Cross Light-footed the Water
{Several weeks earlier.}
1.
Water is in her bones like a moonlit dream, rippling blackly. It is the warmth of her parents. The ship of her escape cradles her, and all the water in the ocean calls its pleasure at meeting the Maiden Avatar, at last. Nearly twenty winters we cooled and thawed, without you.
Wild and powerful is Fire, though the sun is small and grey as a dust mote on most Southern days. Fire is the fickle friend who licks her laggard ankles. Fire is her pride.
Earth on the South Pole is far away, sleeping beneath the permafrost. She can taste it in the game she hunts; a knowledge of roots, the wealth of soil, gravity. In Republic City it hums to greet her. It is the pressed earth; the poured concrete; the kiln-baked bricks; the rough-hewn slate; the white sand in the temple's rock garden.
But Air, Air shimmers at her, just around the corner of the abandoned temples. She is almost two hundred years too late, to understand Air. Out of the corner of her eye the children of Tenzin are brightly arrayed ghosts, reflecting blood on arctic snow.
2.
And when she comes to Republic City a non-verbal part of her thinks, I will never learn to Airbend here. The smoggy sky ruins the sun; the Water is sluggish; the Earth interspersed with so much metal. The acrobatics of the metal-benders are breathtaking, but they do not move to any song Korra can hear. Their snakes coil around Naga. The first time the great untamed polar bear dog is muzzled, like a hurt bird with clipped wings, is the first time the Avatar's heart breaks in this lifetime.
It is not until Tenzin asks her to stay, his arrow faded in the ruddy twilight and whiskers bristling in his prim, frustrated manner, that she feels an ache unstick and a gravity rebalance. When he lets Naga sleep in her austere room, the crimson-and-ochre ghosts touch their feet to the floor.
3.
(I am not a traitor to the cause. But they cannot ask me not to love my brother.)
4.
"You what," had said Mako, struggling to maintain a look of disinterest.
"You heard me! The Fire Ferrets' official firebender is now-" Bolin struck a pose, one hand to the sky like the ringmaster- "the Avatar Herself!"
"By the knives of Mai- that is the worst idea I ever heard-"
"Why!? She is SO GREAT. She is the best thing that could possibly happen to, and Mako, I list this in order of importance: the world, Republic City, pro-bending, the Fire Ferrets, and me. Me being the most important, obviously." Bo winked and flourished at his long-suffering brother.
Bolin's enthusiasm is admirable, thought Mako. And may get us killed in the near future. The City's non-benders were already grumbling about the useless young Avatar.
Mako sighed, crackly and dry as a sunbaked road. "Bo- she's the Avatar. Hasn't she got more important shit to do than compete in an amateur pro-bending team?"
Bolin pouted at his brother. "You think I didn't think of all this too? I asked Korra and-"
"You're asking some fangirl of yours for advice now?"
Bolin looked at him with a surprised smile. "What, no! That's the Avatar's name, bro! Avatar Korra!"
Mako blinked and nodded. "Oh. Right." But he didn't know what to think about learning the Avatar's name.
5.
Mako accepted long ago that staying honest to his own values would involve blunt lying whenever necessary. He lies constantly. His own brother whom he has raised from the age of six has been told a lie that digs deeper into the earth every day. It is for his own good. He isn't a bender but Bolin is.
When it comes to Bolin, Mako suffers a struggle. Sometimes, in a flash of envy, he cannot forgive his brother's broad shoulders and winning smile, his shining sincerity and his sense of humor, and most of all his privilege as a gifted earthbender. But such envy is useless and fleeting. Mako is so proud that Bolin is alive, that Bolin isn't like those other benders, that he is the one that brought him up; knowing every day that Bo exists, is enough to let his own narrow frame, drawn face, and his non-bending self become scars he is proud to have.
He still tells lies, though. Bolin never knows he's joined the Equalist movement. It is around the time when the old man kicks them out of his shack (Mako hates Toza for it but cannot blame him, not when Mako's own involvement with the Triads is endangering everyone around him). Bolin the adorable earthbender gains a following of smitten female neighbors at age eleven, and they somehow arrange for them to live in the tower of the Arena. Mako will follow where Bo's enthusiasm leads, and the rent is offered at an affordable price, until the mobster running the place finds out Mako isn't even a bender. If he had ever raised his brother to be tough, maybe Bolin could have earth-bullied the guy into leaving Mako alone, but his good nature just trails out of his guileless green eyes and Mako cannot let anyone harm the well-meaning soul that is his brother. So he tells a perfect lie and Bolin, at eleven, has a roof over his head, and some kind of future to work towards, and damned if that isn't a load off his brother's shoulders. Mako settles into a well-adjusted street life of stealing, committing small crimes for the Triads and bringing food and money to Bo every day. Until the factory, the roadhouse, and a masked man who shows him the reverse side of the universe.
6.
Some days Bolin gets this wistful look on his face and his big eyes go distant and glazed.
The first time Korra sees it she asks what the matter is.
"Just missin' my bro is all," he says, suddenly radiance breaking through the clouds.
And she thinks, Bolin has a brother!
What's he like? She imagines a shorter version of Bolin, round with adolescence, well-fed. Cheerful because that's what Bolin is. Dopey and admiring of his big brother, spoiled by Bolin's more hopeful fangirls.
But then. What comes through the door is Mako.
"You're Bolin's brother?"
"Sorry to disappoint." He barely takes her in.
A good hand taller than the earthbender, and whip-thin. Old grey coat and red scarf. He is holding something wrapped in paper.
"No, no! He told me about you. Good things, of course! I just expected-"
"Look, is he here?"
She isn't used to people interrupting her like that. "He's just upstairs-"
"Excuse me, then."
She bares her teeth at the back of him. When he comes back she tries again. "I didn't get to introduce myself. I'm Korra, Bolin's waterbender and the-"
"I know who you are, Avatar." He pushes past her, eyes set on the exit.
He might be the first one to stun her into silence.
The next few times he manages to avoid speaking to her at all. But for all it's worth she gets a couple of good long looks at him. Wan skin, cold yellow eyes, set jaw. She concludes: he's got a calculating facial expression, but no real arrogance. Like he sizes you up to judge how hard he'll have to fight back when you attack him.
Oh, and the more she sees him, the more she wants to attack.
7.
And in seeing her, dark, shapely, young, he feels in his bones for the first time the truth that there is a person, flesh and blood, who can bend all of the elements, who is the alleged manifest will of the world. Until now the Avatar had been a fossil enshrined on the South Pole. Faded ink lines on a dusty scroll to rail against.
The whole world shifts, just a fraction. An old fear curls around him, of not being in control of his life at all, of being subject to a theatre of harmful spirits.
"Of all benders, the Avatar is the most privileged. The pedestal upon which the Avatar is placed is the precursor to the worship that all other benders expect," said Amon.
But how bitter this life is. To throw her from her pedestal is to let Bolin fall too.
8.
It takes Tenzin the span of one dinner to come to terms with – or, well, capitulate to – her choice to join the Fire Ferrets permanently. She knew it would be fine. They had decided to make more of an effort trying to understand each other after she made the ancient heirloom in the courtyard explode last week. She has been training rigorously despite the lack of Air. He will let her pro-bend.
"And what happened to their last firebender? Why did he leave?" He runs boney fingers over his moustache and fiddles with his chopsticks as he contemplates the steamed vegetables and dumplings on the low table.
Korra makes a who-cares face, picking at her greens. Bolin never told. But the air kids are all watching her for her answer.
"He..." she decides, "-he ran away to marry an orangatang bat!" waggling her eyebrows at Meelo, who wastes no time in springing up to stagger overjoyed around the tatami floor, flapping and shrieking, "orananangatan bat! Mommy I'ma oranganangatang! Keeeee! Keeeee!"
Tenzin gazes dolefully. "Korra, If you don't know the answer, just say you don't know the- Meelo!" The orangatang bat is methodically pulling himself up the long stretch of his father's back using, most remarkably, only his toes and teeth.
Jinora and Ikki observe without comment how Tenzin tries to retain any level of peace with a demonic creature lodged in his shoulder. Blithely rubbing her pregnant belly, Pema munches.
"You've got this meditation inner peace thing down-pat," Korra commends her. "And you're not even an airbender!"
Pema slurps her homemade oborodofu. "Oh yes. I suppose you could call it inner peace, although on most days I'd be tempted to call it willful ignorance. Lucky thing inner peace isn't reserved for benders. Some benders aren't even particularly good at it."
"I encourage you to remember that you're not the one currently being gnawed on by– at least his teeth appear to be remarkably sturdy." Tenzin tries to eat a spring roll and fails, but does so with great dignity. Meelo, from where he is dangling upside-down from his dad's neck swipes the roll gracefully and chows down. Korra watches in admiration as bits of fried batter catch in Tenzin's beard, wishing she could still get away with shit like this.
Suddenly the soft tofu reminds her of stewed sea prune -although the flavors could not differ more- and she misses the deft flick of Tonraq's knife, whittling the soft fruit from their rocks. The whole cabin would smell of seaweed and brine. Pema meets her eyes and Korra knows, it's alright.
"I think it's nice that Korra is participating in pro-bending. For us, it'll only ever be a spectator sport." Jinora says, wistful.
"Well!" pounces the Avatar. "Only 'cause the team with you on it would have an unfair advantage! There would need to be enough airbenders for every team.." Korra raises her eyebrows at Jinora and Ikki. "So the sooner you start making air babies the better, am I right?"
"Korra!" Tenzin the perpetually flummoxed airbender has turned bright red. "Don't.. my children don't listen to the radio after hours..! Don't talk to them about.."
"About what, daddy?" Jinora asks, beatific. Abruptly Meelo has stopped squawking, and Ikki is gearing up in the ringing silence for what's gotta be verbal gold, before Pema cuts in.
"Korra has a point, dear. If you had started sooner, there might have been two generations of airbenders running around already."
"If I had started sooner, who would you have married?" He asks his wife plainly.
"Why! The orangatang bat," Pema winks. Meelo airbends himself into his mom's open arms with a yodel, upsetting a bowl of Korra's memories and a plate of green things.
Notes:
By the knives of Mai - expression of surprise or dislike, mostly used by non-benders
tatami - woven straw mats used for indoor flooring in Japan. My take is that tatami is pretty much the most comfortable type of flooring in the world although heated Korean floors are a great blessing. Air nomads came from rough-hewn stone temple floors high in the mountains, and Water Tribe laid skins and woven rugs over permafrost earth. Earth kingdom would retain stone and earth floors where possible, of course. Tatami was perhaps developed by the fire nation, aware as they were of the irony of how ruinous even a fiery sneeze might be when sitting on a mat. It is well-suited to Republic City's flooring needs.
oborodofu - very soft, nearly liquid tofu (Japanese) [author's note: it is very, very delicious]
orangatang bat - a creature I have distilled from two lovely mammals, keeping in tradition with the show's hybrid menagerie. I have great faith that young Meelo's performance, although brief, aptly relayed to you the character of this whimsical animal, and its predilection for fried foods... especially when in the possession of other people.