Authors Note: Content warning - violence towards a child. I tried to keep it as tasteful/non-descriptive as possible, but that doesn't change the nature of this chapter. Read at your own risk.
"Good morning, Miss Sato." Paran said, as he wheeled a breakfast cart into her room. He pushed it up to her dining table and began moving its contents to the table. "Today we have ramen, bacon, eggs and some jasmine tea for you."
"What kind of ramen?" Asami asked, as she dragged a wooden comb through her wet hair.
"Pork ramen, Miss Sato, with a soft boiled egg, green onions, shiitake mushrooms, toasted sesame seeds and spiced with garlic and ginger."
Asami set her comb down on the vanity while glancing at her reflection in the mirror. At the moment she was still wearing a white bathrobe and her face freshly scrubbed clean. 'I'm not going anywhere today, so I think I'll skip putting on any makeup. Not sure what I want to wear though...'
Her stomach growled and Asami double checked the lapels of her robe to make sure she was decent before rising from her chair. "That sounds delicious, Paran. Have you checked the paper yet?"
"Very briefly, Miss Sato. I was only able to check the headlines, but I would wager there's something in the sports section that will interest you."
Asami rose from her chair and turned around as she headed for the table. It was easy to guess what that something was, but she was still curious to see what had been written. She lifted the newspaper and flipped through the pages until coming to the section she was looking for. Plastered across the top in large blocky letters was a short headline. 'Opening Day Mayhem!' Beneath it was a black and white photo of Korra, extending from one side of the paper to the other. She was leaning over the wrecked car, a globule of water surrounding one hand as she attended to Ming's injury. Beneath the photo was the article itself.
'Spectators and listeners alike were hoping for an exciting race to kick off this year's premier racing circuit, but were sorely disappointed. A violent crash in the second lap left Ming short one wheel and sent Mako spinning into a crash barrier. Unfortunately the crash also damaged the track surface and it was deemed too hazardous for the race to continue by the grand marshal. Despite the cancellation members of the crowd were treated to a show they hadn't expected. Future council member Korra was in attendance and able to respond to the crash before the emergency response team. I spoke to Ming afterwards and he informed yours truly that he had suffered a concussion. One severe enough that it likely would have disqualified him for several more races had Korra not used her waterbending to heal him. I think I speak for everyone in the sporting world, fans and athletes alike, when I express my gratitude to Korra for her actions yesterday. Furthermore I'll go a step further and say that this accident shows what Republic City stands to gain as our relationships with the Water Tribes grow stronger. '
Asami set the paper down, a smile playing across her lips. This wasn't the first time Chazok had written about Korra. Last time his article had been less than complimentary, but the praise here was as glowing a review as one could expect in a sports article and from this particular journalist no less. She picked up her chopsticks and grabbed some of the noodles with it.
"I think you were lucky with the weather, Miss Sato." Paran stated as he began to open the curtains covering the windows.
"Why is that?" Asami asked after she finished slurping the noodles down.
"It was nice and sunny for the race yesterday, but the weather shifted quickly overnight. The meteorologist predicted rain, but looks like we're in for a thunderstorm."
Asami's head snapped to the side as she looked towards the windows. Heavy gray clouds lent the air a dim pallor and the trees were swaying in a rising wind. Droplets of water began to spatter against the glass panes, a handful at first, but quickly grew in number and rivulets began to stream downwards. In the distance a portion of the clouds seemed to grow transparent for an instant as something flashed within its depths. Seconds later and a rumble filled the room. Asami's chopsticks clattered to the table and she was out of her chair and out the door. Her feet hammered against the carpet as she sprinted through the hallway, her lack of a proper outfit or footwear be damned. When she reached her destination, Asami flung the door open without bothering to knock first and rushed inside.
All of the lamps in the room had been switched off and the only light in the room came from the far wall. The curtains on every window in the room had been flung wide open, leaving nothing to obscure what lay beyond the mansion. Korra herself was silhouetted against a haze of light inadequate for the task of lighting her bedroom. Her hands hung at her sides and in one of them was a translucent sphere. Asami closed the door behind her and began to walk forward, each step light and slow, the memory of Korra's reaction to the last thunderstorm replaying itself in her mind. As Asami approached a faint sound reached her ears, growing louder and louder until she could make out what Korra was mumbling.
"I'm not going back. I'm not going back. I'm not going back."
Once Asami drew parallel she stopped to try and gauge the other woman's reaction. Korra was standing completely still, her eyes wide and unblinking, as she stared outwards into storm as it vented its mounting fury with rumbles and flashes of light. The only thing setting her apart from a figure of wax, sculpted and painted to resemble a real person, was the diminutive twitching of her lips as she continued to mumble.
"I'm not going back. I'm not going back. I'm not going back."
Asami reached upwards, intent on seizing the curtains so as to draw them shut and block out any future flashes of light. Her fingers grasped the fabric and Korra stirred at once, raising a hand of her own to seize Asami's wrist. "Don't."
"Why not?" Asami asked as she threw a glance towards the thunderstorm, not understanding what was happening here.
"I need to see it, Asami. I can't hide from thunderstorms my whole life."
Asami's hand fell to her side and she took a step back while looking apprehensively at the window. "All right, Korra. I'll be here if you need me."
Once again the sky lit up and the flash bathed Korra's bedroom in a bright glare for the span of a heartbeat and Korra flinched as if she had physically been struck. Asami moved to stand behind Korra and loosely wrapped her arms around the other woman's waist in hopes of lending some strength to her. At the same moment, her heart grew heavier and the frustration of not being able to do anything else to help gnawed at her stomach. The rain striking the window had grown and spread until it was blurring the world on the other side of those panes, but that did nothing to blot out another burst of lightning. Korra began to tremble violently and she raised the sphere up higher and squeezed it with both hands. A minute later a streak of light that undulated as it plunged towards the earth flickered and the sphere disintegrated into rivulets slipping through the cracks of her fingers. Korra turned and buried her face against Asami's shoulder while grabbing onto the lapels of her bathrobe. "I can't look anymore. It's too much. Close the blinds, Asami."
Asami reluctantly disentangled herself from Korra's grasp and she grabbed the curtains at hand, slamming the heavy black fabric shut before doing the same with the other two windows adjacent to it. When Asami turned back around Korra was hugging her knees to her chest as she sat facing away from the window. Asami walked over to the waterbender's side and lowered herself to the floor. "Are you alright, Korra?"
"No, not really..." Korra answered with a frustrated shake of the head. "I thought I could handle it, but I was wrong. I gave it everything I had and I didn't even last five minutes. I should be able to do better than that."
She settled one of her arms on Korra's shoulders and pulled her in for a hug. "Don't be so hard on yourself, Korra. Soldier's heart isn't easy to deal with, but the most important thing is being willing to try and it's not like you did badly. You handled this storm a lot better than the last one." Asami pointed out.
"I suppose... but I still have a long way to go." Korra muttered after sighing heavily. She stared at the wall for a long moment before leaning into Asami. "So I have an appointment with Ralla tomorrow and I'd like it if you came. There's something I want to talk about, but I don't think I can do it without you there to support me."
'Go to one of her therapy sessions? Can't say I expected to hear that today, but if she wants me to be there then I will.'
The next day Ralla arrived to the sitting room to find Korra and Asami already present. Asami was seated in one of the club chairs while Korra was walking across the room, stopping just short of one wall before whirling and heading back towards the other. "I must admit I didn't expect to see you, Miss Sato. I assume her being here is your doing, Korra?"
"It is, yes." Korra answered. "This isn't going to be an easy session for me and I'm going to talk about some things that Asami needs to hear so I asked her to come."
"Well then, perhaps we should get right to it then." Ralla said as she took a seat opposite Asami. "Unpleasant topics have a way of growing more potent the longer they linger in the mind so let us excise them as best we can."
"Oh, uhhh, well… I don't really know where to start." Korra said as she sat down in the chair next to her fiancée.
"At the beginning?" Asami suggested though she had no idea what that might be in this particular case.
"I guess that makes sense…" Korra said after a long pause, as if that hadn't occurred to her. "In the south benders begin their training when they're six. They learn the basics of being able to control water, then spend the next four years learning how to heal. Once the bender turns ten, they start learning to fight and they get put to work in the clinics when needed. We couldn't afford to take any of the older benders off the front-lines, so healing the wounded fell to all the ten to sixteen year olds."
Asami shivered as Korra spoke. 'When I was ten, I was studying differential equation integration and she was learning what war does to people... every time I think I know how bad things were for her people Korra says something that makes it even worse and I know there's still more coming...'
"My first year as a healer wasn't too bad. We would get attacked once a week, sometimes two, but it was nothing we couldn't handle. A couple of months after I reached my eleventh summer something changed. I don't know what or why, but the raids escalated and we were getting attacked every single day, sometimes more than once per day."
Korra's voice trailed off and she reached towards Asami, her fingers curling and uncurling until Asami took her hand. After several seconds the waterbender began to speak again, her voice softer than before. "It was early in the morning and I was by myself in the clinic getting things ready for the wounded that I knew would be coming. Bandages, balms, water bags, those sort of things. I was almost done when I heard a commotion outside, metal hitting metal then a scream. I grabbed a knife and hid beneath the nearest table."
Her hand began to shake and Asami gave it a squeeze before she continued talking in a monotone voice. "My line of sight was blocked, but I could see black metal boots coming inside. I put the knife in one of my pockets and started to crawl towards the door beneath the tables when my ankle got grabbed and I was dragged out into the open. Above me was a red and white skull with black eyes and blue strands all around him. The soldier pointed his fingers at me... and... pain. I don't know what happened after that, but the next thing I remember is waking up on one of the tables in a different set of furs. The soldier was gone and so was the knife, but my father was there. After that I stopped working in the clinic and spent all my time training how to fight. A year later and I fought in my first battle... but it wasn't really my first was it?"
'Hiding under a table. That's what she did that day with the thunderstorm. She crawled under the table just like she did when she was a girl And I touched her ankle just like that raider did. Now I know why she screamed. She wasn't seeing me. She was seeing the man who hurt her... Oh, Korra... I'm sorry. I'm so, so, sorry...'
Tears streamed down Korra's cheeks as she stared into her lap and her grasp on Asami's fingers grew tighter. "That was the first time I killed someone. There's no other way I could have survived that encounter. Ever since then I've hated lightning. Lightning benders don't affect me in the same way, because I know I can kill them. But lightning in the sky? I can't fight the weather and seeing it sends me back to that day..."
For the second time in as many days Asami found herself at a loss. Yesterday the only idea to help Korra had been to shut the blinds and that had been initially rejected. Today she found herself even further behind. Korra's description of the event at the center of her trauma had been stark, almost clinical in nature. There had barely been any mention of the agony she had experienced and no mention of the terror she must have felt at that moment and in all the years since, not to mention the rage she struggled to control. Listening to Korra speak had been horrifying beyond measure and the sort of thing she had no idea how to respond to. Asami looked towards Ralla in a mute appeal for help from the woman she had hired for this purpose.
"I might be stating the obvious, but I'll say it anyways. That couldn't have been easy for you to talk about, Korra. Being able to identify the source of your trauma is an important step in the healing process. It's not the last one, however. I recommend you think back on your life since the incident and try to identify the ways it's impacted your life, as well as the lives of the people around you. Once you've done that then we can schedule another session to discuss how you might want to respond to that impact."
'She's already started, though. Her apology to Mako was exactly the kind of thing Ralla's talking about. Thing is that she's lived almost all of her life in the south pole and the people most impacted would be members of her tribe since they've been around her far longer than me or anyone else from Republic City. But it might not be too long before she sees them again if the morning report I got today was any indicator.'
Of course that depended on whether Korra wanted to go or not.
