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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

"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."

She nods.

"Yeah it does - I think I'll have to hit the books and see what they know about it, in the libraries and whatnot."

She pauses.

"They we have to capture one."

"Can't be that hard," Mako says, and then pauses and reaches very slowly up to knock on the wooden table. "Seriously, though, it can't be any harder than any of the apocalypses we've averted, you know? We can get a little one. See what happens."

"I really wish we didn't have to talk about those things in a plural sense," she replied, with a wry smile.

But she nods.

"Works for me."

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