Chapter Text
Asami
Asami gazed out the windows of the airship onto the coastline below. She rested her arm on the controls and pulled her hair back away from her face, absent-mindedly fiddling with her long empty mug. They drifted lazily along, passing Fire Nation towns and villages preparing for the night. They were in no rush, an imminent threat loomed over their heads for the time being. Below the people were like little bugs moving too and fro, rushing between buildings, lingering in the squares. She always found something wonderful about these sorts of places, at least while looking at them from afar. Everything always seemed so much simpler.
Asami remembered once, before her mother died, they had gone to Ember Island together. She remembered playing for hours in the sand building castles and kingdoms while her mother read engineering manuals on the beach. It was so rare for her to get that dirty in their mansion in the city. She absolutely loved it. Each night they walked hand in hand around the island while her mother told her stories. Some of them were old legends that her mother had heard as a child, others were just little bits and pieces of day to day life. Then on the very last night they saw an old play, about either Avatar Aang or maybe Fire Lord Zuko. She couldn’t remember which. All Asami had cared about at the time was the snacks her mother had bought for her. She dreamed that her father would join them and the three of them could live on the beach forever. Asami had cried as they boarded the ship home, pleading for them to just stay just a bit longer. Her mother grabbed her hand and promised they would go to the island again next year.
Of course they never had the chance to go back. Asami shuddered at the memories that flooded back of what happened just a few months after that trip. There was far too much emotion in them for her to linger on them right now. Those were memories for anniversaries and lonely nights. Instead she looked at the beaches below and imagined all the little girls that still played in those sands and all their mothers that watched them from afar. She imagined one day bringing a child of her own there to play on the beach. Those were much more pleasant thoughts. Asami’s eyes began to droop, comforted by the comforting imagery. Spirits , she needed another cup of coffee.
To say it had been a long day would be an understatement. It was the final day in a week-long negotiation between an irate volcano spirit and a construction crew that was supposed to be building a factory at the base of its home. The whole mess was supposed to take only a day or two to sort out. The volcano spirit had been a nightmare to deal with and the platypus-bear headed construction crew hadn’t been much better. Asami hated to admit it but they had all been hoping that some sort of fight would break out so that they could all just get it over with. Days upon days of practically restraining the two sides had taken a toll on her, and that was without the last few nights of restless sleep. Korra never did well with stress that couldn’t be resolved with action. She had been restless all night, muttering incoherently in her sleep. Asami preferred those nights to the terrors though. Those nights when Korra woke up screaming and thrashing in their bed and all Asami could do was hold Korra in her arms until she returned to reality. They weren’t as common as they used to be, back when Korra had first returned to Republic City and the two of them had started sharing a bed. After a night with terrors, no amount of coffee could make Asami feel properly awake.
Even though Asami had negotiated dozens of corporate deals for Future Industries in rooms full of surly men, something about this time hit different . It might have been the lack of sleep, or maybe the near unbearable heat near the mouth of the volcano. Either way, even her bones were tired that day. She wouldn’t trade it for the world though. Thoughts of the times she could leave the company and her life in the city behind for a few days to go solve the problems of the world with Korra kept her going. Even though Korra had been living with her for several years now, her favourite memories together were those they had far away from home.
But, like always, the crisis had been solved. The volcano spirit and the construction crew managed to make a deal with only a few hunks of lava getting thrown around. Now they were headed home, out of the Fire Nation and back to Republic City. Back to their lives that had somehow become so ordinary and domestic in the long lulls between bursts of peril.
Asami sat, legs crossed at the helm of the airship, as she glanced back at her companions. Jinora sat contorted in an impressive pretzel, her face buried in a philosophy book. While Korra hated to admit it aloud, everyone knew that Jinora was much better than Korra at dealing with spirits that needed sense talked into them rather than beaten into them. Although, this negotiation had been so rough that even Jinora had been struggling to get through to the spirit.
Ikki sat next to her sister, dozing with her head tilted back on her chair so that her mouth hung open. A small puddle of drool had formed on her shoulder. It still felt strange to Asami to see Ikki with her tattoos. In her head, Ikki was still just a bubbly little kid flying around Air Temple island. Asami had been wondering why Ikki had come along on this mission, long negotiations were not exactly her style. Perhaps Tenzin made her, because based on how much the sisters bickered, Asami guessed that the two weren’t in search of bonding time.
A soft smile graced Asami’s face when she noticed Korra near the back of the room. She was aggressively doing pushups while muttering something under her breath. Asami chuckled, she knew this whole trip Korra had been secretly hoping for some fight or another to break out. She was practically vibrating with energy for the entire last hour of negotiations. It was wonderful to watch her like that, so in the zone that the rest of the world didn’t even exist anymore. Asami could see the muscles on her arms straining against the motion, with little beads of sweat dripping down her bare arms. It made Asami’s heart flutter despite the many times she had seen her like this. She thought about calling out to her, inviting Korra to join her at the helm. It would be nice for them to have a moment to themselves, they could probably even shoo the girls away for a few minutes. Maybe it would even wake her up a bit. But no, Korra needed this, she was always so tense if she didn’t get to work out. Anyways, it would help Korra sleep better that night.
Jinora looked up from her book, unravelling her limbs from their contorted position. “Do you have any idea of where we’re going to stop for the night?” she asked Asami.
“There’s a town not far from here,” said Asami as she reached for the map. “The ship needs a couple of minor repairs before we can go back to the city. I don’t want to fly too far tonight.”
“I still think that we should have stayed and left in the morning.”
“Jinora, I was losing my mind up there and I know you were too.”
“I guess,” Jinora huffed, “It’s just that all of this stopping and starting is going to slow us down. This trip has already taken far longer than we predicted.”
“Sorry, I forgot that you’re eager to get back to something, or someone ,” Asami gave Jinora an exaggerated wink.
Jinora’s face went beet red. “You need to stop . I swear you and Korra are going to be as bad as my dad.”
“Hey, did you say we’re stopping soon?” Korra had gotten up from her workout, her slightly askew tank top revealing her abs. Jinora sighed, relieved that the subject had changed.
“I don’t want to fly through the night tonight. There’s no need for us to hurry on the way back. As far as I am aware there’s no crisis waiting for us back in Republic City.”
“Asami! Don’t say that! Now we’ll go back and Pabu will have become a dictator of something!” Korra shouted jokingly.
Asami laughed. “Korra you are much too superstitious sometimes.”
“You would be superstitious too if you were literally in charge of keeping the world from falling apart.” Korra had made her way up to the helm of the airship with Asami. She had that ridiculous smirk on her face again.
Ikki yawned, running a hand through her hair that was just starting to grow back. “What’s going on, did I miss something?”
“We’re just about to land for the night,” said Asami. She had spotted the town ahead of them, a cluster of stone buildings nestled between the mountains. Most of the buildings looked to be in the style popular during the Hundred Year War. From a distance it seemed almost untouched by time. It was too far from the coast to have beaches but she could see a few people below. They hustled between the buildings using the last few scraps of light before night had fully settled in. Asami hoped it was big enough to get the parts she needed for repairs. If not she could make do until they reached Republic City but it would be-
There was a sound. Like the rumble of a great thunderstorm, except it came from below. The last stragglers of the day stopped in their tracks. The world lost focus. The ground rumbled and buildings shook. Then silence overtook the group.
Korra muttered, “ Spirits , was that-”
“An earthquake,’’ replied Asami. The buildings had not been designed for that kind of movement. Several of them crumbled and gave way, leaving piles of rubble where there had once been houses and shops. It was like they were sand castles that had gotten stepped on by some giant foot. People ran from the collapsing buildings into the streets, some narrowly missing getting crushed.
“We have to get down there, people are in trouble!” Korra lunged for the controls. Asami held her back and spotted an empty field near the heart of the town. The silence was thick as Asami’s heart raced in her throat. Screams came into focus as the people below cried for help or just screamed because there was nothing else they could do. People ran this way and that, with no clear direction, controlled only by instinct and panic. As fast as the airship could manage, they descended into the chaos below them.