Hey guys, I'm back with a new chapter. This one's a touch shorter and a little filler, but it's still a chapter all the same:
Cold. That was absolutely the most basic way to describe the Northern Water Tribe. A deep, bone chilling cold that lasted all year round. Of course things like snow and ice didn't help matters. In fact they only contributed to the cold. It didn't help that all the buildings and structures of the Northern City were build from the ice, making it so that it almost seemed impossible to escape the frigid temperatures.
The people though, they were warm and friendly enough that it almost made the cold bearable. A lot had changed since the end of the war. Women were now on equal footing with men, just like in their sister tribes to the south. Technology had improved somewhat, with electrical lighting being installed and buildings made out of actual building material were starting to be constructed.
Running it all was a man called Unalaq. Northern Chief, Spiritual Expert, and uncle of the Avatar were a few of the titles he held. Unfortunately, he was also a grade A stick in the mud and all around slimy asshole. If he wasn't looking down upon your existence, or trying to woo you with sweet honeyed words, he'd already stuck a knife in your back.
Which was exactly why I didn't even bother landing Ashe in the city. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with Unalaq or his ilk. I'd had my fair share during my thirteen year search for the Red Lotus, and frankly I would rather let him grow old and die before setting foot in the same city as him again. That's a perk of being a quasi immortal; don't like someone? Just wait for them to die. You'll get the last laugh every time.
We landed on the glaciers above the City, using a storm to hide our presence. I patted Ashe on the side as she hunkered down, her wings over her like a black leather tent. She simply looked at me and let steam flow from her nostrils. Dragons could withstand extreme cold, but they preferred warmer climates. It was clear she wanted to leave, and quickly.
Korra and I began to scale our way down the ice wall to the Spirit Oasis, with her mainly using her airbending to gently glide us down. We were both dressed in heavy parkas with the hoods up. In reality we looked more like thieves rather then pilgrims trying to reach the spring unnoticed. Once we reached the bottom, Korra went to work right away, stripping off her coat and other clothing as she made her way to the pool.
The Spirit Oasis hadn't changed one bit since the war. It was like someone had stopped the march of time. The only things that were moving it seemed were the twin koi fish in the pool, circling each other in their eternal dance.
"Are you ready for this?" I asked. This was it. Our long, globe trotting journey was almost at an end.
"Are you sure today is the best day to do it?" she asked.
"It's the solstice today. The lines between worlds are blurred. If we're ever going to get things done, today's the day to do it," I said. Korra looked from me to the pool before her before taking a breath.
"I'm ready," she answered before stripping down to her bindings and wading to the center of the pool, standing in the middle of the circling koi. She closed her eyes and folded her hands together in a meditative form.
"The Water Chakra deals with pleasure, and is blocked by guilt. Forgive yourself for mistakes you have made, and then hurl yourself at all of your past lives. Break down the barrier and access yourself fully," I instructed. Korra took a long, deep breath. In thru the nose, out thru the mouth. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the Avatar's body shot straight down into the pool, and she vanished without even a single splash. I had no choice but to wait for her to return. Things could go horribly wrong if I tried to intervene.
You might be wondering why we were back to using this method, and not using the orb we'd used like last time. There's a couple reasons. First, I didn't trust the damn thing as far as I could throw it. If it actually was a piece of Xian's Hong, and I still wasn't fully convinced it was, there was no telling what it could do. Second, people would be after the thing if they found out what it could do. The Hong Legend aside, if people learned about an object that could restore or possibly even bestow bending on someone, they'd stop at nothing to get their hands on it. As far as I was concerned, the longer it stayed hidden, the easier our lives would be.
The pool flared with a bright blue light from it's depths. Then the water in the ring that surrounded the small pool shot skyward. It rose about ten feet or so in the air before freezing solid. That same glow illuminated from the ice wall that surrounded me as I looked around in awe. Then, just as quickly as it had rose up, the light in the ice faded, and the ice itself melted.
Korra exploded from the center of the pool, her mouth sucking in air as she broke the surface. Water flew everywhere as she stood to her full height and raised her arms. A pillar of water surrounded her and lifted her upward. I took several steps back as she opened her eyes, revealing the white glow of the Avatar State. One by one, she bent each of the four elements. Air, Fire, Earth, and Water.
I couldn't help but smile with pride as I watched this unfold. She had done it, she had reclaimed all the elements and unlocked the Avatar State. Korra lowered herself back into the pool and the glow faded from her eyes. I caught her as she stumbled a little and almost fell.
"Well done, Avatar Korra," I said with pride. She looked up at me with a tired smile before kissing me gently.
"I couldn't have done it without you," she said as she bent the water off of herself before getting dressed again. I just smiled as I waited for her to finish. A very long and difficult task was finally done. I didn't really care who was responsible, just that it was in fact finished.
"How far back did you go?" I asked.
"To the beginning. A firebender, Wan, he was the first Avatar," Korra answered. Ah yes, the first Avatar. I'd heard and seen his name referenced a few times in my years, but I had never gotten his full story. What little there was, the details were mutteled at best. Granted this was to be expected from a story that was thousands of years old. But that didn't make it any less frustrating.
"I've heard the name," I noted.
"You have?" she asked, her eyebrows going up in surprise. I made an iffy motion with my hand.
"Kind of. The details are…skewed at best," I answered.
"So what's the plan now?" Korra asked. As I began to answer, I felt the hair on my neck stand on end. My hand fell to my sword hilt as I slid into a stance, suddenly on point. Korra's hand also went to her sword, ready to face whatever threat was about to descend upon us even if she didn't know what was happening.
Several men wearing blue uniforms suddenly appeared, their arms held in bending ready stances. They completely surrounded us, forcing Korra and I to stand back to back. These guys were soldiers from the Northern Army which meant…
"Avatar Korra, welcome to the Northern Water Tribe," Unalaq said as he stepped through the entrance to the Oasis. Oh great, just what we needed.
You know, if there's anything I've learned in all my years, it's that people are assholes. People in positions of power? They a special kind of asshole. Then there's the level of commitment to the art style that Unalaq rests on. A high and mighty sense of superior righteousness that seriously needed to be culled with a fist to the face. Not that it would do any good in the long run.
I found myself separated from Korra and seated in a military interrogation room. My sword had been taken from me, although I had been left out of chains. There were two waterbending guards in the room with me, however, to dissuade me from doing anything rash. Technically I wasn't under arrest, but I wasn't free to go either. I was in some kind of legal limbo as I waited for something to happen. Eventually I got board, leaned back in my seat and started counting the lines on the ceiling. That is, until the door to the room swung open to reveal the Chief of the North himself.
"If I recall, my last words to you were an order to leave the Water Tribe and never return," he said, his voice as cold as the air outside.
"As I remember, mine to you were something along the lines of 'cold meat helps the swelling better than ice'. How's the eye, Chief?" I asked, shooting him an amused glance. Unalaq's glare, however, was anything but.
"You have the gaul to dare set foot in my city, after everything you've done…"
"I haven't done anything to you or your precious Northern Water Tribe," I interrupted.
"You have been in conference with things beyond your understanding," he countered, stepping forward and grabbing my left hand before holding it up to show me the Mark that was there. Ah yes, the Observer's Mark. A small little cut on the back of my hand for which the Spiritually attuned Chief before me had done nothing but ridicule for the last fourteen years or so.
"You still haven't learned how to mind your own business," I countered as I yanked my hand free of his grasp.
"Matters of heresy are my business."
"Only if that matter is conducted by members of the Northern Water Tribe, of which I am not. Now, if you are quite done making a fool of yourself, I'll take my belongings and my companion and be on my way," I said.
"I see nothing has changed. You're still as ignorant as ever," he said with a huff.
"And you're still a self entitled ass, but honestly which one of us is keeping track?" Unalaq pursed his lips, but otherwise didn't reply. Instead he went to the room's entrance and opened the door.
"You may do what you wish with him, I have no further use," he said to someone outside before stepping out himself. Stepping into the cell was a rather large and well built man with white hair that was pulled back into a pony tail. A rather nasty scar ran down his left cheek, and his face was slightly aged and rough. He was dressed in a variant of a Water Tribe uniform with a brown leather chest piece covering his torso. On his hip rested a highly decorated, gold plated Jian sword.
"Do you know who I am?" he asked as he crossed his arms. His voice was deep and rough. I blinked once in order to hide the shock of me recognizing it.
"Yusei," I answered, my face remaining stoic as I studied him.
"How very perceptive of you, Ryou of Kento," he said.
"There hasn't been a Kento for hundreds of years. They call it Kyoshi now," I said.
"Hm, forgive me. Names change so often it's hard to keep track," he said.
"What is it you want?" I asked, deciding to cut right to the point.
"Ah. Such a simple question, for which so many complex answers exist. I suppose the simplest and broadest answer I could give you would be this; I want the survival and prosperity of Creation to continue, as it did in the ages long since past," he answered. I studied him as he paced back and forth before me. He wasn't like the others, he carried himself differently.
He walked like I did, under the weight of having lived far longer then he should have.
"How old are you?" I asked. He paused in his pacing and looked back at me curiously.
"Why do you ask?"
"So I can better understand your answer."
"I am not sure you would believe me," he said.
"You referred to me by the old name of my home. You know how old I am. Try me," I challenged.
"Around ten thousand. You know how it is. Over time it gets more difficult to track an exact age."
"So when you say you want things as they were in the past, you mean the distant past, in the era before the Avatar," I pressed.
"That is what I mean," he confirmed. I frowned at this. Very little documentation has survived from the past era. What few texts and legends that we had all indicated the same thing; the era before the Avatar was a horrible time for humanity.
"You could join me, you know. Help me return this world to it's natural state," he offered.
"And what? Undo ten thousand years of human progress? No thanks," I said.
"Progress?" he asked before turning to face me fully, "you call this progress? Humanity has done nothing but fight wars and ravage the world for it's resources. It's not better, it's worse."
"Worse? Ten thousand years ago humanity was cowering in the mud, living in fear of everything around it. You'd sacrifice everything to return to that level of ignorance?" I asked.
"You and I have lived longer than anyone else. You've seen the folly of man. One generation after the next, it's all the same. More corruption, more fighting, more death. We have a chance to break the cycle, Ryou. A chance to begin again. Please, join me," he said before offering his hand. I've seen extremists before. They come in all shapes, sizes, and causes. But this man, he took the cake.
He wasn't just someone who had a dream. If what he said about his age was true, that meant he had actually lived in and seen the type of world he wanted. This guy actually wanted to return mankind to a time of fear and ignorance, all to make the world a better place. It was a concept I found mind boggling, and wolf bat shit insane.
"I think," I said as I stood, "I will take my things and go."
"Go?" he asked, visibly stunned at my answer.
"Yes, go. As in head out, move on," I elaborated.
"But…"
"Listen, Yusei. I'm not one to interfere with the affairs of others. If you want to try and take down civilization with the world's fourth largest army, be my guest, I won't try to stop you. But if you come after that which I love, I promise, you'll find that sweet, sweet death we both know you've been looking for," I promised. Both he and the guards stood there and watched with their mouths agape as I causally walked out of the room as if I owned the place. I went to the admission desk and got my sword hilt back before I set off to find where Korra was. After about fifteen minutes of asking several different people and checking different rooms I finally found her.
She was seated in Unalaq's private office with a passive expression on her face. Both Unalaq and her were seated in large leather arm chairs before a rather large fireplace. On the floor between them was a platypus bear rug. Unalaq himself was in the middle of telling some sort of tale involving Spirits, something about the need to open a portal or something.
"Let's go," I said, motioning to Korra to follow me. Unalaq, like his men, was gaping at me. Korra used this chance to flash me a grateful smile before she stood and followed me out of the room. At the door, she turned back to the Northern Chief.
"Thank you, Uncle. I found your knowledge on the Spirits to be enlightening," she said before giving a respectful bow and walking out of the room. It wasn't until we were outside of the building that we started to talk.
"So, the office treatment, huh? What was he trying to get out of you?" I asked.
"Something about needed to open a pair of Spirit Portals in order to restore some spiritual balance and stop some attacks that have been happening," she explained.
"It's the solstice. Spirit attacks are common around the solstice," I said.
"Which was what I said. He looked a little surprised. I don't think he was expecting me to know as much as I do about Spirits," she said. I hummed in response as we walked. Mainly I was pondering what those two could have been up to. Unalaq had stated that he wanted to bring some attacks to a stop, so his intentions were implied to be honorable. But Yusei had outright said he wanted to bring civilization crashing down.
That meant that either the white haired man was manipulating the Northern Chief, or Unalaq's intentions were far more sinister than he was letting on.
"What are you thinking?" she asked when she noticed the look on my face.
"We need to put as much distance as we can between ourselves and this place as quickly as we can," I answered.
"You think my uncle is up to something?"
"I'm not sure. Not yet anyway. His advisor is, I know that for certain."
"So you think he's manipulating Unalaq."
"That, or they're working together. Either way, it's best we put some distance between us and them before they get and rash ideas," I said. Now Korra was giving me a doubtful look.
"You really think Unalaq would try something against me? I'm the Avatar, and you, you're not only my instructor but my lover as well. The other nations would be up in arms if he tried anything against us. I think you're getting paranoid in your old age," she said.
"Perhaps. But none of the other nations know we're here," I pointed out. To the outside world, we'd gone down the rabbit hole somewhere in the Earth Kingdom, and had yet to come out again. Unalaq could very easily arrest us and hold us here for months before anyone realized something was wrong.
As if to prove my point, the moment we stepped outside of the building, we were surrounded by soldiers who had their hands in bending ready stances. Korra instantly stood with her back to mine, her own hands falling into a stance. I placed my hand on my sword hilt, but didn't draw it in order to keep from being cut down where I stood.
"By order of Chief Unalaq, you two are under arrest," the leader of the soldiers said.
"I don't want to say I told you so…but…" I said over my shoulder. Korra huffed a grunt, but otherwise remained silent and on point. I didn't even bother waiting on a response as I pressed my upper teeth into my bottom lip and blew a high pitched whistle. For a moment, the sound echoed off of the buildings, but then it faded into an awkward silence.
"What good did that do?" the leader asked. As if to answer him, a distant roar echoed off of the buildings. The soldiers looked from us to the sky, trying to locate the source of the noise.
"You haven't been to the big city, have you? That's the noise you make when you're trying to get a taxi," I said.
"Idiot, there are no taxis out here."
"Well lucky for me, I know something that does better in a pinch," I said. With that, Ashe landed on top of the leader and a few others around them, smashing them flat into the snow underfoot. She let out a massive roar, baring her teeth at the remaining troops, who had taken several steps backward out of surprise and fear. Korra and I wasted no time in hurrying forward and climbing onto the black dragon's back.
Realizing that we were getting away, the troops began to advance. One of them made the mistake of throwing an ice spike at us. Korra easily caught it and turned it to steam with her own bending. But the damage had already been done. Ashe opened her maw and unleashed a powerful stream of fire, enveloping the remaining troops with ease. In an instant, they were reduced from men at the ready to shambling pillars of fire.
Without waiting to see what she had accomplished, Ashe cut off the stream of fire before forcing herself into the air with a powerful downward thrust from her wings. We circled over the scene once before angling southward, back toward warmer regions. Unalaq wouldn't send anyone else after us. At least, not from his main military anyway. By the time he'd be able to muster anyone, we'd be back in Earth Kingdom or United Republic territory.
Assassins though, they'd be a problem if we weren't careful.
"Well. That didn't quite go over like I thought it would," Korra said.
"We'll need to be careful. Unalaq won't take this slight against him laying down," I warned.
"So what do we do?"
"Be ready for anything," I answered.
And cut. That's it for both this chapter and Korra restoring her bending arc. Next, we're moving on into the events around Harmonic Convergence. Remember to read, review, drop a PM, or leave a question or ten and as always, I'll see you all next time.