This chapter's content was originally published as parts of the previous and subsequent chapters. Edited July 13, 2016 and May 31, 2020.

"All I Ever Wanted"

That evening left Marius profoundly disturbed, with a dark inner sadness. He was experiencing what the earth may experience at the moment when it is opened by the plow so wheat may be sown; it feels only the wound; the thrill of the seed and joy of the fruit do not come until later.

Marius was gloomy. He had just achieved a faith; could he reject it so soon? He decided he could not. He declared to himself that he would not doubt, and he began to doubt in spite of himself. To be between two religions, one you have not yet abandoned and another you have not yet adopted, is intolerable; this twilight is pleasant only to batlike souls. Marius was an open eye, and he needed a true light. To him the dusk of doubt was harmful. Whatever his desire to stop where he was and hold fast there, he was irresistibly compelled to continue, to advance, to examine, to think, to go forward. Where was that going to lead him? After having taken so many steps that had brought him closer to his father, he now feared to take steps that would separate them.

~ Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, translated by Lee Fahnestock and Norman MacAfee

When her day off finally comes, Korra takes the trolley to the Sato mansion, even though she knows the tunnel system would be faster. She has entered and exited the tunnels through Hiroshi Sato's workshop dozens of times, but it has been years since she visited the house or the racetrack. It feels strange coming back, older and bigger, and seeing everything more or less the same as she remembered, except that it is not as overwhelmingly large as it seemed when she was small.

Asami clears the racetrack of test vehicles and sports cars, and tries to demonstrate how to drive an average Satomobile. "I thought we could start out on the track, so you get a feel for controlling direction and distance. Then after lunch we can go on the streets."

Korra has a memory of Hiroshi racing a car on this track, while she and Asami were strapped in behind him. She remembers being scared, gripping her seatbelt and thinking they would not make the turn, but Asami had complete confidence in her father's ability to protect them and win the race. And he did.

Right now, the racetrack setting makes Korra want to experiment with speed, but this proves too disconcerting for Asami. "Just try going around at a normal speed, for one loop … then again at a slightly higher speed …"

They go back to the mansion to eat the lunch prepared by the Satos' cook. "This feels like old times," Korra says, grinning around a mouthful of gourmet noodles.

"Yeah." Asami smiles affectionately. "I missed this."

Korra moves to wipe her mouth with her hand, but then remembers the cloth napkin in her place setting, and uses that instead. Even though she feels comfortable with Asami, being in the Satos' luxurious home still makes her feel like she ought to be on her best behavior—not in a childish way, but in a respectful way. She wonders if the Fire Ferrets would feel similarly, or if they already have. "Do Mako and Bolin ever come here?"

"A couple of times. My dad gave Mako the grand tour of Future Industries."

"I've been wondering. You have other friends. Why'd you choose me to set up with Bolin?"

Asami shrugs. "I thought you guys were kind of similar. You're both fun to be around. And my other friends … well, they might like him for being a semi-famous athlete, but they might not really … understand where he comes from."

Of course. All of Asami's school friends come from wealthy families, except for a few on specialized scholarships. Even the few who live in the city must know little or nothing about the area the boys grew up in. Asami singled Korra out because she was the most similar to them in socioeconomic class.

She seems to read Korra's thoughts because then she says, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't've—"

"No, that makes sense."

"You know that doesn't matter to me, right?"

"Of course." She smiles teasingly and nudges Asami. "If it did, we wouldn't have been friends for so long. I would've dropped you like an anchor if you acted snooty."

Asami's smile is grateful and somewhat relieved. "My dad warned me not to be that way. You've heard his whole 'rags to riches' story. And my mom was from an old family that went from rich to poor before settling in the middle class. They knew money isn't what matters. But I know that's easy to say when you have more than enough of it."

"Does Mako mind?"

She pauses, resting her chin in her hand and her elbow on the table. "We haven't talked about it, really. It caught him a little off guard at first … or maybe that was just the moped collision …" They both laugh.

"That is a cute story," Korra admits.

"Yeah—like fate made me run into him."

That sounds like a stretch to Korra. "You really think that?"

"I think things happen for a reason. Especially when people come into each other's lives and—change you, somehow. I don't know if you've ever had that experience, but I think when it happens, it's more than just luck or something."

"You sound like Bolin, the way he talked about me just happening to meet them again." Korra pauses to take a few bites of noodles before saying casually, "I'm still trying to figure out what it is you like about Mako. Besides your romantic introduction."

Asami gives her an odd look. "What do you dislike about him?"

"Nothing, really. If you get along well, that's great. It's just … I don't see that you have much in common."

"So?"

"Isn't it nice to, you know, have things in common with your significant other? That way you can do things together that you both like."

"There's pro-bending," Asami points out. "We all bonded over that."

"Yeah, but when the season's over, what do you have left?"

"We both lost our mothers at a young age. Again, something we all have in common."

"Right. Sorry."

"Are you looking for something to not like about him?"

"Of course not!" It is only when the words have left her mouth that Korra realizes they are a lie. She tries to make up for it with a truth. "I'm trying to understand you, and him, and the two of you … I don't know what that's like." Korra realizes, for the first time, that she has never seen romantic love up close, never had an idea of what it is like. Noatak has never dated anyone, never mind married—he wouldn't have the time, Korra supposes, with the work he has. Some of the unfortunates they met at shelters over the years were victims of rape or domestic abuse—they had stories about dating and marriage that ranged from disappointing, to miserable, to horrific.

But Asami had two parents who loved each other, setting an example of domestic felicity for her to learn from, even if it ended too soon. She seems to understand, her intuition keeping up with Korra's thoughts again. She smiles again and says simply, "It's great."

"So are you guys, like, in love?"

Asami tries to disguise her giggle as a scoff. "Don't put words in my mouth! It's only been a few weeks—or a couple months, now."

"Hey, I don't know how these things work. How long does it take to fall in love?"

"I don't know. I've never had the pleasure. And it's not that easy to a label on a relationship. We're still getting to know each other. All I know is, I care about him and I like being with him."

"Well, that's nice. I'm happy for you."

"Thanks."

The chef brings them a platter of dessert samples, and for a few minutes they talk about the different flavors and ingredients. Then Korra ventures, "Have you heard about the Equalists?"

"What about them?"

"I mean, you know who they are, right?"

"Sure. I couldn't believe it when the finals were cancelled because of them. It's one thing if you want to help people or make a statement, but taking away pro-bending isn't helping anything. In fact, it's probably causing more division."

"How so?"

"It's something benders and non-benders bond over. Like how it brought the four of us together."

Korra refuses to let herself think about that anymore. "You know there's a lot more to the Equalists than that, right?"

"I've heard they want to change the government, and the socioeconomic structure."

"Do you think they're right?"

"They're right to call out inequality, but what they're doing to fight it seems wrong to me. It's all … so shady, the vigilante work and terror tactics, and threatening the Council and the championship contenders …"

"Well, I think if you spent a long time trying to work with the system and having it reject you, you'd probably feel like that was the only way to make yourself heard, or get anything done."

"You're defending them?"

"No … well, maybe … I'm just saying I can see why they'd go as far as they have."

"So what do you think of them?"

Korra searches for an answer that would be not only safe but inoffensive. "Well … I think the only reason to be against them would be if you or someone you knew wanted to stay a bender. Objectively, though, I think … they have the right idea."

"Even about taking people's bending away?" Asami says testily.

"Like I said, it's whether you're subjective or objective. All wars—even the ones fought for the best reasons—cost something."

"That doesn't always mean it's worth it. No one should be forced to pay anything in a war."

"You know, if there was no bending, there might not be any more wars. There'd be a lot less violence in general."

"I don't think that's true. Bending might have been an advantage in major wars, but there have been plenty of tribal and civil wars fought between nonbenders. So what they say about bending being the source of all conflict isn't true. Conflict and violence come from human beings, not the weapons they use."

Korra never thought of it that way. She will have to mull over it more deeply later. "So, you definitely don't support them?"

Asami raises an eyebrow at her. "You think I should?"

"I kind of thought you would."

"Why, because I'm a non-bender?"

"Not just for that. It's … you're all about progress, and that's what they're pushing for."

Asami raises an eyebrow, her lips quirking in a strange kind of smile. "I don't know if you skipped over part of your science or history curriculum, but bending has brought a lot of progress. Entire cities have been built using waterbending or earthbending. We use the elements to make energy—you know, hydroelectricity, steam, wind turbines, coal. Mako works at a power plant, making lightning to provide electricity for everyone, including non-benders. Both sides can do things to benefit themselves and the other side." She stops abruptly, and then shakes her head, sighing. "Oh, what am I even saying? There shouldn't be sides. We're all people. Not all benders are bad, the same way not all non-benders are Equalists."

"You're making it sound like Equalists are bad. Maybe some are good."

"That's the problem. Some may believe they are good. I once read somewhere that the most evil people in the world are the ones who don't realize they're evil."

That sounds completely different from how Korra has always imagined evil people. Are good and evil just relative to one's point of view? Is there any set standard for measuring the moral quality of anyone's actions?

How can Asami think so objectively about something that affected her so personally? Is it not normal for people to change their opinions based on their experience?

"How do you do it?" Korra asks.

"Do what?"

"Act so … so …" The word perfect comes to mind, but Korra pushes it aside, searching for something less condescending. "… gracious. You're honestly the nicest person I've met. I don't think I've ever seen you angry, even when you had a right to be. Is that a conscious effort, or just the way you are?"

Asami is silent for a moment, considering, before she speaks. "When I was in primary school, there was a kid who teased me and some other kids. I think it had to do with our parents being 'new money'—you know, earning wealth instead of being born with it. Anyway, he bothered me for weeks, until one day I got so fed up that I thew a pair of scissors at him."

"No kidding?" Korra is mildly surprised, but rather in a good way.

Asami grimaces. "The problem was, he moved out of the way, so they hit a boy who hadn't done anything."

"Oh."

"He wasn't seriously hurt," Asami clarifies, "but the fact that I'd tried to hurt someone got me in trouble."

"How do they handle that, at schools?"

"It depends on how old you are, and how many offenses you've made. I had never seriously misbehaved before, so I didn't get punished, but they made us apologize to each other, and called in our parents to tell them about it. My dad was kind of pleased that I'd tried to stand up for myself, but he said I should have done it differently, by going to the teacher. The worst part wasn't being punished at school or at home. The worst part was sitting down with my mom and hearing her say how disappointed she was in me. She said I should always be kind to people, no matter how they treat you."

"That sounds like … do nothing, even when people are hurting you?"

"No. My mom said you should stand up for yourself, and other people, but you should never retaliate out of anger. And when you do that, you might end up hurting someone who wasn't even involved. That stuck with me. After she died …" Asami pauses, and Korra realizes this is the first time she has heard Asami mention the event itself. "At first I was just … shocked, and devastated, but later, I was angry for a while. But I remembered what Mom told me, and I figured she wouldn't want me to be that way, especially not because of her. I guess that's why I don't get angry easily, or stay angry when I do. It started as a way to honor her, and now it's just kind of the way I am." She pauses again, and sees Korra's awed, slightly incredulous expression. "Do you think that's foolish?"

"I think it's idealistic … but that's not a bad thing to be." Amon is idealistic, too, in his way. Korra thinks she may be, too, to a certain extent. Sometimes it seems like a way to combat violence and hatred … but, she realizes uneasily, the Equalists' idealism seems to do the opposite.

After a long moment, Asami stands up. "Do you still want to try driving on the streets?"

"Uh, yeah. Hey, afterwards, can you drop me off at the library?"

"Sure. Are you working?"

"No, I don't—" She cuts herself off, not wanting to get into the topic of her new full-time job. "There's just something I want to read about." She might as well take advantage of the rest of her day off.

Korra knows how to navigate in Republic City on foot or on a motorcycle, but maneuvering a car is an entirely different experience. She frequently brakes too hard, jerking backward and forward. But, with Asami's guidance, she manages to drive to the library without crashing. "Thanks so much," Korra says as she gets out of the car.

"You're welcome." Asami goes around to the driver's seat while Korra steps onto the sidewalk. "Take care."

"You too."

Inside, Korra goes to an area that she used to avoid: the newspaper archives. The system of organization has been a work in progress for years. Currently, the newspaper articles are organized under a system using the phonetic alphabet, a relatively recent invention that corresponds with Morse code. She sounds out the name, "Yakone," and finds a file near the end of the alphabetic list. She brings it over to a table, and finds it to be full of decades-old newspaper clippings. The largest is an entire front page bearing a bold headline:

YAKONE EXPOSED AS BLOODBENDER, FACES OFF WITH AVATAR

Whoa. As far as headlines go, this is pretty major. Korra knows what bloodbending is from her history lessons. She knows that it is extremely rare, and possibly the most dangerous and dastardly bending technique in existence. Looking at Yakone's reproduced mug shots, she thinks there is something familiar about his appearance, but she cannot think why that is. It is possible that she may have seen it before, but she thinks she would remember reading about this event in history.

As she reads the description of the trial, she can imagine it so clearly—in fact, she seems to remember more details of her dream, details she forgot upon waking. She remembers the angle from which she had viewed the room—a courtroom? The Council chamber? She can picture the lawyers pacing the floor as they spoke.

Councilman Sokka delivered the verdict, announcing the Council's belief that Yakone possessed unique, exceptional powers that enabled him to go beyond the typical limits of waterbenders. Deciding to take his ability to bloodbend as fact, the Council found him guilty of all charges and sentenced him to life in prison.

No sooner had the gavel rung than Yakone stood and exercised his now-exposed bloodbending, subduing the assembly and forcing Chief Toph Beifong to unlock his handcuffs. He then rendered most of the assembly unconscious, left the building, and stole a rickshaw. Avatar Aang recovered quickly from the attack, and followed Yakone on an air scooter.

No witnesses were present, but when the chase was over, Avatar Aang had captured Yakone and removed his waterbending abilities. Yakone was subsequently taken to prison to serve his out his full sentence.

Korra is shocked by this ending. Avatar Aang took away people's bending? Someone besides Amon had that power? She had thought it was unique, something only a very special, probably spiritual non-bender could do, or would even want to do. Amon cannot be the Avatar—he is too old, since Aang died only seventeen years ago. Did he get the idea for equalizing people from Aang? That would be most ironic.

A later article reads, YAKONE ESCAPES PRISON. It mostly reports on the lack of evidence and leads. There is nothing after that. Apparently he was never found or seen thereafter. That is a frightening thought, that he could still be out there, like a character in a horror story told to scare people on camping trips.

Korra puts the articles back in the file. She has learned who Yakone was, but the new information has piqued her curiosity about the other people mentioned in the story, who may have been in her dream as well. So she puts the file back in its case and goes to the other end of the alphabet, to look up Aang and Avatar. She wants to know more about this person and his position. Korra wonders, for the first time, how the existence of the Avatar might play into Amon's plan for equalization. Even though the Avatar has not been identified, he or she may still be out there, and even if Amon removes his or her bending, he or she will probably continue to be reincarnated as a bender of the four elements.

Aang's file is obnoxiously thick—for all his austerity as a monk, he seems to have been quite the celebrity during his lifetime. There are too many articles to look through, and Korra guesses most are just gossip, plus standard announcements like his marriage, the births of his children, and his death. Every decade or so, on the anniversary of the end of the Hundred Year War, magazines published longer features about him, recounting his life up until that point in time. Apparently Aang learned how to take away a person's bending at the end of the Hundred Year War, when he used "energybending" to neutralize then-Fire Lord Ozai. Korra has heard of this famous duel, but somehow she always assumed Aang won it in fair combat. After all, he had spent the better part of a year trying to master the four elements, a smaller time frame than any other Avatar had taken to learn them; the stories always made it sound as though that was what enabled him to defeat the Fire Lord, not some the discovery of some spiritual gimmick.

The file labeled Avatar is about a third of the other file's size, so Korra goes through it more thoroughly. There is a list of all known Avatars, starting, according to the calculations of astronomers and historians, approximately ten thousand years ago. Another list names the locations of Avatar temples in each of the nations. Then, there are articles from the past decade and a half about the search for the new Avatar following Aang's death. These mostly report failed expeditions and assurances that the Water Tribe leaders and an international organization called the White Lotus were doing everything in their power to find the Avatar.

Korra thumbs through these articles, only half-interested in most of them, but then stops at an article dated thirteen years earlier. It is not the headline that catches her attention, but a word in the article itself: the characters for her name, Korra, 柯拉. Out of curiosity, she reads the title:

WHITE LOTUS IMPOSTER KIDNAPS ALLEGED AVATAR

She begins reading more out of curiosity than anything else, but then finds she cannot stop.

A week ago, a man impersonating a member of the White Lotus entered the home of Tonraq and Senna, a married couple in the Southern Water Tribe. Less than an hour later, he left the house with their only daughter and all of her belongings.

The child, a four-year-old girl named Korra, was of the right age and nationality to be the current Avatar. Tonraq had, in fact, corresponded with the White Lotus to alert them of his suspicion that she might be the Avatar. Both parents testified that their child could bend earth and fire as well as her native element water.

The man who came to their home wore a White Lotus uniform, and introduced himself as Lee, claiming to have received the parents' correspondence. The proud parents welcomed him and proceeded to show him their child's prodigious bending abilities.

"Korra had an entire routine planned out, to show how many elements she could bend," Senna later recalled. "She was excited to be the Avatar, and eager to start learning. We thought the White Lotus would help her."

Having confirmed the Avatar's identity, the man called Lee tried to convince the couple to send Korra to meet the rest of the White Lotus.

"We became defensive and suspicious," Tonraq said. "We weren't going to let our daughter go off with a stranger. We wanted to talk about her future, not have it decided for us."

According to the couple's testimony, when they started arguing, they suddenly became dizzy, fainted, and apparently lost consciousness. When they awoke some time later—they estimate it may have been less than an hour, or perhaps several hours—they discovered that Korra was gone.

They enlisted the help of their neighbors, waterbending masters Katara and Kya, who cooperated with the Southern Water Tribe's chieftains and police force to organize search parties for the child. Unfortunately, within a day they established that neither the man nor the child were in the city proper. Chief Sokka informed the White Lotus of the imposture, and requested their help in expanding the search.

Though some White Lotus members remain skeptical of the Avatar's identity, the organization has agreed to search for the missing child, starting in the South and working their way outwards around the globe.

Tonraq is the elder son of the Northern Water Tribe's previous chief, Ramadi. A gifted warrior and general, he was banished from his native tribe seven years ago after inadvertently prompting spirits to attack his home. His younger brother, Unalaq, currently rules the North.

Upon learning of the kidnapping, Chief Unalaq offered his own resources to aid in the now international search.

"I am equally moved by the fact that this child is my niece, as by the fact that she may be the Avatar," he said in a rare press conference.

Despite the shock and heartache they have suffered, Senna and Tonraq appeared adamant in their hope that Korra will be found.

"I'm certain we'll see her again," Tonraq stated.

Master Katara, the widow of Avatar Aang, who found the late Avatar at the end of his hundred-year absence, agreed and added, "It's only a matter of when."

By the time she reads the final words, Korra feels shaken. She almost shivers, despite the library's warmth. She is not sure what to think. If these similarities—name, age, gender, time, and nationality—are just coincidences—that is a terrible amount of coincidences.

Growing up, she sometimes imagined finding her parents, either intentionally or accidentally. There was even a time when she was hyperaware of anyone she could easily recognize as Water Tribe, and glanced furtively at such people's faces, wondering if someday she would spot one that resembled her own.

She could, hypothetically, be this child—except that this child was, according to Senna and Tonraq, the Avatar. A bender. Which she is not.

Doubt gnaws at her from inside. No, something different from doubt—suspicion. She has a very dim memory of crying because she was disappointed that she could not bend at all. She does not remember what Noatak said to her, but she can imagine it, the kind of advice she has given her and his crowds of followers.

She has carried memories of bending, but she always thought that they were long-ago dreams, like nightmares about killing people, doing horrible things, becoming something one fears. Or the kind of dream that inspires guilt upon waking, like a dirty, erotic dream. She pushed away those kinds of dreams, and eventually—usually—forgot them, until or unless something caused her to remember them.

Now, for the first time in over a decade, Korra wonders: what if those were not dreams?

It still seems impossible. If she were a bender, she would have realized it by now. The worst thing about bending is the fact that it cannot always be controlled; that is why bender children pose a threat to non-benders even if they do not intend harm.

On the other hand, she was repulsed by bending from a young age, and she has not tried it since. Come to think of it, is it possible to repress an ability like that? To bury it like a treasure, or a terrible secret, deep within yourself, so that even you cannot access it?

Words come to her mind before the actual decision reaches her conscience: There's only one way to find out.

Korra stands on shaky legs, goes to the bathroom, locks herself in the single stall. This is how bending feels to her: indecent, or precious, enough to not want others to see it.

She puts the toilet lid down and sits on it, trying to collect herself. How to start? She has water and air in this room—but firebending has always mystified her the most. It is the only element whose benders are not limited to its availability in a given environment: they produce it, somehow, seemingly from within themselves. She should have asked Mako how he does it.

She cups her hands together in her lap, as though extending them to hold or receive something. She closes her eyes to concentrate, but then opens them, realizing she should look so as not to accidentally burn herself. Spirits, if Amon knew she was trying this, or even thought she was capable of it …

This is probably why she has never done it. She does not want to know.

And yet … she wants—some part of her feels a need—to know.

Korra pushes away her bad thoughts regarding fire, the thought of her friends' parents' deaths, her memories of burning buildings. She thinks about pleasant forms of fire, trying to picture candlelight and campfires. She starts to feel an almost feverish warmth in her arms, and then she holds out her hand, willing it—

A flame appears, and she can feel it, but the sensation does not burn; it is more like holding something alive, a gentle heartbeat pulsing in her hand. Korra gasps, both in recognition of the sensation—she has done this before—and in realization of what it means.

She is a bender.

Her breathing becomes heavy, and both breathing and bending are suddenly harder; the flame sputters out, and she does not try to sustain it.

Korra leans back on the toilet, trying to think clearly. She checks her hands, making sure they are extinguished, before pressing them against her head, her chest, her stomach.

She is a bender. A firebender. Like the people who killed Asami's mother and Mako and Bolin's parents.

She does not feel self-loathing, at least not as much as she might have if she had not met Mako and Bolin. Now she, too, is proof that not all benders are bad. At least, she does not think she is. But that may only be because she did not grow up bending.

Being a firebender does not necessarily mean she is the Avatar. She would have to be able to bend the other elements, too. The girl in the article was from the Water Tribe, so she would have been a waterbender by birth.

She only debates with herself for a moment, dreading what more she could learn about herself. But then again, now that she has started, there is no going back to ignorance, so she might as well go forward.

Korra clogs the sink drain with toilet paper, and turns on the faucet, letting the basin fill with water. She has dealt with this element far more often than with fire. How many times has she drunk a glass of water, prepared a meal with it, washed her hands with it, swam in it? Surely she would have noticed if she could bend it. But all of her sureness is gone now.

She raises a hand, holds it over the basin, and then brings her fingers together, trying to draw the water together—and a shape, too irregular to be called anything more than an elongated blob, rises up. It shakes just as much as her hand, but Korra keeps it airborne, and then reaches higher, and it follows another inch. Finally she relaxes, letting go of her intense concentration, and the water splashes down into the basin.

Korra has no idea how to bend air, and there is no earth nearby that she can bend, unless she goes outside, which she is certainly not ready to do. But she does not think she needs more confirmation.

She grips the sides of the sink, supporting her weight, and looks from her hands to her reflection in the grimy mirror. Her mind knows the person she is looking at is the Avatar, but all her eyes see is an anxious, bewildered, and—she might as well admit it—frightened teenage girl.

"What did you do?" Korra does not know if she is asking herself or Amon.

She wants to go home, to the familiarity and relative security of her apartment, and forget everything that happened in the past half an hour. But she also wants to look at the article again.

It takes her a minute to compose herself before coming out of the bathroom. She keeps her expression neutral, even though only a few other people pass through this area of the library. She sits down at the table and rereads the article, looking through the lens of her new knowledge. She is that girl. She is the Avatar. She is the daughter of two waterbenders named Senna and Tonraq. She was—kidnapped.

It was that circumstance, being separated from parents at the age of four, that made Korra think it could be her, but her mind pushed aside that circumstance to question whether she could be the Avatar. Now, though, it disturbs her just as severely as the rediscovery of her bending.

She has tried to imagine how it would feel to be a mother, and to be separated from her child. She has imagined her own mother giving her up reluctantly, regretfully, but ultimately of her own free will, knowing that her daughter would be better off being raised by someone else.

Now, Korra imagines having a child, being able to care for it, losing it against her will, not knowing where it was, and never seeing it again. It is beyond her realm of experience, but she guesses it would be unspeakably painful. After nine months of anticipation, the pain of the birth, the joy of the arrival, and four years of living together, to lose her child without any knowledge of its fate—

Korra presses a hand against her mouth, willing herself not to cry, not in this public spot, and not when she most needs to think clearly.

Did Noatak know about her identity when he adopted her? No, he could not have. Why would he want the Avatar, when he is so opposed to bending? It must have been a coincidence … that the leader of the movement to eliminate bending would adopt the greatest promoter of bending …

Or was it not a coincidence? Did he seek out whoever kidnapped her?

Or—the thought comes so suddenly and involuntarily that Korra is shocked by her own ability to create such a hypothesis—could he have done it himself?

WHITE LOTUS IMPOSTOR … introduced himself as Lee, claiming to have received the parents' correspondence …

No. She cannot believe that was him. Amon has authorized kidnappings in the past, but not of innocent people, just of criminals whose power he eliminated. She cannot believe her father would inflict that kind of pain on anyone. He is not that kind of person. He helps people.

There is no reason to think that Noatak is the one who kidnapped her. Whoever took her could have brought her to an orphanage, claiming she had just been found abandoned. That would match the story he has related in bits and pieces over the years.

She cannot ask him about this—she cannot even imagine how she would bring it up in conversation—but she cannot pretend she has not learned anything. Maybe she can find evidence to verify his story—or disprove it, but she hopes that will not happen. She knows where he keeps their most important personal records, locked away in his room for safekeeping. He did not even keep their location a secret from her; that seems to indicate that he has nothing to hide.

Korra puts the clippings back in the file and the file back in its collection. She ignores the new receptionist's friendly farewell as she leaves the library.

Once outside, she steps into the alley between the library and the next building. She crouches close to the ground, touching the stone pavement. Just to be sure she is not mistaken in her identity, she taps the ground with her fingertips, then knocks on it with her knuckles. When that does nothing, she forms a fist and bangs it against the ground, and she thinks she feels something—not movement, but a connection, like becoming conscious of something that was always present but never noticed. Finally, Korra pulls back her fist, and punches down with enough force to break her fingers—but instead the force goes through the stone, and a rectangle of pavement pops up a few feet in front of her.

She does not know how to feel about this confirmation, but however she feels about it, she can no longer harbor doubt about one point: she is the Avatar, and she has to deal with it.

On the way home, Korra catches glimpses of the gargantuan statue on Avatar Aang Memorial Island. She wonders what it means to be the Avatar. She considers the many kinds of social problems that exist, all the tragedies she has read about in the newspapers over the years, in Republic City, the United Republic of Nations, and the whole world. Is she the person who is supposed to be responsible for ending all of them? Does she have that much physical power? Would she have that much political power?

Being the Avatar … might be a good thing, if it means she can make up solutions to problems and people would do what she told them. But do they still respect the Avatar that much? Will they respect her just because of her title, or her (as yet unmastered) powers?

Korra thinks of the many Equalists who held out hope for a new Avatar and gave up that hope after the sixteenth anniversary of Aang's death. They chose to put their faith and hope in Amon instead.

It would be selfish to keep the knowledge to herself. But she cannot reveal herself publicly without drawing attention to her adoptive father. Even if his identity as Amon were kept secret, their being in the public eye would still endanger the Equalists.

She has a strange thought: if she can have such a powerful role in world affairs, maybe the revolution will not be necessary. Maybe she has all the political and physical power necessary to change the government and make peace between benders and non-benders.

The sun is setting when Korra gets home. She finds a note from Noatak on the table: he will be out late, so she should not wait up for him. Part of her is glad, because she does not know if she can face him now, when she feels so clouded by doubt; the rest of her is disappointed, because she wants to start cautiously approaching the subject as soon as possible, to put her mind and heart at ease. Then again, can they ever be at ease again, after learning who she is and what she can do? Even if things do not change from now on, Korra can no longer think about herself, her father, her parents, or the world in the same way as before.

She makes a light dinner, and saves a portion for Noatak to eat when he gets home—if he bothers coming home tonight. He has spent entire nights working, and even keeps cots available in the tunnels for himself and other Equalists to take naps between shifts.

Korra feels too tired to be productive, but too restless to sleep. After washing up and brushing her teeth, she stays in the bathroom and tries bending again. She makes the water slosh in the basin, and manages to pull a little up into the air. She plays with it for a while, and then tries a bolder and more volatile element, conjuring a small fire in her cupped hands. It feels wrong, because she knows Noatak sees it as wrong; but at the same time it gives her the feeling of rebellion that she exalted in when she began Equalist field work. It makes her feel proud and reassured, like she has a gift. Maybe she should not think that way, but it feels better than thinking of it as a burden she has been cursed with carrying.

Not knowing what else to do, Korra goes to bed early, but spends most of the night restlessly shifting positions in her bed. Her thoughts wander to her childhood, to her earliest, fragmented memories of life before coming to Republic City. She remembers snowy terrain, similar to the mountains here, only more level. She has clung to certain memories of her parents, gone over them so many times in her mind that she has wondered whether she fabricated some of them. She remembers their voices, and the feeling of being rocked while wrapped in thick, fuzzy-soft material. She cannot picture their faces clearly; she wishes there had been a photograph with the article about them.

Her memory of the journey to the United Republic of Nations is fuzzy, like a poorly developed photograph; but she definitely remembers Noatak showing her the apartment. She remembers how he stayed up with her after she had nightmares, which lessened in frequency but never completely stopped as she got older. Noatak made her feel safe. Even before he taught her how to defend herself, his very presence assured her that she was not alone. She even got him to sing, something he would never do on his own … but buried beneath the memory of his voice is the memory of a woman singing the same song. Her mother. Senna. Mom.

Music: "All I Ever Wanted" from The Prince of Egypt. Dreams prompt both Korra and Moses (in the movie, not the Bible) to learn the truth about their biological families and the circumstances of their adoptions. The song also kind of alludes to everything Tonraq had and lost as a prince; like Moses, he had to leave his home because of some purported wrongdoing.