Chapter 2

I ran away

Korra stared at the equation, dumbfounded. Math was not her thing. Neither was chemistry. Combine them, and she was lost. It wasn't hard for Asami to see this either. She had finished her assignment by the time the Water Tribe girl had finished one problem. She was working on her calculus when she saw the chemistry book fly. A frustrated Water Tribe girl sat beside her on the floor with crossed arms.

The engineer retrieved the book and opened it to the fourth chapter. "Which question are you having trouble with?"

Korra threw her hands up in the air. "All of them! I have no idea what I'm doing! No wonder they haven't let me into a major yet." She slumped into her knees.

"What do you mean?"

The younger woman sighed and sat up. "The reason why I'm an undeclared is because I didn't place high enough in my entrance exams to actually get into a major. So they put me into a bunch of Gen-Ed classes so I can 'prove myself', but apparently, I can't!" She buried her face into her knees. A hand touched her shoulder.

"It'll be okay, Korra. You'll get it. I can help you, if you want."

She reemerged with frustrated eyes but rubbed the evidence away. She took the book from Asami and glared at the problem set.

"What did you want to major in?" The raven knew Korra was under the undeclared track, but she didn't know that it wasn't by choice. She also recognized when the Southerner needed a distraction to calm down; they had been studying together every night in preparation for their first chemistry test, and it wasn't hard for her to pick up on some of her friend's mannerisms, given her eye for detail. Seeing her distress throughout the past few weeks, Asami had decided to help her out in a few of her other classes too. Korra had been working hard, and the circles under those bright blue eyes were getting darker as exam week approached.

"I really wanted to get into management and maybe someday have my own Pro-Bending team. Or get into therapy so that I can help people heal when they're injured. Maybe even pick up some real fighting styles and train in combat." Korra's sad eyes lit up now and locked onto green ones. Her smile faded when she saw Asami's face.

"Wait… are you a Bender, Korra?" There was a mix of emotions in her voice. Had I never asked or realized this before?

She tore her ocean irises away. Asami saw her shake and knew she struck a nerve. "No. I'm not a Bender." She flipped through the pages of her textbook, not focusing on them but looking to avoid the subject.

The older woman frowned, more upset at the fact that Korra wasn't a Bender than she thought she would be. This took her by surprise and forced her guard up. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize –" She was cut-off before she could trail her statement.

"I know, I know. It's okay." She let out a sigh and looked off into the distance. "I know most people from the Water Tribes these days are Benders, especially the ones that travel out of the villages. Most people can Water Bend and go around the world as Warriors or Healers or just regular Benders. I've always wanted to be a Bender. I wanted to be like my dad when I was a kid. He's a Bender. A great Bender, the strongest Water Bender in our village – except for Master Katara and Master Kya. He's the Chief of my whole Tribe, too. Well, sorta. He's the unofficial chief, technically. But he's still an amazing Bender."

Korra shifted. The book was now on the floor and her chin rested on her knees. She avoided Asami's eyes. "When I was younger, I used to watch my dad Bend with all of the Warriors and other masters in the village. And I would watch my mom Bend, too. Sometimes, she would Bend with my dad and spar with him. Some of the spars were more… well, fights." Her face grimaced to the memories that popped into her head, but she shook them off. "Other times, I would get to see her healing sessions when she'd tend to the wounds of the Warriors in my Tribe. I would dream about Bending almost every night. I could see myself moving the water, doing everything that they did. I could even do it better than them in some of my dreams."

Asami watched with intent and mimicked the Southerner's pose. She knew how this story would end and it made her hear wrench.

The younger woman continued, oblivious to anything the engineer was doing. "As I got older, I tried to Bend. I tried so hard. I worked on all of the basic movements and kata. Memorized them. Mastered them. But I could never feel the energy. I could never push and pull the water. I could never do what they did, never be great like them and follow in their footsteps. And they would never have the Bending child they wanted."

Arms tightened around her. The Water Tribe girl buried her face into the red and black shoulders that held her. She had no idea when she had started crying. Asami embraced Korra until she could no longer feel her soft sobs. They sat in silence, neither of them knowing what to say.

Korra pulled away from the older woman and wiped away her tear trails. She still refused to meet those green eyes. "They had tried to have more kids before all of this happened – they wanted a big family. But something was wrong, and they could only have me. Something about my dad's health, from what I've overheard. My parents would never admit it directly to my face, but I knew they were crushed when they learned I couldn't Bend. I've heard them talking and arguing about it before, when they thought I was asleep or wasn't listening or didn't even realize I was in the fucking room." A fit of anger flashed inside of her. It fizzled before she continued. "They had Master Katara see if she could help me, to see if there was something wrong with me. But no matter what I did, I couldn't Bend. I didn't have any friends that were Non-Benders, so as they grew up and got into their Bending, we grew apart. I tried to do what I could to help my village. Chores, errands, hunting, cooking… anything. I just wanted to feel useful, like I mattered. But I always felt second class compared to everyone else."

She rubbed her eyes; her vision was cloudy again. She heard Asami sniffle beside her and the floodgates opened. "I ran away, Asami. I ran away. I ran away from my village, from my family… from everyone. I was about fourteen, maybe a bit younger. I ran to that mountain I told you about, the one that was my favorite place. I watched the village sleep and left before anyone could figure it out." Korra shivered, as if she could still feel that cold winter evening. Even growing up in the land of the South Pole couldn't prevent her from shaking to the wind chill.

"A storm came in. A bad one. The worst I have ever seen in my life. I had gotten about thirty or forty miles away from the village, where the snow was up to my waist, and it was during the polar night, when the South Pole is covered in darkness and twilight for almost a day. No one was even awake. The storm blew in and I was nowhere near prepared. It only took about ten minutes for my hands to lose feeling and the blizzard was so bad, I could hardly even see them in front of me. All I could see was a sort of dark-shaded white, if that makes sense. I remember feeling my face burn in the wind. It knocked me down a few times, too. I searched and searched for some sort of cave to hide in, but I couldn't find anything. That's when I met Naga."

A smile hit Korra's face and she wasn't crying quite as much anymore. Asami wiped her own tears away.

"Who's Naga?"

"Naga is my polar bear dog." She was glowing now. "She's my absolute best friend back home. We spent every day together. It took a little bit of time to train her, but now she likes to hunt and play and she even snuggles up with me. She was just a bit older than a pup when I found her that day." Her expression grew grim again. "She had gotten separated from her pack and fell through some thin ice trying to evade the storm. I heard her whimpers through the wind somehow, so I dove in after her once I saw her. Of course, the cold shocked my body and I couldn't move, so we both sank. But then… well, I'm not exactly sure what happened, but I opened my eyes– I opened my eyes underwater through the shock and everything worked again. I could see through the darkness under the ice and grabbed Naga and swam up to the top. I pulled us out of the water and carried her, trying to keep her warm. I found a solid snow bank and dug a hole into it, made like a makeshift cave out of it. Took about half an hour to get through the ice and snow. I had to use just my hands because my bag with my supplies sunk when I dove in. By the time Naga and I had crammed ourselves into it to get out of the wind, I blacked out."

Korra was still, but her face was perplexed. She tried to recall what happened, as she had attempted many, many times before. With a shake of the head, she continued. "I woke up back in the village. That's the next thing I remember. My dad told me that he and the search party found me in the little snow bank, almost completely snowed over. They would have missed me altogether if it wasn't for Naga getting their attention. I'm glad she did that, too; otherwise, they would have thought that she was wild and trying to eat me. But they saw she was friendly to me and she came back with us to the village." She smiled for a minute but it quickly faded.

"My parents were frantic, though. So were the Healers. They said I came in completely still at first – almost… lifeless… but then I started shaking really bad and most of my vital organs had almost completely shut down even before all of that. I had to be strapped down while the Healers worked and they weren't even sure if I could be saved. No one had any idea what was wrong with me and why my body was reacting the way it was. They didn't know how long I was unconscious out in the storm for. I don't either, really. It had to have been a few hours if the fake cave was almost covered. I didn't wake up for almost a week after they found me."

Korra was playing with her fingers on her knees, still not looking up at Asami.

"My parents were so relieved when I finally woke up. I could tell my mother had been crying the whole time. They were also furious, once the initial relief passed. I got in a lot of trouble for running away. But when I told them why I ran away, they were," Korra grasped for a word, "not disappointed, I don't think. They were more… sad about it. Sad that I knew they were upset because the only kid they could have couldn't Bend, even though their feelings were pretty obvious. They were sad that I felt so useless and out of place... Family and community are so important for the Water Tribes, especially within the Southern Tribe. They felt like they had failed, but I didn't want them to feel that way at all."

Korra scrubbed her cheeks, trying to rid herself of both the current tear trails and the ones that had stained her since childhood. She hid her failure by continuing her story.

"After that, my dad started saving up money. He wanted me to have a life and a future like the other kids in the village. He wanted me to go to college, to be the first one of our village to do it. And even though it might not be the Bending life that everyone else got to have, he wanted me to experience the world, to make something of myself, to feel important. He wanted me to be something, something that he and the whole village could be proud of. That's when he started teaching me how to fight, too. He taught me all of the basic Non-Bending martial arts he knew." Korra noticed Asami eyeing her bare, somewhat-toned bicep, which was curled next to her knees. "He wanted me to be safe when I came here. And he wanted to try and give me the best education I could get."

"That's why it means so much to you, why all of this means so much."

Korra nodded. "I don't want to let them down. And I don't want to let you down."

She pulled her eyes off of the ground and met Asami's rather confused ones with a soft smile. "Me? What do I have to do with this?" She saw the Southerner swallow.

"You've helped me out a lot, Asami. You've been nothing but supportive of me since we met in Chem-lab. I wouldn't be this far without you."

The older woman hid her blush by rubbing the remnants of her tears off of her face. Korra grinned and brushed her own drops away. This had been a much more emotional night than either of them had anticipated.

"Do you still have dreams about Bending?" The question penetrated the silence with the mixture of emotions it held.

The Water Tribe girl dropped her gaze and fidgeted with her hands again. "Sometimes I do. Not as much as I used to, though. I kinda miss it. It was the closest I could get to being a Bender." She picked the textbook up and began rereading the problem for the fifth time. After a minute of staring and feeling distant green eyes on her, she sighed and handed the book to Asami. She crumpled up her previous work and threw it behind her, ready to try again with the instruction of the engineer.

"Need help?"

"Yes, please."

Asami smiled and began drawing out the ICE Box for their stoichiometry problem.