Thank BG-13 and Happy Thanksgiving!

Korra's POV

I had gotten separated from Mako. Great. Now I had to look for the idiot and make sure he didn't get himself killed. Airbending was a very tempting option but I couldn't risk him seeing me. Chances were that in a fog this thick, he was but a few feet from me, though I couldn't see or hear anything. I climbed up the roots of a semi large tree to get a better view. I thought I saw someone and I sighed.

"Hey, city boy," I said, walking over to the figure. "Mind staying next to-" I stopped dead in my tracks when I realized who it was. I felt a lump in my throat and I tried shaking the feeling off, closing my eyes. It couldn't be.

"Aiden?" I asked my voice cracking.

The figure smiled. "Avatar Korra," it said. I felt a pang in my heart, like it had been hit with a sledgehammer. My breath left me and I felt hollow.

I shook my head and slowly backed away before turning around and running at full speed, blinking away the tears. I kept telling myself it wasn't real. That I hadn't just seen Aiden, that it was a product of my imagination. I felt myself trip and roll down a small hill, hitting all kinds of branches and bushes on the way down. I groaned as I tried to get up, feeling the small cuts on my hands and face.

When I looked up my eyes went wide. Now I knew I was losing it. Standing in front of me was my former master, Howl Sr. I shook my head. This wasn't happening. I must have hit my head pretty hard coming down that hill. I shook my head again.

"You're dead," I said. "You aren't real."

"I ordered you to survive," Howl said. "But if you don't think you can," he added, digging into his pocket before pulling out a pocket knife, holding it out to me by the blade. "There's always the easy way out." I looked at the item in his hand, thinking about what he was saying, what he meant. His eyes were challenging, waiting to see if I would take the offer.

Slowly, I reached out and grabbed the knife, my grip on the handle like a vice. "Korra, my death is made meaningless by yours."

"I'm slowly dying every day," I said. "I'm practically dead already, from the inside at least. I want to get rid of all the pain." I wanted this. I needed this. It would make it all go away.

"You can survive this," he said. He thought too highly of me.

"No," I countered. "I can't. I'm not as strong as you think I am and I'm sorry for that," I added, making a move to plunge the piece of steel into my heart. But when I thrust the blade against my chest it disappeared. I shook my head, a small rueful smirk on my lips. "Of course it doesn't work. I'm hallucinating."

Howl shook his head sadly at me. "But if you weren't?" he asked. Then I'd be dead right now, finally allowed to sink into eternal oblivion. Id finally be allowed to feel nothing, no pain, no sorrow... No guilt. I thought it was cruel to dangle something like this in front of me and then deny me the satisfaction... The peace.

"You betrayed me, Korra. I died so you could live and you threw that gift away. You've made my sacrifice empty. You've made all our sacrifices empty."

"I'm not like you," I replied. "I'm not-" I mentally kicked myself when my voice caught in my throat. "I'm not strong like you. I never was." Oh, how true that was. And we both knew it. I hadn't been lying when I'd told Mako about wishing I was dead. I was a coward, I knew that.

"I told you, I orderedyou to right your wrongs!" he yelled. "That is your mission. That is your responsibility."

"How? How do I do this?" I asked. "I can't be the Korra everyone wants me to be." It was a cold and painful truth. That Korra was long gone. I was all that was left and even that was pathetic.

His expression softened and he knelt in front me, lifting my chin up so I could meet his brown eyes. "I'm sorry for everything I did to you," he said, his tone sincere and full of regret. "But I hope-I hope that you know that I did it for your own good. It was never my intention to make you feel this way, to make you hate yourself. You shouldn't. I never meant to break you." He seemed sad and tired. "Maybe one day you'll forgive me...and yourself. "

I didn't say anything as he got up and started to walk away from me. He turned around to face me again, this time holding a too familiar mask. His grip tightened on it and it cracked, a fracture appearing. I immediately got the message. I control the mask, not the other way around.

He faded into the fog after this, never there to begin with. My head started to throb and I felt dizzy. I slumped against the soft ground, laying my cheek against the cool, wet mud.

I was just so tired, and it wasn't long before the darkness welcomed me back into his cold embrace, not before a series of images flashed before me.

There was an older man with a ponytail, he looked like Katara's brother, he frowned at something.

Then the image switched to four metalbending officers, the Chief among them.

Another flash followed, this time of Aang, he was in the council room.

A man appeared next, I didn't recognize him.

The last image was that of Aang on the airscooter, looking mad.

Howl Sr.'s POV

I was ordered to go with another guard to pick up the survivors of the island. I myself had been there two or three times. It was deadly. It was every man or woman for themselves. Someone had to die every time; that was the rule.

Korra frequently went there. I remember the horrified look she had the first time she saw me kill someone but after a while she became desensitized to it, simply flinching when she saw one of the prisoners die.

It had been months since the last time she was taken to the island. When she was ordered to go I gave her a mission to complete. No survivors. I didn't think she would do it. Though she obeyed more than she had in the beginning, part of her still rebelled against my authority in some small way. Because of this, I was surprised to find a single prisoner on the shore, sitting down, hugging their legs.

The guard shouted for me to check who it was and I got off the small boat. I stopped a few feet away from the figure. Slowly, they rose and I did what I could to hide my horror. It was Korra, covered in blood. I was speechless. Her shirt and hands were stained red and even her face had traces of blood, as if someone had tried to fight her by pushing her face away.

"Come Korra," I told her quietly.

The girl looked down at her bloody hands before nodding and following me back to the boat. The guard looked at her, a petrified expression across his face. I didn't blame him. When we arrived he ordered me to take her to the showers and gave her a new uniform.

"You're ready," I said. "Lift up you shirt."

She did as she was told and I branded the White Lotus tattoo I had onto her lower abdomen. I looked up as I did the mark and the girl didn't do so much as flinch as I burned her skin. When I finished I stood up and lifted her chin so she would look at me. Her eyes, once bright and full of life, were now dull and dead. Just how she was. Just as I had made her to be.

It was that moment that I realized what I had done, the monster I had created. This had never been my intention. This hadn't been what I had wanted. I had strived to make her stronger both physically and mentally. But in the process I had slowly ripped out her soul, her essence, her innocence. I had underestimated the brutality of what I had done and I knew I had to fix it.

Carefully, I placed my hand against her cheek. "Cry, Korra," I said. If she cried, even if it was only one tear, there was a chance that she could still be saved, that the damage I had done wasn't irreparable.

The young Avatar simply looked at me. Her eyes seemed to question me. 'Isn't this what you wanted?' they asked. 'Isn't this what you trained me to be?'

"Crying won't do me any good," she replied. "It won't fix anything. It won't change what I did." 'What I am,' her eyes added. With those words she grabbed her clothes and went inside the shower.

What had I done?