They find Zaheer amidst a landscape eerily reminiscent of one Korra has encountered before. It dawns on her that this might be the exact spot Zaheer had guided her to months earlier when he facilitated her journey into the spirit realm to reunite with Raava. Gentle hills, verdant grass, delicate wildflowers, and colossal lily pads resembling trees adorn the scenery, with no other discernible sights on the horizon.
Despite the serene surroundings, Zaheer's presence seems to stand in sharp contrast to its beauty. He's still unkempt, with his hair and beard overgrown and garbed in prison attire. No cuffs adorn his wrists, however. He looks as relaxed as ever as he sits, suspended several feet above the ground with his legs crossed.
"Zaheer." Mako's voice rings out, strong and clear, as they approach.
"Avatar Korra," Zaheer returns as the distance is closed between them.
Even as Mako was the one to speak first, Zaheer does not greet him, nor even spare him or Asami a passing glance.
That is enough to shift Mako's mood. His posture stiffens, and as they stand perhaps two dozen feet away from Zaheer, Korra can see that his hands have clenched into fists.
Not off to a great start, intentionally agitating each other.
"We have a few more questions for you," Korra says tightly. They have found Zaheer again to obtain the last few answers they need, not to squabble, even if she knows Mako would love to share some choice words that have nothing to do with the mission at hand.
"I'm sure you do," Zaheer says. "I'm surprised it's taken you this long to return. It's been months. How far have you come?"
She has come incredibly far. Beyond opening all but the final chakra, finding more clarity in her thoughts and emotions, she feels as though she's on the precipice of something more. Something major.
It feels like the final step before tipping off the side of a cliff – metaphorically, unlike what the man in front of her chose to do.
"I'm on the thought chakra," Korra replies rather proudly, tapping her temple with an index finger. "Last one."
The blank expression Zaheer wears morphs as he appraises her, looking almost surprised by that answer.
"That's impressive, for you," he says, and the implication is not lost on any of them. He didn't believe she would be able to tackle this with any sort of success. "And yet now you are stuck."
Zaheer surely knows the difficulty of this last chakra. Perhaps he spent those thirteen years imprisoned trying to overcome this singular one. With how meditative he is, he may have repeatedly tried to break through it, but those efforts only proved successful after his girlfriend's death.
That's clearly not a route Korra is willing to go.
"Is there another way to open this one, beyond letting go of one's earthly tethers?" Korra asks. "I don't believe I'm interested in following your particular method."
Only then does Zaheer's gaze drift to Asami and Mako flanking either side of her. He doesn't know their relation to her at all, only having seen them in passing years ago, and the last time they met him in the spirit world on those blackened cliffs.
"How can one ascend if not by first stepping foot off of the ground?" Zaheer asks, acting as though he is the epitome of wisdom. "You will never be free if you choose to keep your shackles."
Korra feels her own temper flaring at that. He's still looking over the others, his eyes lingering on the visible tension in Mako's frame. Analyzing.
"Did you love that combustionbender at all?" Korra asks, intentionally drawing his attention back to herself. "You spent thirteen years apart, imprisoned, letting her believe you cared the whole time, and then once she's dead you call her a shackle?"
He shrugs dismissively. "There are many ugly truths in this world. It is your choice to remain blind to them, if willful ignorance brings you comfort."
This arrogant, glib, disingenuous attitude of his grates on her nerves ferociously. While Korra's been repeatedly knocked down pegs her entire life, Zaheer seems content relaxing here in the spirit world, as if being imprisoned and bound in chains is hardly troublesome at all.
He has no right to be happy and tranquil after all he's done to ensure they've suffered. More than the injuries she sustained, Mako and Asami spent years without her, lovesick, worried, with trauma of their own to nurse, while Zaheer sits among lily pads and enjoys the breeze. It isn't fair.
She has no qualms about disturbing his peace of mind now. Perhaps it's better that she's not meeting him in person; if she had an opportunity to end his life, she may very well be tempted to take it. Unlike Kuvira, there are no commonalities between herself and Zaheer. No sympathy.
Any gratefulness she felt from his more helpful actions is quickly replaced with renewed enmity.
Zaheer cocks his head, smiling in a way that's certainly meant to be infantilizing. "Did you find me just to pretend to care about a stranger? How haughty."
Korra doesn't even mind that they won't get answers from him by being aggressive. Maybe it's thanks to the sound chakra, but she feels more empowered than ever to speak openly, savagely. Maybe it's just the rage coiling in her chest.
"I see clearly," Korra says, mentally abandoning whatever semblance of an alliance they had. "She loved you. She died for your cause. And for what purpose?"
Korra glances at Mako beside her, then down at his left arm. It is a visual reminder of exactly what some are willing to sacrifice for love. If Mako had died back then, in the Colossus, sacrificing himself in an attempt to further Korra's goal, she would have never forgiven him, never forgotten him, never forsaken him.
He has cemented himself in her heart, and the weight of it is uplifting, empowering. Not a burden.
"I don't know why we thought you could enlighten us," Korra spits at Zaheer. "You're the greatest fool of them all. You treat your lover worse than shit on your shoe, abandoning her memory for little more than a party trick. There is nothing to be learned from a man without a shred of humanity."
There's a crackle in the air, a static charge that Korra can sense. She notices the sky as it shifts from a bright blue to something more muted – turning gray, as if overcast.
There are no spirits around, Korra also realizes.
Perhaps they are repulsed by Zaheer's presence just as they are.
"Her name was P'Li," Zaheer says, and it surprises her when he shifts, stretching his legs down to stand, no longer maintaining flight.
The air suddenly leaves Korra's lungs at the sight. He has been flying – flying. Why didn't she give any second thought to him being able to fly here? That should be a form of bending, airbending, and yet he's doing it while projecting himself into the spirit world, where such an ability should not be able to work.
Maybe it isn't airbending. If it's a result of connecting to cosmic energy, perhaps it's a spiritual ability that transferred over with him.
"Did you discover what it takes to combustionbend?" Zaheer asks, stepping forward toward them. He's fifteen feet away, then ten. He stalks to her right side, slowly slinking around like a predatory cat toward Mako, even as his eyes remain on Korra. "Chained beneath the water, suffocating. You must learn to create pressure without flame. Concentrated to a point right here." Zaheer taps at the center of his forehead, where P'Li's tattoo had been. "And so you see the irony in the manner of her death, then?"
It's barbaric. No wonder the methodology wasn't documented elsewhere. This one isn't a matter of overcoming any mental barrier, it's outright torture.
"That's funny," Mako says, seeming to be energized by Zaheer closing the distance between them. His fists loosen as he flexes his hands. "I suppose we almost got her to explode by throwing a pebble at her forehead, too."
Zaheer grows a smile at that, but it looks bitter, as if rage is coiling just below the surface inside him too.
The sky darkens further.
Asami shifts uncomfortably, but Korra doesn't signal for Mako to hold his tongue. There's nothing to be gained here, it seems, and Mako has every right to speak now. If he has something to say, Korra won't rein him in.
"Firebender boy," Zaheer mocks. "Do you fancy the idea? Perhaps you should try drowning and learn something new."
"I'll pass."
It's as if somehow Zaheer believes he is on an even playing field, even as Korra and Mako both have their bending and Zaheer proves to be powerless here – beyond flight, which can do them little harm alone.
It's still so odd to see, and Korra is reminded that she knows too little, about anything and everything.
Zaheer doesn't relent. "You were there that day, weren't you? Fighting Ming-Hua and Ghazan. Tell me, were their deaths amusing, too? Which of them did you best?"
"Both," Mako answers bluntly. "Ghazan lost to his own element. The other…" He pauses, swiping at the bridge of his nose with his thumb, looking almost amused. "Have you ever smelled human flesh burning? My first time was when I was seven, seeing my parents struck down in front of me... I could smell it again when I electrocuted her. When your arms are made of water, fighting a lightningbender isn't the best call."
No, Mako certainly isn't holding his tongue now.
"As if he didn't nearly take you from us," Mako had said. "As if you haven't suffered for years because of what he did."
In his office, Korra thought this anger was cute. Now it feels powerful, as if it's a static charge trembling within a cloud, building, waiting for the opportunity to strike at something.
The sky crackles with lightning. Korra hears it before she feels it – the first drip of rainfall landing on her shoulder.
"No remorse?" Zaheer asks, pretending to be shocked. As he steps around, Korra shifts her position to continually face him, but Mako stays unflinchingly still, allowing Zaheer to cross behind him. "Ming-Hua was an orphan too, you know. They both were."
Mako's eyes catch the ground as his target shifts beyond his view. "I only regret not barbecuing her sooner."
Zaheer laughs then. "So opinionated. You must be the Avatar's lover, then. Shackled and blind just the same." As he crosses Korra again, his smile is dark. "There's something about firebenders, isn't there? As though the fire makes them feisty."
His arrogance knows no bounds. As if Zaheer could know anything about Korra's heart or the connection she and Mako share.
He seems oblivious to Asami, not deigning to look in her direction, even as Asami drifts closer and wraps a hand around Korra's forearm, seeking the security and safety Korra has always strived to provide her.
"You have no right speaking about love," Korra snaps as Zaheer comes to a stop in front of her, completing his half-circle. "Those we lose live on in our hearts, and yet you have betrayed P'Li by casting her aside. I can tell you haven't reached enlightenment. Your beliefs are nothing more than cruel, pitiable nonsense. You speak of others' blindness yet don't allow yourself to feel. Burying your head in sand will never bring clarity."
A bolt of lightning dances across the sky, hopping from cloud to cloud, not touching the ground. It's purple, like spirit energy.
Zaheer then continues to stalk around them. Passing by Asami, his eyes flicker across to take in her uneasy expression, but he does not address her. "Enlightenment… Dear Avatar, did you pursue this quest believing it was possible for you? What do you think enlightenment means?"
Korra shifts uncomfortably. She has an idea, but every time she's tried to read about it, it always seemed beyond her full understanding. It is heightened awareness of the self and the universe, but even that feels nondescript and vague.
"Becoming one with the universe," Korra replies, visualizing tapping into the energy of the cosmos. "Understanding its truth."
"Stepping beyond the universe," Zaheer corrects. "To truly sever all tethers means to break free from the cycle of reincarnation. It is true freedom. When you die, only through enlightenment may you ascend into the unknown beyond. Paradise. Nirvana." He stops walking then, standing just before her, feet away. "But that will never be an option for you, will it?"
He indeed knows much more than he had been letting on. He knows details about enlightenment. Knows details about the limitations of the Avatar spirit.
"My duty is to the world," Korra agrees. "Even if I could detach myself from it, the Avatar spirit would anchor me anyway, wouldn't it? This soul isn't allowed to break free."
Korra notices his personality is so different from before. Zaheer was always cool-tempered, acting as though he wields some profound inner peace others cannot grasp, but something has shifted within him now.
They've gotten under his skin. This is his rage, unmasked at last.
"You are perhaps the most cursed of us all," he sneers. "Doomed to remain on this planet for eternity, conscious through hundreds of lifetimes. Feeling others' fear and pain firsthand. Never to escape the repercussions of your own mistakes. Forced to witness how you have set your successors up to fail. Never able to know peace, yet every person expects you to provide it for them."
He's wrong. Always wrong.
Korra hasn't failed her successors yet.
She may not have failed her predecessors, either, depending on how the rest of this goes.
"There is beauty in connection," Korra says, thinking of Wan and Raava. Thinking of the role she will play for the next Avatar, and all Avatars to follow. "There is strength in love, and in being needed, and being trusted." She points toward Zaheer's chest, wishing he were close enough for her to jab him there. "You are weak, Zaheer. This is why no one needs you, no one trusts you, and no one loves you. The only one who ever did has died, only to be born again."
She remembers the toddler she saw in a dream – his curls, his grin, the dirt beneath his nails – and she feels glad P'Li's soul has moved on. No one deserves such brutal indifference.
Purple lightning rolls again, accompanied by thunder. The sky is dark gray now and freshly consumed by clouds. She can feel the rain beginning to splatter across them, somehow as cold as ice.
Maybe Korra's mood is causing this change. Maybe it's all of them. Three of them stand enraged, an inch away from being provoked into violence. Only Asami seems to have a level head, even as she bites into a lip, restraining herself from interrupting.
"You speak of the pursuit of freedom," Korra continues, knowing there's so much more to say. This is her opportunity, if this shaky bridge has been burned at last, to let him know the depths of his failure. "But I was forced to grow up in a compound because the Red Lotus, because you, tried to kidnap me when I was young. I couldn't airbend until I was seventeen because I had never tasted a lick of freedom before then. I have always floundered finding my spiritual self because of you. Do you see the irony in that?"
Korra hoped Zaheer would look remorseful, in the way he did when Korra accused him of creating instability in the Earth Kingdom, leading to Kuvira's rise to power. But her anger rolls off of him.
"Speaking of enlightenment," Zaheer says, holding his hand out to catch raindrops in his palm. As he holds it there, Korra realizes it's a gesture of reaching out toward her. "There is, perhaps, one way for you."
Asami tugs at Korra's arm again, firmer this time. "Let's get out of here, Korra. We're done."
Zaheer turns his head, raising his eyebrows in surprise. "Finally, this one speaks."
He doesn't care that Asami doesn't bother to humor him with a response, turning his antagonizing gaze toward her now.
"Are you comfortable always being set aside, non-bender? Always anxiously wondering about how you could possibly compare, when all of your bending friends are so talented? I understand those feelings firsthand, you see. How does it feel standing beside the Avatar?"
Again, silence. Asami's brow is pulled tight – she looks irritated, but he doesn't seem to have properly struck a nerve at all.
"Do you have any thoughts behind those eyes?" he teases, amused by her silence. "Any voice at all? Or do you only speak when you feel it is time to run?"
"I don't talk just to hear myself speak," she replies simply.
It's almost funny how severely he is misreading her.
When Zaheer shifts closer toward Asami, both Korra and Mako move to separate them. Korra gestures for Zaheer to back up several feet, suddenly all too aware that the distance has been repeatedly closing. Korra doesn't think he has any sort of airbending ability here, but she's overly cautious after her realization about his ability to fly.
He will not lay a finger on Asami, in any case, or Korra will return to where he's imprisoned and end his reign of terror for good.
"They both seem very protective of you," Zaheer continues, unperturbed. "Is a helpless damsel all that you are to them?"
"Shut up, Zaheer," Korra growls, finally reaching out to shove him back. Her fingers don't meet his chest – instead, they pass through, as if he's only a mirage. An illusion. Korra rolls her shoulders, angry again at the nature of the cosmos, always circling back to that concept. "Enough of this, Zaheer. Tell me about the thought chakra. What more do I need to do to open it?"
He takes several steps back, then turns.
"Follow me," he says before his figure vanishes from their line of sight.
Korra breathes deep, closing her eyes to reach out for him, to feel for his location. Maybe she alone has this ability as the Avatar, but as she focuses she is able to reach across the spirit world to find wherever he has gone.
He's some distance away, surely in some other biome. No longer an active threat.
"I agree with Asami," Mako says. "We should go. Zaheer is not going to help us now."
Their conversation feels that way. All it has been is barbed attacks and intentional cruelty. Little gained beyond verifying that Zaheer knows much more information about a number of subjects. The concepts of enlightenment and reincarnation are not unfamiliar to him.
Perhaps he is the person she needs answers from, and they're going about this conversation in all the wrong ways.
But it gives her some sense of pleasure to know that he's mad, too. He should be mad. He should feel fear and guilt, shame and grief. He should be the one haunted by nightmares.
Korra takes in the expressions on the others' faces. Asami is uneasy, while Mako looks ready to murder. But if Zaheer is just a spiritual projection, there isn't anything Mako can really do to hurt him, as much as Korra would love to see Mako strike him down.
"There's more he knows that he isn't saying." Korra sighs, trying to relax herself so she can think more clearly. Maybe they should pursue answers while they have him talking, even as their conversation has provided very little insight. "I won't force this. Should we go home now?"
Mako and Asami don't know what to say either. Even as they expressed a willingness to leave, the impact of such a decision becomes apparent. This may be the end of the road. If they turn away now, Korra may not be able to contact Raava again, and may not be able to access the Avatar state.
Not until she finds a way to open this final chakra, one way or another.
There's a stretch of silence colored with uncertainty. Mako looks beyond, toward the horizon, as if he could locate Zaheer in that way.
"I trust your judgment," Asami says, not for the first time.
Mako doesn't answer, but does lace his fingers through Korra's. Ready to go.
"Raava, are you with me?" Korra asks, looking down as she presses her free hand to her chest.
When silence greets her, it brings with it a terrible sense of dread.
Her throat grows tight.
Sometimes Raava doesn't speak, and it's okay. She's just… like that. She's quiet.
But maybe even here in the spirit world, Raava feels disconnected in some way. As much as the universe has been speaking to her, Korra feels her spirituality being stifled. Feels the distance between her and Raava growing.
"Humor Zaheer for a few more minutes," Asami suggests. "If he's full of shit, then we're out."
"Stay on guard," Mako says. "And I'm sorry for losing my temper there. That was unnecessary."
Asami laughs then, despite the mood, and tugs at the front of her jacket as if airing it out. "Please, don't douse that fire, either of you. It's doing something for me."
Both of them hold Korra's hands as she moves them across the land. The landscape warps, twisting them free from that stormy field. Over, beyond, through, under – they finally stop at the edge of a hill full of brambles. The sky is a cloudless, dusty crimson, and the land beyond is snowy and mountainous, like white jagged fangs rising up from the ground. But the area before them feels dead, devoid of life, devoid of spirits again.
The thicket ahead looks to be filled with dark vines, both thick and thin, some areas more dense than others, with no other flora to speak of. Within the mass, there are several narrow paths carved. They are illuminated by some soft indistinct glow, as if inviting one into this terrain that feels ever so uninviting.
Zaheer waits at the edge of one path, then steps into the vines when he knows the others can see him do so.
"What is this, Zaheer?" Korra asks distrustingly. As she approaches, leaving the others a few steps behind her, she takes a better look at the nature of the vines.
They look almost like the branches of a rose bush, looping and curling in on itself. There are sharp thorns throughout begging to snag someone's clothes. But as Korra approaches, reaching her hand out, the vines rattle and seem to almost bend away from her presence. As she watches Zaheer step through, she realizes the vines are avoiding touching him as well.
"The spirit world," Zaheer answers plainly. "Don't tell me you haven't explored places like this."
She hasn't. There are dark areas within this world, seemingly infested with negative spiritual energy. Any time she and Asami encountered something questionable like this, they went out of their way to avoid interacting with it.
Korra has little choice now. As Asami and Mako approach, Mako holds his hand out as well. His fingers are more daring than her own, attempting to pinch at a vine, and it recoils from him.
Zaheer pauses some depth into the maze, waiting for them to follow.
"Is that all you've been doing these past few years?" Korra asks, uncertain how to feel about this. "Exploring this place?"
He doesn't answer.
When Korra reaches out to feel its spiritual energy, the vine feels like it has energy looping and spiraling through it, as if it has its own subtle body, with its own chi.
Taking a chance, Korra steps in. The vines shrink away as if they're cowering, fearful of her presence.
"There's elemental runes here, within the dirt, if you don't mind clearing the area," Zaheer says, turning his attention to something below his feet.
Korra takes a moment to look back at Mako and Asami.
Mako is ready to follow her in.
Asami looks like she'd rather turn back and go home.
When Korra takes a cautious step backward, the vines allow her to leave them. Perhaps she's misjudging this place based on appearances.
"You don't have to go in," Korra tells Asami, taking a moment to wrap her arms around her girlfriend and hug her tight. "Two more minutes, then we'll go."
Asami squeezes her back. "Stay safe. I'll be right here."
When Korra separates from her, Asami hugs Mako next, standing on her tiptoes to embrace around his shoulders. "You stay safe, too."
"Always," he tells her, and the way he holds her waist looks comforting.
When Asami pulls back, her eyes linger on his lips. Mako surely didn't mean it in that way – in the way Korra and Mako share that phrase, in lieu of an I love you – but it seems to have hit her in the same way. She exhales a laugh, plopping back down onto her heels.
At that, Korra enters the thicket, with Mako trailing just behind her. The vines groan and shudder, drawing away from them as they step deeper inside. They catch up with Zaheer a couple dozen paces in.
He toes at the ground as if wiping away dirt with his foot. Indeed, there looks to be some sort of stone plaque below, engraved with vague markings. It's illegible, as time has left it half covered in vines, half covered in dust.
"What is that supposed to be?" Korra asks.
"Air," Zaheer says. As he clears more dust with his foot, Korra can make out the swirling symbol of the element. Beside it, obscured from view, are likely the other elements, engraved into this stone.
"I would show you, but I cannot activate it without my bending," Zaheer says. "To the left, here, is fire, then air, water, earth."
"The elemental cycle," Korra acknowledges. "But why? What is its purpose?"
"I won't hold your hand through everything, Avatar. If you want answers, you must reach out and find them for yourself."
Pompous. Fucking. Asshole.
Clenching her teeth tightly, Korra remains focused on the small distance between herself and Zaheer as she crouches, taking a closer look at the engravings at their feet. Gently, in an effort to clear its dust, Korra uses a bit of airbending on the stone.
The vines whip rapidly toward her, faster than she can move, and grab for her wrist.
Korra shouts an expletive as the vines instantaneously tighten their grip. She tugs hard, forceful enough to break any natural vine, but these are made of more than just plant matter.
Impulsively, feeling panic course through her before a bit of sense can, she uses her other hand to slice at those vines with firebending. The fire does little, but the action does entice the vines to wrap around her second wrist, restraining her there.
Zaheer staggers back, the vines still avoiding touching him, but Mako comes to her aid immediately.
"Don't pull," Mako tells her firmly, quieting her hands. The vines tighten further, squeezing hard enough to perhaps cut off circulation, but Korra realizes she can't feel their thorns. These aren't drawing any blood.
"When I cut this, get us out of here," Mako orders.
Korra nods, understanding, readying herself to shift them out in an instant. A sharp jet of fire shoots from his fist, shaped like a blade and roaring. Before he can even sever the vines, they find him next, whipping for his arm and forcing the fire to sputter and fade.
"Stop bending!"
They both startle, realizing Asami has stepped a few feet into the thicket.
"Asami, don't come closer!" Korra shouts. She waits a moment to see if the vines intensify, but they settle down instead, the mass around them visibly lessening their tension. But both of Korra's hands remain held tight, as well as one of Mako's.
"Zaheer!" Korra yells furiously, realizing he's continued backward, stepping a safe distance away from them. "What is this?!"
"Another way forward," Zaheer says, smiling in a self-satisfied way that's all too familiar to her. "I will say, from what I've heard, these vines truly enjoy the taste of chi. Keep feeding them, will you?"
That's when she feels it. Reaching with her senses, she feels her chi throbbing through her like a slow heartbeat, flowing in a way that feels unnatural. It feels like it's being sucked from a straw in slow, long pulls. As she focuses harder, she realizes it is from the thorns – thorns that dig not into the physical body, but the subtle body. Sapping them.
"Enter the Avatar state," Zaheer teases, "give it your very best. Let us see how deep its hunger goes. Can it consume the Avatar spirit, I wonder?"
Slow, deep drags. Sucking. Draining. As she tugs again, the vines tighten further, crawling and growing up the length of her forearms.
"No," she breathes, remembering how it felt to be manacled. She's back there in an instant, feeling all four of her limbs restrained above a pit of lava, feeling metal poison burrowing under skin, into muscle. Even as Zaheer leaves her field of view, the vision of him swims within her mind, remembering his declaration to end the line of Avatars once and for all. Destroying the Avatar spirit. "No, no."
"Korra, calm down," Mako insists, but the vines slowly begin to curl up along his arm as well.
Korra cannot lose her. She cannot. Raava not talking to her is one thing she could accept, but Raava needs to be able to reincarnate. Someone else needs to be able to complete this task if she fails.
Even if Korra wanted to go into the Avatar state, she knows that it would cause an overwhelming amount of chi to flow from her, straight into these vines. She remembers Raava at her smallest, weak and limp, living in that tea pot with Wan. She remembers Raava being struck beneath the watery lash of Unalaq, disintegrating, her lightness gone from the world.
"Raava," Korra cries, not knowing what else to say. Apologies are not enough.
She's back to this. Back to losing her again, just as she loses everyone.
Asami's voice carries across the distance. "Zaheer, you have to let them go. You have to know this isn't right!" Stubbornly, Asami steps through the brush toward them, remaining entirely untouched by the vines. "The world needs the Avatar!"
"What we need is natural order," Zaheer argues. "Perhaps I'll see you in the afterlife, Avatar, once your soul is at last unbound."
She's panicking, Mako can tell, with her mind in a million more places than here.
Korra's eyes dart around as Zaheer disappears again, frantic and wide. She isn't thinking straight, on the verge of a panic attack, her breaths rapid as she tries to make sense of what's happening.
Mako breathes deeply, trying to force himself to remain calm. It isn't as bad as it seems – she has trauma from being bound, trauma from Zaheer, and this is entirely too much too soon.
"Asami," Mako tells her as she approaches. "You shouldn't be so close. Go back, please."
"You're insane. I can't leave you." At their sides now, Asami's hands find Mako's restrained one. She tugs at the vines, unable to get her fingers beneath to move them, and the vines do not react to her. "It isn't grabbing me because I'm not bending, right?"
Mako hesitates, observing her as she pulls with all her strength. Mako forces his arm in the opposite direction, trying to assist in breaking the vine, but it doesn't work. Asami draws a hidden knife from somewhere on her person, edging it carefully between his skin and what binds him, but her attempts to slice through it prove just as unsuccessful.
"Sweetheart," Mako says to Asami, trying to get her to listen to reason. "Don't hurt your hands. We can find a way out of this."
Korra shakes her head. "It's weakening us. Draining our chi faster than you think. I – I can feel it. There's no time, Mako. Minutes."
Mako's eyes scan their surroundings for Zaheer, or anything else, but they are utterly alone.
It's too quiet. When he tries to listen, he can hear a soft slurping sound emanating from in between them. When he pays attention to the sensation on his wrist, beyond the tight pressure, he feels that tingle of his chi being disturbed. His lifeforce surreptitiously being removed from his body.
This is bad. Korra shouldn't go into the Avatar state even if she is still able to. That isn't a risk they can take.
But Mako knows precisely how to deal with stubborn spirit vines.
Considering his other options quickly, he realizes there's likely only one surefire way out of this.
"Asami, I need you to exit these vines, and then take another twenty paces back. Korra…" He's so close to her, close enough to lean forward and press a kiss to her forehead. "Just like we practiced. When I electrocute this thing, you need to redirect. Draw it away from your chest, down to your stomach, and back out through an index finger. Aim away from me, please."
"Mako," she whines, shuddering, still fighting the panic welling inside. "Mako, you can't. This is the Colossus again, isn't it? You're not going to die for me!"
"You're the only way Asami can get home safe." His restrained hand can't move, but the other finds one of Korra's, resting there. "Will you trust me?"
Asami stumbles back, tears forming in her eyes. "I trust you, Mako," she says. "I trust you."
She slips back out of the thicket, stepping beyond it to a safe distance, out of view.
Korra is crying now, too, shaking her head. "I'm not losing you," she says, her voice a soft plea. "I just got you back. You can't do this again."
"I'm not going anywhere," Mako insists. "Focus on redirection, and I will, too. Away from your heart."
She sniffles.
After a moment, she relents.
He draws back away from her as far as he can. There are mere inches in between them, far too close for comfort. Mako wonders if there's moisture within these vines, if they will act as conductors, electrocuting them both. Or will they explode like that spirit battery?
They may both die, but they'll both certainly die if he doesn't try. He doesn't know what would happen to Asami then and doesn't wish to think of it.
This lightning has to be strong, too. Strong enough to make a battery burst.
With a deep breath, clearing his mind, he begins winding up his chi. Separating this part of himself into positive and negative, to his left and right, he feels the static begin to charge around himself. It puts hairs on end, audibly humming as it grows in intensity. This can't be as strong as he had charged it in the Colossus, since he cannot weave the chi with the movements of his body, but it builds, builds, builds, until he feels it's no longer safe to continue winding up.
The vines quiver, uncertain, as if tasting chi in the air but not yet certain of its source.
As his chi snaps back together, he releases the lightning toward a thickened area of brambles before them. It doesn't rebound, but seems to be absorbed – for one second, then two, three, he channels everything he can into it.
He feels the electricity as it reaches them at last, its current flowing up through the vines around their wrists.
Korra doesn't scream, but grunts, her face tight as she focuses on pulling the electricity elsewhere. As she tenses, curling in on herself, he can see her focus. Lightning shoots from her finger, away from them with perfect aim.
She's such a skilled bender.
She can do it. She can survive this.
Mako can't focus in the same way. He can't draw the electricity away from his chest while simultaneously drawing yin and yang together in an even flow, projecting it forth with the precision required to not hit Korra.
He isn't sure how long he is able to hold this. Maybe it is just a few more seconds, but the vines finally shriek and cry out and wilt as their hold is abruptly released.
Mako and Korra both slump down, but Korra grabs him in an instant, shifting the ground around them, drawing them far away from the vines toward where Asami waits.
Mako gasps, falling to his knees and hands. He knows he's injured with that scorching hot pins-and-needles feeling that only comes from being electrocuted. But he's alive, Korra's alive, and they've broken free. The vines do not follow.
Before he can make more sense of the situation, things only get more confusing as they hear the flapping of wings.
Wan Shi Tong lands beside them with a loud crash, his talons burrowing hard into the earth beside Asami.
"Miss Sato!" he greets, almost sounding chipper. "Pardon my delay."
Asami had knelt down next to Korra, but pulls back, confused at the sight of the owl. He's twenty feet tall and menacing to all but her it seems.
"You found me?" she asks in surprise.
Wan Shi Tong shakes his wings into a comfortable position tucked against his body. "I sensed the Avatar was in distress, and believed you might be as well."
"I can feel he's still here, nearby," Korra says, glancing off toward some unknown place in the distance. She gets up on her feet, resolved again, glorious in her ferocity. "I'm finishing this, once and for all."
"Go," Wan Shi Tong urges. "I shall keep them safe."
Korra is off an instant, following Zaheer alone.
"Are you well?" Wan Shi Tong asks Asami, dipping down to view her better.
"I am," she says, relieved. Asami turns to Mako then, on her knees beside him, and shifts him so he may sit on the ground. "Mako, are you okay?"
He tries to breathe – to answer – but his chest feels tight. Shallow.
He's… tired. Dizzy. His head feels too light, maybe from losing so much chi so quickly. He shakes his head, flattening his hands against the ground for support.
"My chest," Mako says, though his throat feels tight too. Something jumps in his chest, fluttering, stabbing. "It's hard to…"
What was he saying?
"His heart's rhythm has altered," Wan Shi Tong advises.
Blood is roaring in his ears, like listening through a conch shell. Dizzy, dizzier, he struggles to hold his own weight. Asami grabs him then and draws him against her.
"Arrhythmia?" Asami asks, but when she sees his face it's like she has her answer. Her fingers brush against his cheek – Why does he feel so clammy? – and stop to press into the pulse point on his neck. She swallows, fear growing in her eyes, but Mako can only really focus on the way her lips have fallen open. The way her lips move when she speaks. "Stay with me, Mako. Look at me."
He needs to say something. He needs to stay conscious, he knows. His heart is thudding hard, stabbing, his lungs not working right, not giving him the air he needs. But he keeps his focus on Asami. The color of her eyes. The length of her eyelashes. The point of her chin.
Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, and Mako remembers their time in the meadow. "You're easy to look at," he breathes, remembering the red of her lips then.
He isn't sure what happens next. There's a rustle and thump, and then Korra's back, panting hard, falling to her knees beside them.
"He's gone," Korra says of Zaheer, almost as breathless as he is. "Kept dodging. Everything just went through him. I think I –" Her hands shake as she finds Asami, pressing a hand to her shoulder. "Energybending. I barely nicked him, but his form destabilized."
"Korra, his heart is arrhythmic," Asami says. "Its electrical pulses are not stable."
Mako blinks, and then he's on his back on the ground. Korra is smoothing his hair back – he needs to cut his hair, it's getting unruly now as it sticks to his forehead. Sweaty.
"Will spirit water help?"
"There's no time, Korra. I think — Maybe, reset his heart. Localize a pulse right here?"
"She is correct," another voice says. The owl.
"I can't! I can't lightningbend." Korra's over him then, her pretty face so close to his. "Mako, can you?"
He clenches his hands. They feel weak. He feels weak.
"I can't think straight," Mako says, knowing that much at least.
But he's not the only lightningbender here.
"You can do it, Sparky," he manages to say.
Korra's responding noise is probably angry – she hates that nickname, and it's so funny. It's so funny.
When he looks up to the sky, it looks darker.
His eyelids feel too heavy.
His chest feels too heavy.
When she electrocutes him, his whole body tenses, drawing in on itself. He gasps, startled awake at the sensation, as if being jolted out of a particularly bad dream. His chest aches even more now, burning sharply from front to back.
Korra pins him down with a hand to his stomach and her ear to his chest. Familiar, like the meadow again.
After a moment, Korra says, "We need Puddle."
The sky shifts above him. Not dark anymore, not blood red – a flash of movement, trees whistling past them. The sky is familiar when they stop, a natural blue as if they're in the material world again. He likes that color blue.
Blue eyes find his, staring into him with such intensity as they make quick work of his jacket. Korra's fist finds his undershirt, ripping hard until it tears down from his torso, and that would be maddeningly attractive if his heart didn't hurt as much as it did.
Cool water finds his chest, then cool hands. Then it feels like lightning again, jolting into his heart. Burrowing, digging in. Everything glows blue. He bites his tongue, fighting the urge to scream.
A minute passes before Korra completes healing that area. Her hands and the spirit water drift over his head then, wetting his hair and face, then follow down across the entire width of his chest, then down to his abdomen. When she's verified everything else is in working order, she sits back.
"You're going to give me a heart attack," Korra chastises, slapping at Mako's leg.
He can breathe again. His chest aches, but not in the same way. Like a bruise, not stabbing. Not burning.
Carefully, he tries to sit up, feeling as though his head is still swimming. When he looks down, he can see that she's healed him, but a new scar remains over his heart no bigger than a thumbprint. Maybe this one isn't so bad, since it's like Korra has marked what she already owns.
When Asami embraces him, he smells her perfume. Lovely and sweet like flowers. Her hands grip him tightly, almost desperately pinning him against her chest.
"Are you alright?" he asks her.
Asami laughs then, and when she pulls back, Mako can see tears in her eyes again.
"I'm just having déjà vu," she says. She smiles then, looking down at him with such relief – and it's then that he finally realizes that maybe he died, or was dying. Asami props up his head with one hand, drawing him closer. "It took almost losing you for me to realize…"
Before he can study the shape and color of Asami's lips again, they're pressed against his.
They're so familiar, and so deeply missed. When his hand finds her cheek of its own accord, she presses deeper, opening their mouths a bit. Her tongue barely brushes his top lip before she withdraws, her cheeks tinged pink in the best way.
"Shit," Korra sighs, falling backward with a thump. "This was a series of mistakes, I'd say."
"Yes. Unfortunate."
Mako only then realizes Wan Shi Tong has followed them again. He must have landed more gracefully this time since Mako hadn't heard him crash. But there was some time Mako missed, what with all the deliriousness.
"Why did you come find us?" Korra asks the knowledge spirit.
"What is the Avatar, if not a spirit?" Wan Shi Tong inquires in return. "I was mistaken before. You are a true friend to our kind, seeking to strengthen the spirit inside you, and I would hate for your time to end so prematurely. Your enemy was also eager to abuse and misuse spirits for his own gain – that makes us allies, I believe."
Mako sits up a bit more so he can hold Asami. She sighs against him, her breath so shaky, and he can't help but be focused on her well-being. His hand rubs across her back, reassuring her that he's here and still alive.
"Tell me, Wan Shi Tong," Korra says. "Do you know everything there is to know about this world?"
"I am He Who Knows Ten Thousand Things," he replies, his words heavily laden with vanity. "... Perhaps there are more than ten thousand things to know, but I do know a good deal."
"Maybe you can help me, then. I believe I need to open my thought chakra and establish a connection with the cosmic energy of the universe."
Asami kisses Mako again, and it feels like a dream. Maybe he's still not fully lucid, but when his fingers find a thick curl of her hair, feel the curve of her back bowing beneath his touch – when her tongue meets his, more confident this time – it feels so real. When they part, her eyes are shining with something more than tears now.
"... Trust that you are part of something bigger," Wan Shi Tong is lecturing Korra. "Feel the connection to all living beings. Embrace your intuition. Find the bridge between realms."
"The Tree?" Korra asks. After a moment, she adds, "Or am I the bridge?"
Mako has no idea what she's talking about.
It doesn't matter. They're safe. They're all together.
When Mako holds Asami's hand, slender and lovely, he loves that her nails are painted red right now, too. Her other hand finds its way into his hair, petting him almost, making him sigh and close his eyes.
"I have tried to dictate my heart," Asami says quietly, as if she's sharing a secret. "But I'm so tired of fighting this."
She draws him back against her chest, needing to hold him there. As if he could ever part from her.
He smells the leather of her jacket now, feels it brush against his cheek.
"What's it telling you?" he asks, even though he knows how she feels.
She laughs against him, and knows she doesn't need to say anything else.
"If more is to be discovered, the Tree of Time will reveal it to you," Wan Shi Tong tells Korra. "Cosmic energy flows strongest there. It should be the last piece you require."
Asami and Mako pull apart to view Korra as she bows gratefully to the owl. "Thank you, Wan Shi Tong. When all this is over… I think I speak for all of us when I say we would like to visit the library again."
He bows back, then opens his wings to take flight. "Surprises abound. Perhaps I will even look forward to the company."