"I can't believe you can transform three different things! Mako and I can only do one each."
Korra crinkled up her nose at Bolin's statement. "I like 'bending' so much more than… 'transforming.' You're not really changing what the material is, you know, you're just—twisting, shaping, bending it to your will."
Bolin just waved her off. "So, this mysterious act of delinquency you committed at your last school…?"
Korra rubbed the back of her neck and looked back out at the lake to avoid Bolin's eyes. "I was trying to sneak a blunt in the art room, but, uh… particles in the air, probably leftover from some adhesive spray, caught fire when I tried to light up." She snapped her fingers to demonstrate before remembering that Mako was apparently a firebender, so Bolin was probably used to that trick. "They think I was messing around with the kiln and blew it up on purpose."
Bolin gasped dramatically. "That's ridiculous! Why couldn't it have been an accident?"
Korra shrugged, absentmindedly sending a stone out to skip across the lake. "After flooding the girls' bathroom twice and catching a bush outside on fire, I can understand why they would think I was doing it all on purpose." She shook her head as memories of her old schools floated through her head. Even her so-called "friends" had all eventually turned on her and didn't believe that her "accidents" were actually accidents. "It's just something I have to learn to control more."
"Oh, yeah, Mako really has to work on his anger, too. I've tried to give him some relaxation techniques, but he won't listen to me." Bolin shrugged. "I can't even imagine having to control all that power, though. It's hard for me just to control my earth powers."
Korra cocked an eyebrow. "From what I've seen, you're pretty good." She could have sworn she saw his eyes light up animatedly from the compliment.
"Thank you, so much! I've never really had anybody around to tell me that, before." He kicked a couple of stones into the air and sent them sailing across the water. His tone fell a bit flat as he spoke, making Korra watch his face concernedly. "Our dad was a…. earthbender, as you like to call it. Mom was a firebender. They taught us the basics and made sure we knew that we couldn't tell anybody about our powers. But…" His lip wobbled, and Pabu immediately crawled his way into Bolin's arms. "They were killed in a car accident back when I was fourteen. Mako and I ended up in an orphanage for a year or so. Man," he chuckled, "he worked his butt off for me. Got so busy working so that we could live decently in our own place that he fell behind in school. That's why he's in our year.
"Before we ever got emancipated or whatever though, these really great people showed up to take us in. I remember the first night they told Mako to quit his jobs." Bolin squeezed Pabu tighter to his chest. Korra's heart ached at the tremor in the boy's voice. "That was the first time I had ever seen him cry since before Mom and Dad died. But it was of relief, you know? We were finally safe. We could stop fighting for ourselves. All the money he made is in a savings account to help us with college. It's been growing interest ever since, and I've never seen Mako happier than when he finally got to be on the lacrosse team." He had a dreamy smile across his face that made Korra smile as well.
After Bolin wiped the tears from his eyes, Korra spoke up. "Thanks for sharing that with me, Bo. It means a lot."
Bolin shrugged. "You shared with me. Plus, our biggest secrets have been revealed to each other," he laughed. "Now there's nothing we can't tell each other!"
Korra chuckled a bit awkwardly, rubbing the back of her neck again. "I can think of a few things I don't really want to know about you, but the sentiment was nice."
"Thank you, thank you. I aim to entertain."
"No, dude, trust me," Bolin said into his phone, winking at Korra repeatedly, "I know you wanna go home, but you gotta come down to the lake first…. Because there's something you have to see! I promise, it's super-important! Five minutes, tops…. Well, I'm not coming up to the parking lot until you come see this, so I'll see you soon, bye!" He hung up quickly before returning his full attention to Korra. "He'll be down soon!"
Korra suddenly felt uneasy at the aspect of Mako joining them at the lake, especially if it was so that she could show off her bending. She still couldn't really believe that there were other people like her in existence, let alone that she had found two and befriended one.
"He won't, like, freak out or anything, right?" she asked nervously.
Bolin chuckled. "Nah," he said with a nonchalant wave of his hand, "at least… I don't think so? Oh, hey, speak of the devil!"
"Okay, Bolin, what is so important that I—oh. Hey, Korra." Mako's eyebrows (distinguishably formed, Korra noticed, despite his just coming from lacrosse practice) furrowed curiously. "What's going on?"
"Okay!" Bolin was bouncing excitedly on his toes. "So, first off, we're giving Korra a ride home today—but! You won't mind, because of this!" He dramatically waved his hands in Korra's direction, coughing when she didn't move at all.
"Oh, right," she stammered with a blush, turning so that Mako couldn't see her face. Now facing the lake, she performed the same trick she had initially done for Bolin, but ended it by engulfing the chosen stone within a bubble of water and carrying it back to drop on the grass in front of them.
When she turned back around, Mako was staring at her blankly, his mouth hanging slightly open. A few long seconds passed without him saying anything, so Bolin intervened. "She can even do fire, too!" He nodded encouragingly at her.
"Oh, yeah," she stuttered again, feeling like a broken record. She hurriedly snapped her fingers, but in her nervousness created much too big a flame. She leaped back, and the fire extinguished from her palm. She could feel her face burning bright red, now, completely embarrassed by her lack of control.
"Uh… Korra?" Bolin said uneasily. He was pointing above her head.
She had lit one of the branches of the nearby tree on fire. Cursing under her breath, she hurriedly bent as much water as she could grab out of the lake and tossed it up to douse the burning branch. As soon as this was done, however, there was gasping and spluttering to her left.
She had tossed the water onto Mako.
"I am so sorry!" she exclaimed. She looked desperately at Bolin for help, but he was only trying not to burst out in laughter. "I—I'm sorry! You don't have to give me a ride home, okay, I'm sorry, I'll just walk. I'm sorry!"
She started to speed-walk back toward the parking lot, but Mako called, "Wait!" and grabbed her arm as she passed.
She froze, afraid to look at him. "I'm sorry—I promise, I won't tell anyone about you and Bolin, I know how to keep a secret—"
"Where did you learn all of that?" Mako interrupted incredulously. "How can you transform three elements? Who taught you?"
When Korra finally looked up at Mako, there was pure glee in his eyes. She couldn't help but smile.
Korra went to bed extremely pleased that night. The day had turned out much better than she had originally expected it to—she had gotten closer to Bolin, and now had something to bond over with Mako, as well. They even offered to take her to and from school, so she wouldn't have to ride the bus anymore.
She hadn't informed either of her parents about this new development. They were both strictly against her using her bending at all, so Korra knew they wouldn't want her hanging around people who could teach her more about it. She went to bed with a smile on her face, anyway.
And she dreamt of the monk, again.
"Korra," he called—and she knew now that his name was Tenzin. He was alone, surrounded by pure whiteness, an emptiness that unsettled her. "You are the Avatar. You are to bring balance to this world, as all the Avatars before you have. You must let me help you master the fourth element."
"Who are you?" she replied, although she felt as if she should already know the answer. "How can you teach me?"
"I will come to you, Korra." He reached out to her, palms facing up. "Just let me find you. Don't fight it. Let me come to you."
Suddenly, she was sitting on her bed, and Tenzin was standing directly in front of her.
Korra awoke with a gasp, a cold sweat covering her skin. The spot in front of her was empty—there was no bald monk named Tenzin there with her.
Shaking her head at herself, she grabbed her phone and quickly pulled up Google. She searched for "avatar" and received a bunch of links to reviews of the movie about blue aliens. Shaking her head again, she added "-movie" to the search, and at the bottom of the page was a link to a site entitled "The Legend of the Avatar."
As Korra read through the articles on the website, she became increasingly unsettled. It talked of ancient times, when the world was filled with people who could manipulate the elements to their will—earth, water, fire, and air. They even called it "bending," like she did. The legend described one person who could bend all four elements, whose spirit was reincarnated with each life: the Avatar.
It also described a war that had occurred, in which the Fire Nation wiped out nearly all of the Air Nomads, then was defeated by the conjoined forces of the Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom. The war brought devastation upon the world, even the non-benders. Benders were a minority by the time the war ended, and non-benders began to shun those with powers because of the destruction and loss they had wrought—even the Avatar was kept in hiding, generation after generation. The page said that some people believed benders to still exist in the world, just in hiding for fear of discrimination.
"But it's just a legend," Korra said out loud to herself. "It's just a legend." It was just a coincidence that she was having these strange dreams about the Avatar, which apparently was an ancient legend that she had never heard of before. Just a strange coincidence.
She forced herself to lay back down on her bed and stared at the ceiling, silently repeating this over and over to herself until she fell asleep.
Just a strange coincidence.
Okay, I know I'm a terrible, terrible person and never update, but I suddenly got the inspiration to continue this (surprisingly, it was actually from reading an in-progress Clexa fic and being inspired by the author's ability to update EVERY DAY so that she's written 66 CHAPTERS IN TWO MONTHS LIKE HOLY CRAP) so here you go? Enjoy? Hopefully? Lemme know what y'all think!
