revenge on him for what he did to me. He wanted to see it. A man, once in power, lose his bending, his only source of this power and identity, and become the victim of one of his previous victims, who now had the power that this man had lost. Graft wanted me to use my water bending to kill Zolt.
"Zolt pleaded with me. He told me how sorry he was. He told me how my father's words had changed him. He told me that he had no power and the world was clearer to him. I ignored these things. I was angry with Zolt. I wanted him dead. But I refused to do so. I told Graft I wouldn't kill him because I would sink to his level if I did. I would be no better than he was. Because I had bending, did that suddenly give me the right to end other people's lives? Who has such a right? Does the person with superhuman abilities have it? Do our creators have that right? Can we create and destroy at will? That was what Graft was trying to demonstrate, but that is an evil mentality. Bending shouldn't instantiate where we stand. Bending shouldn't be the object of everyone's envy. Graft thought that was what defined humanity, but I refused to fulfill his prophecy. I refused to kill the man, I would rise above him. I would let him live and suffer in his misery. His misery brought on by the loss of the very thing he depended on. The very thing he believed gave his life meaning: his bending. I wanted him to live and realize that bending meant nothing. If I killed him, it would be no different than what he did, it would only continue the strife between us and contradict my own claim. It wouldn't solve anything.
"Graft was upset with me. That was when he threw me in a cell, gave me food to make me forget, called me a failed subject. I was his exception that bending is what we crave, that bending means we have authority over others. That it is the key to being happy. I never thought I was the exception. Graft, Zolt, Qu…I always believed they were the exceptions. Zolt told me that day, before I left him, that my words nearly matched the last words of my father.
"Korra, I'll tell you this. There will always be bad people in the world, but they exist to strengthen those who are good. Their evil should not bring us down into evil. We cannot fight evil by sinking to its level. We can only end the strife by overcoming the evil with good. If we don't, we will only be keeping alive the false belief that power, that things like bending and our positions, give us authority over the lives of others. As hard as it may be, even with the most evil people, forgiveness is never out of the question. In this way, evil brings out the good in us, and as long as we don't sink to its level, the good will always prevail over the evil in the end."
~Tenzin's Tale~
"I have a story I can tell. Perhaps this tale can help you in your state of indecision Korra. Maybe this can tell you few things about where the human race may be heading.
"Things have been changing in my family. For the longest time, I thought it was for the worst. Over the past year or so, something I never even expected was starting to happen. Just a few weeks ago, when Lin and I escaped from the city, we made it to the shore and rode the ferry across the bay out west to where my family was taking sanctuary. I told them to leave Republic City and head there because I thought it would be safe and far away from the danger that was arising. Lin and I broke off, but when I finally made it to the temple where I had them move to, Pema was in a panic. She ran to me as I walked in and cried excessively, so overwhelmed that I could barely understand her as she was telling me what was wrong.
"I quickly looked around the room. To make sure everyone was there and safe. I saw all my children except for one. I wasn't sure if I could bear to hear the news. I waited for her to calm down and tell me why Jinora, my oldest daughter, was not anywhere to be seen. Pema spoke:
'Jinora…she's…she's run away! Just run off! She's been missing for several weeks now. I tried to contact you, but I never could reach you. There was so much going on in Republic City. Tenzin I am so sorry, I am so sorry I have failed. I've had the whole island searched but no one has found her. I don't know if someone has abducted her or hurt her or she has just run away. Why couldn't I get a hold of you? I don't know what to do, I've had to keep this family together, I can't bear to think about her out there by herself.'
"I brought Pema into the other room. She had completely lost her composure and was falling apart. I didn't want to think about what could happen to Jinora, especially now, with all the crazy fiends and now this new Avatar on the loose. It is too much for me to handle. I just hoped she wasn't going to Republic City. I told Pema, I swore to her, that I would find our daughter. Lin agreed to go with me, and together we took Oogi back toward Republic City. I didn't even know where to start looking. I thought the skies would be dangerous given that the United Forces was now under command of Qu, well Colonel Milan I guess, but it was surprisingly easy to navigate. It probably won't be like that as we approach Metro. It was on the way back that we came across a group of people who were so eager to see us, as if they knew Lin and me, and that was how we acquired that radio which allowed us to find you.
"I guess I should have seen something like this coming. I regret not having done anything about it. I was so ignorant to the issue, and now she is out in the world alone, maybe scared and in trouble and there is nothing I can do. She is just a young girl. My girl. I care more about her than anything, but I took that too far as a parent. I cared about her but was too excited to see her live a certain life. Perhaps a life she never wanted.
"After Amon's downfall, Jinora started to change. Those of you who have met Jinora know how she was. She was so serious about her airbending training. So serious about the ways of the Air Nomads. She learned the entire history, read every book on airbending and on the monks. I was proud to call her a prodigy at the art of bending air and a genius on the topic of our culture. She picked it up so quickly at such a young age. She was always meditating as much and as deeply as she should have been. She was on track to get her air bending tattoos early. I couldn't have been happier that I was raising a daughter who embraced the culture so much and was excelling within it.
"But like I said, she started to change. Soon she would sleep in and miss her meditation sessions. I would hear from the monks that she was missing her daily lessons, and she would tell me there was no point in going to them since she already knew everything about the air nomads. It seemed like she was skipping her training because she already had the knowledge, but I knew Jinora better than that. She always made it a priority to do everything she needed to, even if she knew it. I knew there was another reason, a more true reason, why she was acting like this. She did know everything, but I wanted her to continue with her training. Unfortunately, she did not see things on the same level. Jinora began to ignore her training. I would see her walk around the island in casual clothes, out of the traditional airbending uniform, and I was upset. I would tell her that she needed to get things together and start focusing on her training.
"'I don't want to,' she would say.
'What do you mean you don't want to?" I asked.
'I just…don't. I don't know. That is all I can say. I just don't care.'
"She didn't care. This bothered me to the point where I was mad and forced her to attend her daily lessons or else she would be punished. But…this was the mistake I was making. I was forcing her to become something she did not want to be. She continued to disobey me and skip her lessons. To ignore the traditions of the air nomads and wear street clothes. To venture around the island after the late hours when she was not authorized to do so. She just stopped listening to my orders. I was scared because of what was happening. I thought I could change her back to the way she was before. I thought I could do something to bring her back to a stable state. The Jinora I was seeing…I just didn't feel that it was the same girl I had raised, and she could tell I was disappointed, but she was upset that I didn't understand. That I appeared to love the girl she once was and not the girl she was becoming. I thought I could do something to reignite the old Jinora, so one day…
'Jinora, I am pleased to tell you that you are eligible to receive your airbending tattoos as of next month. This is a great honor, and the fact that you are allowed your tattoos this early is an anomalous event. This calls for a celebration. Certainly you know the gravity of this momentous occasion.'
'Yeah…I think I do,' she said. She didn't seem happy at all. The news didn't excite her, didn't fill her with the joy that I was filled with. She just seemed to feel nothing. I wanted her to realize what was happening. I wanted her to know how momentous this was. I was devastated at her lack of concern for her lifestyle, for her culture. I wanted this phase that she was going through to end.
'Jinora! You were late again for your lessons. And why aren't you in uniform?'
'I just didn't want to wear it today.'
'Do you know what the air bending nomad uniform means…?'
'Yes. I know exactly what it means. I know what everything in our culture means, Dad. You don't have to yell at me. I'm not stupid. I've read about everything associated with our culture. I'm not just some ignorant adolescent.'
'Jinora, you are receiving your tattoos soon. You have to shape up! You have to get things together and realize that you are a role model for your siblings. For all future airbenders that we will be the forefathers for. They look up to you and if you keep scoffing off the importance of airbending than they will, too. Is that what you want?'
'I don't know what I want, Dad,' She said. 'I don't know if I want my tattoos. I don't know if I want to be a part of this culture and be the 'forefather of our future generations'. I don't think I want to be part of that, and I don't know if it is right for me. Sure I have read up on everything about it. It is a culture based on freedom, a nomadic lifestyle, and yet I feel so constrained. I feel so held back by rules and customs that I just don't care about anymore. I'm sorry, but I just don't care. I don't want this life. I want a normal life. I want to have a place of my own, not some temple. I want a husband, not some chosen man to create offspring. I want a family, I want to be a mother. I want a job where I can contribute to society. As a monk, what can I really do? What can I contribute? I just feel like I am giving nothing, no percentage of my ability to society. That is not what I want. I want to advance the world, but being an air bending monk, I feel I can't do that. I feel that I am weighted down by so many rules and customs and I would never be able to do what I want. So maybe this isn't the life I want.'
"I was upset with her. I told her she had better think otherwise. I told her she was going to get her tattoos and she was going to uphold the air bending tradition. She hated me for that. I just thought that this would be best for her, but in the end, it was not. She turned against me, she wanted to do what she desired, and I was foolish. I was foolish because I wanted her to live a life that I chose, not that she chose. That can't work. One cannot set the path of another person's life. We must let them choose their own way. I failed to do this. I failed to listen to Jinora and understand her worries. Understand her concerns. She didn't want to be an airbender. She wanted a different kind of life. A life she would not be able to obtain if she continued on as a monk. If she got her tattoos.
"The day she was meant to receive her tattoos was the day she disappeared, apparently. She would not accept them. She would never want to be associated with a culture that did not agree with her desires. She wanted to live among the humans. She wanted a family, and she did not want this family to be raised under the regime of airbending. Under the watchful eyes of the acolytes and of myself who would tell Jinora's kids that bending was a sacred tradition which must be upheld. Jinora did not believe this. Jinora believed in something else. I told her to accept the airbending way of life because that was who she was. She told me that she was in control of who she was, that she was the one who made herself. Her past and future were decided by her.
"I turned my back on the issue when the problems in Republic City grew. I turned my back and hoped that it was something that would just go away while I dealt with Graft, but nothing will just go away if you choose to look away. When I returned home, Jinora had run away. Run away form the life that restricted her from doing what made her happy. She wanted a job, she wanted to work for what she earned. She believed that since she was an airbender, she was not entitled to her home, to her money, to her power. She wanted to work and earn these things, and not share them. And she has left, left and ventured out into the dangerous world to find her purpose.
"I wanted, and still want, Jinora to be happy but I cannot sleep knowing she is somewhere out there, struggling to survive perhaps. I just have to find her. Even if she is okay, I have to know that for sure. As a father, nothing is more important to me than her well-being. I just hope….I am not too late.
"If there is something to learn from my story, Korra, it Is this: A parent is someone who cares deeply about the offspring that they create. This care can easily stretch into an unhealthy domain. I was a victim of this. I was one of the last air nomads, and I just wanted my children to carry on the tradition so that we could survive. But, I never thought of them not wanting to uphold the tradition. Jinora started to reject the airbending culture. She chose her own path, and I was opposed to it. I regret my lack of attention to her, my lack of understanding. I feel I was a bad father. I wanted her to be someone she was not. In the end, her personal desires won and inevitably drove her away from me. I know this all might seem irrelevant to your situation, but think of it this way. The Spirits created us, all humans are formed from the cosmic energy that flows nearly infinitely in the Spirit World. We are their molds, and it is in the same way we mold and shape our children. To a degree, we can teach them to act and think in a way that we as parents believe is right, but the world is full of many different ideas, many different people. A diverse pool of beliefs and lifestyles, and these things will inevitably influence your creation, your human race or your children. In the same way I tried to enforce a life for Jinora to live, the Spirits are trying to enforce a way of living for the human race. An old-fashioned way of living where we depend on bending, where we give everything up to the Spirits and get nowhere as a society, no advancements, because we are powerless to them. The only way to move forward is to leave behind these ancient ways of civilization, of relying on the Spirits and instead relying on ourselves, on our human abilities, to move forward and advance. I was upset when I saw Jinora feel this way, but now I see the effects of trying to control your creation and make them become the kind of person you desire them to be.
"My lesson is one based on experience. The relationship between the human race and the Spirits is like a child to a parent. The Spirits have given us life and a means of growing up: our bending. A means of surviving until we are able to take care of ourselves. Like the child that leaves home to find a purpose and shape his or her life, so too will the human race attempt to venture out away from the Spirits and realize their potential as humans. Leave behind the safety and nurturing of our Spiritual "parents" and live independently. But the Spirits refuse to let us go. Just like Jinora, the human race will defy their creators. With that, I don't think you should give up hope. Should not give up hope that the human race still depend on their bending, the parental supervision and guidance of the Spirits. I think you will find that they want to move on, to leave the Spirits behind and become independent, to see what they can create as humans without the help of the Spirits."
"You think," Korra said, "You think that the humans will dismiss bending?"
"A child growing into an adult seeks to live a life of his or her own, so too will the human population seek to escape from the warm blanket of the Spirits, for they will realize that nothing can ever advance if we do not."
Korra watched the fire die. It was a good hour after Tenzin's story. Yet she sat there, thinking about everything she had been told. The horrible things these people had been through, and the way the responded, the way it shaped them, and the things they learned.
Asami looked at Korra. She wanted to speak to her. The two had not really spoken since Korra's return. She did not know what to say, but she hoped Korra did. The rest of the group was drifting off to sleep by now. Korra felt Asami looking at her longingly, and she could not handle it any longer. She wanted to escape the pressure, the confusion, the anxiety.
"I need to be alone," Korra said, she glanced quickly at Asami, "I'll be back soon, I will." Korra left the campsite and walked a short distance away from the group and into the woods. Only the moon lit her surroundings. Not only was she trying to process everything she had just heard from her friends and try to make a decision, but her senses had been constantly nagging her the entire day. Burning within her telling her that some source of Clasma was around her. She thought she had figured it out when Sydney and O-Ren revealed that they had once been infected, but the source did not feel like it was moving through a body…
Korra heard a twig snap and shot up to see Tenzin walking through the woods toward her.
"Tenzin, I…"
"Korra, I know you wanted to be alone, but these are drastic times and I need to know what you are going to do. I need to know that you are going to try and stop this. You can't let the sins of some mask the value of others."
"Tenzin, it isn't really that. Not anymore. Your stories have really inspired me. I think I know what I need to do…" Korra scratched her head, then looked up at Tenzin trying to smile, making her hands into a fist, looking like she was ready to go up against anything, but she was still very hesitant, "Let's…let's go to Metro. Maybe we will find something there. Something or someone that can help us. There has to be someone who will help us go up against Solomon. I am sure we can find those people that you spoke of. The ones who wish to leave the parental care of the Spirits. I want to find them. There has to be something at Metro."
Korra quickly lost her smile. In the moonlight, Tenzin could see the sadness in her face.
"And then," she said, nearly on the verge of tears, hoping Tenzin did not notice, "and then we weaken the beast, and we go inside. Daya will be waiting there for me. It will be up to me to do what has to be done."
Korra couldn't help but think of Asami. Her gaze reminded Korra of her fate, but what was worse to her was that Asami would once again lose something she held so dear to her. Korra had established herself within Asami's heart, she felt it, and she felt Asami within her as well. She was unsure how it happened, but now thinking of leaving Asami was too painful. She promised she would always be there for Asami, but soon she would be unable to uphold that. Korra tried not to become too close to Asami at this time, she did not want to continue strengthening a relationship that would ultimately end very soon, but her warmth was the only thing Korra desired. A tear appeared and slowly rolled down her cheek.
"Korra," Tenzin said solemnly, "Bending isn't the only thing that that will end if you succeed, will it?"
Korra looked up. Tenzin was good at making conclusions from subtle details, like Lin had said.
Tenzin said no more. He slowly walked up to her and embraced her. As if Korra was his own daughter, Tenzin could not bear to think of her dark fate. At the same time, he couldn't be more proud of her bravery.
"Please," Korra said, tears shedding silently from her eyes, "Please just keep this between us. Please don't tell the rest. Please don't…tell Asami."
/*So I am not sure how well I did it, but for this part, I wanted to parallel the stories Korra hears around the campfire and the advice she receives with the finale of ATLA, where Aang gets advice from the previous Avatars about what to do against the Firelord. Except now, Korra receives her advice from humans. Also, since the Gaang were not the ones that gave Aang advice in ATLA, I made it similar in this way (Since it is O-Ren, Lin, Sydney and Tenzin telling the stories and I think Korra/Asami/Bolin/Mako when I think of the principal members of the new team avatar).
Next time, we hit Metro.*/
