Chapter 2 Longing
Year 1942
Asami raised from the sheets of Korra's bed. Shaking sleep from her head she opened her eyes to find Korra dressing quickly into her uniform. With a sore neck and tired fingers she smiled then stretched her naked body alluringly over the sheets, "Come back to bed. I want to taste your skin between my teeth," she cooed, her eyes dropping to Korra's exposed pelvis where the dark skin was now peppered with bite sized shades of red and purple, "I'm not finished marking my territory."
Korra blushed, "I think the tattoo takes care of that." Still, Korra swallowed hard and struggled to pull her gaze away from Asami's graceful figure, "I have orders to ship today. If I don't report it'll be a shit storm."
Instantly Asami felt longing. Until now, Asami had thought she loved longing. She'd managed to stave off sleep in favor of acting out every lustful - borderline perverse - thought longing had put in her head. But now her tattoo glowed for distance. A different kind of longing all together. A painful kind that made her head begin to ache and a sick feeling settled in her stomach.
A luminescent glow encased the room almost simultaneously between the women. Beginning dully then echoing out, louder and louder, until it shine brighter than the sunlight streaming through the open windows..
Was this what she'd heard about over the years when connates described their connection to one another? What they meant by not simply being completed by their connate, but one with them? Developed stronger because of them? Her mind went to the next question: What about the rare instances when connates claimed to have gained supernatural abilities after meeting their connate?
Somehow, nothing felt impossible anymore.
Korra almost angrily strapped her belt into place, "If it weren't for country, I'd desert in a heartbeat to lie in bed with you all day." She took a small breath to bite back words before shaking her head, "All I ever wanted was to serve my country. To fight a good fight and maybe earn some equality for my people. But now..." She trailed off. She didn't need to finish. Asami felt it too.
At some point something had changed. At some point the solar system had repositioned itself and at its center stood a negro woman with a cocky smile and playful eyes.
Korra didn't need to finish her sentence, because Asami knew just how far away earth had fallen away beneath their feet.
"Hurry, we're gonna be late." Korra tugged Asami frantically through the train station, her head sweeping back to check the other girl's notably clumsy footfalls and grin to herself at the wide smile that danced across Asami's lips. Together they dashed around trolleys brimming with suitcases, men in cheap suites, giddy children awaiting their train, and proud parents waving farewell to their enlisted sons.
The girls fell into one another as they skid to a stop. The train whistle pitched into the air. Out of breath and smiling they watched one another wondering how long the sweet would last before the bitter settled in..
God, Asami loved Korra's smile. She felt herself lean in then, she wanted to consume that smile, bite at the soft lips, pull away pieces she could hide away for the loneliest nights and remember how they felt against her own.
She stopped short. She shouldn't. No. She couldn't. Not in public.
Just her standing alongside this negro woman had attracted tattoos weren't glowing, but the black tent of her tattoo still shown visible on Asami's skin, and mirrored in Korra's darker tone.
"Korra," Asami felt her breath flood into Korra's slightly parted lips. She bit her own lips hard and stared at Korra's, "I don't know how to say goodbye without kissing you."
Korra nodded understanding, "Wait." She looked around and in moments she'd tugged Asami into an off-shooting walkway. The light above flickered on and off, illuminating moldy walls and overlapping floor tiles. Overall poor maintenance had earned this place low traffic and yellow tape told them to stay out.
"It's not romantic," Asami remarked.
"Romance is overrated." Korra smirked.
Asami smiled for a moment then spoke only when she was sure her voice wouldn't shake, "I wish I were a better woman. A better woman wouldn't ask you to stay."
Korra stepped closer to Asami, she pressed her lips so close they could taste one another's breath. Asami's fingers crumpled into Korra's uniform with anticipation.
Korra spoke feeling her lips graze Asami's, "A better woman wouldn't ask you to wait."
Then…
Then that miraculous kiss they shared. Where longing and distance and something nearly spiritual took hold of their bodies. The station danced in light and the walkway did little to suffocate its brilliance. Prying eyes found them instantly. Some jaws agape so far that cigarettes rolled down shirts, some light reaching so vast that the train tunnel could be etched with detail, some desire so vividly displayed that mother's shielded the eyes of children.
But neither of them cared. Sweet was turning bitter and with each moment they were forced to confront that reality.
Year 2406 - 3 Days Ago
"I still think this is a bad idea." Korra said as they stood together in silence.
Tonraq looked to the quiet rustle from the trees to his right. He knew it must have been Opal. She'd taken up hiding behind a thick tree. A few paces away and to his left, Jinora, the youngest of the four sat wringing her hands nervously between her thighs. She crouched in hiding behind a massive rock.
They'd chosen to meet in the forest. The tall trees stretched unbelievably high and ran only about three miles before the barren dead land became white and chalky. The forest itself had been perched atop terraformed land just like all vegetation on this particular planet.
"You were welcome to stay back at the settlement, Korra," Tonraq retorted. Korra grit her teeth.
"Well someone had to play the skeptic. He's Kuvira's head scientist. You honestly think we can trust him." Korra muttered to herself.
"Varrick is a connate like us. I've seen his tattoo and it's genuine. Whoever his connate is it now outranks any loyalty he might have felt towards Kuvira. You'll understand that once you've bonded." The last words were like a slap across Korra's face. Reminding her she wasn't up to snuff like the other connate's. Reminding her how little people thought of her as a person, seeing her only as the daughter of their great leader, "If Varrick wants safe passage into the Dead Zone then he knows the only way he leaves the Mainland is by bargaining with us. And Korra," Tonraq hesitated and glanced again at Opal and Jinora, "You'll watch how you address me as your commander."
Korra cleared her throat and swallowed her pride, "Yes, sir."
The atmosphere was more tense than ever between the two.
Afterall, Korra was poised to be the next leader, she like her mother and father was a connate. She'd tested positive for it from early on and her mother and father had escaped before Kuvira rose to power.
But no one wanted someone who had not been bonded to their connate to be leading the Connate Resistance. Opal herself had tested positive, and her parents had given everything to leave the Mainland before Kuvira had began slaughtering the children that tested positive.
And that was part of the tension:
Opal had a connate. Korra had a connate.
So when Suyin had walked in on the two youth stripped to their underwear and eagerly exploring one another's bodies she was not at all pleased. Being a connate was the equivalent of be betrothed. And to share intimacy of that caliber with anyone else was the equivalent of adultery. Some even argued that if one burned and had not bonded with their connate prior to the burn, prior to their death, then sharing intimacy was still forbidden.
Jinora and Tonraq were the only ones who had bonded with their connates and they had the tattoos to prove it. Tonraq had bonded during the first Galactic War with a baker's daughter named Senna. And Jinora with Kai. They'd met as toddlers, both the children of refugees escaping Kuvira's cruelty. But they, Kai and Jinora, were young. So fresh from training they were basically teething and tonight was Jinora's first time ever leaving the Dead Zone since her parents had brought her there.
But Tonraq had decided to bring her. He'd gotten closer to the girl. She was smart, a good fighter, and she and her connate shared a rare ability that he thought might be able to change the tides of war. She was a reminder that Korra was not bonded.
Tonraq broke the tense silence, "He's here."
Opal readied her gun, checking the silencer was on correctly. Jinora herself carried a gun as well. She held the metal to her chest and focused on not shaking.
Varrick's motorcycle rumbled to a halt. The sleek white machine hummed as he cut the engine and swung his legs to the ground.
"Were you followed?" Korra asked.
Varrick stopped short and hesitated, "No."
Korra glanced at her father, but his face was filled with hope. Had he not caught the pause? Was he so mesmerized by the promises Varrick made? Korra stepped forward ready to press the matter but Tonraq extended a hand to her and shot her a look. A look that demanded her deference.
"Well let's see it then. The names and location of everyone Kuvira has captured."
"Not so fast," Varrick said, "I need some assurances."
"We're standing here, aren't we? That's all the assurances you get. You give us the names and locations, we can talk about assurances then. Until then-," Tonraq extended his hand though Varrick stood several feet away.
Varrick took a breath and glanced down at his hand. It began to glow. Longing. A spike of jealousy ran through Korra's veins. Even this piece of shit had bonded. Why hadn't she?
He reached inside of a satchel he carried and produced a long piece of tech. Giving the tech a rough shake and a small tap the artificial paper lit into the cold misty night, "It's all here. Fourteen thousand prisoners all across the planet."
Tonraq nodded towards Varrick at Korra. Queued by gesture, Korra bound the distance between them in a few short strides. She snatched the papers from his hands and flipped through them quickly.
Names. Dates. Pictures. It seemed like it checked out. She began walking back towards Tonraq when she heard it.
A quiet whirring sound. When she'd first approached she'd assumed the sound was his motorcyle winding down from its long drive.
But the sound originated from far above her head. Her eyebrows knit down for only a moment. She wouldn't give them away.
She flipped through the artificial papers again. This time more slowly, "You know they say the devil's in the details." She locked eyes with the man and when she did she could physically see the chill that ran up his spine, "I know pictures of dead bodies when I see them."
Korra reached inside her jacket producing her concealed gun she shot directly overhead towards the sound of a very quiet, but not quiet enough engine.
The sound of a gunshot echoed into the forest. Opal and Jinora both snapped into motion.
"It was a trap!" Opal hollered touching her ear piece and stepping into the forest behind Tonraq, "Get us out of here!" She cried.
As soon as the bullet made purchase with the floating hovercraft it's cloaking abilities faltered, shivering to reveal the black and silver underbelly of a cylindrical ship. Bulbous at it's head and sleek at it's back the hovercraft uncloaked at once, abandoning incognizance in favor of flooding the area with bright headlights and high caliber guns ejecting from it's sides.
A second hovercraft unveiled itself just to the right of the machine. Rather than open fire they simply cut on their floodlights and a side door opened. Five men leapt from the aircraft on ropes. Sliding through the nights air in a coordinated fashion, their guns glinting in the moonlight and slung across their backs.
Korra dashed back to her father who began lining up a shot. She'd just managed to get to his flank when he began firing his weapon at the craft, "How'd you know?" He asked her.
"The file is worthless!" She exclaimed, still tucking the tech inside of her leather jacket's pocket, "I think they just took shots of the corpses and edited their tattoos." She explained.
"What makes you say that?"
"I recognized one of them." Tonraq's eyes cut towards his daughter then curiously. But they didn't have time to discuss any further.
Tonraq's bullets purchased on the glass windows of the windshield. The bullets caused spiderwebs to streak into the glass but his weapon wasn't high powered enough to break the reinforced shield.
"Dammit!" He bellowed.
The gun began whirring as bullets began revolving. The gun locked and loaded then began spraying the ground in bullets. The bullets chewed through the dirt as the pilot attempted to add accuracy with each moment, controlling the craft to sweep the gun closer and closer to target.
Their eyes widened in unison and without another word exchanged they both broke for the nearest large trees. Korra smashed into Opal, tripping over the woman for only a moment before grabbing her roughly by the collar and all but hauling her head over heels for the nearest cover.
Wumk! Wumk! Wumk! The sound of the gun and the engine meshed together into an ugly grating noise.
"Dad! Where's our evac?" Korra hollered, turning her head as dirt was kicked up near her foot by a bullet. That bullet hadn't come from the hovercraft. She whipped her head to the right. It had come from the ground assault.
They'd touched down and they were coming in hot by spraying bullets. They didn't care about taking prisoners. They were out to kill. What was Kuvira thinking?
"I told Iroh to wait at at the tree line. Do you honestly want Kuvira to know we have gun mounted hovercrafts? She'd slaughter anyone who she thought might be supplying us."
The first round of bullets to tear into the treeline ripped too far right. Lucky they did because their purchase told Tonraq one thing, "The trees aren't strong enough to catch the bullets. Run!" He hated this planet. Korra hated this planet. Everything was terraformed. Nothing was natural. Any natural tree that size would have caught the damned bullet. These trees were far too hollow and dead on the inside. Damn this planet.
Meanwhile, Jinora's eyes zeroed in on Varrick as he hustled to his motorcycle and threw his legs over it's side. He began a panicked retreat, going back the direction he'd come from. She lifted her gun to take aim, rat bastard deserved to die. But then she saw the glow of his tattoo. His connate. Her thoughts went to Kai. How would he feel if he were to feel a burn if she died. She grit her teeth, "Dammit." She breathed letting the son of a bitch run away like the coward he was.
Korra locked eyes with Opal. She still held the fabric of her shirt tightly in her hands, "Shit." Korra muttered.
"Korra!" Opal hollered as Korra lunged to her feet, "Don't do something stupidly brave!" It was too late. She'd torn off, her feet digging into the dirt as she raced free from coverage and squared off with the ground assault. She took out her second gun as she went and whipped them towards the collection of men. She fired two successive shots. One landed in a skull. The other a throat. She'd turned and raced off into the forest before either of the bodies had hit the ground.
Korra didn't bother looking back, she could hear her group behind her. Hear the ground assault calling to the hovercraft for backup.
Tonraq glanced to Jinora, "Stay with me kid." He said to the girl who quaked with inexperience and terror. Opal herself head another way. They all scattered out in three different directions.
Three minutes later she heard the explosion.
Boom! The sky lit with fire over head. Korra didn't look back. She'd been trained to never look back. But she knew a hovercraft had been taken out. One less thing to worry about.
But soon after she heard the sound of gunshots driven out in fast succession from multiple guns. As if they were meant for only one individual. The sound touched her ears only a moment before Jinora's blood curdling scream.
No one was on her. If she'd kept running now she could reach the hovercraft in sixteen maybe seventeen minutes.
But Jinora's scream - she couldn't shake it from her thoughts. She slid to a stop in the dirt and turned to look back.
Her heart leapt into her throat as Jinora's screams continued. She felt her feet hit the earth, felt her body begin to whip back as each stride carried her towards that scream.
Jinora. She was new. Too new. Prodigy or not. Why was she allowed to be here? "A simple exchange mission." Her father had said, "I've met with him before. He's the real deal.
But Jinora? She was too damned young to have a death warrant signed and hoisted above her head.
Korra broke into the scene. She broke in at an angle, seemingly from nowhere. The men were ready. She must have been louder than she thought. They aimed for her, their guns whipping her way.
Bang! Bang! The bullets shot from nowhere. From a new direction. Not Korra's guns but Opal's. She'd heard the screams and doubled back too. She'd used Korra's arrival to distract them. Two men hit the ground dead. The third and last of the bunch whipped his gun to Opal only to be taken out by Korra. Bang!
Holstering her weapon Korra approached Jinora, "Jinora, are you-,"
Her words stopped then. She saw for the first time what the underbrush had concealed. That the blood smeared all over Jinora was from Tonraq. The girl sat upright staring at her hands because she'd pushed the heavy man off of her. Her tight fitting suit, more like a layer of blue skin was slick with her father's blood. The bullet wounds tore through Tonraq's back. How many. Korra counted. Five at least.
"D-dad?" She croaked. Not so far away Korra could see the original hovercraft sweeping the forest looking for them. Looking to kill them. So it had been the guncraft that had been shot down.
Jinora whispered the words recounting the events as if to prove they happened, "They were on us so fast."
Tonraq's eyes. Was he... Was her dad…
No. Korra couldn't believe it. Tonraq's eyes began to glow a brilliant white. Her dad's tattoo was in the oddest of places being over his irises. He'd always joked that he could see his love even when she wasn't standing beside him. Now Korra crouched beside him, thinking of her mother.
The next time she saw her mother would she be blind in both eyes from the tattoo's burning?
"Korra?" Tonraq croaked, waving her closer.
Korra crouched down, her eyes taking in the man. She wasn't ready to be without her father.
"Tell your mother-,"
"No!" Korra yelled at him, if only he would shut up, "We have a medic on the hovercraft! Where the hell are they?" She asked, not knowing what to do when she felt a hot flow of tears running from her eyes. She ran her hand sloppily over her face, smearing the tears into her skin painfully.
"They were scrambling our signal." Opal said quietly, "I circled around to those first guards you took out and got their guns. They were strong enough to shoot down the hovercraft. I figured that would be a big enough signal." Korra nodded. Glad Opal was with them. Glad Opal was here. She felt Opal's hand hunker into her shoulder. Weighing her down to something good and solid.
Korra took a breath. She had to be calm now, "Jinora, we have to get Dad out of here. You need to jump him back to the hovercraft."
"That's three miles." Jinora said, "I can barely jump that far alone but with him, he's twice my size. There's just no way-,"
Floodlights lit the area suddenly. Not on them, but just a half click north. The backup had arrived and a new ground assault was being dispatched. Many more than five.
"We don't have time for this!" Korra glared at Jinora, "You don't have a choice. Get him out of here now or he will die."
"Korra," Tonraq called to her again. But she didn't want to hear it. Couldn't hear it. She stood to her feet and tightened her jaw. As she did she felt his hand reach for her own and tug her back down, "Listen to me! I'm trying to say some last words, goddamit!" His words were angry but his smile came only a moment later, "Don't be scared."
Those three words broke her. Broke her false confidence. Broke her walls that said focus on everything else but the tragedy in front of her. She felt herself going weak as she drop to his side.
He smiled and nodded affirmingly, "You're ready."
Korra shook her head, "No, I'm not. I can't fill your shoes, dad. I can't bring people together or inspire them like you. We need you. I need you." She turned her plea to the girl, "Jinora, please try!" She looked across at the younger girl who had closed her eyes in concentration. She bit back her words. She knew the girls expression. Completely blank. Finding her peace. Finding the calm necessary to dematerialize not one but two people across space and time and reassemble them again on the other side.
"Guys," Opal whispered as armed men stomped towards them, "We need to go, like right now."
"You don't think you're ready. But you are. I love you and-,"
He vanished. Jinora vanished. As if they'd never been there at all. They'd jumped through space. No bright light. No sound. Just gone.
Korra looked to Opal. Wiping away the last of her tears.
"Korra…" Opal began.
"I'm gonna draw them to me." Korra decided.
"Don't be-,"
"I'm not seeing someone else I love get hurt." Korra said defiantly.
"That's not your call anymore. While Tonraq recovers that makes you the leader. You're the top priority."
"And you're 'my' priority." Korra stepped towards the girl, her hands clasping her cheek, she pulled her into a kiss. And like every other kiss that had come before it, it felt mesmerizing to kiss Opal.
Opal's mouth had been parted in preparation for a protest, the exchange of heat that flooded their mouths making the action that much more enchanting.
When Korra pulled away all reason had slipped from Opal's body. She'd felt it to her core just as Korra had.
Were they connates? No. And supposedly they had them. But Korra couldn't imagine herself kissing anyone other than Opal. Caring for someone as much as she cared for Opal.
"Go." Korra instructed, "I promise not to do anything stupidly brave." She quoted. She watched Opal walk backwards, not daring to look away until Korra faced away first. Then she galloped into the dense forest at full speed.
She head in the opposite direction then, raised a gun towards the sky and fired a single round. She felt the dynamic change immediately. Heard them change direction and head directly at her.
As she heard them advance on her, Korra placed her back against a tree and waited. They came slowly. Spread several yards apart.
She waited for the first to cautiously ease towards her tree. Perfect shooting position. She readied her gun. She remained stock still. The only sound their boots into the dry leaves. Her breathing had settled her mind had focused. The first man passed directly past her tree by just inches.
Calm. Steady ready. His head dipped into view. And snapped to her as soon as he saw the black shadow of death standing so close to his side.
Too late. She pulled the trigger.
Click.
Nothing.
Click. Click. Nothing.
Jammed. Now of all times her gun had jammed.
The man was stunned by his own dumb luck. Korra's eyes widened.
He raised his gun. She wouldn't have time to get the gun from her holster. She decided to do something stupidly brave. Smashing the empty gun down hard on his nose. Wam!
He misshot his weapon by instinct and the result was swift. A flash of white light from the muzzle of his gun lighting up the dark night and also giving away her exact location.
The bullet jet into the ground as Korra dropped her useless weapon and clawed for the side of his head. She rammed his head into the tree. He cried out. Any regular tree, he would be out like a light. But these damned trees were artificial shit.
She rammed his head a second time. Then a third. Stopping when she felt his skull hiss and pop from the force.
The second man arrived quieter than the first. So quiet he caught her off guard.
The bullet hit her in the arm so hard it sent her spiraling backwards and took her feet from under her. The high powered bullet went through her fleshy arm clean and violent. She fell face first, reaching with her injured arm to catch her spiraling fall. The man hustled towards her from behind ready to finish her off with a bullet to the skull.
Korra didn't wait for that second bullet. She swept her feet behind herself, praying he was close enough. She felt the first foot purchase against his calf hard enough to knock of his aim. The bullet hit the dirt at the side of her head. Her second sweeping leg brought him to his knees.
Carrying the momentum she rocketed to her own feet and reached for his gun as he began to take up aim for her head, pointing the weapon skyward. He fired.
She'd managed to grab the muzzle of the gun just before the blinding flash that lit the area. The bullet ripped into the night sky, slicing the skin between her fingers on it's way out, and burning her hand.
Despite the sound of her own sizzling flesh, Korra didn't release the weapon. She snapped a kick to the side of his head and simultaneously yanked the gun free from his hands. As he buckled from the weight of her kick she reversed the gun in her hands and shot him execution style.
His cranium exploded out the back of his head and smeared the nearest trees and bushes. The gunshots had called his friends. And they all swarmed at her. Bullets whizzed past her head from deep within the night. A flash several yards away.
But she wasn't sticking around.
She took off, dropping the heavy automatic weapon as she went.
She careened down a hillside, taking the terrain as it came, leaping fallen trees, tearing low hanging vines as she pushed into them. She bound through a small river in a matter of seconds listening to the sound of scattered gunshot as they tried to make purchase from a taller treeline.
Nothing looked familiar. In fact it was fair to say she was lost. She'd thought she was going straight.
She must have turned wrong. Maybe that fight had knocked her sense of direction off. Either way she was running full speed ahead at a cliff side.
She couldn't double back she realized all at once, seeing the forest coming to an end. Feeling headlights begin to flood over her. They'd found her. There was nowhere to hide. Nowhere to go.
If she turned back now, then what? She'd be executed without a second thought. If she simply jumped could she make it to the other side? Speed or not, she didn't have the muscle for that kind of jump. So what were her options.
Surrender, or fight to the bitter end?
No. Never surrender.
She bound full speed ahead, breaking the forest line she felt the world rushing to an end.
She watched the cliff side slip from sight. She knew she couldn't make that jump. She watched herself come up several feet short. Her hands reached and the earth raced up at her.
The impact was hard, violent.
She felt herself being torn apart.
Heat and pressure, and the feeling that all her bones were being crunched together and torn apart all at once.
Then…
She fell not towards earth but towards black metal grates.
The impact was a loud clatter. She felt her gun dig into her side, and hissed as she bit down hard on the tip of her tongue.
"Ah!" Kai cried as he took the brunt of the fall.
Korra's eyes searched herself. She was aboard their own hovercraft. In front of her she could see Iroh in the cockpit. The hollow walls of the hovercraft had been constructed long ago and had the rust to prove it.
The drop she'd endured had been three feet and her momentum had been exerted elsewhere.
What had that hard impact been? Her eyes turned to the body still clinging to her. She turned to see Kai.
The teleporting connate had caught her fall.
Slowly he peeled apart from her and rolled away groaning in pain. His skin sporadically shifted through the colors of a pastel rainbow, shaped like clouds. His body curled into a near fetal position. Cuts littered his skin like he'd been running through a sea of barbed wire. He closed his eyes tight, shuddering with the pain of it all.
Korra felt like every bone in her body had been dipped in hot metal and shoved back inside of her while still warm. She could feel her skin was tender, and she even saw cuts remaining on her skin much like Kai's but not nearly as deep. Still the concept of death by a thousand cuts came to mind. Each cut seemed to shift in and out of sight. Sometimes red from her skin beneath other times blotchy and unclear, almost painful to look at, like a camera that refused to focus.
Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the wounds was the fact that they didn't hurt. Yet when she looked at Kai she knew without a doubt he could feel every one of his thousand cuts.
Kai himself appeared like he was choking, his skin settling down from shifting shades and simply turning a pale blue. Korra rolled to her side and moved towards him to help, "Don't touch him!" Jinora shouted. Korra snapped her hands back quickly, but not before her index finger had touched the boy's arm.
"Shesh!" Korra sucked air through her teeth when she felt an invisible blade slice her index finger open. Unlike the many other cuts she had, this one stung, badly and began bleed. Korra quickly applied pressure to the wound and watched helplessly as the boy started convulsing.
"Kai!" Jinora called from the other side of the craft, the tattoo spanning from her hand all the way to her forearm began glowing as she witnessed her connate in pain, "Kai! Calm down and focus!"
Kai looked up at his connate from across the room. His face shifting colors, beads of sweat rolling over his skin. His eyes bugging from his skull. His eyes softened upon seeing her concern. He continued to stare at her until his own tattoo ignited. He clenched his fists and grunted before pulling his arms to his chest and closing his eyes. With a deep breath he unclenched his fists and lay perfectly still.
Moments passed of the boy shaking uncontrollably, but his face became expressionless. Meditating into a calm state much like Jinora had when she'd focused on getting Tonraq to safety. Slowly the tears in his skin began to seal. Korra's cuts sealed as well, except for the cut on her index finger, and that unfocused appearance of her hands began to settle.
He rolled over onto his back with a deep groan and huffed out breaths.
Korra's heart slammed in her chest as she remembered, "Dad!" She attempted to stand and felt her body revolt against her. Not simply from the bullet wound in her arm but from whatever the hell Kai and Jinora did that made them able to cross space and time.
She grit her teeth and crawled to her father's side, "Dad?" He lay still. The multiple bullet wounds exposed, his head in Jinora's lap.
"Korra..." Jinora's voice came softly, "I'm so sorry, Korra." Jinora said, "When I put him back together it was too much strain on his body."
Korra felt so tired herself. All she could do was slump down against his body. He was still warm. She remembered then, "Opal?"
"I-I wanted to go back for you two but I couldn't even jump three feet before I wound up just like Kai.." Jinora trailed off shaking her head.
"Kai, where's Opal?"
Kai couldn't speak. He could only turn his head and show them the vivid emotion with his eyes. The sorrow they found in them told them everything they needed to know.
Year 1942
Asami opened her eyes to the smell of heavy cologne and the pungent odor of cigarette smoke. Hiroshi cleared his throat and spoke, "So it's true then."
"Dad?" Asami blinked back sleep and rose from the thin sheets of another woman's bed. Korra's bed.
Asami felt disappointment settle in her stomach. Four months. Korra had been gone four months and counting. She's managed all of seven days before she'd found herself using the small silver key to open Korra's door to her small shack of a home.
"What are you doing here?" She asked. Dropping the formality, as she could see he'd been there for a good long while.
Hiroshi lifted a magazine from his lap and flung it across the room. Thwack! It hit Asami squarely on the nose before dropping into her lap. She flinched away in pain and her eyebrows knit down in confusion but her father's serious expression told her to unfold the paper.
She obliged and when she did her stomach dropped, a brick lodged in her throat, and timid words crept from her mouth: "I can explain."
"Please," Her father stabbed the lit bud of his cigarette into a barely budding gloxina flower, "Enlighten me."
"This is," Asami began and stopped. Her eyes trailed to the cover of the magazine. It revealed herself frozen in time, her body melting into Korra's.
The kiss they'd shared in the train station.
The whole moment had been captured and printed to the cover of an underground magazine, Red Tape Publishing. A swift thumbing of the magazine told her the magazine was by the hands of an underground gay rights organization.
"I can explain.."
"Yes." Hiroshi snorted, "You do that Asami. Explain to me why my daughter has been photographed kissing not just a negro but a negro woman! Explain to me why I've been battling one phone call after the next attempting to defend your honor to every man you ever dated. Every vulture that's been waiting to pick away at the Sato name has come knocking on my door and I haven't got a clue how to fend them off!
"What's worse is that you make me look like a fool not only to my partners, but to the university! Do you know how many strings I had to pull to have you accepted into a university of that stature? They were all too happy to inform me that you'd dropped out of school and were rumored to have moved north and begin frequenting negro bars. You've managed to humiliate me, your mother's legacy and the Sato legacy all in the course of one semester!"
Asami placed a hand to her chest as if it could suffocate the pounding sound of her heartbeat. Hiroshi Sato crumbled the cigarette in his hand, ashes granulated in chunks and rolled across the cold hardwood floor of Korra's home, "My daughter a-," the words staggered in his throat, pain and anger tore into his eyes like razors, "My very own flesh and blood." He bit his teeth in disgust.
"I didn't consent to this." She assured her father.
"So she forced herself on you?" Her father asked his eyes telling her to think carefully about her answer. A moment passed before she understood what he meant.
Asami glanced back at the magazine.
Asami's eyes found her father's. His fury palpable but not nearly as deadly as Asami's.
"No." Asami said and for the first time she felt a connection to Korra even deeper than love. A desire to protect her at all costs. Protect her from the lies her father could easily spin to salvage his reputation, "Korra did not force herself on me." Asami stood from her bed then and squared off with her father, her fists clenching at her sides, "Don't you dare say otherwise!"
Hiroshi peered at his daughter, wanting her to budge, wanting her to lie. But her face told him she'd do no such thing, "So what about this don't I understand? What exactly do you need to explain?"
If her heart was beating quickly before, now it beat so loud and hard it could lead a marching band, "I'm- I'm different."
"Different?" He scoffed, "You're disgusting!"
"I never intended to embarrass anyone," Asami plead watching him pad a few steps away, "I didn't want to even imagine how badly something like this could hurt the Sato name. That's why I left the university," Asami's words came as a hoarse whisper, "I knew if I spent one more night in those dorms they'd find me swinging from the ceiling fan."
"I wish they had." Hiroshi's words slapped Asami across the face, "I wouldn't be as ashamed of you as I am now."
Hiroshi waited for a response. Waited for the guilt of her hurting her father to make her do what he wanted. To make her lie. And if it had been anyone else, someone she didn't share a luminescent tattoo with, she might have been tempted.
But Asami loved her connate on a level he couldn't understand.
No.
Asami remembered the small circular burned tattoo located on her father's hand, right between his thumb and pointer finger. He could understand. He knew the depth in connection one connate felt for the other. That was how he knew this was a lost cause. That Asami could never hurt Korra. Not just as a lover, but as a connate.
"Fine!" Hiroshi thundered suddenly, "Do whatever you want! Just know that so long as you choose to behave this way your trust will be untouchable and your presence at the estate unwelcome."
Neither of them dared to meet one another's eye, they simply listened to the other internally scream into disturbed silence.
Hiroshi turned to leave and Asami found the courage to speak through the tears she bit back, "How can me taking my own life be so easy for you to imagine? Losing your daughter? Losing someone," she thought of Korra, "Permanently losing someone you love-,"
Hiroshi's face hardened and he cut her off, "Because at least if you'd died, your memory wouldn't be such a bitter disappointment." With those destructive words he swung the door open wide and cold air flood the room.
He gave her one last look, part of him hoping she'd change her mind and lie; the other part knowing his daughter was just as stubborn as her mother. Asami didn't see the door shut. She only watched her feet on the cold floorboards.
It sickened her to accept they were cut from the same biological cloth. Now, more than ever she could see her error in stitching together family based solely on blood. There was something so much thicker than blood. There was her connate. There was Korra.
She decided then to follow her father as he reached the last step leading from the home and had just reached the sidewalk next to the quiet street, she opened the door frantically.
"She'll never force me." She called to him.
Hiroshi turned and gazed upward at the woman now standing in the doorway wearing nothing but a nightgown, "What?" He asked.
"Every part of me wanted her." From the corner of her eye Asami could see her tattoo throb a pulsing blue-white hue and she amended, "Wants her. Negro and female. As disgusting as that makes me in your eyes. I'm in love with…" She trailed off. He didn't deserve to hear about how great her love for Korra was. She'd save that for the mornings spent sharing a newspaper and sipping coffee, for the evening Korra took her out for a night on the town, for the nights she'd placed her head between Korra's thighs, "If you come after her with your lies I'll shout that truth from every rooftop. I'll tell the world..."
Impatiently Hiroshi waited for Asami to finish, "Tell the world what?"
"That I want her more than I've ever wanted you."
Year 2406 - 3 Days Ago
Bolin sat at the dinner table. He leaned back and placed his arms behind his head as he released a massive burp.
Mako shot him a look, "I still don't like you working for her."
"I"m working in freights," Bolin specified, "I never go in the labs I just drive supplies between locations. Besides, you work for Kuvira."
"Well that's different, Bo. I'm not a connate. You are." Mako stood and began clearing the dishes from the table.
"I can't live my entire life hiding under a rock. The suppressants are working. I'll be fine."
"Just," Mako ran water for the dishes, "Just be careful, Bo. I hear the resistance has been targeting transports trucks lately for supplies." He gestured towards the small caliber gun he'd given his brother, "Keep that on you at all times."
Bolin saluted, "Yes sir, Mr. Boss Man, sir." He smiled at his brother reassuringly. Mako glanced behind him and caught the salute. He rolled his eyes in exasperation and turned back to the dishes.
It hit him then. With his hand still in the air. Suddenly everything good seemed to dissipate. Hope was sucked from every limb in his body. In its place came sadness and fear. His arm slid to his side, he felt hard lines begin to form on his face. His eyes drifted to the table.
Why did he both living.
The sadness had overcome him so greatly he didn't even feel the tattoo that had begun to burn into his back until the thin lines thickened into broader strokes. Then he felt it all at once like being branded by a prod that has been dipped into god's eternal flames. The heat never wavered. Constant. Burning deeper and deeper still.
It was the smell of burning that made Mako turn to see his brother. The young man had fallen face forward on the table, his arms spread out. His eyes dead but the tears leaving them ran into the table.
"Bolin?" Mako asked. His eyes landing on his brother. He then saw it: the smoke rising from his back, "Bolin!"
~Author Note~
I haven't posted on this story in a long time. A lack of traphic and a lack of positive response was really disconcerting. On top of that my life was in a tail spin and i didn't have the energy to write a story when the theme is so much about hope and I had so little hope at that time. I'm back now though. I'm going to be updating regularly and I hope you guys are still interested in the story. Please do review, share, and favorite. For more about me, more of my works, and more content in general follow me AvatarUncanon. As always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed.