PROLOGUE

233 AG

EVEN if it was logical to do things this way, it still felt inefficient.

It was only their second stop, and it would certainly take less time than the previous one had. But Asami couldn't help thinking about how long the whole process had the potential to last. She understood the rationale behind the method just fine and could see how it made sense, but the slowness of it still angered her. The size of the Earth Kingdom didn't help, either. The enormous mass of land wasn't quick to traverse, and they would probably have to do it many times, despite what everyone kept saying. The vastness of the eastern continent spread out underneath them as the two bison flew, carrying the small group of passengers to their next destination. Truth is, Asami wasn't too fond of their plan, no matter how logical it was. She had previously agreed with it back when Mako explained its reasoning, but now she had her doubts. After the three fruitless months they had spent scrutinizing the countless districts of Ba Sing Se, frustration built up in her and the enthusiasm she had felt at first vanished almost completely. This search could end up being the most exhausting thing they had ever done. There were millions of people in the capital, and not one of them was the one they wanted.

And now they were going to the next largest city in the Earth Kingdom to do the whole thing again. How… rudimentary. The new Avatar was statistically (that's the word Mako had used) more likely to have been born in a large city. They had more people, so the odds were better. It was so reasonable and so silly at the same time. Asami liked it less and less the more she thought about it, but she'd be lying if she said that she could think of a better alternative. Leaning against the back of the bison's saddle and using a blanket to cover her body from the neck down, she thought about how discouraging the prospect of searching the world's largest nation was. She had no motivation to participate in the conversation that Mako and Alima were having right in front of her, as the two examined a map and discussed the quickest way to cover ground. She heard in silence as they agreed that the geography of their next stop meant that flying over it like they had in Ba Sing Se would be impractical and then brainstormed possible solutions. To their right, the other bison carried Kai, who held the reins, and Bolin and Opal, who sat on the saddle, the Earthbender having one arm around his wife's shoulder while she rested her head against his chest. Asami had no idea why any of them had come. The plan relied entirely on Jinora.

It was her special abilities that they hoped would lead them to the next Avatar. She was the one that could sense spiritual energy in the air and pinpoint its location. Sitting by herself on her bison's withers, completely alienated from the debate going on behind her, she meditated peacefully holding a blue armband and a polar bear dog leash between her hands like they were pure gemstones. Asami nearly asked Mako and Alima to shut up so she could concentrate. She was the backbone of this search party, so whatever strategy they came up with would be completely useless if they didn't let her do her job. Why were they even there? What could they do besides cheering Jinora on? What contribution could they, or Bolin and Opal, or Kai, or even Asami herself make that would actually be of any benefit? All of them were well past their prime; they were just a bunch of old people thinking they were still young and useful. The whole plan was so stupid.

Asami closed her eyes, feeling the build-up of anger in her chest. It wasn't like her to allow frustration to turn into bitterness this way; she had always been patient. But this situation was different. To say the least, it was atypical. They were looking for the person that would take up a role that had belonged to someone they cared about, someone Asami cared about. Their search hadn't produced any results yet, but it had made one thing crystal clear.

She hadn't moved on from Korra's death yet. She thought she had, but having to find her replacement rubbed salt in a wound that had never fully closed. It didn't matter that six years had passed. That still wasn't okay. As soon as it happened, her friends had surrounded her from all sides, showering her with love and support in the immediate aftermath. But as the months and the years passed, everyone started to move on. Everyone except her, of course. More than once, she had felt indignation at that fact. How could they? It was like they didn't love her.

But she would always rebuke herself for thinking that. She knew that wasn't fair, and she also knew that Korra wouldn't have wanted her to feel that way about the friends they both cherished so much. Hadn't they stood by her side through thick and thin, taking part in her battles, helping her up in defeat and sharing her joy in victory? Hadn't they been the support she and Asami needed when the nasty critics had decried what they had as vulgar? Hadn't they been a true family for so many years? Weren't they here now, despite the fact that only one of them had the powers necessary, just to be by her side? Didn't they all have families of their own? Besides, weren't they dealing with their own losses as well?

Mako's voice brought her back to reality.

"Asami? Are you okay?"

She opened her eyes and saw him looking at her. Alima was now at the front of the bison, showing something to Jinora on the map. Mako's face, wrinkled for many reasons - being in his eighties, the hardship of the years after Korra's death, decades of near-constant frowning - showed genuine concern. Asami regretted her moment of ungratefulness. How could she have failed to appreciate the fact that her friends were still there next to her after all this time? She looked at Mako and tried to imagine what it must be like for him, given what he had lost. Without Korra, the world had turned into a darker place, but Mako had been hit especially hard. Nevertheless, he was there. He couldn't sense spiritual energy, but he couldn't stay home either.

She smiled at him. "I'm fine. I was just resting."

He seemed satisfied with her answer and joined Jinora and Alima. Asami calmed herself down. She drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, repeating the process a few times as the rarefied air gave her little oxygen. She started thinking clearly again. The friends she and Korra had shared so many memories with over the years and the daughter they had adopted and raised together were still there for them. No, she wasn't angry at her friends or at the plan they had come up with. Nor was she upset that soon someone new would be called Avatar. So what if that role could be passed on? The Avatar may not be unique, but Korra most certainly had been. Uniquely hers. Asami's heart filled up with gratitude again. The thought comforted her as the magnificent silhouette of Omashu formed on the horizon.

-/-/-

GETTING inside the city hadn't been difficult, especially after the guards at the gates heard the last names Sato and Beifong. The unforeseen consequence of that was that the governor was informed of their arrival and requested their presence, in an attempt to both demonstrate Earth Kingdom hospitality and get a picture of himself shaking hands with a member of the most distinguished family in the nation. Dragging her husband with her, a sighing Opal left for the palace and promised to entertain the politician so the rest of the group could go on with the search undisturbed. Kai also stayed behind, tasking himself with finding a stable where the bison could rest and be fed.

In their eagerness to help, Mako and Alima unleashed a barrage of unsolicited advice for Jinora on the best spot to sense the spiritual energy signature that only the Avatar could emit. Someplace high, someplace crowded, someplace central, they said, having no idea how those things worked. The airbending master gently turned them down, saying that she just needed a quiet place to concentrate. Alima promptly found the best spa in the city and paid an unreasonable amount of money to rent an entire section of it, complete with a secluded outdoor garden and pond. The sounds of the metropolis outside couldn't reach them, replaced by birds chirping and water running. Jinora sat on the grass and began meditating. Unable to provide any further help, the rest of the group sat on a nearby bench at a certain distance and observed. Asami was a lot calmer now, Mako and Alima were the ones fidgeting.

If they failed again, Zaofu would be their next stop, then Gaoling, and so on, moving down the list of the most populous cities in the Kingdom until they found the next Avatar. But if that didn't work, they would have a huge problem on their hands. There was no way their small group could search all the towns and villages in the country. Many of them weren't large enough to feature on most maps. Some of them were so small they didn't even have names. What would they do if it came to that? Ask for help? That wasn't an option. In fact, that had been one of Korra's requests.

The White Lotus and the Earth Kingdom authorities had put together a joint task force, with hundreds of members, that was also scouring the continent for the Avatar. The best sages and gurus the nation had to offer were acting as its advisors, and Asami heard they were even accepting applications from bending masters of all four nations that wished to become the new Avatar's instructors. In fact, it was thanks to this that they were able to conduct their own search with the discretion Korra wanted. It was a shame they would waste so much time and money looking just to come up empty-handed, but that was for the best. Korra didn't want the White Lotus to find her successor, because look what happened last time. There were literal terrorists infiltrated right under their noses who nearly took her life. The disproportionate reaction that followed meant that she spent her formative years basically behind bars, so much so that when she first went to Republic City, she was almost as naive as when she was a precocious little girl that figured out by herself that water, rocks, and flames all submitted to her will. The next Avatar wouldn't have to go through that. They would have a normal childhood and wouldn't be informed of their status until their sixteenth birthday. The task force may very well spend years on a wild goose chase, completely unaware that using Avatar Kyoshi's old belongings would never trigger anyone's memories because a new cycle had begun. That didn't matter. Korra wanted her successor to be found by family.

After a surprisingly small amount of time passed, Jinora stood up with a calmness that Asami didn't think seemed promising. She expected her to say that the place was so devoid of spiritual energy that the Avatar was probably on the other side of the continent. But maybe Airbenders just had a different way of conveying excitement, because what she said was, "This is definitely the place."

"What? Where?" Alima exclaimed, jumping to her feet and almost sprinting to Jinora's side.

"How do you know?" Mako asked, also standing up and heading toward them, albeit at a slower speed than Alima.

"I had been feeling stronger energy since we were on the bison, but I didn't say anything because I wanted to be sure. Now I am. The Avatar is here."

Bingo. Asami had previously brought her expectations down a little bit, thinking that it would be way too convenient for Korra's successor to be in a large city and that they'd never be that lucky. But apparently Mako's numeric method was indeed faster.

"Can you take us to where they are?" Alima asked.

"Let's find out," Jinora answered, her serenity unshaken. Asami theorized that she had to maintain that calm demeanour in order to not perturb the spiritual vibrations or whatever it was that she could feel and they couldn't. As long as it helped. She told Mako and Alima to give her some room. All they needed to do now was follow her, and they would find the Avatar. The thought gave Asami goose bumps, and she was relieved to notice that they were the good kind. Jinora walked out onto the street and the other three followed her, exchanging thrilled looks.

"How are you feeling?" Mako asked, touching Asami's shoulder. "This is it."

She smiled and nodded, accepting his hug and reciprocating it. Alima was a few steps ahead of them, right next to Jinora, resisting the urge to tell her to walk faster. The airbending master, absolutely indifferent to Alima's impatience, made her way through the streets untroubled, following an invisible path that only she could sense. Asami remembered the promise they had made to Korra, how they said they would find her successor and do right by them. They had never been so close to fulfilling it as they were now. The adrenaline rushing through Asami's veins started to give birth to an emotion she didn't recognize at first.

Jinora took a sharp turn to the right, leading the group to a humble and relatively quiet street, shadowed by larger structures both above and below it on the mountain side. Between two small buildings, there was an alley no one would have seen if Jinora hadn't pointed it out. At the end of it, there was a passage, an opening into the heart of the mountain. The entrance, not more than two metres high and just barely wide enough to fit two people side by side, seemed unmemorable, but as the group got closer, following Jinora's lead, they heard voices coming from inside. Without any hesitation, the Airbender went in. That passage might as well have been a portal.

Inside, crude facades emerged from the bare rock, which had been earthbent into windows and doors that led to makeshift houses. There were people living in there. Omashu's unusual architecture meant that there was limited space on the sloping mountainside. In order to circumvent this problem, the government had ordered some planned incursions into the interior of the mountain, with the opening of tunnels and passageways where more stores and even a few houses could be built. They connected to strategic streets and avenues in order to allow some measure of sunlight to come in at certain times of the day. This was not one of those places. This was the result of people that were just desperate to not be completely unsheltered.

As they progressed deeper and deeper into the artificial cave, the limited circulation made the air stale, thick and almost unbearably hot. The only signs that those people hadn't been completely ignored by the official authorities were a few ventilation fans precariously installed on the ceiling. They worked at full capacity, doing their best to save the people beneath them from asphyxiation. Mako pointed out that the tunnel was slightly tilted upward, probably to keep floods from being another one of those people's many challenges. Glowing crystals placed on evenly-spaced poles tried to provide light, but they were insufficient. Ba Sing Se had the Lower Ring and Republic City had its suburbs, but Omashu hid its poor people by literally stuffing them into the earth.

The narrowness of the tunnel meant that the constructions on both sides almost touched each other, its inhabitants having little to no privacy. The light from the sun was now a distant memory, a bright spot behind them that hinted at the existence of an outside world. The kids that played on the alley didn't care that they could barely see the ball or each other. They shot curious and half-scared glances at the group, making room and whispering to one another that this one was an Airbender and that one kind of looks like he might be a Firebender.

"How many people live down here?" Mako asked.

"A couple hundred, at least. Maybe even a thousand or so," Alima answered. "And I know this is not the only entrance like this in the city."

"This is where the new Avatar lives?" he wondered out loud.

Behind them, the kids resumed their play while Jinora led the group further and further inside the cave. Asami thought that this place had to have been dug in a hurry, because a few metres ahead of them the tunnel just ended, abruptly marking the end of human penetration into the eons-old mountain. The constructors had either given up on the project halfway through or simply forgotten that fresh air needed to flow from the outside. Desperation does that. Suddenly, Jinora stopped.

"What's the matter?" Alima asked her.

"The energy is weaker here. But it was strong a few seconds ago, I think we must have passed the spot."

They turned around but before they could take one step in the opposite direction, a ball hit Mako in the stomach with full force. The old man bent over coughing while Asami helped him. "Watch it!" Alima shouted to the kids, who had already begun scampering, each one running to their respective house, literally disappearing inside the houses carved into pure stone. Except one.

Having been abandoned by all his friends, a single boy was left standing there on the dark street, his face contorted like he knew he had gotten in trouble. But he didn't run to his house. Instead, he came closer. His sleeveless shirt and his shorts had once been green, but were now completely worn. Walking barefoot, he approached the adults, bowed out of respect and fear and said, almost inaudibly, "I'm sorry."

"You need to be more careful," Alima said to him as Mako regained his composure and assured Asami that he was fine.

"Are you okay, sir?" the little boy asked. "I didn't mean for the ball to hit you, it was an accident."

"What?" shouted a female voice behind them. The group turned around and saw a woman at the only window of the very last house in the tunnel, the one contiguous with the untouched rock that still hadn't been dug through. She went back inside and soon after emerged from the front door, marching in their direction.

Asami saw that the boy was now even more embarrassed, trying to shrink himself, and deduced that the woman was his mother, although she looked like she was just barely into her twenties. She reached them and said to Mako, "Sir, I'm sorry about my son. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, ma'am, don't worry," he replied, now able to stand straight again, but with his voice still hoarse. "No need for concern."

"Navid! Did you say 'I'm sorry' to the man?" she asked the kid.

"He did. Right away," Mako said, answering for the boy and accepting his mother's many apologies, although Alima didn't miss the opportunity to tell her that her uncle could have been seriously hurt. Asami, however, noticed that Jinora wasn't participating in the conversation.

Paralyzed, she stared at the boy and tried to disguise her grin. When her eyes met Asami's, she smiled and nodded discreetly, pointing to him with her eyes and Asami just knew. She wanted to see him more closely, but he was looking at the ground in shame, as he was made to apologize once again for the incident. She kneeled.

"Hey, little guy," she said in the friendliest way she could. "It's okay. We know you didn't do it on purpose." He didn't reply, trying to hide behind his mother's legs instead. "Don't worry, you're not in trouble. My name is Asami."

"Navid, the lady is talking to you," his mother said. "Don't be rude, answer her."

"Nice to meet you, ma'am," he said, just loud enough to be heard.

"You too, Navid," she continued. "How old are you?"

"Six."

He was tall for his age. Asami looked up at her friends. By now, Jinora had already signalled to Mako and Alima that it was him and they also stared at the scene, jaws dropped. Asami reached inside her bag and pulled out Korra's favourite armband. She showed it to him and looked for signs of recognition on his face.

"Do you know what this is, Navid?" she asked him. The boy looked up at his mother like it was a trick question.

"Ma'am, I know what you're doing, we've already done this," his mother suddenly said.

"Excuse me?" Asami asked, not sure what she meant.

"Some people went to his school the other day and did the test with him. He's not the Avatar," she explained. "I know he's the right age, but, it's not him."

Oh, right. The White Lotus had been here already. Good, Asami thought. In a way, it was a blessing that his mother had been convinced it wasn't him. That would keep them both safe until he reached the right age.

Asami did her best to play it cool and said she understood. She was about to put the armband back in her bag when the boy touched her arm and said, "Can I have it? Please?"

He was now looking directly at Asami's eyes and she got a good look at him for the first time. His thin face now had a pleading expression, but she tried to imagine him smiling and thought that he must be a very cute little boy. The insufficient light didn't allow her to discern many of his features, but his green eyes were clearly visible, almost bright enough to cast light upon his brown skin and hair.

"Navid, don't ask the lady for her things!" his mother exclaimed.

"No, it's… it's okay," Asami said. "Do you want it?" He nodded. "You can have it. It's yours."

And then Asami got to see it. He smiled. While he took the armband from her hand and enthusiastically said "thank you", his face illuminated in an adorable smile that confirmed Asami's theory that he was indeed an adorable kid. One that she hoped would also be a good Avatar someday. She got one last look at him and felt peace. The kind she hadn't felt in six years.

Mako took over the exchange of pleasantries for her, apologizing to the boy's mother for taking her time and wishing her a good day. As the two headed back to their house at the end of a dark tunnel, Asami watched them and felt her eyes welling up. The boy, still young enough to be completely unbothered by this precarious place, would get the privilege of a normal childhood, something the two previous Avatars hadn't enjoyed. Just like Asami had promised Korra. She had found her successor, and he was safe, and he would be left alone for another ten years.

As the group headed out back into the sunlight, Alima briefly questioned the wisdom of letting him grow up in this godforsaken slum while they went back to their comfortable homes in Republic City, but she was outvoted. He wouldn't be the first Avatar to come from humble origins. Besides, there were ways of keeping a distant eye on him without interfering directly, just to be safe. And who knows? Maybe that would eventually turn out to be for the best.

The rest of the group was delighted to hear about the news. Kai proposed a celebratory dinner, while Bolin and Opal rushed to the phone to tell their grandson the location of his future pupil. Watching her friends overflow with joy, Asami was finally able to identify the emotion she had been feeling. Closure. Now that she had done what Korra needed her to, her heart was ready to feel peace again. She realized that this emotion right here was what people called moving on.