反射

Book 1.5: Reflections

Chapter 10: The Calm Before the Storm

Unlike previous days, the sky was clear and there were very few clouds in the skies over Republic City. The sun, rising over the mountains in the east, cast the ocean in a rich, deep blue tone. Seagulls squawked as they dove into the chilling waves in a bid to catch breakfast while, on the island of the Air Acolytes, sky bisons rumbled sleepily in their caves, and scores of winged lemurs chattered noisily in the trees in an early-morning chorus.

The cool and crisp air was appreciated by the orange-robed Acolytes as they performed their early duties around the island or sat in meditation, listening to the lapping of ocean waves against the rocks and watching hermit crabs scuttle along the shore. In the courtyard before the women's dormitory, Tenzin's young daughters stood with Korra, where they had been whisking up air-scooters for the past hour.

"Remember, first you have to form a ball, and then you have to get on real quick!" Ikki said excitedly.

She swung her arms in front of her, creating a sphere of swirling, cyclonic air. She whooped and hollered as she jumped on top of it, zipping all about the courtyard. Her childish laughter echoed across the island as she whisked straight up the side of the building.

"Race you to the air temple tower! Last one there is a rotten ostrich-horse egg!" she called over her shoulder as she disappeared across the dark-blue and gold-trimmed pagoda roof.

"Show-off," Korra muttered.

"Remember that you have to balance on it like it's a top," Jinora added oh-so-helpfully.

"I know," she said, gritting her teeth.

For the umpteenth time that morning, she conjured up an air-scooter, her hair billowing in the wind that radiated out from the extremely-localised cyclone. However, as soon as the teenager tried to mount it, she lost control of the air flow throughout the ball. This was immediately followed by her flying backward through the air, before colliding painfully with the pavement and sliding several feet.

"What is wrong with me?" she groaned in frustration, sitting up to examine the scrapes across her arms. If she was still a waterbender, she would have been able to heal them. Oh well. They're only minor, and anyway, no pain no gain…

"Are you okay?" came Jinora's concerned voice, as the young airbender sat down cross-legged on the pavement next to her.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she replied, holding both of her tanned arms out in front of her in a stretch. "Just some scratches. Nothing major." She looked away at the creamy early-morning sky and sighed irritably.

"Korra, is there something wrong?" the orange-robed girl asked kindly. "Airbending is the most spiritual of the elements, and my father says that difficulty with it often stems from a personal or spiritual crisis."

The young woman in question was always finding herself surprised by Jinora's maturity and insight into any given situation. She was going to be a wonderful example to the next generation of Air Acolytes someday.

The seventeen year-old reeled her mind back to the present and put on a smile she hoped was convincing enough. "It's nothing really."

Jinora just adopted a frown, similar to one that her father often wore whenever he instructed the stubborn young Avatar.

Korra rolled her eyes in response and brushed her twin pigtails out of her face. "I'm just having a disagreement with one of my…" She paused for a moment, finally settling on what she hoped was still an appropriate noun, after what had happened at the restaurant last night. "…friends. That's all."

"Is it Mako you're fighting with?" her young friend asked.

"We're not fighting. We're just having a difference of opinion."

"Which is?"

"It's his opinion that I need to be less self-absorbed, and it's my opinion that he's a jerk." Seeing her companion's expression at her lame explanation, Korra rolled her eyes again. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately. "It seems like all he ever does since I got back is criticise me for one thing after another – picking a fight with the triads, not writing back to him over the past few weeks – which I feel really bad about and already apologised for, but that's still not enough for him. Ugh!"

"It just sounds like he's worried about you," Jinora offered.

"I know, and it's really touching that he's concerned and all, but he has a funny way of showing it. He thinks that, just because he's a close friend, and because I've lost most of my bending, and because I still like him, and because the Equalists are still active, I'm going to sidle up to him and do whatever he tells me. Well guess what, buster, no one tells me what to do!"

Korra sighed in satisfaction, feeling better after getting all of that off her chest. She had been feeling like an overstuffed turkey-duck all morning, when it turned out that all she needed was someone to vent to. However, she then noticed the sly smile Jinora was giving her.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked, wariness creeping into her tone.

"You said that you still like him."

"What? No I didn't!"

"You still like Mako," the little girl giggled. "I guess he does still drive you crazy, huh?"

Korra was mentally firebending herself to death, her eyes wide and a traitorous blush spreading across her face. Oh, Spirits, had she really just said that she still liked him?

She gritted her teeth and found herself wishing that she still had her earthbending, so she could catapult Jinora across the island and into the bay – although Tenzin and Pema would probably not appreciate that. Their oldest daughter may be all sweet and innocent on one façade, but she had another side entirely. The little imp was pushy, nosy and, at that moment, almost as infuriating as Mako.

"You know what? I really have to go use the bathroom." The Avatar stood up and ran off toward the pagoda tower, where Ikki was no doubt still waiting.

Jinora watched her go, a mischievous smile on her face.

The morning sun was beating down over the tower at the summit of the hill, where Korra arrived to find Meelo and Ikki huddled around a stack of marbles on the pavement outside.

"There you are! Finally! You lost the race, you ostrich-horse egg!" Ikki said smugly.

"Yeah, yeah, you win," the teenager replied, folding her arms and leaning against one of the pillars below the eaves, putting on a pout for show. "What are you two doing?"

"We're playing marbles!" Meelo said excitedly. "Want to join us?"

"Uh, thanks, but I think I'll just watch."

The head-shaven young boy proceeded to levitate and spin the marble in a tight, blurred halo above his palm, before blowing on it and causing it to shoot it at the pile with impressive speed.

"…An extension of the marble trick, huh?" Korra commented, her eyebrows quirked.

The two children continued, but turned to look when she knelt down beside them.

"Oh, are you going to play with us now, Korra?" Ikki asked.

"First, I want to try something," she replied, picking up one of the marbles from the cluster.

Thinking back to what Meelo taught her a couple of days ago, she focused on controlling the airflow above her palm until the marble was levitating and spinning, and then focused her chi on an arrow-straight path ahead. The marble responded, shooting out from her hand with great speed and striking a boulder on the far side of the courtyard. There was a resounding CRACK, and debris flew as the marble embedded itself into the rock.

"Wow!" Meelo exclaimed.

"That was amazing, Korra!" Ikki cried, clapping her hands together excitedly. "Do it again! Do it again!"

"Sure," she replied, plucking a handful of marbles from the pile. Moments later, a blurred volley flew across the courtyard. While several flew into the adjacent bamboo garden, most of the marbles struck the boulder, cracking its face further.

"That's so cool!" the little boy cried. "I wanna try!"

"No, Meelo." Everyone looked to see Tenzin approaching from the pathway, a newspaper folded under one arm.

"Aww, why not?" both of his kids chorused in unison.

"Run along, children. I need to speak with Korra for a minute."

They groaned in frustration but obeyed, bending up a pair of air-scooters and whisking themselves away, leaving their father alone with the teenage girl outside the temple.

"Is everything alright?" she asked. "Sorry about the boulder," she added as an afterthought.

"That's an interesting technique," Tenzin remarked after a moment, sparing a glance toward the cracked boulder in question on the far side of the courtyard. "I'm glad to see you exercise creativity in your bending. But a move like that could seriously injure someone."

"Are you kidding me?" she could not help but say. "Firebending creates fire."

"The way of the Air Nomads was peaceful. You need to understand and embrace that, in order to better yourself in airbending. To understand the way of the Air Nomads is to understand airbending itself."

Korra raised her eyebrows, but ultimately decided that it was too beautiful a day to get into another argument with her teacher. "Okay, how about using corks instead?" she compromised. "They're a lot softer."

"You – " Tenzin exhaled in frustration, as he often found himself doing when trying to instruct the stubborn teenager. "You know what I meant!" After a moment, he remembered the newspaper he had tucked under his arm, and why he had come to find her in the first place. "I think you should see this."

He held up the third page and Korra's eyes widened in surprise.

AVATAR SIGHTED IN REPUBLIC CITY?

"What?" she exclaimed, snatching the newspaper out of his hands.

A young woman matching Avatar Korra's description was seen last night at Kuang's Cuisine restaurant. Witnesses say that she dined with the 'Fabulous Bending Brothers' of the Fire Ferrets, runners-up in the Pro-Bending Championship Tournament, along with their sponsor, Asami Sato of Future Industries. Things got out of hand when a heated argument flared up between her and the former team captain, Mako, after which she promptly left the scene.

Is this young woman really the Avatar? If so, is she back in the city to stay? And why has she not yet made a public announcement of her return?

And what of this argument between the Avatar-lookalike and the former Fire Ferret captain? There are indications that there is more than a purely professional relationship between them…

"I hate the press," the Water Tribe woman groaned, not bothering to read the rest of the article. Seeing her mentor's expression, she sighed. "I'm really sorry, Tenzin. I didn't mean for things to get so out-of-hand."

She could not believe this! She knew this would happen if she went out to that stupid restaurant, but she went anyway! And now the press was spreading rumours about her and Mako… Was it not common knowledge that he was already in a relationship with Asami?

What would the heiress think of all this? What would Mako think?

"Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about," Tenzin said delicately. He was aware that broaching the following subject might set the volatile young Avatar off, but it had to be asked. "Are you planning on making your presence in Republic City publically known?"

Korra was surprised. She had been expecting an earful from her master for causing a public scene. Not this. "I'm… not sure if I'm ready yet," she said, trepidation in her tone. "Everyone is expecting the Avatar to come and solve all their problems, but I… I can't right now. All I can give them is a half-baked Avatar who can only airbend." The scrapes across her arms from the morning's failed air-scooter sessions were still throbbing. "And not very well, at that."

"Korra, this self-deprecation is not good for your spirituality," her teacher said, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "And you have already come so far in airbending. In fact, I think that, with a bit more practice, you could be ready to learn some of the more advanced sets."

She scoffed. "But I can't even make an air-scooter yet."

"I did say after a bit more practice."

Korra smiled. "Okay, Tenzin."

He reciprocated, remembering how he had been accosted by Ikki the other day, his youngest daughter practically begging him to allow her to teach Korra the air-scooter. The very same technique that Aang himself had invented to earn his master airbender tattoos. It would have warmed his father's heart to see his granddaughters teaching his own technique to the next incarnation in the Avatar cycle.

Life truly was a beautiful thing.

He hesitated for a moment, tucking the newspaper back under his arm, before bringing up the next topic which was troubling him. "Do you want to talk about what happened with Mako?"

Korra's smile immediately faded, and she suddenly found watching a pair of winged lemurs, foraging for food on the ground nearby, much more appealing. "No… thanks. I'd really rather not talk about it. Ever."

"Very well, but I'm always here if you want to talk." He fell into a contemplative silence for a moment, before speaking up again. "There's something else I wanted to talk to you about. I will be delivering an address to the anti-bending movement later on today. I think you should be there too."

The Water Tribe girl was about to about to voice her uncertainty, but then recalled what she had seen in the past two days. She was living in a city in strife, and it was her responsibility to help resolve these problems.

"Yeah. You're right. I should be there," she said, sounding a lot braver than she felt.

The late-morning sun shone through the windows, the beams of light showing flickering white specks of dust drifting in the air in the barebones apartment of the 'Fabulous Bending Brothers'. The Dragon Flats borough was never a particularly lively place, but the sun shining through the clouds somehow cast the streets outside the apartment complex in a cheerful light.

However, one of the residents was in a foul mood despite the weather, and it only worsened the longer he read a particular newspaper article. "I hate the press," he finally muttered, scowling as he threw the paper down on the coffee-table.

"Let me see that, Mako," his younger brother said, snatching the newspaper away before the firebender could torch it. "'Avatar sighted in Republic City'? Oh, man…"

As Bolin continued to read the article, Mako settled back into the worn orange couch, propped his feet up on the coffee-table and sighed. It was a nice change of pace to see nothing in the paper about escalating violence and rioting throughout the city (how much worse could it get, really?), but this sensationalist article was hardly an improvement.

What would Korra think of all this? What would Asami think?

Their relationship had been on rocky ground for several weeks now, but he really wanted to make things work. After everything she had sacrificed, even her relationship with her father, to protect him and his little brother, he at least owed her that.

"This newspaper article goes on and on about the 'former Fire Ferret captain', but makes no mention of the new captain," Bolin whined. "What am I, chopped liver?"

Mako did not bother to answer, but his mind was a whirlwind of thoughts around that stupid article. Korra had been trying to keep a low profile – that much was clear – but it seemed that the people of Republic City wanted their Avatar back, whether she ready for it or not.

The brooding firebender always felt guilty about leaving her behind in the South Pole when she had entered the Avatar State, but secretly, he had also been scared. He was the one who found her, high up on those icy cliffs overlooking the Antarctic ocean…

And what he had seen… scared him.

For as long as Mako had been friends with her, he had known that Korra was the Avatar. However, he often found it hard to believe that the cocky, self-assured and socially-awkward teenager could really be a goddess of sorts.

But that… that thing – with the glowing eyes… Was it really her?

Mako could scarcely believe it, but he was frightened by her, and what he had seen…

His train of thought was interrupted by the annoyingly high-pitched buzzing of a mosquito-fly near his head. He lit a flame in the palm of his hand, incinerating the pesky insect.

"Whoa!" Bolin exclaimed next to him. "A little warning next time, please? You nearly burned my eyebrows off!"

"Sorry," the young man muttered in response, sauntering over to the kitchenette and grabbing a leftover lotus seed bau from the icebox.

As he heated the fluffy bun up with his firebending, he mentally prepared himself for another day-long gruelling shift at the power-plant ahead of him. Aside from the occasional date with Asami, work seemed to be the only thing in his life nowadays. With the pro-bending season over for the year, he was finding it difficult to keep up with the rent. The damned icebox alone was costing them twenty yuans every time they had to call the maintenance waterbender, who lived in the apartment complex, to come and refreeze the water in it. He needed to find a new way to make money.

"See, now was that so hard?" Bolin's voice cut into his thoughts. "Saying that you're sorry?"

His frown deepened. "What are you talking about?"

The earthbender set the newspaper carefully down and stared back at him expectantly. "Are you trying to drive a wedge between yourself and Korra or something? Because it seems like all you've done ever since she got back is chew her out for one thing or another."

"That's none of your business, Bo," he shot back.

The stocky boy stood, his green eyes flashing angrily. "It is my business, because she's our friend, and I don't like the way you're treating her!"

His pet fire ferret screeched in surprise at the outburst and scurried away into the corner of the room. A short silence fell over the apartment as the two brothers stared each other down, amber eyes blazing into green ones. But something made Mako back down, and he finally shifted his gaze away, sighing.

"You're right… I've just been so stressed at work lately and – "

"Don't tell me this. Tell Korra," his younger brother interrupted. "You need to go talk to her, bro. You really upset her. Keep things going the way they are and she won't even see you as a friend anymore."

Later on that day, the afternoon sun shone over Air Temple Island, prompting the native bisons to retire to their caves to escape the sparkling glare of the ocean. Tenzin's mount, however, waited faithfully outside the temple, ready to fly across Yue Bay. Korra climbed onto Oogi's back to join Tenzin, disguised in her hat, scarf and trench-coat. Beneath the coat, two small pouches hung from her fur pelt – one filled with corks and the other with marbles.

Just in case, she told herself.

Fifty minutes later, she was on the front steps of City Hall, standing discreetly next to a group of police officers. Chief Saikhan had been made aware of the fact that she was back in the city, courtesy of Beifong, although he was not too happy about it. The paved and grassed plaza before the building was packed with protestors, some of them waving placards, and all of them crying out for equality.

Tenzin stood next to the podium, while the non-bender minister Daio spoke into the microphone, with the composed stature of someone who believed he was the best thing to happen to the United Republic since the Harmony Restoration Movement.

"You can rest assured of the fact that we are aware of the injustices that exist throughout our society," he said, his clear voice ringing across the plaza. "The Provisional Government is working to address these issues now, and I will personally see to it that this city – and the entire country – sees reform. All we ask of you is patience."

"Equality now! Equality now!" some of the mass were yelling.

"How long do you expect us to wait?" another shouted.

Korra looked out over the crowd in sorrow, feeling torn between the two sides of the battle. Benders and non-benders alike, they were all her people. Was she caught on the wrong side in this conflict, acting as an oppressor? After all, equality for everyone would bring balance. But Republic City was Avatar Aang's vision for peace and balance in the world. Was it not her responsibility to help the Provisional Government maintain order?

Her train of thought was cast aside when, at that moment, she saw a terrifyingly-familiar sight – several members of the crowd pulled up black hoods and face-masks with crimson dots in the centre.

There are Equalists in the crowd, she realised in horror. "Look out!" she screamed, running forward.

At that moment, a bomb hidden just outside the main entrance to City Hall exploded.