the thief and the airbender
we have dead hearts, my dear
[book 3 finale au]
{for exactlykainora, from tumblr}
Jinora never fully recovers.
After managing to knock out the guards with her sister, she leads the airbenders out of their prison and run into her father - alive, thank Raava - and the others on their long trek back to the Temple. They find Korra just in time to save her from the poison.
And it's when everything is said and done, Zaheer is defeated, Korra's alive but in critical condition, the airbenders have survived, that Jinora realizes, and she collapses on the spot.
"I'm sorry sweetheart," Tenzin murmurs into her hair, but it falls on deaf ears; she's past the point of inconsolable.
The possibility of Kai's death - he had fallen from the sky, burning like a shooting star, far too bright, far too young - is one that she knows, one that she thought she knew, but to have it crash over her with deafening finality… It's too much to bare.
They hold a funeral. There's no body. Jinora finds a sick sort of satisfaction in the fact that P'li - Kai's murderer - is dead, even though she knows it's wrong, even though it doesn't leave her anyone to blame for what happened.
Except, sometimes, herself. She could have stopped him, could have argued, she could have even flown up with him. But she didn't. And he's gone.
Jinora struggles to move on. She throws herself into rebuilding and helping the Air Nation. She sees his smile everywhere, hears his laugh, and then crumbles knowing she will never see her best friend ever again.
But Jinora has always been tough, resilient, and when she gets her tattoos a year later, there's tears in her eyes because he should have been there but her smile reaches her eyes too.
It takes years for her to make peace with it, and she does, for the most part. The one thing that always nags at her is the thought, that if given time, what they've could have been, and how she'll never know.
A little something I threw together in a particularly angsty mood the other day. I'll be working on some of your requests this weekend - only appropriate as the 10 year anniversary of Avatar is tomorrow!
Enjoy and have fun with your tissues (the next drabble shall be happier, I swear).
Also, a (happier) oneshot should be up later tonight for these two cuties that I've been working on over the past few days, and I'd really appreciate if you guys checked it out.
As always, feel free to leave requests and your thoughts below, I love to hear them! :)