What drives people to read for fun is beyond Korra's understanding. Korra had asked the library's fox spirits to bring her every book they have regarding the Avatar. She initially volunteered to research this niche subject, given that the Avatars' past lives and their countless world-altering decisions were things she should push herself to memorize regardless. But in their enthusiasm, the foxes inundated her with a frankly overwhelming number of books.
It feels insurmountable. Even just a few hours in, she can already sense fatigue settling into her eyes and heart.
The Avatar's Indomitable Spirit. Rise and Fall of the Greatest Avatars. Avatar Exemplary. Then there are whole books or even series on individual Avatars, like Avatar Kalsang's Misfortunes and Zhong's Songs of Triumph. A four part series on Itsuo: The Great Imbecile, an Avatar that apparently caused widespread economic ruin and landslides, among other things.
The thickest book by far was A Complete History of the Avatar Cycle, even as it stood incomplete. It listed the nitty gritty details of dozens of Avatars, but not all of them, and none since Avatar Szeto from six lifetimes ago. It didn't include Wan. Or if Wang was supposed to be Wan, they got all the details wrong, for Wan never rode lion-turtles like that.
Korra has a stack of fifty books and counting. Mako and Asami both grimaced at the speed at which the foxes built this pile, so they both opted to search the library's aisles at their leisure, only pulling books they thought would be applicable to restoring her Avatar powers.
Mako chose to learn more about bending, given that he has hands-on experience being a bender. He brought a modest five books to their table and dove in with more relish than Korra had been able to manage.
Asami was gone for a long while with a fox to keep her company. When she finally came back, she'd mapped out most of the library. The main building appeared to have six floors, but each floor was a good thirty feet high, with each wall lined top to bottom with dusty tomes. There were adjacent towers, too, that took up just as much space, but were filled with maps, paintings, statues, journals, curiosities, and numerous rooms Asami didn't have time to explore. She made an effort to record where they could find specific topics in case they became important. There were far too many categories to write down, from countless eras in time, but she gave it her best effort. Several of the floors had texts in languages they couldn't read and ancient books that were too brittle to handle respectfully.
The fox tagging alongside carried a couple of books in its mouth for her. When Asami finally sits down at their table, the fox deposits the books in her hands and receives a scratch on the head in thanks. They managed to find a table next to a row of windows, so candles won't be needed until nightfall. Outside, everything is upside-down, so grass looks to grow from the sky and the ground is a bottomless blue pit with clouds, but at least sunlight can stream in.
"I found an interesting text on the marvels of the spirit world," Asami says, settling into a seat beside Mako.
The chair beside Korra is occupied by a thousand pounds of mind-numbing history. Korra pouts down at a page detailing the youth of an air nomad Avatar named Dawa. They seemed frustrated with their tutors, the monks keen on instilling virtues that opposed their own. This text is a little gossipy, detailing trysts and all.
"A little blurb inside mentioned something about spiritual healing, so I thought it may be apropos." Asami finds the page she'd marked with a slip of paper and sets it on top of Mako's book to show him. "Here, it mentions a spiritual oasis. Its waters heal the mind and body. But it's said if you come to it with negative spiritual energy, the pools corrupt the mind and sap the body of all its strength."
"Sounds cool," Mako says, leaning in to skim over the page. "I found some stuff about bloodbending. There used to be bloodbenders in this little village just off the coast of the Earth Kingdom, before it was a kingdom. The art died out with them. It must have reemerged just recently."
"Sounds cool," Korra mocks. She huffs and closes her book, not slamming it because she respects Dawa more than some of the others, but still frustrated that her topic of choice is as riveting as watching paint dry. "Avatar Szeto liked accounting. He played favorites with the Fire Nation and the people hated him. Another guy almost destroyed the Nation entirely when he deposed both Fire Lord and heir, accidentally. Oh, worst of all, Avatar Dawa here didn't believe in the institution of marriage and got lambasted for being a total babe!"
"I've never heard of Dawa." Asami pries Korra's book from in front of her. After reading it for a moment, she says, "Sounds like they lived in a time of peace. They didn't slack off in their duties. People will always find things to criticize you for, it doesn't mean you made poor choices."
Mako leans back and stretches his arms up and over his head. "Can we take a walk?" he asks. "My ass is getting sore. I'm fine with desk work, but these chairs are way worse than the ones at the precinct."
Korra jumps at the opportunity, declaring she'd love to while Asami shakes her head. "I'm beat," Asami sighs. "I think I've had enough endless aisles for one day. Take the map with you so you can find the way back."
A fox prances forward with another book in its mouth, standing up to set it on top of Korra's pile.
"I appreciate it," Korra says dryly.
There are red plaques labeling the shelves that Mako scans as they pass. Several aisles focus on just cuisine, sorted by nation, and even those are further split by year, location, type. Korra investigates the Southern Water Tribe section for a moment before hurrying to catch up to Mako ahead of her.
"This place is unreal. You could get lost in any of these aisles," Mako mutters. "Asami found what, four bodies? How many skeletons have the foxes cleaned up over time?"
"I don't think any Avatar has died here. I might be the first, though, if the boredom has its way with me." Korra growls in frustration. "Those pages are so dense, and most of the information is useless. Who cares about an Avatar's sexual escapades? If they didn't do anything notable, just move on to the next one. You don't have to trash-talk their personal life."
Mako is silent. A row of sconces are not functional, it seems, so he uses his weakened arm to make a little torch to illuminate the plaques. Even after they pass that section, and the sconces are lit again, his focus remains on keeping fire alight in those fingertips. He'll need to practice a good deal to restore strength in that arm.
"I thought about newspaper clippings," Mako says after a while. "The radio. Journalists trying to get the scoop on you, or the Fire Ferrets. We're both celebrities. It's just what they do… The media trying to spin something out of our relationship was an annoyance but not a deterrent." He squints at an abnormally thick book, trying to read the title on its spine. "I never thought about the possibility of a historian of this caliber writing about me. You'd go down in history, sure, but forget about me."
"We talked about this yesterday," Korra points out. "The Colossus. You saved the entirety of Republic City. We only managed to overthrow a dictator after you robbed her of her greatest weapon. You think that's not important?"
"Yeah, there's that. I mean." He sighs, closing his hand to extinguish his flame. "This place. My name doesn't belong in a place like this, for someone to read about thousands of years from now, just a handful of sentences deprived of all context. Especially not in a book about all your incarnations, on the page detailing your love life. I'd rather be forgotten than be a footnote like that. An RC Magazine article is worlds apart from being recorded here for time immemorial, in a manner that doesn't accurately represent who I am at all."
"You're dumb," Korra declares, checking his shoulder with her own. When he turns around with a pissy face, she squares up to him. "What do you think they'd write? Oh, no! You're a famous, beloved public servant who risked your life for the people again and again. You helped me with the Equalists, with Harmonic Convergence, with the Red Lotus. Footnote material!"
"I'm a fuck-up, Korra," he snaps. He goes to poke her in the chest and she swats it down. "You know I am. Spirits forbid they add context and let the reader know precisely what role I played in your life."
This hurts. Korra opens her mouth to refute him again, but the words that come to mind seem inappropriate, or callous, or dismissive of his feelings here. Then she wants to reassure him that his role has been positive overall. She couldn't have accomplished much of anything if he hadn't been by her side. Yes, they squabble. Yes, they had their… trysts. Anything and everything that happened between the two of them could be documented. But there have been very few people in her life that affect her so profoundly; he's writing the story of her life just as much as she is.
The silence washes over them. Mako takes a step back, realizing how close he is to her, and does an about-face to continue down their path. He stops paying attention to the plaques then and buries his nose into the map instead.
As Korra follows, she tries to find the right words.
Eventually she settles on, "We still have a lot to do. If you want to be more than a footnote, then help me. I need to fix this. I need to fix me. There is no fuck-up greater than an Avatar breaking the Avatar cycle."
After a time, they return to their table, finding Asami there with a page already full of notes.
Mako filches the top book from Korra's stack about the Avatars and takes his place beside Asami.
By the end of the night, he's crunched through more books than either woman, and his notes are thrice as full.
The foxes graciously lead them to a safe place to sleep. It's past nightfall, and with the towers this dark, Mako and Korra have to illuminate their way with fire. There are cots on either side of this snug little room, a tiny desk between them, and nothing else. Mako finds a bed roll underneath the desk, but it's so old and moth-eaten that it's not worth using. He offers to use his own bed roll and sleep outside so that both women can have their own cot. That works for about twenty minutes before the fox spirits start trying to curl up beside him on the floor. One licks his face, and he is so weirded out he tells them he's changed his mind.
"Sorry to make you share that one," Mako apologizes. The cots aren't so tiny, and two people can fit side by side. Worst case scenario, they'd have to cuddle.
His concerns are dismissed by Asami. "Korra and I shared a bed roll for the past two weeks. I'm just glad to have a mattress this time."
The door is closed to keep the foxes out.
They all strip down to something suitable to sleep in. Mako has his undershirt and boxers, Asami and Korra their own underclothes. They have brought thin blankets so they won't be cold this night. But as easily as sleep comes to their exhausted party, the change in temperature overnight eventually wakes Korra. She's curled up face-to-face with Asami, beneath their blanket, but it's so warm from their collective breath and the candles in this tiny room that Korra pushes the blanket off of her. The temperatures feel weird here, but she can't tell if it's just because they're in the spirit world, or because there's three people resting in such close proximity.
Asami stirs slightly, tightening her arm around Korra. Several minutes pass and Korra watches her girlfriend's sleeping face. Eventually, wanting to extinguish those candles, Korra props herself up on one arm.
Mako is sleeping with his back to them. She firebends all but one candle out, leaving it lit for him.
Hours later, Korra and Asami are both sitting on the edge of their bed, both ogling and not looking at Mako in turns. His body is awake before he is. That's definitely a Mako thing, hot-blooded as he is, always like this in the morning. An early riser, so to speak.
There were many times he – well. Korra shouldn't think about that. It's hard not to think about that, seeing him like this again, especially with his hand resting there.
"Should we leave him like this?" Asami whispers against Korra's ear. "Should we let him know?"
Korra has to drag her eyes away. She wants to, anyway, but then Asami is kissing down her neck, and the flurry of confusion and arousal makes her unable to think clearly. Asami's fingers appear out of nowhere, sliding into the space between Korra's thighs, one finger pressing right where she needs her.
"Do you want to leave him here?" Korra manages to ask. She licks her lips, considering something.
"I want a lot of things," Asami replies. "Do you?"
Korra then jolts awake. She sits upright too quickly, giving herself a headrush as she looks around in panic. Mako isn't in his bed. He's an early riser, alright, having already opened the door and left. At being jostled, Asami just hums and rolls onto her back. Their blanket is kicked down, both of them dressed as they were, still feeling warm.
Korra has to rein back the noise of frustration she wants to make. She's not at all averse to intimacy, but dreams about an ex while that ex is in the room, along with their ex who is now your partner is –
Oh, that's a clusterfuck. A nightmare.
She falls back onto the bed, a laugh shuddering through her.
Later that morning, she's glad reading minds isn't a bending ability. She feels distracted, even as Mako and Asami go about their business preparing breakfast for everyone, settling back into their tomes at their reading table. She can't bring herself to start reading yet because her brain hasn't snapped out of its daze. It's only when Mako starts explaining specialized bending abilities that she is able to focus again.
"What stands out to me is," Mako mumbles through a mouthful of food, "this part about Avatar… Siku, I think? He tried for a decade to learn how to bloodbend, since his enemies could get the better of him in that way. He was Northern Water Tribe, water was his strongest element, and no matter how much he was trained he just couldn't grasp it. Then he had this big revelation where he had to confront his own moral reservations. All it took was a conversation with the enemy for him to realize they were cut from the same cloth. Siku was no better than them. That day it clicked, and he could bloodbend."
"What caused the change?" Asami inquires. "Was it just a mental block? Overcoming prejudice?"
"Yeah. Or so this says." He taps a book about Avatars born during the water stage of the elemental cycle.
Korra chews her breakfast thoughtfully. Siku was a moderately notable Avatar, a bit arrogant if truth be told, but that was the case with many Avatars. Too much power did that to you.
"It feels like that sometimes," Korra says. "When Toph helped me improve my metalbending, I… It was like I had to break down the walls I had in my head. I had to remember what was real, and separate trauma from truth. Zaheer isn't going to hurt me anymore." She shakes her head, remembering the metal seeping out from her pores. "I don't remember exactly how I did it. I just had to fight through it and not be afraid anymore."
They both consider that. Mako turns to find a different book from his much smaller stack about bending. It's grown over the course of the past day, but still doesn't rival Korra's stack. "Bolin never could metalbend," Mako reminds them. "He really tried. We were stuck in a jail cell and he couldn't bend the bars. He's a really skilled bender, really good at thinking outside of the box when it comes to earthbending…"
"He taught me to be light on my feet," Korra agrees. "My earthbending mentors never taught me to hop and jab, that was all Bolin."
"So, reasonably, he should have been able to pick up this metalbending thing. It's a novel style, yes. He excels at that." Mako places a book about lavabenders on the table. "He learned this instead. In the moment he confronted his fear, specifically."
"What does that book say?" asks Korra. She doesn't touch her food now, mind burning with curiosity. She was never taught much about the process of learning sub-elements. She figured that driven, naturally talented people sometimes grew in power enough to expand their skill set. "How do people become lavabenders?"
"There's only been a handful of lavabenders in existence, apparently. Just three Avatars?" Mako raises his eyebrows to Korra for confirmation, but she shrugs. Korra had apparently been able to lavabend while in the Avatar state, but that was the skill of a predecessor being channeled through her. "This says some people are born with the ability."
"But Bolin didn't lavabend until he was forced to."
"Right. Ghazan's lava would have killed us, if he had failed." Mako scratches at his head, looking more and more confused as he thinks. "It's like that resolute moment unlocked this ability. He didn't need to practice after that, he could create and throw lava just like Ghazan. If he were born with the ability to lavabend, we would've known. He was jealous of my fire, said he was half firebender, and tried to lavabend often enough when we were kids. Never happened."
"The mental block," Asami suggests. She pinches the edge of Mako's notebook and pulls it into her lap. "Like a key opening a door; a moment, or a thought, opened this possibility for him. Tell me, what can you both do? Any more moments like this?"
Mako shakes his head. "I can bend lightning, but I started practicing as a teenager. Someone taught me how to separate the positive and negative energies within. You need to separate these energies, and build them stronger, stretching tighter and tighter until the moment it snaps. When yin and yang clash together, it creates lightning. The hardest part is mastering the direction it flows. But I was able to be taught this. I didn't have any… mental block stopping me."
"So you were born with this ability?"
"We're going around in circles," Korra groans. "So some people are able to do it the first time they try, other people can do it suddenly after some big realization. If it's like a key opening a door, are some people's doors open from the beginning?"
It's all so confusing. Bending hasn't ever been explained to her in this way before. It was always techniques, like channeling energy from your belly, or establishing your roots, or becoming like wind. Muscle memory, not so much mental clarity.
Mako and Asami continue discussing aspects of this theory, brainstorming all the abilities they've seen and what prerequisites they may have. Jinora being able to project her form spiritually felt spontaneous. The combustionbender lady… Korra doesn't know the first thing about combustionbending. Maybe it's like lightningbending, separating chi and combining it again, in an explosion instead of lightning. But how does someone get that ability?
"Let go your earthly tether," Zaheer once said. With the loss of his lover, the combustionbender, Zaheer also had a moment of clarity. And he flew.