After Kuvira, Bolin and Baatar Jr. left, we all stayed in order to talk about what we were going to do, strategizing until we heard the door open and someone walked in. When I looked up and saw Korra there, my heart and throat seized up, staring at her as she stared back at me. "Korra?"
"Kanna?" I breathed, starting to feel hot tears gather.
"Korra!"
"Kanna!" We ran at each other and sprung into one another's arms, gripping on so tightly that we made our joints and bones pop and crack. "I missed you, I missed you so much. I can't believe we were away from each other for so long."
"I know, I missed you too. But look at you! You're walking and you've cut your hair, wow Korra you look so beautiful. I can't believe it." We both smiled at one another as I touched her short hair, resting our foreheads against each other's before I heard three other voices calling out.
"Kanna! You're here!"
"Jinora? Ikki? Meelo?" I was shocked, seeing them all grown up and tall that for a moment, I couldn't believe my own eyes as they sprung at me, this time all three of them tackling me all at once with so much force I fell backwards and we all sprawled along the floor. Ikki was crying, Meelo looked excited and Jinora looked sad but happy as they all hugged me. "What are you all doing here? I can't…you're all so big, so grown up. Jinora you look gorgeous, and Ikki you look like such a pretty little lady, and Meelo! You're turning into a real young man now, I don't think I can carry all three of you at once anymore."
There was a huge flutter of excitement and tears, all of us reuniting as I pulled Korra down to join the hug until I had been able to answer their questions of where I'd been as Su also asked where Korra had vanished to. Both of us looked at each other, an arm around each other with our heads nuzzling each other for a moment before Korra answered.
"I'll tell you the whole story later. Right now, I want to help you stop Kuvira. What can I do?" That's my girl. Meelo was not so impatient, demanding to know where I'd been so I apologised to Su and ushered my cousins out so we could talk.
"What happened to you Kanna? You just suddenly upped and left without saying goodbye to us. Don't you love us anymore?" Ikki asked me with teary eyes and my heart instantly felt a strong pang of pain and regret.
"Oh Ikki, no! Of course I still love you, I love you guys more than anything else in the world." I promised as I hugged her, trying to calm her down. "It's just, I had a fight with your dad, Chief Beifong and some of my friends. I don't know what you know about it, but…"
"We know." Jinora informed me simply, making me look at her as she stood nearly as tall as my shoulder. She really had grown, and she was even more beautiful now that she was beginning to mature. "And we don't care."
"No we don't care at all, we love you Kanna. You're like our big sister. Don't ever run away from your family ever again!" Ikki scolded me as Meelo puffed up his chest and put his hands on his waist, jabbing a thumb at himself.
"I'm the man of the family now, so I'll protect you if anyone ever tries to bully you or take you away. You can count on me Kanna." I laughed lightly, reaching out to drag him over to me where I ruffled the sweet fuzz of black hair before kissing his cheek.
"You're so cute Meelo, my hero." I held my cousins against me, feeling a sense of fulfilment and happiness to have my family back in my arms again. "I have so many stories to tell you guys, you're not going to believe it."
"We've got stories too, in fact, we just finished our top secret mission to find Korra! She went missing you know, she ran away too." Ikki told me excitedly, rushing to tell me all about flying around on Pepper, Jinora's bison and how they ended up at the swamp where they met Toph Beifong. It was pretty unbelievable, but they were all so happy and enthusiastic that I couldn't help but be invested in their story, fussing over them until Korra came looking for me.
"Hey guys, do you mind if I talk to Korra alone for a while? Please?"
"Sure, we'll be nearby if you need us." Jinora nodded then practically marched her younger siblings away, leaving me to face Korra. Both of us wore similar expressions, mostly relief to see each other again where we walked over to each other and hugged once more, holding onto one another strongly with no intention of letting go. Korra didn't seem quite right, but she was a lot better than she was.
"I heard you met Toph?"
"Yeah, she's just like Lin. Only grumpier and stricter, if you can believe it." Korra joked as we stayed in one another's arms but pulled back enough so that we could look at one another. "Thanks for staying in touch with me, I'm sorry I moved around so much."
"You're sorry? I moved around a lot too. I'll admit you made me panic when you told me you decided to run away too, but I guess it's what you needed. Sometimes people just need to figure things out on their own. I'm sorry Korra, the kids told me that you had to metal bend the last remnants of poison out of your bloodstream. I should have realised the abnormalities weren't just internal damage but residue poison…"
"It's not your fault, and it turned out for the best. Toph was able to help me and she gave me some good advice. I feel more at peace now, I think I needed to go through this so that I could feel what true weakness felt like, so I'd never take my powers for granted again." She said to me and I smiled, nudging at her head.
"Look at you, sounding all smart and wise. You're starting to thinking and talk like a real Avatar now." She smiled to me. "What are you going to do about Kuvira?"
"I'm going to talk to her and try to get her to back down. I'm not exactly hopeful, but I want to at least try and resolve this with peace." That's a new one for Korra, she really had changed a lot. Before now she was always one to attack first and ask questions later. I'm so proud of her.
"Do you want backup?"
"No, I'll go alone. Kuvira won't attack me, so it's better if we minimise the risk." Korra told me before giving me another squeeze. "I'm so glad to see you again. I felt really lost without you for a while."
"Me too. Hey! You should meet Fang, he's a good friend I met on my journey and he's been helping me try and bring peace back to the earth kingdom." I said eagerly, grabbing Korra's hand in order to pull her along to meet Fang who was waiting for me outside. "Fang! This is Korra, my best friend in the entire world." He snorted. "Except you, of course."
"Wow! It's a wolf-fox spirit, I can't believe it." Korra said as she looked Fang over as he stood up, coming over to sniff Korra who chuckled before bowing. "It's an honour to meet you." Fang growled in answer, a soft and throaty sound of greeting before he then licked Korra's face, earning another laugh.
"Fang and I are old pals now, he's been with me pretty much since I left. He's great at intimidating people, and he likes to chew on mecha-tanks like toys. Don't you boy?" Fang yipped and wagged his tail, dropping playfully down wanting to play so Korra made him a ball out of earth and launched it for him in order to play fetch like she would with Naga. Fang loved it, leaping away with huge bounds in order to chase after it.
"I can't believe how much has changed, everything that's happened since I've been gone." Korra said to me pensively, lowering her head slightly. "Maybe if I'd been back sooner, this wouldn't have happened."
"You can't blame yourself Korra. You needed time to recover, and Kuvira just took advantage of the chaos to take power for herself. In a way she's not wrong, the monarchy is archaic and the earth queen did more damage by being selfish and not serving her citizens, but Kuvira has gone about this entirely the wrong way." I said to her, watching as Fang leaped over ten feet into the air in the far distance to catch the ball before he started to come lolloping back. "But by imposing her ideals on others and not allowing any form of freedom, she's become something even worse than the earth queen. She believes so strongly that the only way for order is to maintain absolute discipline, and she's using the people as her labour force to mine more metal to create more weapons, more tools to wage war. She's become lost in her own rigid mind set that soon enough, she's going to destroy the very nation she set out to save."
"That's what I'm afraid of, but what if she doesn't listen to me? What if I can't persuade her to take her troops back and leave? How are we even going to sort this mess out?"
"Well, if Kuvira doesn't listen to you, then you'll have no choice but to fight her. As for the rest? We'll deal with the situation the same way we've always done things." I said to her before laying my hand on her shoulder as Fang came back, panting happily and tail wagging, Korra and I looked deeply at one another. "Together."
