deercountry | Avatar Arrival

Entry tags:

Avatar Arrival

Character Name: Korra log - OPEN

Who: Korra et al
What: What the characters are doing.
When: When the characters are interacting.
Where: Where the characters are interacting.

Content Warnings: None, will add if needed.

Washing Ashore - Closed to Team Avatar

She remembered floating in the water. Having been...herself, then something else, then herself again. But it all floated in front of her mind like leaves on the stream, there one moment and gone the next. Nothing she could focus on. She had, after a time, watched ashore. She had felt the water of a tide washing over her form, chill and...familiar. It felt like home, like the Pole; the cold water she had swam in when she was a child. It was not the sort of cold that bothered her, but it was strange. Where was the sun?

There had been greeters - or had supposed to be there - but their process was...interrupted. Because alongside Korra, the vast bulk of Naga had washed up. And while the mighty legs of the polar bear dog were still unsteady, her jaws were still powerful - and she drew herself with great effort over Korra, rearing back up as best she could, snarling at anybody who tried to approach. All the greeting committee were able to do was throw a cloak over her - and for a whole day, Naga kept up her watch.

And it was her face that Korra saw first as she smiled up into the strange sky. "Hey, girl," she said, reaching up to pet her face. "Thanks for taking care of me." She knew, instinctively, what had happened.

It took her some time to stand. More to get dressed. She looked through the pack, examined each object with a sigh. She'd been home. She'd been happy - she rolled the engagement rings she'd had made in her fingers, the key consideration of that - but something, and she had a sneaking idea what, had drawn her back in.

Finally, using a piece of driftwood until her legs were steady enough, she began to walk, her free hand holding onto Naga.

"Let's go find our family," she said.

Exploring - OPEN

In time, she rode Naga again. Once there had been food for both of them. She couldn't quite get her mind around this place - it was like Deerington but not...but she felt the same sense of the place. Like there was constantly something wrong. Something foreboding...

In the back of her mind, she felt it. The sense that she should...give up, accept the place. Face the future, turn from the past. It might even have worked, but she was still the Avatar - and the Avatar, even shorn from the direct memories of her predecessors, was a product of the past. To give it up would mean to...shed herself, in many ways.

And either out of stubbornness or will, Korra couldn't do that. Couldn't be that. She would not let this place lull her - she would find out what it was, what it was doing. If it was as malevolent as she had believed Deerington itself to be.

And thus, she explored. In the rest times, she worked on the driftwood she had found, out of some half-forgotten instinct. She could almost feel Aang smiling on her. She used fire, and water, and air to shape it, smooth it, add a shine. It was something to do while she thought, at first. But then it became something to finish.

She could be found many places, either on foot or riding astride Naga - the newly-made staff in her hand. She looked better than she had in Deerington - rested, fit, healed. In a word, ready.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Already frozen," Mako mutters, shaking his head like a wet poodlemonkey as he crosses the threshold. Maybe things have been weird with Korra, but at least he feels comfortable here. Carefully, he shuts the door behind himself, keeping out the cold, and looks down at Korra as he toes off his wet shoes. "In a weird way, I'm... pretty glad it's a city. Deerington was kind of stifling before it fell apart. Guess you never really got to see it when it wasn't a mess."

She locks the door behind him, and shifts the blanket from her shoulders to his, wrapping him up in it with a proprietary air. Whatever they were, and are now, she'll always aim to take care of him.

Since he so often won't do it himself.

"Sounds like it wasn't great even before it got all...monster-iffic," she replied, pointing at the living room.

"You, go warm up. I'll make some tea."

Snorting, Mako flashes her a mock-salute, the kind he might give Beifong, and turns toward the little living room. "Yes, sir. You found anything not made of mushrooms?"

He really hopes so, because Mako is really starting to have to ration the tea he found in his bag. A little bit of jasmine doesn't last very long when you're brewing it for yourself and Wu and Bolin.

It's strange to sink down, still steaming from the rain, onto a sofa in a strange place, thinking it belongs to Korra. Naga is sprawled in there, lifts her head in something like greeting, and Mako diverts to go pet her first, pressing his fingers into her familiar fur with a quiet smile.

"Hey, girl," he murmurs, just for her. "Glad you made it. This place should give you more room to run, huh?"

Naga's tail thumps at the familiar contact.

Meanwhile, Korra's working on the tea, calling from the other room. "This one's supposed to be made from leaves," she said, using her hands to spark some fire beneath the pot.

"It doesn't smell like a mushroom, at least."

A minute or two later, she was coming into the other room, carrying a tray with two cups, some biscuits, and a steaming pot of tea.

At least Naga is still here. Naga's been here as long as he has, longer than Wu or Korra or Pabu or Bolin, showed up early and stayed solid ever since. He's glad for her familiar bulk, and he's still leaning against her when Korra shows back up with the tray.

It smells like home, warm and familiar, and that makes Mako smile faintly as he sits up to take the tray from her with a soft murmur of thanks.

Almost normal, to sit across from her like this, to dole out cups for them both and avoid Naga's thumping tail and settle in the warmth, watching Korra's face. When everything is poured and tea is steaming fragrant up from small cups—smelling of leaves, and not like mushrooms—Mako shifts just a little, trying to find the words he wants to say from the swirling maelstrom in his head. He could so easily mess all of this up again. Anxiety knotted in his belly makes everything a lot harder, reminds him of the consequences of saying the wrong thing. He almost let Korra go, once, and that was awful.

Mako doesn't want to repeat that, no matter what.

Sucking in a breath, he lifts his cup to her. "I'm really glad you made it in one piece, Korra. Don't know what this place would be like without you."

It is a moment, and she recognizes it as such. The moments of peace with her friends are rare and precious. She lifts her cup in turn.

"And without you, the town's staunch protector." She takes a first sip. "Though I think the place would be just fine without me."

"For a bit, maybe," Mako says dryly, sipping at his own cup as he settles. "And then someone would try to do a power grab or something and this world would need the Avatar as much as home does."

There's a certain kind of resignation in his voice, borne of years of chaos: where there are people, it just kind of happens, and here more often than not. Mako's a little too aware of the other reasons they might need her here (to remind Mako what's right, to provide an alternative) but he doesn't have the words for any of that yet.

But it does remind him the real reason he came her, the reason he meets her eyes a moment later. Mako's bad at small talk, blunt to a fault, and he lets it out more around Korra. "Are you feeling okay about staying here?"

"It's not home," she admits frankly, leaning forward and draping her arms over her knees. "But you're all here and...that's half of home, for me."

She pauses after that, picking up her tea.

"And I'm living with Asami from the get-go, so...I'm not missing her every day. So, for now, we're here. Then we'll undoubtedly be somewhere else."

She raises her cup.

"Here's to that next place being Republic City again."

"Or something like it," Mako says, and clinks his cup into Korra's with a small frown. "But Korra—"

The hard words. Last time he said them, she'd crumpled, forced into a choice she never should have had to make, a choice that maybe forced them into the world they're in now. What does that mean? What did their choices do? Mako still doesn't know. He doesn't think anyone was right: it was a trap, with all bad answers, a way to set them up for failure like everything else in the dream, as far as he's concerned.

He can do it.

"I don't," he starts, quiet. "It doesn't seem like there's... a way. For that to happen."

Oh, yes, those choices. The ones others made that, while she can forgive them - she certain hasn't forgotten. That she made one herself was something she'd never forget, either. People had given in to their worst instincts; beaten down by the place - to her, that was the trap of the Pthumerians. Dragging people down to their level, their cruelty. It's why Trench is a place of such great distrust for her - this isn't a reward. The Pthumerians don't do that.

"I'm patient," she replied, with a half smile. Now, at least. "Hard lessons have helped with that, over the years. I'll do what's in front of me, help who I can...but this isn't home and I don't know if I could ever let it be that. If I could ever trust such a place, given to us by the hands of the cruel."

"But that's what I mean," Mako presses, uncomfortable, shifting a bit and then shifting back to settle on his knees. "We didn't pick this place—or, I don't know, maybe we did and that's really what the egg thing was about—but I don't... think there's a way we go home. Wu and I tried. A bunch. It never stuck. I'm not saying I like it anymore than you do, but fighting against it's just going to wear you out."

"Oh, we did. We all did. Some more than others," she replies, with a little touch of bitterness in her voice. "I don't like what we did...I never will...but some people made worse choices than that."

She gestured with both hands.

"And here we are. This doesn't look like a reward for good behaviour to me."

She fell silent for a moment, sipping at her tea.

"There's nothing for me to fight. Not yet. Just the things we're told are monsters we can't bring back. I don't trust it. I don't trust them." He'd know full well who she meant by that. She shook her head, before running fingers through her hair.

"I don't like it. It's better, but...it's never going to be home. I've got Asami here, I've got you and Wu and everyone...but I'm not giving up. Maybe it'll be the hobby of a lifetime, figuring out how this place works. I don't know. But I can't accept this place as a permanent - I mean, why would I? Asami should be back in Republic City, making the future. And if I can find a way to get her back there..."

"Then you have to try," Mako finishes for her, watching the surface of his own tea.

It's a complicated thing, isn't it? Home has never meant anything more than the city and people for Mako: home was something of a luxury, a thing for other people. Even the few homes they did manage just kept getting destroyed.

More than that, he and Wu tried being at home, and...

"It's weird," Mako finally says with a shrug. "I should feel the same way. Like I need to get out of this place at any cost, but... you should've seen Wu's face when he found the old theater, Korra. I've never seen him like that."

She frowns a bit, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Well, you've both got different ties back in Republic City than I do. And here there's none of the challenge you'd face back home. None of the challenge any of us would face."

"And you've found a purpose together here, which helps."

She also can't help but ask, a half-smile coming to her face.

"How did he look? I'm imagining him practically crying sparklers."

"Pretty much," Mako snorts, not even trying to hide his smile. This is Korra: he can trust her with the soft parts of himself, he knows that. "We tried, back home. He would've made a pretty good King for as long as he had to do it, but he really thinks the monarchy shouldn't exist, and anyway, he... just doesn't want to. It would've made him miserable, and when he saw this place, it... I don't know. It was like he finally let himself believe he'd get to do something that was afraid to even want, before."

Even if that was a little too squishy, and by the time Mako finishes talking his face is sort of blueish with embarrassment and he isn't meeting Korra's eyes.

"I can't take that from him."

"I had a plan there," she admitted. "Help him change some laws, set up a constitution then run. And you're right. It's ironic, really. He makes a pretty great king, but he's good at it because he hates being it."

She nodded at the latter.

"Do you think it's like you said before - there's still some version of us back there?"

"Exactly," Mako agrees, shaking his head slightly. "He doesn't want the power. He's not like... you know. Kuvira. People like her. He even feels kind of guilty for being here, becuase it's not like we know for sure that there are other versions of us back home doing all the things we promised we'd do, but..."

Mako has a hard time with this part. He's a rational person, he trusts his own head over his heart or his gut most of the time, and his head says it should be impossible. It's the reason for his long, quiet pause, for reaching over to pet Naga again while he gets up the courage to say something that he would probably never have said, before.

"I don't know if I believe it." The words are soft. "I want to. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but... before you even woke up in the dream, Wu had to deal with some other version of me from another world. It's definitely possible."

She sighed, shaking her head and leaning back, running her fingers through it.

"Yeah, that's officially too much weird for me. I'm ok with being pulled out of the universe, but the idea of a potentially unlimited number of me's running around creeps me right out."

She manages a half-smile.

"Well, clearly he learned from the experience how to do it right."

Only because this is Korra does Mako grimace so openly. This is Korra and he trusts her with the soft and squishy parts of himself, lets himself make stupid faces and snort at the truth of it. "I know! It's so—did I tell you I can remember things from his life? Like he was me. It was bizarre. Maybe weirder than the squid thing."

"Well that's saying something," she replied, shaking her head. Because he could see those parts of her, too - including the little shudder she just gave.

"Because the squid thing? Was the absolute worst, and I just remember bits of it."

"I know!" Mako bursts out without quite meaning to, loud enough to startle Naga. He winces, laughing quietly. "I mean—no, I do know. I'm trying not to think about it. Does staying here mean I have to accept that? What does it even mean? Are we still squids, just... bigger?"

"Or is this place, like, a step outside of time or space or whatever?" she says, throwing up her hands.

"And it's the Pthumerians, so we couldn't trust the answers even if we found them.

She shook her head, taking a deep sip of tea.

"I'm at a loss for what to do. Like, the beasts. Part of me thinks I should be stopping them, but - what if they all used to be people?"

"I was thinking about that," Mako says as he leans forward, bracing his elbows on the low table. "You know that thing you did to the spirits? The dark ones? You think you could do that on the beasts here?"

It's nice to be able to just bounce things off her like this. They're really at their best when they're working together, on the same page: it was what had been so intoxicating about Korra in the first place. Awkward, stiff Mako hadn't spent any time before that feeling understood and somehow Korra got him despite being very different.

The fact that time hasn't changed it—has really only made it better—is something Mako is absurdly glad for.

"I've been thinking about that," she replied, with a nod, suddenly more enthusiastic. "I mean, it's all different rules and...I'm a little worried about, you know, making things worse, but..."

She nods, slowly.

"I mean, it might help, right? AT least enough to try?"

Oh, how easy the good old patterns are to fall into.

So easy. So comfortable, too, in a strange new world full of monsters to just be brainstorming with Korra like they've been doing this forever.

"Definitely enough to try," he says with more conviction than he feels, "You heard what the locals call it, right? Corruption? Sounds like dark spirits to me."

Avatar Arrival

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