Coming Down

Once on the ferry, Asami calmed down a bit and was able to think more clearly. She was trying to figure out how to handle this. Going to air temple island like this seemed a bit over dramatic to her, and half way there she began to regret it. What am I gonna do? Interrogate Jinora about Korra? She breathed in deeply through her nose and out through her mouth to calm herself- something Korra always did when she would meditate.

“Arghh!” she exclaimed in a sudden fit. Her right hand balled into a fist, a habit she thought she had gotten out of. An acolyte turned and looked at her with a confused look, which made her want to jump off the boat.

“Sorry,” she said, embarrassed. He just nodded back in return and then went to the front of the boat to grab the rope and dock the boat.

Asami didn’t know where Jinora would be at this time, so she just walked toward the temple hoping to find her. Immediately she saw her with Tenzin, Kai and Opal over at the air bending practice area. She and Tenzin were watching Opal and Kai shift through a practice routine in-sync. Should I approach them? I don’t want to interrupt-

“Hey, Asami!”

Asami jerked her head around in surprise. It was Bolin, smiling and with a glass of lychee juice.

“Oh, hey Bolin. I didn’t see you there,” she said as they hugged briefly. “What’s going on over there?”

“Opal and Kai are being tested to see if they could go onto the next air bending tier.”

“Oh. Is that like a set of moves or something?”

“Kind of, i’m not exactly sure but they’re like levels of air bending mastery. You can get your tattoos when you pass all thirty-six or something.”

“Oh cool. Is that why you’re here?”

“Yes! I took the day off to support Opal.” He looked over to her and waived. Opal blew a kiss at him before starting another exercise with Kai.

“Isn’t she amazing?” He said long and drawn out. Asami didn’t answer, she just looked on as they did the exercise. She looked toward Jinora for a moment and their eyes met. Jinora’s eyes visibly widened in surprise for a moment before she quickly turned back to look at Kai and Opal.

“So why are you here? Is Korra here?”

“Uhhh…no. I came here myself to talk to Jinora.”

“About what?” he inquired.

Asami looked down at the ground and sighed. Then looked once again at Jinora, who was intently looking and Kai and Opal.

“Is something wrong?” Bolin asked.

“I…uh- come with me,” she said, taking Bolin’s arm and walking off in another direction.

“Heyyy. I was watching them,” he whined. “What is it?”

When they got far away enough from the practice area she let go of Bolin’s arm and paced around for a second. Bolin stood there looking at her with an eyebrow up, waiting for her to speak.

“Okay…so you know how Korra went to Gaoling?” she asked.

“Uh huh,” he said nodding.

“Well she came back last night and was acting all strange, and she looked horrible- I mean like really sickly. She threw up her entire dinner and then when I tried to help she just pushed me away and we got into an argument…But anyways I found out this morning that she lied to me about her trip. She went to Gaoling, but it was to track down a spirit that could control people’s minds.”

“What? How?”

“I don’t know, but I bet Jinora knows about this, so I came straight here.”

“Where is she?”

“At my place. When I left she was still sleeping. She doesn’t know I know.”

“How’d you find out?” he asked.

Asami looked at her feet and sighed. “I found a letter that the governor of Gaoling sent her asking her to do the mission…I-I feel… I don’t even know how I feel exactly. Just hurt. She told me she was going there to help pass spirit protection laws.”

“That’s unlike her,” he responded.

Well this isn’t the first time she’s lied like this, Asami thought, thinking of the time when no one knew where Korra was.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said solemnly.

“Yeah, this is a tough situation. Is Korra alright though?”

“I mean, from what happened last night, I would say she’s pretty shaken up. But I don’t know what happened. I just can’t get over the fact that she’s keeping everything from me.”

“Maybe she’s planning to tell you.”

“That makes it so much better…” she murmured as she lightly rolled her eyes.

“Just be there for her. She’ll tell you everything with time,” Bolin said.

Asami’s anger flared at that. “What? I’m angry at her Bolin. This is her fault!”

“I’m not saying that her lying was the right thing, but we all know how Korra is. Sometimes she doesn’t think things completely through when the situation is urgent.”

Yeah, when she was seventeen, she thought. Bolin continued, “You don’t know what she went through yet. She’s going to need you.”

His words of advice made Asami feel angrier, though she held her tongue due to feeling bad for snapping at him.

“Look, I know you’re frustrated. Hey, how about we get some lunch at the mess hall and wait for everyone to finish up the exams. Then you can talk to Jinora.”

Asami breathed deeply once again and centered herself. “Okay.”

…..

The sun shone strongly through the windows and bled into the room, but Korra was in a much needed deep sleep. Surrounded by total darkness, a setting began to hazily appear in her mind. A small city with traditional architecture, the buildings mostly green. She was in a city square, waiting in front of a small wooden building as a young man approached her.

“Avatar Korra?” he asked.

“Hello, are you the swamp guide?”

“Yes, i’m Sumo. The governor tells me we’re going to be tracking down the spirit that’s been wrecking havoc near the swamp.”

Korra took a good look at him, trying to see if he looked capable. He was plain looking. Tall and thin, with light skin and black hair. “Yes. Let’s go.”

They didn’t say anything as they left. There were guards guarding the main road out of the city, but they let them through without a word.

Korra looked at her glider, which she held in her hand. It would’ve been much quicker to fly instead of walk, she thought.

“I hope you don’t feel like you’re babysitting me. I’ll be in my element in the swamp, so i’ll be fine.”

Korra looked at the ground as they walked along the dirt path. “I’m sure you’ll be fine, i’m just a bit annoyed that the governor is making someone that I don’t know come with me when he asked me to come here alone,” she said rudely.

“Well, I guess that’s understandable,” he said.

The tempo of her dream sped up, and the setting quickly changed. It was nearly night time, and the village was coming into view as the sun set. As Korra and Sumo walked along the path toward the village, there was suddenly an overwhelming smell of smoke.

“Campfire?” asked Sumo.

Korra squinted her eyes. Black smoke was pouring into the sky straight ahead of them.“No, there’s a fire in the village!” She stuck out her glider above her head and started running. “I got it! Meet me there!” she said as she took off.

The village suddenly flashed in her mind. Korra could see fighting in the street in front of the building that was on fire, so she landed down the street where she spotted a fire hydrant and metal bended it open. Water burst up into the air and she collected as much of it as she could. Suddenly a rock hit her back, and she lost her balance, dropping all the water she collected. Getting up quickly, she turned around to who threw it to punch back, but she hesitated. It was an incredibly old man, looking at her with a wild expression and making incoherent noises. He looked crazed, those eyes, she thought. He quickly started punching more rocks at her direction, but she easily evaded them due to his sloppy aim.

“Stop! I’m not going to hurt you!” Quickly she froze the water that was in the street, entrapping his feet and ankles. Before he could get free Korra ran away and headed towards the fire. As she ran, she saw someone that was face down in the gutter of the street. She stopped and turned him over and quickly checked his pulse.

“No,” she said in horror as she realized he was dead. A big boom sounded and she looked down the street toward the building. It was beginning to collapse. She dragged the boy onto the sidewalk, gently shut his eyelids and then continued to run down the street toward the fire.

Once there, she realized the fight was much bigger than what she had seen flying above it. It looked like a small battle, and no one seemed to notice that the building was about to collapse onto the street. In a heartbeat she quickly threw both her arms in front of her and pushed as much air as she could at the crowd. Everyone was thrown back out of the way of the building just as it fell. Fire and smoke began to envelop the street, so Korra rose a big wall of earth to cover her. She then pushed it over on the destroyed building like a domino to crush the fire. It seemed to work so she got in position to raise another wall when a blast of fire flew near her head.

“Woah!” she screamed as she ducked. The rioters that she blew away were now coming towards her, all with that crazed look in their eyes. The fire bender kept throwing sloppy shots at her while everyone else was running at her with weapons. Quickly looking to her side, she saw the fire getting larger with every missed shot the fire bender was throwing. Turning back, a thick fire blast was coming right toward her face without time to block it. She expected the hit but a shield of water swiftly blocked it, and Sumo quickly went in front of her.

“Stop the fire. I’ll hold them off!”

Sumo ran toward the rioters and thrashed his water at them. Korra turned back and created another wall of earth and had it fall over and over to pat down the fire. Next she airbent strong swift blasts at the remaining pockets of fire in the street until everything was mostly out. Heavy smoke surrounded her, getting into her eyes and making it impossible to breathe. Korra held her breath tightly in her throat and squinted her eyes almost shut. Her lungs began to scream for air, so she covered her mouth, pinched her nose, and threw a sloppy air blast with her other hand. It hardly made a difference, so she closed her eyes and ran straight ahead to where she last saw Sumo. She felt the air get thinner as she ran but she didn’t open her eyes or breathe until she knocked straight into someone and fell on top of them.

“Ugh….” Korra mumbled as she rolled off them. She fell on Sumo, who fell on the fire bender, who was knocked out. She got up and lent him a hand.

“Thanks,” he said. He brushed himself off and looked at the guy on the ground. “The power of the fall seems to have knocked him out.”

Korra looked at the guy and then beyond. The other rioters were also seemingly knocked out in the street. “Good job. Thanks for blocking that strike that was coming at my face.”

“You’re welcome…What should we do with them?”

“Let’s lay them down on the sidewalk. Hopefully by the time they wake up we will have found the spirit-

The bedside telephone ringing woke Korra up. Her eyes slowly opened until the sharp ringing of the phone startled her. She then shot up and felt all the blood rush to her head, which made her head pound.

“Ugh.” She put one of her hands to her forehead and answered the phone.

“Hello?” she asked, sounding hungover.

“Miss Sato? Will you be taking today off?” a female voice said on the other line.

“No- uh, I mean this isn’t Miss Sato.”

“Oh…Uh, then who is-”

“Miss Sato is taking work off today though,” Korra quickly said.

“Oh, ok. So should I cancel everything she has scheduled for today then?”

“Uh…wait one sec.” Korra covered the receiving end of the phone and called for Asami. She didn’t answer so she called again with the same results.

“Hey…Um I guess just push her appointments for today to tomorrow,” Korra said. I’m pretty sure i’ve heard her say that before.

“Uh, ok will do. So…Uh good day.”

“Yeah…bye,” Korra said awkwardly. She hung the phone up and got out of bed. “Where are my clothes?” She looked to the other side of the room where she saw all her stuff disheveled on the table and floor. She went over to grab her clothes to put them on when she noticed a piece of paper of top of her backpack. Quickly, she snatched it to check and immediately her heart dropped. “Spirits!”

She knows.