After Wan Shi Tong departs, Korra uses Puddle's spirit water to mend her own minor injuries next. Her back muscles feel as though she strained them while channeling electricity, but at least she was able to perform the redirection maneuver properly without burning her fingertips.
Korra isn't certain whether they should go to the Tree of Time straight away. Wan Shi Tong informed her that it is where she must go to connect to the cosmic energy of the universe at long last.
Zaheer is unlikely to bother them now, at least for a while, so they should be safe to do so. Cutting into his torso with energybending may have done actual damage to him, if energybending is truly the manipulation of one's life energy.
Korra makes a note to see if Zaheer is still alive once they return home – and if he is, she is more than willing to finish the job. What Zaheer did to Korra long ago was unforgivable, but with what he's done to Mako, she's beyond entertaining a conversation with that man ever again. Her bending can speak for her.
She shakes that awfulness out of her mind and returns to considering Wan Shi Tong's advice. Korra has seen visions of her past while meditating within the Tree of Time, and she was once able to channel cosmic energy through the Tree and into herself in order to defeat Unalaq's Dark Avatar. That must have been her tapping into the 'cosmic energy of the universe', allowing it to encompass her and empower her.
That was a clear example of the limitlessness of an Avatar's ability. She can make the impossible become possible, with the right mindset, as Asami once said.
But during her six months of traveling alone, Korra sat within the Tree on one other occasion. She tried and failed to reconnect with Raava. The thought of failing that again puts her on edge.
When water is returned to the little puddle, Korra thanks it for all it has done to help. "You are a true friend," she tells its spirit, resting her fingers along its rim, and its surface ripples in wordless reply. "I hope you don't mind that we've been calling you Puddle. Nicknames can be atrocious sometimes."
It doesn't reply. Korra stands then before dusting off her pants and double-checking that she's healed everything important.
Asami and Mako are standing now, too, having stepped a short distance away from her to speak quietly together. They've been embracing for a handful of minutes since Korra healed him, even kissing a few separate times, and it's such a sight to behold.
Korra hasn't seen them kiss each others' lips in over four years, since the very first time those two dated, before Korra had ever dated Mako.
They certainly kissed while she was away recovering in the compound, at least in the first year she was gone, before Asami had established their relationship 'protocol' for the latter two years. But it's been so long since then.
It was just recently that Asami opened up enough to explain to Korra why those rules existed at all. They had been constructed because Asami hated feeling heartfelt affection toward him, anything that could be construed as love for him, when they weren't a couple. Being in such a dumpster fire of a relationship had been hard on her, years ago, and seeing him asleep so solidly and warmly beside her would make her wish he was always there. Holding his hand, kissing his lips, or allowing him to embrace her beyond what was perhaps permissible after sex would make her want all of it in a more authentic way.
It took all of Korra's willpower to stop herself from asking follow-up questions, still not understanding why loving someone was a problem. Why loving him was such a problem if Asami thinks so highly of him. But as she thought about Asami's perspective of Mako, with the betrayal she repeatedly felt from him discarding and disregarding her, Korra realized that this was a trust issue. Beyond trusting Mako, Asami still had trouble trusting her own feelings when it came to him.
Korra thanked Asami for her openness and didn't bring it up again.
That conversation reminded Korra of closed chakras, though: Asami had to come to terms with her difficult emotions in order to overcome each of these hang-ups.
Even after Korra and Mako started dating again, in such a way that would frequently land him in Asami's bed, Asami still wasn't open to kissing him. Even as he claimed her body with his own, their eyes locked, with cheeks or noses or foreheads touching, sharing breaths with lips so close to meeting – Asami wasn't willing to take that next step. She had mentally connected the simple act of a kiss with true love, and was making herself feel the latter before she could entertain the former.
Asami grew more than comfortable breaking their other 'rules', though, all the ones that no longer applied. She came harder than ever after he sucked dark bruises into the insides of her thighs or along her shoulder blades. When she wanted teeth, he obliged by leaving soft indentations above her breasts. Asami began asking him to stay the night rather than go home, as was their tradition; she began asking Korra if he could come over because she wanted him.
Their casual touches began to linger, where her hand would find his knee, or his arm would wrap behind her shoulders. Flirtatiously, she'd apply lipstick just to leave a red print of her lips against his jaw.
The three of them occasionally spent evenings out on the town. At Kwong's Cuisine, Mako once leaned into her to whisper, but his lips brushed low on Asami's neck. Asami brought her wine glass to her lips, held it there for a moment too long, and when it lowered Korra had noticed gooseflesh along Asami's bare arms and pink in her cheeks. Asami recommended they skip ordering dessert so they could get home sooner.
And the sex was… Spirits. Some of it was as raunchy as Asami's filthiest imaginings, but some of it was intimate. Slow, tender, especially in the mornings. Korra would find them staring at each other's lips too often, knowingly smiling as if tempting the other to finally cave.
It felt like they were edging each other in some twisted way by not allowing this one small thing. It was hot, but simultaneously frustrating to witness, and Korra found herself kissing both of them fiercely just to remind them it was possible and good. In the moments where they simultaneously kissed her body, every part of this charade felt so unbelievably dumb, and yet so absolutely thrilling at the same time. Korra was more than willing to be the bridge between their mouths.
Korra kept her own mouth shut, though, not teasing about this one boundary in case it was still more than just a game. Mako consistently went at Asami's pace, too familiar with following someone else's lead; he always had been more reactive than proactive when it came to relationships. As patient and supportive as Asami had been with Korra, Mako proved to be the same with Asami.
The tension between them wound tighter and tighter, all the while, like that record player had been with its spring bound to snap at any moment.
And now it finally snapped, because… Mako almost died. Like a dam bursting, like a chakra opening, seeing a loved one so brutally injured had immediately altered something in Asami.
It's at that thought that Korra then remembers what P'Li's death did for Zaheer. The concept that losing someone changes your frame of mind. Near-death experiences or catastrophic injuries may open or close chakras, too.
Korra's eyebrows knit together and she presses a hand to the top of her head. She feels for the stagnation of her chi there, the way her emotions and thoughts have kept this gateway to experiencing the cosmos bolted firmly shut.
Like her fire chakra before their time at the Southern Air Temple, it feels as if her thought chakra is swirling just the tiniest bit, allowing chi to trickle slowly, as though it were a semi-clogged drain. As if Mako's electricity damaging his body or her own had shifted something inside her, too.
Mako didn't die, though. Korra's eyes remained locked on his as soon as Asami informed her that his heart wasn't beating properly. They could see that he was teetering on the edge of consciousness, losing awareness of his surroundings, but his jagged breaths continued. His pupils remained normal, peering back at her, even as he drew quiet.
It just… felt like he was on the precipice, an inch from stepping off that cliff.
Seeing him almost die felt like a shock to her heart stronger than the literal shock she'd given him. She's still reeling from it.
They came far too close, again. It hasn't even been half a year since the last time they all nearly died.
Korra watches her two lovers for a moment, with relief and joy and self-hatred and misery all twisting inside her in the messiest of ways. Resisting the urge to vent her frustrations and ruin this tender moment, she feels so mad at herself for not being deterred by Zaheer's vines. It clearly felt like a trap. Such parts of the spirit world make themselves appear very openly hostile for a reason. But she'd blinded herself to reality, pushing for answers when she already knew Zaheer would provide none. His rage had baited her own, and she fell for his ruse easily.
How could 'insight' be Korra's specialty when she has only ever been gullible like this? Such foolish naïveté is what made her lose the connection to the other Avatars years ago, and it feels as though she hasn't grown from that. Maybe she's only insightful about herself; she doesn't know enough about the world, but she knows the depths of her failures inside and out. That is the only truth she ever seems to understand well.
Asami's fingers brush over the new burn scar on Mako's chest. As he pulls the remaining shreds of his undershirt from off his shoulders, they're able to observe another slightly bigger scar on his back, as if Korra's burst of lightning to his heart had pierced straight through him. She had taken him to Puddle immediately with the fear she permanently injured him in some way, but his heart felt okay, felt strong, with most damage being purely skin level.
Korra approaches both of her partners then, letting herself brush against the new scar on his chest just like Asami's fingers had. Mako seems like himself again, warm to the touch, and he doesn't look sickly. He isn't weakened or breathless despite everything he just went through.
With her fingers laid against his breastbone, she dips beyond his physicality, wordlessly feeling his chi to check if those pathways have been disturbed by this impact.
His air chakra is now open.
It might be because of the repeated injury to this area. Or it's from the air chakra book he continually reads to Asami to help her fall asleep at night – some weird ritual of theirs that makes Asami relax like a cat basking in the sun's rays. Maybe bonding with Asami has helped him work through grief. Or perhaps it is all thanks to the love he expresses so readily, and the love he now feels being returned from both women in his life.
This injury was so serious and Korra shouldn't smile at this moment, but when Mako grabs her fingers from his chest, bringing her hand up to his lips to kiss it, she finds that she's grinning. They're all growing and healing, in spite of everything.
"No more scars for you," Korra tells him firmly. "I'm keeping you at home from now on. Tell Lin you quit and want to become an amateur novelist."
He looks amused by that. So happy, despite having come so perilously close to the unspeakable. "Would you say I'm… grounded?"
Asami guffaws as Korra pretends to look appalled at his jest. Damn him for actually landing a joke.
"Was that a lightning pun?" Korra gasps, drawing her hand away from him in fake indignation. "Too soon, Mako!"
"Don't act so shocked."
Yes, he's back to himself. At that, Korra manhandles Mako, turning him to get a better look at his back. His oh-so-handsome back, previously unblemished beyond a few thin, silvery scars, now has a much darker mark from her laughable 'lightning', branded onto him forevermore.
Though he probably likes it, knowing him.
"Are you feeling okay?" Korra asks more seriously. More in appreciation than anything, both her fingertips and eyes scale across the smooth skin and muscular definition of this area. After a moment, she runs her fingers over this new scar, feeling its texture.
"I'm doing better," Mako says, turning once she's done inspecting. "I do think I'll need to take it easy once we return home. But I'm okay to walk, if you'd like to wrap things up here."
"I need to go to the Tree of Time. Do you want to sit down with Asami while I meditate there, just for a little while?"
"Sounds easy enough," Mako says before glancing over to Asami just a foot apart from him. He holds his hand out, willing her to stay closer. "I do enjoy her company."
Korra chews at her lip, eying the both of them as Asami accepts his offered hand graciously. Her other hand wraps around his forearm, bringing herself to his side.
"Does this mean what I think it means?" Korra asks, trying to tame the grin continually trying to overtake her face.
"I believe so," Asami says, letting her head rest against his upper arm. They look at each other thoughtfully. "We… can give this another try. If you'll have me, Mako."
His expression is soft as it trails over her face, observing and appreciating the sight of her. "We just need our own overly cheesy way to say 'I love you'."
"Hmm… I'll make a list of our options," Asami agrees sassily. "But for now, does 'I love you' work?"
He turns to her in an instant, unable to resist sweeping her back into his arms at that.
As they kiss again, sharing those words against each other's lips, Korra lets her eyes drift away from them. It feels a little awkward witnessing such a grand display of love, but she's more than excited for them both. This feels like something they've all been waiting for, an inevitability, just as her own love for Mako was inevitably restored.
When Korra eyes Puddle, it's rippling as if cheering them on.
"Was this meant to be?" Asami says after a moment, moving to press her cheek against Mako's bare chest. "I feel like this is how it should've been from the beginning, and we've wasted so much time. Mako had the right idea all along, but none of us had the sense to see what was right in front of us."
"I don't believe in fate," Korra disagrees. She's thought about this before. It's awful to imagine all of these trials and tribulations are meant to happen to serve some higher purpose. Sometimes bad things happen because bad things happen, and there's no rhyme or reason for it. "Our choices are our own. Sometimes we make poor decisions and have to live with the aftermath... But sometimes the choices we believe were mistakes were the right ones, in the end. If Mako and I hadn't broken up, I wouldn't have found you, Asami. And if I hadn't found Mako again…"
Korra doesn't need to say anything more. Asami hugs Mako tight, understanding this train of thought. Understanding that all of their loss and pain led to this moment. Losing each other was the only way to find each other again.
Still embracing Asami, Mako's eyes drift over and linger on Korra. It's such a strange parallel to their time spent years ago, Korra catching his gaze in this way when Mako was only Asami's to hold. But everything is so different now. They stand as equals at last.
When Asami pulls back, her right hand reaches up and caresses his jaw. "I do feel as though there is some invisible thread that has always drawn us back together," she says. "Slowly but surely, we have all returned to each other. We are all too stubborn to be sensible, but even that couldn't keep us apart. Not time nor distance… I have tried so hard to live without you, but you two are all I've ever wanted."
It feels like Korra's chest flips at that.
She thinks it's her heart skipping a beat, entranced by the magnitude of her love and her honesty spilling forth with such vulnerability. But Korra feels a tingle and remembers the dreams of light radiating through every pore of her being.
Asami may have started Korra on the quest to reconnect with the past Avatars, but it was Mako who laid out this specific path for her.
It was Mako that introduced Asami to Korra, years ago. They only became acquaintances and later best friends through him.
When Korra left, it was Asami that kept Mako affixed to her side.
Perhaps they both brought Mako back into the fold, but it was Korra that led Mako back to Asami, truly, at long last.
Maybe this is the work of fate. Invisible strings, tugging them onward. Tying, unraveling, and tying again.
"Let's go see that Tree," Korra says, and for the first time she feels as though she can picture some path ahead. "I think Raava is just as eager to see Wan as I am."
As she steps into the hollow of the Tree of Time, she's overwhelmed by the sheer magnificence of this space. Asami and Mako have been brought to its edge, as they wish to view any visions that may appear for Korra as she meditates inside.
Unlike the previous times she's sat within the Tree, she can feel some sort of atmospheric pressure being applied to her as she takes a meditative stance in the center. Its gnarled wood is bumpy and firm below her as she sits, but familiar and comforting, as if she's returned home somehow. With legs crossed, she makes two fists and brings her knuckles to meet in front of her stomach.
Before she begins, she watches Mako and Asami take a seat at the outer lip of the tree's hollow. Behind them, the sky blends from a warm pink, to bright yellow, to white. Small spirits surround this tree, and as her lovers relax side by side, hand in hand, those spirits begin to surround them, too. The little yellow one with the leaf on its head finds Asami immediately, as though drawn to the radiance of her person.
"That's the Avatar," the spirit informs Asami.
Indeed.
At that, Korra closes her eyes and begins.
Trust that you are part of something bigger.
She imagines herself as the bridge between all. Past and present, man and spirit, tangible and ethereal. The elements.
Mediator. Communicator. Guardian. Servant.
Light and dark exist as one entity inside of her now. Even as Vaatu remains little more than a glimmer of darkness within the light, this connectedness makes her more balanced than any Avatar that came before. Light alone is exemplary, and yet is not balanced. For an Avatar to restore true balance to the world, it begins with her.
Within this Tree, within her, and within them, she feels the pressure of the cosmos burrowing in, grasping for truth.
Feel the connection to all living beings.
The Avatar is a collaboration between the self and the collective.
She feels humanity. Millions of them, scattered, clustered, near and far.
Spirits. Ancient. Old and new.
Those that are eternal.
Those that are born again, like every person, and every entity she has ever known.
Even Raava. Even Vaatu.
Cyclical rebirth finds them all in due time.
She feels cosmic energy flowing in every being.
This is the cycle that repeats. This is the 'soul' – their unique fragment of cosmic energy found within a person. This is 'reincarnation' – their energy re-gifted to the world, again and again.
Embrace your intuition.
The soul is but one manifestation of cosmic energy, carrying the essence, the fingerprint, of all the persons who have held it before.
The Avatar is not a collection of many souls, but a singular one. The other Avatars' souls were never lost; only their fingerprints were wiped clean as if from a pane of glass. Korra was Aang just as she was Wan. The differences between them meant little, as the energy within remained the same. Reborn again, 149 times, with Raava's cosmic lightness entwined with theirs. A handhold to last an eternity.
The nature of light and dark are but two facets of the cosmos, as everything is.
Korra thinks of the Avatars, little specks of light somewhere far beyond, like stars in the sky.
Instead of burrowing down into the depths of the earth, following roots and vines, her thoughts drift upward. Beyond the atmosphere that presses down on her shoulders. Beyond earth and its waters, beyond its air, beyond the fire of their sun. Further than she can imagine, she grasps for something more.
The light in the dark. Yielding to her, purifying her.
A lightness not from a star, and not from the lightness found within.
Somewhere beyond. Somewhere adrift. Somewhere immaterial.
Find the bridge between realms.
Maybe the bridge is her, as the Avatar, the embodiment of both man and spirit. Bound reciprocally.
Maybe the bridge is the Tree, whose roots bind all. In perpetuity.
Since beginningless time, light and dark have existed. The primordial Tree birthed both Raava and Vaatu, giving shape and voice to this nature of cosmos.
She feels it then, flowing from her chest like a wave capsizing upon shore: the light inside her, brimming, overflowing. It courses through her veins like all of the elements. It fills her lungs, fills her mind. Euphoria, tranquility, power.
Her fists are balled so tightly they ache. When she opens her eyes, she knows she's accessed the Avatar state and Raava is fully connected to her once more.
But Raava had not left her, in the same way that Raava has never left her.
The yellow spirit with the leaf on its head rests in Asami's lap. Wordless in their admiration, two lovers watch on. Korra doesn't know if they can see her thoughts or visions within the Tree, but perhaps they can see her eyes, if they're glowing.
Korra closes them again, not yet done.
She reaches beyond.
Not as a bridge, but a ladder.
Up.
Perhaps this is the way. A path she hasn't yet tread.
When she feels for her soul, believing there may be some tangible answer within, it is as if the universe drops out from under her. It isn't a sharp fall like in her dreams where she crashes through the forest floor. She imagines floating down like a young airbender stepping off not a cliff, but a rooftop. She floats, adrift as if in a current of water, and when her feet catch both the ground and nothing at all, she feels as though she's in some dark space that stretches forever.
Stars flicker to life within the void. Lights dance below her feet like the southern sky during the winter solstice: purple, blue, teal, white, curving into a narrow road that leads her forward. The pathway is flat before her, but a fusion of color flows below, swirling and waving gently like southern lights before it too fades into the black nothingness of space.
Beyond the path, ahead, lies herself. Her Inner Being.
A likeness of Korra, larger than life, as large as this Tree. The entirety of her is colored pitch and outlined by white. Duality. The dark in the light.
Within her Inner Being's grasp rests a sphere, glowing the brightest of whites, waiting for her at the end of this path. It is cosmic energy, waiting to be touched; it is an answer, asking to be found.
As Korra takes one step forward, she hears a voice that snaps her from this reverie.
"I knew you could do it," someone teases. Her voice is a lovely, charred rasp. It's a young woman, with bronze eyes and a face like a porcelain doll, her black hair swept up into a topknot with a few too many strands falling free. She's in black and crimson Fire Nation regalia – old armor, as was the fashion centuries ago.
The form-fitting, pointed metal armor on her torso is lifted off by someone else's fingers, only to be set on the floor.
Those hands return to her waist and grip at both sides of a newly revealed white tunic.
This Fire Nation woman may be of normal stature, but looks so small compared to the towering woman standing before her.
"You doubted the Avatar's capabilities?" the tall one asks with amusement in her voice. Her skin isn't as pale, but her hair is a few shades lighter. Her face has some freckles and her eyes are a dark green — smoldering now, as they look upon her lover.
"Remind me of those capabilities again," the shorter woman says, closing the distance between them, pulling those hands firmer against her hips.
Korra startles out of the vision, dropping her meditative pose instantly.
Mako and Asami look just as surprised as she is.
"Who was that?" Asami asks, her voice loud enough to carry across the short distance.
Korra hesitates. The height of the second woman – an Avatar. She's too distinct.
"Kyoshi," Korra replies, though every likeness Korra has seen of the woman included full face paint, her torso armor and vambraces, her green robe and ornamental headpiece. This woman looked like any other, beyond her unique height.
"And Rangi," Mako says. When everyone looks at him for further explanation, he grows bashful under the influx of attention. "Uh... She was in one of the Avatar books. Rangi was one of her first partners. A bodyguard, or something."
It looked like Kyoshi was doing more with Rangi's body than vice versa.
Korra relaxes her posture a bit, wondering. "Why would the Tree show me that? That's not one of my memories."
But then… perhaps it is, in some way.
Korra presses her hand to her chest again and feels for Raava.
All of the lived experiences of the previous Avatars exist within Raava's memory.
If Korra can connect to her own memories within the Tree, then it may be just as true that Korra can experience Raava's memories. She can pull them forth here, at least, so long as Korra sits meditating and connected to the cosmos.
"Did you show me that for a reason, Raava?"
Korra isn't surprised when there isn't any explanation given.
And so she goes back to meditating. Climbing toward the stars, falling into nothingness. Back to viewing that Inner Being of hers.
When she is on that lighted walkway, taking another step forward, another vision swims through her mind.
"Those are some lofty goals of yours."
Three teenagers are crouched, camped within what looks like a dingy back alley.
Korra knows one of them – Dawa, with soft brown eyes set within a handsome face. They haven't kept with the traditional hairstyle nor garb of air nomads, instead wearing something to help them blend in within the Earth Kingdom. But their blue tattoos still peek through beneath a fringe of black hair and from the ends of their sleeves.
They smile cheekily at their friend. "What can I say? I'm a dreamer."
They all look like they're planning something. Mischievous kids.
"That's what I like about you, Dawa," the third friend says. "Always biting off more than you can chew."
Korra can't discern any meaning from that vision, either. It feels random.
Another step.
"What happens once we're gone?" Kouji asks, looking out through a window. They're several floors above the ground outside, in a regal sort of room, not unlike that of a palace.
An older man is with him, resting in a chair. A grandfather perhaps, or a teacher. "For you, the Avatar spirit lives on. You will live again, in a different way, to help those who follow the same path," the man says. "For the rest of us, we pass beyond."
The boy's voice is so small. "Beyond?"
"Into the afterlife," the man explains. "The Great Peace. The final resting place."
Kouji frowns, confusion twisting his expression. "The Avatars – ?"
This vision is interrupted as if it were a mover cut too short.
Korra loses her focus, distracted by discussion of the afterlife. One of her own memories pops up within the Tree – slithering, twisting along a glowing vine until Korra encounters that teenage earthbender, the one who holds the cosmic essence of Mako's mother. Korra waves a hand in front of her face as if she could dismiss the memory like smoke.
She isn't in the Avatar state now, but the visions continue to flow as she takes another step in that indescribable in-between space between realms.
Many steps. A number of people, all dancing in unison, switching partners in rapid succession. Shuffling, turning, sliding. One man spins just so, interrupting the otherwise measured flow of the dance just so his hands may find another specific someone's.
"Hello, handsome," he says to his new dance partner. This assertive man is as wiry as his new dance partner is broad and soft. Both wear Fire Nation attire for this event, but the beefy one looks to be Water Tribe, all storm-blue eyes and copper skin. "Are you well?"
"Never been better," the broad one says. He spins and then dips the smaller man low – certainly not part of the dance – and then they're both laughing. They remove themselves from the dance floor, hand in hand. "I feel like I belong here."
"You can stay," the smaller man says. While scanning the venue for a table to sit at, he says, "You deserve a break after everything you've been through."
"I'm sorry to leave you so soon," a man says. His fingers worry at one of his rings.
"Just promise you'll come back to me," a woman replies. She's slumped forward in a chair, hiding her face, her voice sounding raw from too many tears.
"I'm always with you, sunshine," the man says, kneeling down by her side. He presses the tip of an index finger to her chest. "If you keep me here, it'll be like I've never left you, okay?"
"You haven't done anything wrong. We knew this was coming."
More tears. A young man, Fire Nation, shaking his head. "I should have tried harder. I've failed the world, haven't I? There's no coming back from this."
"Itsuo, stop. You're safe. I'm safe. What's done is done. We can't help them anymore than we have."
"I still feel so bad!"
"You shouldn't!"
Korra withdraws from meditation. The colorful path within that dark space disappears as she opens her eyes.
She's beginning to understand something, and maybe the others can, too.
There's some pattern within these visions, as if they're speaking to her.
Kouji's message was cut off, but perhaps that was intentional. His teacher had gotten it wrong – all souls reincarnate into new bodies, unless they're fully enlightened. And only if they're not the Avatar.
"You have the right idea," a teacher says, watching his student condensing clumps of earth into tight spheres. "Keep going."
More steps, more visions. Dozens, with each one more confusing than the last. There's multiple underlying themes to them: Don't feel bad. Don't doubt. Don't worry. I belong. I'm happy. Afterlife.
"What are you trying to tell me?" Korra asks the universe. She looks up to the ceiling of this hollow, observing how twisted and knotted the bridge between worlds truly is. "Are the other Avatars in the afterlife?"
Nothing answers, not even Raava.
Korra stares at the wood grain, thinking of Aang. Willing him to show himself next, if he's truly here with them.
"Did you want to take a break?" Asami asks. "These visions have been flashing for an hour."
Maybe her sense of time has warped. It has felt like minutes.
"I'm almost there," Korra informs them. "I feel like I'm just a moment away from tapping into the cosmic energy. The Avatars are showing me their memories, every step of the way."
"Do you see a pattern?" Mako asks, and by his tone Korra is certain he has seen one, too.
"Yes," Korra says. And for the first time, she feels insightful for seeing something deeper.
"It is the least we can do," Fire Lord Zuko reassures, allowing his arm to be looped through Aang's as they walk. The two men skirt around the edge of a field of flowers, all white-blue and small, with delicate stems. "The Fire Nation has put forth great effort in restoring each of the temples."
"You mean you are putting in effort," Aang says teasingly. "I appreciate this more than anything. The Southern Air Temple is looking great, Zuko! And you said these flowers were for remembering them?"
"Commemorating," Zuko corrects. "Respectfully. So we never forget who came before."
Aang looks awed, considering those words as he looks across the length of the meadow. "Monk Gyatso once said that those who leave us never truly cease to exist. We just change bodies, but our essence carries on."
"Uncle says the cosmos lives within these flowers," Zuko says. They stop for a moment, and Zuko leans down to pull one from the earth. "They are eternal, and will never wilt, even if plucked."
"I think we desecrated a holy site," Korra tells Mako.
He pulls the collar of his jacket up to hide his face.
Asami has the good grace to not laugh at them, even if she looks like she wants to. "Interesting," she says, and Mako nudges her with an elbow as if to say 'this is your fault, too.'
"Sorry about that, Aang," Korra says to the air. "Those flowers… do make you remember things."
As soft as a caress, the slightest bit of wind blows against her, ruffling her hair. But she is in the hollow of a tree, where there is certainly no air flow.
Aang is with her, watching on in some way. Hopefully more amused than horrified. But his breeze has always been a reminder to keep going, and to focus.
She knows who the final step belongs to.
"I would spend a million years and more with you, if I could," Wan says. He rests sitting against a tree, hands folded in his lap, eyes closed. The sunlight streaming through the leaves above dapples his skin.
He's older, perhaps middle-aged. Handsome despite the rugged shagginess of his hair.
"We may not have quite that long," Raava tells him, her voice echoing from inside him. "Like the changing of the seasons, it is inevitable that you will change. Reborn anew into a babe. But I shall know you then, too."
"For however long we have, then," Wan says. One of his hands finds his chest, pressing there as if to embrace her. "Nothing has ever brought me more joy than being with you."
"And I you."
When Korra's fingers touch the white sphere – the embodiment of the cosmos – she understands at last.
As much as Korra has misunderstood the nature of the world around her, it appears as though everyone else has misunderstood, as well.
Most humans shall never break free from the cycle of reincarnation. The few who do are not sent to some unknowable, unobservable place called the afterlife. It isn't another realm. Letting go of one's earthly tethers does not mean ascension.
Enlightenment is becoming one with the cosmos itself. Inviting one's soul to disperse itself back into aether.
Reaching out through vines, Korra could not find the Avatars because they are both nowhere and everywhere. They are in the fabric of reality. In her palm just as much as in the stars.
Korra wonders if she has the power to tear a hole in this reality, in the same way she opened a portal through realms. Perhaps she could collect the fragments of their energy, scooping each grain of sand, tucking each of them back into herself, into Raava.
But the visions sent from the Avatars have shown her something consistent.
They are at rest now. Their Great Peace is not nirvana, not paradise.
Paradise is existence itself. It is a breeze on the wind ruffling one's hair. It is flowers in a meadow. The cosmos, and the Avatars, live in both.
It is loss, gain, and everything that comes in between. Cyclical like the seasons.
The other Avatars have never left her, nor Raava, as they are enfolded into the fabric of everything that ever was or will be.
Korra opens her eyes at last, having found her answer.
"Thank you," Raava says to Korra, "For everything. For letting me see him again."
"We'll come back to this place," Korra tells her, pressing her palm to her chest just as Wan did. "All of his memories exist in you. We can remember him together… We can remember them all, together. Wan wanted you to know he hasn't left you, just as you never left us."
Raava falls silent.
After a long while, Raava says, "I am grateful to start this new cycle with you, Korra."
Korra smiles, rubbing her thumb across her chest.
The love they share isn't what Raava and Wan had, but maybe love truly is eternal. Nuanced, complex.
Fraught with difficulty, Raava said, love is an eternal flame; it transcends all tribulations of this world, binding souls together across lifetimes.
When Korra looks ahead, she sees Mako, Asami, and their spirit friends. To embrace love in all of its complexities feels like tapping into the cosmic energy of the universe in its own way.
She wonders for a moment about the nature of everything being connected, where nothing exists without its twin. If all of reality is just a series of dual natures that cannot truly be teased apart. If the Tree of Time can show the past, it too could show the future.
Korra carefully moves to stand up, her legs feeling weak as she gathers her bearings. The atmospheric pressure of the universe has lifted from her shoulders. The aum sound of the universe has faded from her mind. When she presses a hand to her head, she feels that final chakra flowing freely. It doesn't mean much, now – Korra is anchored to this world, and to all future Avatars. But this is a bond and not a burden.
When Korra looks upon the two who wait for her – the two who have always waited for her – in her heart, she feels more love than ever.
Korra leaves the hollow, and as she find their hands with hers, she knows what her future holds.
She doesn't need visions to tell her.