Catch-all for October

[alphatar]

Characters: Korra (alphatar) and OPEN.
Date: All throughout October.
Location: Various.
Situation: All the things.
Warnings/Rating: N/A, will edit if necessary.

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[12goingon113]

"Yeah," he pauses to look around the room. "It's not exactly the calmest environment here. Hard to stay focused, though...I've found focus under worse conditions."

The bandages wrapped around his chest and foot are a testament to that.

[alphatar]

So did she. Trapped in a metal prison in a cabin far outside the city.

"Doesn’t mean it’s easy to do." Struggling had been all she’s accomplished since then. Maybe if she just did finally meditate at the head of Tu Vishan, maybe it would finally click.

"Your back healing up is more important than that though."

[12goingon113]

"No it doesn't," he agrees with a deflating sigh.

"How bad does it look, honestly."

[alphatar]

"Well, if you really want to know." Korra stood up from the bed and mimicked holding a small ball, her fingertips a couple of inches away from each other. She held her hands up until she could see Aang’s face perfectly within it.

"It’s already starting to scar over." Were it not for her healing, it would probably still be bleeding a little bit. "Even with some more of that water, I won’t be able to get rid of the scar."

[12goingon113]

He winces and attempts to roll his shoulders, but the skin pulls and so he stops.

"When they were tattooing me there, it felt like it took forever. And now it's all..."

Ruined.

[alphatar]

"It’s why you’re alive." She lowered her hands back down and put one hand on her hip and pointed at Aang with the other. "Better a ruined tattoo than a ruined Avatar." This was true enough for her, because if that lightning did kill him then she wouldn’t have been the next Avatar.

That was a sobering thought for her, since it had been an important part of her self-identity.

"Besides, you won’t be able to see it without a mirror." She said it lightly and with a half-shrug. "So there’s that."

[12goingon113]

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Aang says even has he shifts uncomfortably on his bed. He always was a terrible liar.

But she isn't right, is she Aang? You were entrusted with the Avatar Spirit...and you let it be killed. That's the same thing as killing it yourself.

You are a Ruined Avatar, she just doesn't know it yet.

[alphatar]

She smirked. "Of course I’m right."

I’m the Avatar.

"Trust me, I know stuff." Korra was pretty sure Toph already explained that she was from their future, so she didn’t feel that was going too far.

[12goingon113]

At first it's the way she says it that catches his attention, with the kind of bravado that Sokka was a master of, but then the words themselves find purchase.

"...you really do, don't you."

It's less a question than a stark realization.

[alphatar]

Bravado is written all over her very being.

"Yup." She said nodding, and then that nodding slowed down when she too realized that wasn’t a question.

"I can only answer some things. There’s some stuff you’re probably best learning on your own." Of course, her first thought was that he was going to ask if he would be able to get the Avatar State back.

[12goingon113]

"I don't know that I want you to answer anything at all," he says after a prolonged moment of silence.

First Aang looks away, then he looks up and sighs.

"time is an illusion," he reminds himself. "Just by you being you I can already guess at a lot of things, but I think I'd rather not know anything for sure. If that's okay with you."

[alphatar]

"Me being me?" There was a pause between her words as she reminded herself that Toph had told her Aang didn’t know about her being the Avatar.

"I- sure. I’m good with it." That was a lie, but she had to keep it under wraps for now. At last until he was all healed up. That knowledge might spur him to refuse her healing.

[12goingon113]

Even seventy years from his future she was here, alive, well, and unburned. Surely something had to have gone right. Maybe even his way.

He had to hope. He owed her that much.
He owed them all that much

"Thank you. I know that must be really frustrating for you, but I...I'll make it up to you some how. I promise."

[alphatar]

A wry, dry thought invaded Korra’s mind at the promise of making it up. The first thing in her head was ‘How? By having me locked up in the South Pole?’ and she actually bit down on her tongue.

Restraint wasn’t Korra’s strong suite and it took all of the self-control she’d been learning to stay perfectly, silently still. Somehow, she refrained from snapping that out.

"Don’t, worry about it. I mean I promised not to tell anything to Toph too, so it’s nothing new."

[12goingon113]

"That you've done it before doesn't make it any less of a sacrifice. If anything it just makes the both of us that much more grateful."

[alphatar]

If she didn’t feel guilty about that thought before, she did now.

"We’re from the same world, so we have to help each other out." Sort of. She wouldn’t really help out Amon if he asked for it. And Tarrlok, well, Tarrlok wouldn’t ask for it even if he needed it.

[12goingon113]

"We kind of are all in this together, aren't we?"
He ducks his head slightly and offers her a small smile.

[alphatar]

"Well, yeah." Korra said almost indignantly. "I mean with getting adjusted to this place. Some of it looks similar, but it’s nothing like back home. That and, I’m pretty sure you guys don’t want to know too much about the future. That’s the Emperor’s job really."

[12goingon113]

Aang returns to his task of weaving, though by this point he's all but done.

"What do you mean, that's the emperor's job?"

[alphatar]

“Well, not really her job. She’s been trying to save the turtle, and the world.” Something that Korra knew the weight of, so she had never given Eshai any of the attitude the other foreigners have.

It was a hard enough task without people judging you on top of it.

“Some the others have made a trade with her and she lets them into a pool of water and they see their future on the mirrors that make the walls.” It was a description Jim had given her after the Bacchanal and she had thought of doing such a thing herself. She was still contemplating it.

“It’s where the water I used to save you came from.” Her eyes fell to the necklace and she gave a small, forced smile. She had traded all of her salvaged satellite findings, which was quite a lot, all to save another Avatar.

“People can ask about that whenever she holds an open audience.”

[12goingon113]

"Oh."

He lets this news sink in.

"I knew there was a war, but I didn't know the turtle was in danger," he adds thoughtfully. That changes things dramatically in his mind. Fighting a war for the sake of a war was one thing, fighting a war to protect something or someone was something different. Something entirely different.

"Maybe it's some kind of Spirit Oasis," he offers.

[alphatar]

“Maybe.” Korra wasn’t sure, she just assumed an Avatar that attained harmony with their spiritual side would be able to notice right away.

“You’re the Avatar, maybe you could give it a look and see what it is later?” She still had the small bit of water leftover from healing Aang. It wouldn’t be enough to heal another mortal injury like that one, but maybe a small scar or deep puncture.

[12goingon113]

"Maybe. But it's not like...I really know what I'm doing."

It was a painful thing to admit outloud.

[alphatar]

“You haven’t gotten in touch with your spiritual self yet?” She asked curiously as she put her hands on her hips. From what she can remember, Aang got the hang of the spiritual side of the Avatar early on in life. But maybe this was too early?

[12goingon113]

He shifts uncomfortably under the weight of her questions.

"We've been in touch, but it's not like there was anyone there to really teach me what to do with that. Or how to control it. Usually...usually it just controlled me. I left Guru Pathik before I'd finished learning about the Avatar State, because....because Katara was in danger."