"What does Zaheer want with me?"
The sea and the ocean and its waves all seem to gather in harmony, but beyond them a fierce light flickers with the energy of a thousand lives. Beneath that transparent glow, a resolve and sense of steadiness is implanted before a calm swirling of constant change. The Avatar's eyes showed all of her emotions in one small, vulnerable spot.
"I don't know Korra, and I don't want to think about it."
"Why not?"
The heiress backed away slightly from the jeep. "I just don't want to imagine what could happen if he got to you."
The Avatar blinked. "Don't worry, Asami. He can't catch me when you guys have my back."
"I'm not so sure we'd be able to stop him when he tries again."
"What makes you so sure?"
"He almost had you, he won't fail next time."
"Yeah well, next time I won't be paralyzed." The Avatar said and went back to searching for Xaibau's Grove.
Still standing back a few feet from the concentrated master of all elements, Asami whispered to herself. "I know, and that makes it all worse."
What if an individual had the power to go back in time? To go back, change a few things around and then come back in a new future. Unfortunately, that's not an option. For everyone has to live with their mistakes, their failures, and their losses. That is the way we learn, that is the way of life. For one individual though, this power does come in one form. The ability to see the past and learn from it, because they've lived it a thousand times over.
Asami can't imagine what it would be like to have lost such a legacy, especially when that legacy is one you bear along with the fate of the world. That legacy you must fulfill, that legacy everyone looks up to and must be continued. Without it, the world hangs in the balance. The world who is so ungrateful for it that it blames it for all its problems.
Wooden panels creak under the shuffling of sheets. It's a chilly night, albeit nothing like the cold of the south. Tonight is a full moon. Its glow spreads light in the dark, revealing the truth in lies. Half-lidded green eyes examine the almost blue shine, following it to the far side of her room. She half expects a figure clad in the color of her element to be watching from afar.
Getting up from her bed she walks to the kitchen, grabs a glass and fills it with water. Everything tonight seems to remind her of the Avatar. Not that Asami could keep her mind off her anyway.
Sighing deeply she leans against the sink and closes her eyes.
"Can't sleep?"
"I was about to ask you the same."
"That's no way to treat a woman of my age."
The women share a quiet laughter.
"Yin, I just don't know what to do."
"If only I had a yuan for every time I've heard someone say that." the elder replied.
Asami's nose crinkled up. "You'd be as rich as-
"You."
"Well now, I-"
"But I wouldn't be any wiser."
"What?"
Grandma Yin was maybe half Asami's height, yet the engineer felt reverent and undignified in the elder's presence.
"It's a question I simply can't answer, no matter how many times I've tried," Yin said. "It's just up to ourselves to decide what is next."
"I'm guessing you don't believe in fate," Asami said, swirling her glass of water.
"No. I'm saying that everyone has their own path, their own choices, their own difficulties. The only differences between us is how we learn from them."
Asami felt her hands leaving the cold glass, being replaced by wrinkled yet warm ones, just as she had to Korra a few nights ago.
"It doesn't matter what anyone tells us, in the end it's all up to you."
"Thanks Yin," Asami said gratefully. "You're a great grandmother."
"And you are a wonderful imaginary grandchild," the elder laughed and returned the hug.