Rainbow Dinosaur
“Why are you three wearing sunglasses? It’s 10:00 am, and we’re in the shade.”
“Uh…”
“It’s a clear day, Badgermole. The sun’s so fucking bright!”
“Mind your language, Wu,” Kuvira said.
Mako, the only member of the group who didn’t get completely smashed last night, began to read aloud— in the hopes that he would stir Kuvira away from the topic of conversation.
“Excuse me, can I borrow Kuvira for a moment?” Varrick said, walking up to the group.
The other counselor nodded and stood up. “Please continue reading,” she said to the teens.
“Dude, do you have to shout those Vaatu verses?” Asami groaned, when Kuvira was out of earshot.
“I’m just reading normal volume,” Mako defended. “If you didn’t have so much to drink last night, you wouldn’t be in this state.”
“Never again,” Korra complained.
“Yeah, right. We’ll be back at ‘The Spirit World’ before you know it,” Wu said with a chuckle. “But I do wish I had an ice pack.”
Kuvira sat back down, “Alright, where are we at in the book?”
The whole camp was sitting in the lawn, in their various groups, reading from “The Book of Vaatu”. Tarrlok and Noatak were up on the balcony of the main building, surveying the scene. There was a breeze in the air, carrying the fantastic smell of barbeque ribs from the kitchen.
“Lunch is gonna be so great today,” Wu whispered quietly.
“Ssshhh, not so loud. My ears are going to explode.”
Eventually, Kuvira gave up trying to get them to read and they moved on to arts and crafts. They were allowed to decorate their journals— so long as the boys’ journals looked masculine and the girls’ journals looked feminine.
“Okay… so if I made the power tools pink…” Asami said, staring at the construction paper with a smirk.
“What if I did a poem on the front of my journal? There were plenty of masculine poets. Like that Walt Whitman dude,” Mako thought aloud.
“I hate to break it to you, but many scholars speculate that Walt Whitman was gay,” Wu said with a chuckle.
“Well… damn.”
“Just draws some sports stuff. You’re into sportsball, right?”
Mako glared at him, but proceeded to draw a baseball scene on his journal.
“What if I drew Raava? Technically they said Raava was a false religion, but they didn’t say I couldn’t keep believing in her. If I put her on my journal… that’d piss them off,” Korra thought.
She grabbed the light blue construction paper and a navy blue sharpie. Korra only had an idea of what Raava looked like from memory, but she was a pretty good artist all the same. Just a few more touches, a few quotes from “The Book of Raava”, and BAM! Her journal looked amazing.
“What do you think?” she asked the others, holding up the newly improved journal.
“Wow, that's fantastic!” Asami said, with a sparkle in her eyes.
Kuvira walked up to their table. She picked up Korra’s journal and the corners of her mouth turned slightly upwards.
“You do know how to press Camp Amon’s buttons, I’ll give you that,” she said. There was something in her eyes, almost as if she was… proud.
She set the journal back down and looked at the others.
“Wu… what on Earth?”
“Technically, a dinosaur is masculine. And a rainbow is feminine (which is really stupid, because it’s literally a fact of the weather).”
“Where are you going with thi— “
Okay, but if you combine the two, you get a neutral gender. So think of it as a non-binary journal!” Wu said energetically.
“Name it LaFontaine,” Asami snickered.
“Good idea,” Wu said.
“You expect me to let you have a rainbow dinosaur on your journal at a camp whose sole purpose is to cure you of your homosexuality?”
“Yeah.”
“Ugh, fine.”
“Really? Wow, I didn’t expect that to work.”
“If Tarrlok or Noatak sees that, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Kuvira walked away muttering something along the lines of “they don’t pay me enough for this shit.”
. . .
Swimming made everything better. It was free-time, and once again the group was at the dock. It was hot out today, somewhere around 90°. For Korra, that felt like hell— so she dived into the Lake without even taking off her pink Camp Amon t-shirt. She was startled when one of the boys’ cannon-balled into the spot right next to her.
“Mako!” she shrieked.
“Polo!” he said, shaking the water out of his hair and laughing.
Wu even joined in this time, building himself a bed to sun-tan on out of noodles (which the other’s had fun tugging around). Korra felt someone grab her hand for half a second. She looked to her right to see Asami blow her a quick kiss. Thankfully, no one was watching— not because it wasn’t allowed at camp, but because Korra turned as red as a strawberry.
“If only Unalaq knew that by sending me to this horrible place, he made me meet the most terrific girl in the world.”
Kuvira walked onto the dock, “Wu, I’m surprised to see you in the Lake.”
He shrugged and adjusted his sunglasses with a smirk, “Life’s too short not to try new things.”
“Indeed.” Kuvira sat down and took her Keens off. She stuck her toes in the water, lazily swimming her feet back and forth. “You four sure love it here.”
“It’s peaceful,” Mako said.
“Yeah. I only wish the water was colder,” Korra said with a frown. “Us Water Tribe people go diving in glacier water— even in the winter.”
Asami splashed her playfully. “LOOK OUT WE’VE GOT A BADASS OVER HERE!” she shouted.
Okay. That’s it. All out water war. Korra pushed a small wave towards her roommate and soon Mako had joined in. Kuvira cheered from the dock.
“Ah! Watch the noodles!” Wu screamed.
The other three, wrapped up in the excitement, jumped on top of him and down he went.
“That does it!” he yelled. He began to splash as much water as he could and soon the war escalated to Korra and Mako against Asami and Wu.
By the end of it, everyone was thoroughly soaked. They hopped out and walked to the cabins to get dry changes of clothes— their laughter rang throughout the complex. Kuvira stopped to chat with Varrick and Zhu Li while the four friends retreated to their cabins.
Korra and Asami stumbled into their summer home, dripping Lake water all over the dusty wooden floor. Overwhelmed by all of the excitement, Korra cupped both of Asami’s cheeks and kissed her.
“You are the coolest girl I have ever met,” she said when they separated, happier than she had ever been in her life.
“You’re pretty amazing yourself.”
. . .
“I just realized something,” Wu said, swirling his clam chowder around.
“What?”
“We’ve been here a whole week, and I’m still gay.”
The whole group laughed, except for Kuvira— who just rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“It takes at least nine weeks, Wu.”
“Really? Because I’ve been coming here for three years. Still gay.”
“You just can’t get enough of Noatak,” Mako scolded.
“It’s true.”
Kuvira looked absolutely done with the group. She rubbed her eyes and went to go get a refill of root-beer.
“This is her first year on staff… but I think we’re slowly convincing Kuvira to make it her last,” Asami said with a chuckle.
They listened to Noatak’s regular recount the day’s events, but didn’t bother to actually pay attention to what he was saying. After dinner, they said their goodnights and walked back to the cabin. The group wouldn’t be going to The Spirit World tonight.
Asami and Korra calmly walked up the steps and began getting ready for bed. There was a peaceful quiet in the air.
Zhu Li did her usual inspection of the cabin and said her goodnight to them. Asami set her alarm for 6:00 like usual.
“Hey Korra?” she whispered. The lights were turned off and the Camp was silent, save for the counselors getting ready for bed.
“Yeah?”
“Are we girlfriends?”
“I think so.”
“I’ve never had a girlfriend before.”
“I… I don’t think I really have either.”
“Okay.”
A few moments passed. Korra could practically hear Asami thinking.
“I’ve never had friends before,” the older girl whispered.
“Yeah, same.”
“We’re… we’re also friends, right?”
“I think we’re best friends.”
“Okay. I like that. I like you.”
“I like you too.”
End of Part One