"Korra!"
Somewhere in the black, unending distance, she heard her name called. The sound was muffled, as if drowned in this thick, cottony darkness that threatened to smother her completely. She tried to take a breath in, but it was as if someone had placed a cloth over her mouth—her inhalation was wheezy, weak, and for a moment she wondered if she would ever breathe normally again. She could see nothing; her entire world was suddenly crushed beneath that unending darkness. She tried to make out a familiar shape, a contour that would summon her back into the world of light, but she was as blind as she was breathless.
Perhaps without fully realizing it, she resisted the never-ending pull of the sinking darkness. She forced her eyes open, forced herself to fill her lungs, and her mind struggled toward the surface of this black wilderness, this tar-like state. Everything was heavy, everything was blind, and she was alone, utterly alone…
"Korra!"
Two strong arms wrapped around her, pulling her from that dark place. Korra returned the embrace, burying her head in Asami's shoulder, her mind slowly settling back to its normal state.
"Korra, are you all right?"
"No," Korra croaked.
"I'm right here, with you. Stay here, Korra. Stay right here, don't let your mind go anywhere. Stay here, with me…"
Korra finally took a real breath. Her lungs filled, aching. She expelled her breath slowly, concentrating only on the particles of air that danced around inside her, and releasing them into the bitter air. Korra raised her eyes and saw the shadowy outline of Asami's face staring down at her. She could see the worry in each crease of her perfect skin, and could only think of how thankful she was to have her here, holding her.
Korra looked up at the sky. It was still dark, but the all-consuming blackness that had visited her just previously was banished into the recesses of her troubled mind. It would not return again, if she could help it. Whether or not she could help it was the real question.
Asami helped her to her feet, and the two of them stumbled back into the safe, natural light of the forest, glowing blue and orange with the luminescence of the thousands of buzzing insects. They retreated into its light, escaping the darkness that tried to creep in after them. Korra followed Asami, who was outlined like a goddess in a halation of spirit insects' light.
When they were sure they were safely away from the darkened sky, they stumbled to a slow walk, panting, sweating.
"What happened?" Asami asked.
"I'm not completely sure," Korra answered. "There was some spirit out there, wherever I was, that brought on this darkness. I think it might be an enemy from one of my past lives. Even though my connection to the other Avatars was severed, I think I saw Kuruk, the waterbender before me. He was... trying to warn me, maybe."
Asami turned and looked at her with deep consternation. "Do you think that spirit thing is going to come after us? Should we turn back?"
Korra thought for a moment. The library was much closer than the portal back to Republic City, and inside lay thousands upon thousands of texts (or so Jinora told her) that could help her figure out what was going on. Besides, the great librarian had known her past selves; maybe he had something to say about Kuruk and what he might want. "Honestly I think we should keep going. We can find some answers further on. And besides," Korra gave her best nonchalant shrug, "if anything comes up, I'll protect you."
Asami smiled in the dim light. "Are you sure?"
"Hey. I'm not gonna fail you. Not right now, after I just regained my Avatar spunk. Besides, if something happened to you, I'd go ballistic. The spirit world wouldn't survive it." She raised her voice, hoping that the world around her would hear. "So if I were the spirit world, I'd do everything I can to make this trip uneventful and fun and relaxing." A few leaves trembled under the force of her voice, and she suspected she got the message across.
Asami reached back and grabbed Korra's hand, and they walked back to their planned path together. "Is the spirit world always this tumultuous?" Asami asked, not without some humor.
Korra thought back to all of her adventures here. With Jinora, with Zaheer, with her uncle, by herself… "Uh. Yeah. Pretty much, actually. Come to think of it, why did I let you come here again?"
"Me? I'm having no trouble. It's you that I'm worried about. Korra, do you really think you'll be okay?"
Korra squeezed Asami's hand. "Of course. I'm just… I guess I might still be in a rut a little… maybe I'm worried about what's happening back home. With Kuvira, with everyone. Maybe it's stress. But look, the sky's clearing up a little."
Asami's eyes fluttered upward to the green, luminous canopy, now glowing with light brighter than its thousands of internal insectile lamps. "I'm glad you're a bit better. It's scary when you can do things like blot out the sun. That's the stuff of legends, right there."
Korra chuckled. "Yeah, well, I didn't mean to." Maybe if she had nursed her relationship with the spirits early on in her life, maybe if she hadn't neglected this integral side of her Avatar training, she might not send the weather into turmoil with every third beat of her heart.
She told herself it was a little late to look back at the past with regret. The future was still ahead, and so was the library.
By the time night rolled around (properly this time, not spurred on by a paroxysm of emotion on the part of the Avatar), they curled up beneath a luminescent tree, pulling lunch's leftovers from the pack. It looked like both of them had been eating less than Korra had initially planned, so they wouldn't go hungry anytime soon. That, at least, was something that had gone favorably awry on this trip.
"Aren't you tired?" Asami asked, removing a small sleeping mat from her pack and laying it on a flat spot between two bulging roots.
Korra did not want to go to sleep. She stared at her food instead. "I think I'm going to stay up and think for a little while."
Asami lay down, watching her. For a few minutes, she stared silently, eyes following Korra's unenthusiastic motions, raising the bread to her mouth, lowering it, raising it again. "Korra," she said, right when Korra was beginning to think she was asleep. "When things get tough, I'm always going to be here for you. Remember that."
Korra looked over at Asami's exhausted but vivacious face, a slight smile playing at her lips in the dim spiritual light. "Asami." Korra looked away, into the expansive darkness, shadows punctuated by the thick bars of glowing tree trunks. "Thank you. Honestly. I'm so glad you're here with me. I don't know what I'd do without you."
Asami rolled on her side, away from Korra, pulling her blanket up tighter around her shoulders. Korra wanted to reach out and touch that shoulder, to draw comfort from it and give comfort back, but she just crossed her legs and sat staring forward into the darkness. She closed her eyes but did not allow herself to meditate too deeply, lest she again find herself in the lair of that strange, crawling shadow, click-click-clicking like death's skeletal claws…
He will steal the face of the one you love.
Korra mouthed the words, first slowly, then faster, first in her mind, then in a whisper. Even forming her lips around the words made her mouth feel unclean, it made her tongue tingle with an intangible sourness.
He will steal no one's face, Korra told herself, in response to the warning. No one's.
First Korra would need to find out what he was. What he could do. She would have to find out if Kuruk was warning her, trying to reestablish his connection, or if she was experiencing a particularly odd glitch in the spirit world. Perhaps the ghost of Kuruk was merely passing her by, drawn in by her proximity to the spirit world, an echo of a memory of her past self. She tried to summon the image of Kuruk, walking as he did in that dark patch of space, dragging his feet, almost hobbling, toward that evil cloud of starless night. He did not walk with his world-famous braggadocio, and although he held his head up high, he showed no sign of arrogance, no pluck, no fear, no emotion whatsoever.
Korra remembered his words. It was not because he was defeated, it was because to show emotion in front of that entity meant losing his face. It meant silence, blindness, erasure. That, to both of them, was so much more horrifying than death.
Death was simple. Losing one's face… that was a complex and nuanced punishment, the complications and sequelae of which extended long after the incident itself.
Korra would not let that happen. No one's face was going to be stolen on her watch.
No one's.
"No one's."
By the time she spoke the words, and opened her eyes, a sliver of light crept through the treetops. It sparkled through the damp air and landed at Korra's crossed feet. She stood, feeling oddly revitalized, and stretched.
Asami stirred at the base of the tree, but did not wake. Korra rubbed her eyes and pulled a few packets of instant rolled oats from the pack. She set a bowl on the ground, poured some inside, and circled her finger in the air before her, drawing out some of its moisture. She flexed her hand, curving it through the air, peeling water from the other elements like one peels rind from an orange. She let the water slide down from her hand into the bowl, lifted the meal and set a fire beneath it, holding the small flame in her palm while she balanced the bowl on the tips of her fingers.
The sweet smell of instant breakfast coaxed Asami upright, and she yawned. "That time already?" she asked. Steam wafted from the bowl, and Asami scooted closer, admiring the porridge. "Perfect. I'm starving."
Korra set the bowl down and retrieved a couple of spoons. They ate in a famished silence, accompanied by no sound but the distant buzzing of insects and their own thirsty slurping. When they were done, Korra cleaned the bowl and they packed up.
"I had a dream about my dad last night," Asami said, pulling on her boots.
Korra glanced at her for any sign of worry or remorse. "I'm sorry," she said.
"Don't be. It was a nice dream." Asami stood, pulled her pack onto her back and set off after Korra, into the shining woods. "Dad and I went to the movers together. You and Bolin were doing a comedy serial of some sort, about two pro-benders who try to open a hotel." Korra chuckled. That would be a project to behold. "But I don't remember what happened in the mover. I just remember looking up at my dad—apparently I had to look up at him, I must've been younger in my dream—and asking, 'How did you get out of prison?' He just looked down at me, genuinely confused, and said, 'What about prison?' I didn't answer, and that was that. We didn't need to say any more. Everything bad that's happened since the Equalist movement was suddenly erased, and we just sat back and enjoyed a picture together. It was… great. It put me in a pretty good mood, actually."
Of course Asami would be practical enough to reap the benefits of dreams so riddled with nostalgia and regret they could make any weaker person wake teary-eyed and heartbroken. Korra thought about what Asami said to her the night before. "You know, Asami," she started. "If you ever want to talk about anything—your dreams, fears, whatever—you know I'll be listening, right?"
"Of course I do," Asami smiled.
They talked about their dreams; weird, exciting, touching, prophetic, miserable, inexplicably hilarious, plain inexplicable. They recounted their bizarre subconscious adventures to one another, sharing the moments of triumph, strangeness, adolescent awkwardness, and wishful abandon, well into the afternoon. It was then Korra realized that they might be lost.
To save face, she pretended to have to take a leak. She crept into the woods, looking for a sylvan sprite or an intelligent insect to point the way to the library. These parts of the woods were strangely deserted—they hadn't seen a tree spirit, or any of those glowing bugs for at least an hour. Korra lay her hand on the trunk of the nearest tree, listening and watching for any sign of spirit life.
She discovered the den of something that, in her brief vision, resembled a cross between a lizard and some sort of squirrel. She followed the spiritual scent, and was soon staring into the terrified face of a spirit who had apparently thought his hiding spot was indiscernible.
"Hello," Korra said.
"What do you want?" the spirit spat.
"I was wondering if you knew the way to the great library of Wan Shi Tong."
The tiny spirit shot her a suspicious look. "What do you wanna go there for?"
"Knowledge, of course," Korra said.
"Well, if you must know, it's due north of here, but I wouldn't recommend making the trip. Trust me, you do not want to go there." With a frightened squeak the creature scrambled back into its hole, leaving Korra alone. She stood, a little confused, but at least she knew where she was going.
She made her way back to where Asami waited for her. "You took a while," she said, raising an eyebrow.
"You had no idea how badly I needed to go," Korra smiled, and led Asami onward, due north, or at least in the direction that she thought might've been north. They talked for a while, trying to keep the subject matter inane and light-hearted, like if Mako could finally find himself a stable girlfriend, or, if given a choice between two disgusting hybrid food combos, which one they would choose.
Korra was just weighing the benefits and costs of eating a wasabi-smothered cream doughnut when a sudden change in scenery stopped her in her tracks.
They had finally come to the edge of the forest. The sun was nowhere to be found, although its feeble light illuminated a vast expanse of black and brown wasteland. Korra looked behind her, at the greenery of the forest, then back down at her feet, where the dirt was dry and barren. Vines, desiccated and sickly, withered at her feet, touched by a black substance. She bent down and ran her finger across the plants at her feet. Their stems and leaves cracked apart like dry rice paper, and her hand came away spotted with a black powder. A horrid, rotten smell pierced her nostrils and she recoiled.
Asami, too, was kneeling, examining the ground before her. "It looks like some sort of blight," she said. "Or is this normal?" She looked to Korra for answers.
"This is definitely not normal." Korra stood, looking around at the dusty, lifeless landscape. A few trees struggled to survive in the blighted expanse, black, leafless branches cracking upward like broken bones. It almost hurt to look at.
"What is happening here?" Korra whispered, a knot of horror tightening in her stomach. She couldn't help but wonder if she and her recent tempestuousness had done this. She shook her head, banishing the thought. She couldn't give this much credit to herself—besides, emotional changes in the spirit landscape were more like illusions than anything… and this, this wan't an illusion. Just the smell could tell her that much.
It was real, it was foul, it was spreading, and as far as Korra knew, it was unprecedented.
Some holiday this was turning out to be.