AUTHOR'S NOTES: and thus the actual character study begins. For Korra, the incident with Nakkoa was a horribly traumatizing event and in a world that doesn't understand ASD or PTSD beyond "shell-shock" (at least if we're going by the era it's based around), it's going to do a number on Korra over the next while or so. She's still very functional and extremely powerful, but there are going to be additional struggles along her way that will make the rest of the story very different from the way things went in the show, even if many of the events are still the same.
Happy Reading!

BOOK ONE: POWER

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: THE WESTERN AIR TEMPLE

"You know…" Sokka commented as he flew the ship over the Wulong Forest towards the Western Air Temple, "I flew one of these things in the war against the Firelord all those years ago. Brings back all kinds of interesting memories…"

Neither Tonraq nor Senna responded, but Sokka didn't seem too worried. Even with his ever-growing senility, he was smart enough to know they were preoccupied, and so his idle banter was quiet.

They leafed through Korra's various journal entries, following the wild tales their 15-year-old daughter put to writing, coupled with the occasional silly drawings or illegible notes she added in the lines or margins. They didn't have time to read every page, but they did find some significant entries, such as when Korra had first used airbending, when she had triggered the Avatar State, and other lessons she had learned from the Red Lotus.

A great deal of things also became swiftly concerning. For one, Unalaq's name came up a lot. There was no denying that he had had a connection with the Red Lotus at least to the point of teaching Korra, but whether or not he was aware that they were the Red Lotus remained to be seen. Similarly, they also stumbled upon some of Korra's many notes about the Interregnum Avatar Cycle, and the disturbing images and notes that Korra wrote and doodled alongside these remarks. Korra was a remarkably good artist, all things considering.

They thumbed back and forth through the book, smiling briefly as they found the entry Korra had written for her 15th birthday. For a moment they were pleased to see that she had carried on the tradition of getting photographed, but a detail in this photo alarmed and disturbed them both significantly: there, plain as day on her forehead, was that 3rd-eye tattoo.

"They taught her that!?" Tonraq wasn't sure how to react.

"They've marked her…" Sanna sighed, "They've tried to shape her… how much do you think they could have done? How did we not realize Nakkoa and Kwan were in on this the whole time? How did we let this happen? Our little girl!"

She sighed, leaning against Tonraq as her eyes watered. "And then this…" she gestured over the stone forest, where somewhere, a no-holds-barred beatdown had occurred between Nakkoa and Korra, where the latter had brutally murdered the former.

The tension was thick, and Sokka was particularly relieved to land when the time came. It took a little searching before they found Fukui's pagoda, but since Kwan had told the waterbender that there would be people coming for Korra, she was not surprised upon meeting them.

"I take it you are Avatar Korra's mother and father?" she looked Tonraq and Senna up and down.

"Where is she?" Tonraq demanded, not even worrying about how this woman he had never even met knew who he and Senna were, "Where is my girl?"

"She is recovering," Fukui remained utterly calm, "lower your voice. She needs the rest; she's stable, but still in critical condition."

Naturally, that did nothing to stop two highly concerned parents from checking in on their child.

Korra was motionless, apart from her still slightly laboured breathing. Her clothes had apparently been washed and repaired, and other than a binding around her lower abdomen and her right arm from hand to elbow, she seemed to be in okay shape. Fukui was clearly talented at what she did if she was able to make Korra appear this way.

"Korra," Tonraq whispered, taking her hand and clutching it, "It's dad…" her hand was warm, which meant she was still alive, but with how weak and motionless she was, it was almost like she was in a sort of limbo between life and death. Such was not actually the case, but this was definitely the most chillingly serene Tonraq and Senna had ever seen their daughter, especially since she was usually such an active sleeper that she'd wake up with her head where her feet ought to be, and at least one limb hanging off the side of her bed.

"That child is abnormally resilient," Fukui commented from the doorway, "electrocution, concussion, significant blood loss, poison that barely missed her vitals, and countless impacts with surfaces much harder than her bones and body. By all accounts, I don't think she should even be alive."

There was silence, before Fukui continued. "Stay as long as you wish; but I would advise letting her rest and wake up on her own accord."

They did exactly that, barely leaving Korra's side for hours. Korra did not move, and while neither one of them were sure when they dozed off, they did exactly that, leaned against each other's shoulders only a few feet from Korra's bed.

It was the middle of the night when Korra finally came around, sitting up and clutching her head. She was dizzy and her eyes were out of focus, and the lopsided way she stood up and started walking made her almost appear feral. She clutched her stomach, keeping her right arm close to her body as she limped towards the door. She stopped upon noticing her parents, both still seated and asleep, and for a moment, her troubled mind was given peace. She stepped outside and took a breath of fresh air, gazing out into the cloudless sky as she finally registered where she actually was.

The Western Air Temple—the upside-down pagodas nestled safely into a cliffside overlooking a bay that led to the sea. Somewhere to the east was Republic City, the Earth Kingdom, and the Wulong Forest. The memories of what had happened suddenly surged back to her as she recalled everything that happened. She had murdered Nakkoa. While many would call the action justified due to the way she had tortured Korra, murder was murder, and now somewhere, that woman's corpse was either on the ground or underground, rotting away to the sands of time.

It terrified her though. Nakkoa had attacked her, and the agony her body suffered had been enough to push her into the Avatar State. If a few injuries was all it took, then what did that mean for her pride, or worse, her stability?

"Avatar Korra?" A soft voice spoke up from behind Korra, who shrieked and spun around, her eyes aglow. The winds picked up around her for a moment before she calmed down and realized what she was doing.

"Spirits, child!" it was Fukui, although Korra did not recognize the woman, having been barely conscious throughout most of the healing ordeal, "calm yourself; I'm only here to talk."

Korra took fast, deep breaths as she tried to compose herself.

"I didn't mean to…" she leaned against a column for support, "it was… it was like a reflex."

"A very dangerous one," Fukui warned, "but you caught yourself. Loosen your muscles and take a deep breath. You're understandably very tense and stressed, and so you should not exert yourself too hard for a while."

"I can't just not do anything though!" Korra reasoned, as Fukui started massaging Korra's tense shoulders, "It's just…"

"It's just what?" Fukui dug her fingers deep into Korra's muscles, eliciting a contented groan from the agitated teen as she admitted defeat.

"I don't know what to do…" she sighed. "And that's such a weird feeling."

"Rest," Fukui recommended, "Take a walk if you feel like you need to move. Your spirit is lively but your body is exhausted. Stay calm and focused—and you're also much less likely to trigger the Avatar State in a fit of panick."

Korra sighed as Fukui's hands continued to work her shoulders. That was an embarrassing and terrifying notion; what she had done. She triggered the Avatar State on a reflex, and had had no control over it. The Avatar Spirit had hijacked control over her, and that notion terrified her.

She stretched after Fukui ended the massage, and waved the healer off as she disappeared back to her ward. She still didn't know what to do, but at least she felt slightly less tense on a physical level. Her mind was still a mess, but at least one problem had been resolved.

With a mixture of firebending and airbending, Korra leapt from the spire of the tower, before flying herself over to one of the nearby ones. It must have been fun to be an airbender here; flying from spire to spire of the massive complex. She wondered how many of her past lives had been here in its glory days, and wondered what was left. She wondered if the Hall of Avatars was still a thing here, like she had heard about in the stories of old.

Korra launched herself from spire to spire in search of this location, although without leads, it took her nearly an hour to find anything resembling an entrance to such a hall.

A massive Air Nomad emblem stood as the lock, and after a bit of analysis, Korra channelled a powerful wind current through the spiral locks, which clicked open a moment later. Feeling slightly vindicated in knowing that after 15 years she had finally learned airbending, the little barefooted Avatar stepped inside the hallowed chamber.

A legion of statues filled the room, with tens of thousands of years' worth of Avatar Incarnations being symbolized here by the Air Nomads. The first thing Korra did was try to find the end of the line, where she expected to see Roku, and maybe Aang considering that he had come around at some point after the war to restore the place. She found Kuruk, then Kyoshi, and then sure enough, there were Roku and Aang. The last statue actually made her stop, however. It was her, and she was depicted as a teenager, exactly as she was now, down to her baggy pants, form-fitting shirt, her bare arms and feet, and her unkempt hair.

"Who designed this, I wonder…" Korra produced a small blue flame in her hand to analyze the detail of her own Avatar statue, which even had the third-eye tattoo etched into its forehead just as Korra did. There was no way these statues were built by mortal hands—or at least Korra was convinced as such. Who else could portray her that accurately? It wasn't like she had an Air Nomad or some spirit guru following her around all the time.

She wondered for a moment though, if this was "her look". The Avatar seemed to have the ability to choose how they appeared to their successor incarnations, considering Roku often appeared as an elderly or middle-aged man, while in contrast, Kyoshi, who had been 230 at the time of her death, chose to appear more in her prime. Aang was middle-aged in his appearance to Korra, and so she wondered if she would keep this ragtag look of hers as she grew up, or if she'd mature and have a more refined appearance as she grew into adulthood.

It was something of a paradoxical conundrum. On one hand, Korra didn't care about her appearance, which she had made apparent with the shameless way she had dressed or undressed when with Nakkoa and Kwan, but in other situations, such as when she met Asami, or when she walked upon what she felt was hallowed ground, she was made very aware of her appearance and situation and cared far too much about it.

For some reason, Korra felt compelled to enter the Avatar State as she reached out to touch the stony eyes of her statue. Her episode earlier had scared her, but this time, she was in control of the State and knew how to wield it. Maybe it was the tranquility or spirituality of this chamber; maybe it was Korra's own talent; maybe it was something else. Whatever it was, she managed to activate the Avatar State without trouble. The effect of Korra's decision, however, lit the room up with the eyes of thousands of glowing statue eyes, including her own.

Korra never really understood why, but whenever she dealt directly with Avatar-related issues like this, she always felt like she became uncharacteristically introspective. It also made her really want to talk with them, but she never knew which one to choose.

With the faint blue glow of the Avatar statue eyes lighting up the room, Korra started wandering, following the line of statues backwards in search of a particular quarry. She snickered to herself as she realized she had effectively just used the Avatar State to light up a room, but on the other hand, she felt justified. It also supported her theory that these statues were not constructed by normal hands. Stone didn't light up like this of its own accord.

"Blatant abuses of power always make my shitty days a little more bearable," she muttered, and in her defense, the previous day had been a really rough and traumatic one for Korra (to put it lightly), and she still had the physical and mental scars from it as proof. Still, she managed to find what she was looking for: 21 Avatar statues marked with a streak of red at their base. One of them—the 17th one in the line, to be exact—had a streak of red across her face: Zeruda.

"What could you have done that made you a black mark in history…?" Korra muttered, putting her fingers up to the stone face. "...and why are you trying so hard to contact me now?"

The chamber was surreal, and while most respectable people would appropriately consider it a sacred room, for Korra it was a profound place that she felt connected to on a spiritual level. She wanted to talk to someone about it—someone alive. It was one thing to converse with her past lives, but all of them knew what being the Avatar was like. On the other hand, no one alive today knew what it was like to be the Avatar, and in times like this, Korra felt surreal—disconnected. She felt like Nakkoa's cruel words during their fight to the death may have held some truth to them. Maybe she didn't belong in this world.

But as she looked at each statue and eventually came back to the one of herself, her confidence returned. She was the Avatar. Nakkoa had failed to kill her; the White Lotus had failed to contain her; whatever the Red Lotus had tried to do to her had fallen apart; she kicked ass at Probending (and many other forms of bending too, even if she wasn't a master yet), and she was still a killer shot with a bow. Maybe mercenary work could be in her future. Either way, as the glowing Avatar statue lights dimmed, Korra left the chamber with a smirk of slight confidence. She was here in this world as the Avatar—and the world would just have to deal with it.