Author's Note
This Avatar: The Last Airbender / The Legend of Korra crossover fic takes place in the alternate universe of my novel-length story When It's All Over. This oneshot functions as a kind of epilogue to that longer work. You don't have to read that story to appreciate this one, but knowledge of its central conflict will make this story extra resonant.
This story takes place about a year after the events of the Legend of Korra graphic novels.
Make sure you have some tissues handy, y'all.
The Avatar and her girlfriend arrived at the old woman's house for tea. The always blustery South Pole wind tried to blow snow in when the door opened, but inside it was warm and cozy. An artic yak wool rug covered the floor, and yellow embroidered tapestries draped over the walls. Their mandala prints were more commonly seen in the air temples, but this house belonged to a woman who had been called the mother of the air nation, after all.
The girls took off their boots, gloves and parkas, joining their host at the table where tea things were set out. They made small talk, as Katara inquired after all of the couple's young friends. She had recently met Kai for the first time, since he and Jinora had flown Korra and Asami down to the South Pole on their sky bison. The young couple had managed to remind the old woman of her departed husband in two ways: the girl's spirituality, and the boy's mischief. The girls told her about their long flight with the airbenders, the way they had raced each other through the clouds.
"And your friend Bolin is still with Toph's granddaughter Opal?" Katara wondered.
"Yes, they're very happy. We double date when we're all in town." Asami replied.
"You both dated his brother, right? That firebender boy. Mako, is it?" The old woman recalled.
"Yes. Mako." Korra answered.
"How is he doing?" Katara asked.
"He still can't use his arm. But he just got a promotion." Asami explained. "Bolin says he's dating, but he hasn't introduced anyone to us."
"Bolin said we intimidate the new girls." Korra put in, with a sideways grin.
"Of course you do!" Katara laughed. "A beautiful business mogul and the equally beautiful Avatar! It must be hard for him to find someone who measures up; and hard for the girls to realize who he'll be comparing them to."
"He'll find someone eventually." Asami shrugged.
"He reminds me of Zuko, when he was younger." Katara mused.
"Both firebenders with good hair?" Asami guessed, recalling pictures of the retired Fire Lord from his youth.
"Yes, and both willing to make sacrifices for their friends." Katara nodded.
"Was Zuko kind of broody, too? And, like, socially awkward?" Korra wondered how far the likenesses extended.
Katara laughed. "You have no idea!"
"Regardless, Mako would be so flattered to hear you compared him to Lord Zuko." Korra said, after their laughter died down. "After all, you would know."
"Let's never tell him." Asami stage-whispered, making all three women giggle.
"And the two of you?" Katara asked, refilling their teacups. "You've been together about a year now, haven't you?"
"That's right," Asami said, with a fond glance at her girlfriend.
"I thought so. And that means you came here to the South because your parents wanted to test the knot?" Katara asked Korra.
"Yes," Korra answered, looking down with a blush.
"Well, how did it go?" The old lady asked curiously.
"It was fine." The Avatar shrugged. "Dad isn't trying to make us keep our relationship under wraps, like he did at first."
"You know that things are different here in the South, compared to Republic City. And when I was growing up, we were isolated by the war, so those differences were even more extreme than they are now." Katara remembered. "I never even met anyone who was gay until the war was over. Or, perhaps I mean, I never met anyone who felt supported enough to be open about their desires until then. So when Kya came out to us, I was very surprised, and...a bit perplexed at first. And my father, even more so. It was just outside our experience. I remember I said I loved her no matter what, and Aang had to explain to me why that wasn't exactly the best response. He helped us to understand and accept her completely. His people had a very broad understanding of love."
"Kya told me how supportive he was," Korrra said. She had forgiven her father and mother for their initial hesitation to publicly acknowledge her relationship with Asami, but hearing about Katara's own journey as a parent helped her to feel even more at peace with the rough patch her own road had gone through.
"One of many ways he was a wonderful father. And an even better partner."
"Did you and Aang do a knot-testing?" Asami wondered. It had been a somewhat foreign tradition to her, but she'd been gratified to be accepted into her girlfriend's family, and to participate in a cultural rite of passage that was meaningful to her girlfriend. It made her curious about how other mixed couples had handled such things.
"Yes. My father, Chief Hakoda, called us to the Water Tribe embassy in the Fire Nation right after the first anniversary of the end of the war." The old woman chuckled. "Aang and I got into one of the biggest fights we'd ever been in!"
Korra couldn't believe it. She had never heard of any conflict between the legendary couple. "Over what?"
"The question of children, of course. You can imagine what a fraught topic that would have been for someone who was the sole survivor of an entire nation."
"You didn't want children?" Asami asked, a bit surprised.
"We both did. We just...prioritized it differently." Katara answered somewhat cryptically. "But I didn't ask you here to rehash that dumb argument. So, girls," Katara clapped her hands, eyes sparkling, then gestured expansively to her two guests. "Is this love?"
Korra and Asami glanced at each other and realized they had been invited for a kind of second knot-testing. "Yes." Their hands joined almost unconsciously.
"And it's forever?"
"We certainly hope so." Korra responded solemnly, almost indignantly, and her girlfriend nodded agreement.
"Good. Then I have something for you." Katara walked over to a trunk and pulled out two boxes, setting them on the table in front of Korra.
The Avatar was frozen, unsure which to open first. Katara had to urge her. She lifted one lid and saw a stunning gold cuff bracelet adorned with a ruby and an emerald. The second was silver, with a sapphire and a citrine in a matching setting. "Wow, Katara, they're beautiful." Korra exclaimed.
"Do you...feel any connection with them? Or one of them?" Katara asked, hopefully.
Korra's heart sank. These bracelets had meaning for this woman who she loved as something like a grandmother, who had done so much to help her through the hardest time of her life, and she was afraid she would have to disappoint her. Experimentally, she tried touching them both, but there was no spark of familiarity like she had felt when she had first gone to Air Temple Island. She remembered the story her parents had told her of when she'd met Katara, when she was so young she didn't remember it. Though she had hated strangers, she had gone right up to the old lady, given her a hug and called her 'Sweetie.' But ever since her bond with the past Avatars had been broken, she didn't feel the same resonance with objects and places anymore. Only her own memory of feeling it in the past, sometimes.
They were just bracelets to her. Beautiful ones. "I'm sorry, Katara."
"It's all right. I shouldn't have asked. I know not to expect that. It's not your fault." The old woman put her soft hand on top of Korra's. "You might not feel the connection in the same way that you used to, but I still feel connected to you. For your own sake, because I have cared for you, Korra, and because I do sense the Avatar spirit in you, that Aang also had. Ravaa. It's not exactly the same as it was before, but it's there."
"So these belonged to Aang?" Asami asked, eager to hear more.
Katara smiled, happy to tell the story. "This one," she picked up the gold bracelet. "belonged first to Avatar Kyoshi. Her companion and lover, Rangi, gave it to her. When I...wanted to make a grand romantic gesture, I wrote to the Kyoshi museum, and they sent it to me to return it to Aang."
"That is the most adorable story I have ever heard!" Korra said, her eyes filling with tears.
"It was around the first anniversary of when we started dating. The night of the world premiere of The Banished Prince and the Last Airbender."
"I love that show!" Asami exclaimed.
"What's your favorite part?" Katara wondered.
"When Sokka and Suki and Toph took down the airships!"
"I like the lion turtle." Korra put in.
"Of course you do. After the play, Aang and I said we loved each other for the first time. And then we kissed for hours. We were much too young to do more than that, you understand." Katara went on, smiling. She looked like a girl again as she recalled that wonderful night of her youth.
Asami teared up, too. "How sweet!"
"And of course, after I gave him this, Aang had to surprise me. He had Zuko's royal jeweler make this one for me." She touched the second bracelet. "Sapphire and citrine to represent our people, just as the emerald and ruby represented Kyoshi and Rangi's people. And now I want to pass them on to the two of you."
Korra and Asami looked at each other, overcome with the deep meaning of the generous gift.
"How could we possibly accept?" Korra whispered.
"I've kept them long enough. They're meant to celebrate the Avatar's love. It's time for me to let go. Which one would you like to give to your love?" She asked Korra.
Korra looked carefully at the two. Kyoshi's bracelet was a clear choice for Asami, born in a place where the cultures of the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation intermingled. It would even match her favorite clothes. She picked it up out of the box, and handed it to Asami, wrapping her fingers around her girlfriend's hand. "With a love that will last more than one lifetime," she whispered, suddenly inspired by memories of what Aang's friends and family had said.
Asami wiped her cheeks and put the bracelet on her wrist.
Katara turned to her with a hint of sternness. "It's not easy to be the Avatar's partner. You must be willing to face danger, and make sacrifices, and also humble enough to know when to allow your beloved to be the one to fight instead. That was a particularly hard lesson for me to learn."
"I'm up for that. She's more than worth it." Asami promised the old woman. She took the silver bracelet out of the box and put it on Korra's wrist. "Through thick and thin." She promised. Korra leaned forward and kissed her briefly, and they touched their foreheads together.
"Beautiful." Katara murmured. She touched both bracelets on the wrists of their new owners, and withdrew her hands.
Impulsively, Asami turned her hand and took the weathered fingers in hers, and Korra followed suit, so that they were holding hands in a circle.
"I have to thank you, Korra." Katara said softly.
"I should be thanking you!" The young woman protested. On top of this priceless gift, Katara had already shepherded her through the White Lotus's rigorous training process, taught her waterbending, and healed her worst injury.
"You did what we couldn't." The old lady explained. "I tried my best to bring back the airbenders all by myself. I wanted to give Aang eight or ten children, but when Tenzin was a baby, I had a miscarriage, and after that I was never able to conceive again. It was..." Her eyes glossed over with tears and voice cracked a little with emotion. "The greatest tragedy of my life. For the wife of the last airbender to become infertile, unable to give him the one thing he lacked, the one thing the world needed most: it was the cruelest irony. And the pressure it put on poor Tenzin..." She trailed off, shaking her head.
Korra thought of her airbending master, and realized where his sternness and strict self-discipline came from: it was the legacy of his mother's failure, as she saw it, to repopulate a dead nation singlehandedly. The Avatar's chest ached for her previous self's family, and she didn't know if it was her own heart, or Raava inside her, reaching out for her past lover.
Katara was going on. "But Aang was always sure everything would be fine if we just trusted in love. 'All will be well,' he told me. Now, I think he might have known somehow." Her eyes sharpened, emerging from the haze of memory, and focused on Korra. "That you were coming, and you'd fix everything. He said something to me once about how it seemed like the Avatar's destiny was to solve his or her past life's problems. So Aang ended the war Roku failed to prevent, and because of you, Korra, Aang's people were reborn. You fulfilled my husband's promise to me, and redeemed my shortcoming. You even gave Tenzin what I couldn't: brothers and sisters to airbend with. And Bumi! Aang and I were always incredibly proud of him, exactly as he was, but I don't think he really believed that himself, until he could airbend, too. I hope you know Aang would have made the same choice, even knowing what would come of it, and what would be lost. He would have been so happy to see all you've accomplished."
"That means a lot, coming from you." Korra felt her heart ease a little, as she finally found it possible to forgive herself for disconnecting from the ancient wisdom of her predecessors.
"And it means a lot to me to be part of your family." Katara squeezed the young fingers in her own.
"You always will be." the Avatar promised, and her girlfriend nodded agreement.
The three women sipped their tea, and continued talking long into the night, sharing tales of adventure, memories of love, and dreams of family.
Author's Note: Well?
If you haven't read When It's All Over, and Katara's hints intrigue you, she is referring to events from chapters 46, 47, 49, and 103.
This is the last story in the When It's All Over AU, and possibly the last story I'll write for the Avatar fandom. Thank you so much to readers who have followed this journey and supported me. It means a lot.
If you are looking for a great fanfic story to read, I recommend A. D Curtis's current story, "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle."