3 Months Later
"Good Morning Korra! How are we feeling today?" Her Doctor asked as he walked into her room, two orderlies waiting in the hallway. Korra set her pencil down and looked at the drawing of the flower bed outside her window she had been attempting, it was bad but they said that quality wasn't the point. It was to "express herself in new ways", meaning in ways that didn't involve spider rats, darkness, tunnels, aliens, and blood, so they could understand and see if she was still crazy.
"Better." Korra answered as she set the drawing down on her desk and turned in her seat to face Her Doctor, one of the orderlies wincing slightly when he saw her. 'Ah, forgot the eye patch again.' She turned back around and retrieved it taking it from its position on the window sill and slipped it on. She had originally wanted something like a dark blue cloth or bandage, something that would look real badass she argued, but all they allowed her was a simple black eye patch that covered her empty socket and nothing more. "What are you doing here? Our session isn't for another 3 hours."
"You have a visitor." Her Doctor answered as he looked at her drawing, his large grey eyebrows scrunching in thought. "This is very good." He smiled pushing his many wrinkles up on his face. Korra suddenly wished she had drawn a spider rat or maybe even He Who Sleeps in the middle of the flowers to see how he would have responded.
"Who?" Korra asked rising from her seat and slipping her feet into her soft slippers, Tenzin and her friends usually scheduled their visitations about a week in advance. She wasn't even sure that she could receive walk in visitors, this place was pretty secluded and took hours to drive to.
"Your Uncle, Chief Unalaq." Her Doctor revealed and Korra's eyebrows shot up.
"What's he doing here? He's supposed to be on his way to The Glacier Spirits Festival in the South Pole." Korra replied as Her Doctor guided her out of the room, followed by the pair of orderlies. She hadn't had a incident for nearly a month now but being The Avatar they never let their guard down around her.
"Well it would seem he's taken a detour to visit his niece, a visit he is very adamant for." Her Doctor answered as they walked outside to the main garden of the facility, other patients wandering around enjoying the peace of the plants and flowers. Korra frowned as her gaze turned past the garden to the mountains in the distance that obscured where Republic City lay but more importantly sheltered He Who Sleeps. She was about to ask if her Uncle had brought Desna and Eska with him when she spotted Huan sitting alone at a table near a pond, turtle ducks quacking for his attention. Diverting her course and ignoring the calls of Her Doctor and the quickened pace of the orderlies she made her way to him and sat down next to him.
"Hey Huan." She greeted as she looked over his shoulder to see what he was doing, a letter half-finished in front of him a dulled pen in his hand. "Who are you writing to?"
"Biming." Huan answered, it had been a long time since their ordeal and he had long moved past muttering everything and not being able to form comprehensible sentences. Still like her he could slip back if anything reminded them of that night or they looked out at the mountain where He Who Sleeps slumbered. "They found him and Jian and I'm writing a letter telling him how brave his mother was until the end. They said it would be good for me."
"My Uncle is visiting." Korra shared as her gaze flicked back to Her Doctor and the orderlies. They didn't like her and Huan talking together no matter what strings Tenzin pulled to get him sent here with her, they felt that they were counteractive to each other's progress and supported their shared delusions of what happened that night. "No idea why."
"Do you hate your Uncle?" Huan asked confused.
"No, but my Dad does, no idea why though." She rose from her seat and put a hand on Huan's shoulder. "I better get going, see you around."
"Thanks for saving me." Huan said for what was perhaps the thousandth time.
"You don't have to keep thanking me. I wasn't ever going to let you die down there." Korra assured with a smile as she could practically feel Her Doctor frown behind her at the mention of their delusion.
"I know but I don't think I've said it enough. If all benders… if all people were like you then I'd have never had to join The Equalists." He praised. "You kept going when everyone else would have stopped or broken, even if it was because you were fueled by anger."
"I think being The Avatar had something to do with me being so resistant to what happened." Korra admitted remembering how Suzume, Li, and Huan had collapsed in madness by merely touching He Who Sleeps while she had been completely fine. "But things are getting better and if there not by the time we get out I'll fix them. wdhdwyk?"
"wdhdwyk." He smiled and she bid him farewell rejoining Her Doctor and the orderlies as they led her across the facility to the visitation center.
"Good to see you again, Avatar Korra." Unalaq bowed when she walked into the visitation room, rising up from the couch and setting the magazine he had been reading aside. "You seem to be recovering nicely."
"It's good to see you too Uncle." Korra returned the bow after a pause, being addressed as The Avatar for the first time in months and nearly forgetting how to respond. "And it has been nice here, plenty of time to settle my thoughts on what happened." Her eye snapped to Her Doctor as he left the room.
"Yes I've read the reports, a truly shocking set of events." Unalaq said as he took a seat and Korra did the same opposite him. That's what everybody said when they read the story but what they meant was it was shocking up until she was thrown into the tunnels, after that it was just her and Huan's mad ramblings. "But if you may forgive my bluntness I am here to discuss a serious matter with you."
"What is it?" Korra asked confused.
"Spirits have begun attacking ships off of the South Pole." He revealed with a calm voice. "Tenzin and your Father have instructed this news be kept from you until your condition has been fixed but I believe that this matter points to something else and requires dire urgency."
"Well what can I do? I don't know how to fight Spirits and I haven't been able to train in months, the orderlies freak out if I do any sort of bending." Korra explained leaving out how the last time she had bended it was nearly resulted in the kitchen burning down because she thought she saw a spider rat. But those minor freak outs were behind her, she no longer swung between lamenting the insignificance of mankind in this universe and being madly joyful of the freedom that knowing there was no logical or ordered reason for existence gave her. "And unless you feel like pissing off everybody else I can't really leave with you."
"Perhaps I should make myself clearer; this has the rumblings of being a very serious event. World Ending serious." He said with full seriousness.
"What?!" Korra asked shocked. "What do you mean? Spirits have been angry before but they've never come close to destroying the world!"
"It is not the Spirits I worry about but what could be making them stir under the South Pole." Unalaq leaned forward and whispered. "He Who Sleeps is not the only Great Old One who slumbers on our world, and the one I fear has had no one to put her back to sleep in a long time. And She is hungry."
"You… you know about He Who Sleeps?!" Korra whispered harshly her blood turning cold. "You know about The All Mother and Those He Favors and the spider rats?"
"Yes, a shame that The Avatar has to be put through such a terrible lesson to learn of beings that with time and proper techniques be easily explained." Unalaq replied. "Of course this is something I can't blame your Father, Tenzin, or The White Lotus for as they are not even aware. Ignorance is a comfortable shroud. But not for you or I, not anymore."
"How long have you known? How do you know?" Korra asked edging forward in her seat.
"Since I was your age I have collected rare and some would say heretical tomes, although I didn't have my first encounter with a strange worldly creature until I was 30." He frowned at the memory. "There is nothing like taking a diplomatic trip to the Southern Earth Kingdom and watching Deep Ones crawl out of the ocean at night from your hotel room. I did my best to inquiry about the murders that occurred that night but I never got anywhere, the locals too tight lipped and fearful."
"What do you expect me to do?" Korra asked. "The entire lesson was that I shouldn't get involved with these things! The All Mother made it very clear that all I'll end up doing is getting eaten!"
"The All Mother is very pessimistic of Humanity; she has seen other races rise and fall before so it is to be expected. But as The Avatar you are safe where others are not, The Avatar Spirit safe guarded your sanity from being destroyed by He Who Sleeps after all." Unalaq argued. "And I can teach ways that they may be beaten or banished without getting to close, I can teach you magic." He offered as his eyes flicked to her eye patch.
"I… I… need some time to think about this." Korra muttered as she made to get up out of her seat but was stopped by Unalaq bolting to her and handing her a small piece of paper, a strange symbol written on it.
"If you decide to seek my tutelage and help me then draw this onto a door, it will take you where you need to go." He said cryptically as Korra examined it, the strange mixing of curved and straight lines unsettling her. Slipping it where no one would find it, namely tucked under the left cup of her bra, she left the visitation center without a word and went back to her room.
It was midnight when Korra decided what to do, having spent the past 2 hours just staring up at her ceiling. Sitting up as slowly as possible to avoid making any noise she slipped out of bed and put on her eye patch, slippers, and then moved to her closet to fetch her extra clothes, her eye remained fixed on the little window on her door that the orderlies could peak through at any moment on their rounds. Backing up to her desk she pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil and then wrote "I'm sorry Huan. But The All Mother could be wrong. I have to know."
Folding the paper and laying it on the bed Korra then took the pencil and copied the symbol Unalaq had given her onto her closet door. When the final line settled into place a light began to glow from inside the closet, starting at a small flicker but growing to illuminate the entire room as if it were day time. Not wasting anytime Korra threw open the door and gazed at what lay beyond.
The back of the closet had disappeared and left a gateway to a bright clearing of purple grass and oranges leaves on bending trees in front of a yellow sky. Unalaq, Desna, and Eska waited patiently, conversing with each other until they noticed her and Unalaq beckoned her to join them. Stepping into her closet and shutting the door behind her Korra carefully walked on the purple grass as tiny bugs flew away from her path, screaming at her as they went.
"So you decided to accept my offer. I'm glad; I have so much to teach you." Unalaq welcomed when she reached them.
"So you met The All Mother and He Who Sleeps?" Desna asked in that monotone way he and his sister always did. "How was that?"
"It was the single most terrifying night of my life." Korra admitted to her cousin. "I nearly went mad."
"Good, too many people can't handle the mere thought of them existing. It's nice to know that you are at least made of sterner stuff and can see them as we do." Eska responded. "As just another part of our universe that can be understood and fought… Most of the time. If a Great Old One or Outer God actually wants us dead we can't really do anything." She admitted.
"That's enough Eska. Come Korra," Unalaq said as he led the way down a dirt path into a rich blue valley, the world shimmering as they walked along it "we need to hurry; we arrive in the South Pole within the next few days. Your training starts immediately." He said as the world gave one last shake and she was suddenly walking on wood, standing on the deck of the Northern Water Tribe Royal yacht gazing out at the moonlit ocean.
"Alright," Korra said as her stomach settled, "who exactly has got the Spirits upset?" She asked remembering the event that had set off Unalaq's warning bells in the first place.
"Yu'ruwib." Unalaq answered in some strange language she didn't recognize. "She Who Walks Between The Storms."
Yeah sequel hook! Which could come whenever, hell if I know. There's gonna be magic and monsters and Korra running from her friends who think she's crazy which she still kinda is and they'll see monsters and lose their shit and it'll be great.