Disclaimer- I do not own anything here, and am writing purely for the fun of it.
Summary-The explosion that killed him, the fall that ended her, neither were meant to happen. The spirits had accepted his loss, had reorganized their plans, but hers was impossible to ignore. "Fine because it is our favored child I will grant them one more try," the spirit of time began to rewind the clock. Tarrlok/Korra
Warning-Nothing really graphic but for themes and such I'm rating this as T. This is a Korra and Tarrlok pairing so yes there is a 20 year age gap between the two. Though they are adults in this, the pairing may rub some people the wrong way. This is also a slow burn story so don't expect anything super soon. This story is based off the theory that Korra was having some very dark thoughts after losing her power and what might have happened immediately after she found out Katara could not help her.
Chapter 1
Go again
Korra awoke with a jolt, her heart nearly beating out of her chest and her breath coming out agonizingly fast. She was in shock. "Where am I?" she wondered as everything around her was dark. Her first thought was to call to her fire bending, and with just that thought the fire lit instantly inside her palm.
She stared at it blankly. "I can fire bend," she whispered softly to herself. As if hearing her words a great white mass moved itself into her vision. It only took her a second to recognize her faithful polarbeardog. "Naga?," Korra questioned softly. Naga laid her massive white head on Korra's lap, and Korra felt tears begin to run down her face. The fire in her hand died out as she reached out and grabbed fist fulls of Naga's fur and cried against her oldest friend.
"What did I do?" Korra asked.
The moment she jumped, she had not even bothered to think about how it would affect Naga, or really anyone else. Her parents, Tenzin, the kids, Mako, Bolin, or even Asami. It had just been too much, yet now as she cried into Naga's fur she began to wonder how she could have done such an insane thing to all those that loved her.
Would they blame themselves, she truly hoped not. It had been such a rash decision, one fueled by her own hopelessness and inability to accept what had happened. Her entire life had been fueled by one rash decision after the next, never truly thinking ahead to the consequences of her actions. But as Naga did her best to comfort her, those consequences were now well in her mind.
"Are we dead?" Korra decided to give voice to her fears. If this was some sort of dark afterlife, than how was Naga here? Unless, "did you jump in after me?" Korra asked her companion. It shook her that she may have inadvertently killed her poor polarbeardog. But if this was some sort of afterlife why was it so cramped, Korra wondered. Was she in the waiting room of rebirth or what?
Lighting up the room with her fire bending once more she began to notice things. There sure were a lot of shipping containers in the afterlife. In fact it reminded her a lot of the ship that she had snuck aboard when she first came to republic city. In fact it wasn't just that it reminded her of it, it seemed to be an almost exact match for it. She remembered the snug space as well as the lack of food all too well. And as that memory came to her mind she felt her stomach grumble. Which seemed to set off Naga as well who was also slightly whimpering about being hungry.
Another of her rash decisions, that really hadn't helped her situation. She had barely brought enough food for herself for the journey, but after sharing with Naga they had been hungry for two days. But that was a memory, why was she reliving it?
Were they on another ship that just so happened to be the exact same, how exactly did she go from a cliff to this ship? Perhaps the fall hadn't killed her, but she was hallucinating or some other explanation. Yet as the hours ticked by, Korra became more and more aware of just how real everything felt.
Korra slowly found her bending was completely in order. She could firebend a light, or move the dirt around the hull with earthbending. She could even summon them water slowly from the air, so they would at least not die of thirst. And most shocking she could summon light gusts of air to cool them off. Which was definitely not the case the first time.
Naga seemed confused by Korra's odd behavior but Korra could barely contain her emotions as she realized that she was still the avatar. Yet she was still unsure why exactly she was on the ship.
Hours continued to pass as Korra was left completely unable to grasp what precisely had happened. Yet when she felt the ship become unsteady as anchors were lowered and slowly the ship was pulled to the cargo area, she had little time to prepare.
Naga could no longer contain her excitement to get off the cramped ship and fully stood. Which left little room for Korra to do anything at all. It was one of the first times that Korra was having trouble controlling Naga. The polarbeardog was hungry and ready for a change, and there was nothing that was going to stop her from leaving the confined space that they had been stuck in.
The moment that the doors to the ship opened. Korra had to grab on as Naga went running full blast towards the escape. As the polarbeardog jumped over the sailors, Korra was reminded of the first time this happened. The shock on their faces as they realized that she had been a stowaway.
Yet before she made it more than a couple feet from the ship she heard her name.
"AVATAR KORRA!," was shouted and this was completely different from the last time. Nobody from the ship knew who she was, or that she would be getting off at republic city.
Naga who wanted freedom but knew when Korra was being called came to a jutting halt. Korra turned to see the last person she ever thought would be there. Councilman Tarrlok stood there at the shipping lane, yelling for her. He looked fairly disheveled and the look in his eyes spoke of an almost insanity, but he was waving her over.
She was left not really knowing what to do. Everything so far had reminded her of her memories, except maybe the airbending, but Tarrlok had definitely not been here the first time. And as she thought of her airbending she thought of his evil bloodbending.
Though her last memories were of him apologizing, before she could even make her mind up about whether she wanted to meet him, Naga made the choice for her. Slowly approaching the water tribe man.
"Avatar Korra, welcome to republic city," the man started, though his eyes seemed to be searching hers for something.
Korra just stared at him, the man in front of her didn't look like the councilman of the past but more the one that had his bending taken. He looked almost ill for lack of a better word.
"Tarrlok you're not supposed to be here," she said. Though most people would have been completely confused by her statement, Tarrlok's eyes lit up with hope. "You remember," he choked his eyes beseeching hers.
"You mean about everything with Amon and the bloodbending?" Korra asked bluntly. Tarrlok seemed shocked and looked quickly around them, to make sure the sailors had not heard her words.
"Avatar please," the man seemed to almost beg. "How are we here? What did you do?"
Korra had been asking herself that exact same exact question.
Instead of answering his question, she asked her own. "Are we dead?,"
Tarrlok seemed stunned by her question and the two lapsed into silence.
Tarrlok was the first to break the silence though as he finally told her exactly what she had begun to suspect. "We're in the past, today is the day that Avatar Korra arrived in republic city," he said softly. A fact that had thoughrally shocked him when he awoke suddenly at his desk with a host of memories of what was to come.
Okay there we go. I had thought to place a scene where the spirits literally tell Korra what they did, but this seemed to be more fun. Let Korra and Tarrlok discover for themselves their situation you know.
