A Secluded Part of the Preserve, Sunday Afternoon

[failsatspirit]

After leaving the brunch, Korra let Naga run blindly (which mightn't have been the brightest idea ever, given it was half the reason she'd ended up here in the first place), just needing to get away, again. Naga, having a decent sense of where Korra best got her brood on, ran through the preserve, bringing to them the closest thing to a cliff overhanging the ocean that she was going to find on the island, settling down a sensible distance from the stone outcropping.

	Without even thinking about it, Korra let her fet take her all the way to the edge, until all she could see was water stretching all the way to the horizon. She should have been able to feel it, that great mass of water before her, the stone beneath her feet, and she knew, had known for weeks that she'd been lying to herself about just how empty and hollow that gap was where that feeling should be, how she could just be an airbender if she pretended hard enough, had been ever since she'd woken up on the beach, but it all had taken was seeing Tenzin and Lin again to bring that fragile house of cards down. She felt warmth trailing down her cheek, followed the path of the teardrop as it fell into the water below catching the light as it went, and found herself contemplating the drop, not that it was really a drop to speak of it, but maybe it would be enough. Sixteen years, possibly less even, Tenzin would still be young enough to teach, or Jinora might have gained her mastery...
	Korra's knees gave out, and she sat heavily, curled in on herself, face buried in her hands as she sobbed. Soon enough, too soon, she heard footsteps and the tell-tale whispering of Air Nomad robes as someone came up and stood behind her. "Not now, Tenzin," she managed, brushing the tears out of her eyes. "I just want to be left alone." "But you called me here."
	Korra's head jerked up at the voice, that was not Tenzin. She turned, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth despite herself. "Aang." He looked younger than she thought he would, the same age as he'd been in her visions of Yakone. "You have finally connected with your spiritual self." Korra found herself standing, it seemed wrong to keep sitting in the presence of your past incarnation, not matter that anyone watching would have wondered why she was talking to thing air. "How?"
	"When we hit our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change," Aang explained, as figures started to fade in behind him. Roku, Kiyoshi, she could've have recognised in any case, but the others, Kuruk, Yangchen, hundreds if not thousands, of names and histories springing to the front of her mind and fading away as she looked at the mass of people, the line of Avatars before her.
	Aang reached for her shoulder with one hand, so much like Tenzin in that way, and she closed her eyes as he placed the thumb of the other against her forehead, but where Amon's touch on the exact same spot had torn and ripped out part of her, Aang's felt warm and welcome.
	Even with her eyes shut, Korra could see the glow, starting at Aang's hands and flowing out and over them as his eyes, and the eyes and tattoos of Avatars past lit up, the crowd then fading back into Aang...no, he was just the last, fading back into her.
	When Korra opened her eyes, it wasn't just her opening them. Arms outstretched, she gathered currents beneath her, rising on a column of air, a burst of wind whipping out in all directions, followed by fire that passed over the ground without sorching so much as a blade of grass, then a wave of stones rippling underfoot, finally a single crest of saltwater rose to crash against the edge of the outcropping, scattering droplets of water over Korra as she sank gently back down.
	As Korra's feet touched the ground, her sense of being just one singular self returned, but she didn't feel its loss, instead she felt whole, complete in a way which she hadn't since that final confrontation with Amon. She turned...
	...and suddenly wished for a camera to record the slack-jawed look on Tenzin's face. Lin, for her part, looked like Lin. Bei Fongs might have felt awe, but they tried not to show it.
	"Tenzin! Lin!" Korra called out, as she ran over to them, almost giddy at sudden return of senses, of the information she got from her bending, wait, her bending. "Lin! I know how to fix Amon's bloodbending."
	Okay, maybe Bei Fongs could show surprise now and again. "You do?"
	Korra nodded, tamping her excitement back down to level more befitting the seriousness of the situation. "You need to kneel though." It'd be easier to reach that way. Lin was tall.
	Wordlessly, Lin dropped to one knee, closing her eyes and allowing Korra to place her hands on Lin's forehead and shoulder, the same way Aang placed his on her. Closing her eyes, she dipped into the Avatar State, vaguely amazed it had ever felt like an impossible goal, smoothing and redirecting the flow of Lin's chi back to where it was supposed to.
	Any moment now Tenzin's jaw was going to come back up, any moment.
	As the glow faded and Korra came back out of the Avatar state, Lin opened her eyes and stood, raising her hands and every loose rock in the near vicinity, before lowering both again. She turned to Korra. "Thank you."
	Korra bowed. What else could she do?

[OOC: For two. Warning for suicidal ideation under the cut. Everything under the cut NFB. Comments okay for broadcast. Adapted from Legend of Korra - 1x12 Endgame.]