Chapter Text
This was how Korra felt about water, plain and simple.
It was her life.
There hadn’t been a day she wasn’t swimming, her mother always liked to say. Back when Korra was younger, this was said out of frank exasperation as her mother stroked her chubby little cheeks. Korra overstayed the Swimming Tods program every week and threw dramatic, splashing hissy fits whenever the apologetic teenage lifeguard came over to announce time was up. The family couldn’t take a vacation at the beach without Tonraq having to lug her out of the waves and over his shoulders after half an hour of begging and bartering.
After the shop did well enough for the family to move to a nicer part of Republic City, Korra filled up the pristine acrylic tub tucked away in the corner of their new bathroom and practiced perfect little butterfly strokes. So much water splashed out of it that Senna had to wade ankle-deep to pluck her eight-year-old daughter out the tub. What followed was the scolding of a lifetime and the introduction of Old Woman Katara, their widowed next-door neighbor, into Korra’s life as her de facto babysitter and soon favorite grandmother.
Katara would revel Korra with stories of her brother and friends in the days before the United Republic was founded, about how the four of them together would solve crimes and lead peace rallies and fight Bad Guys and find love. It was wild. Halfway through the tales, Katara casually revealed herself to be a former Olympic gold medalist in the 200m backstroke, the first gold medalist of Republic City, and Korra was forever starstruck.
Korra continued to swim. She was winning local competitions and regional championships by the time she was eleven, became the Republic City 200m Freestyle Junior Swim Champion when she was thirteen, and toured the world with other top swimmers in the city, some twice her age, when she reached fourteen.
At Katara’s recommendations, Korra’s parents enrolled her in Temple High, a specialized academy known for both athletic and academic achievements. Katara’s son Tenzin worked as the chair of the physical education department and the swim team’s fearsome head coach. The strange obsession with perfecting different breathing patterns aside, Tenzin was a great coach, understood his swimmers’ limits and understood when they were slacking. Korra had never had a day of relaxation since—and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Korra’s fingers pressed against the tiled wall, and it was as though she could see everything around her, from other swimmers fast at her heels, to the grains of heads in the cheering crowd, to the man keeping time just a few feet away above her, squatting next to the diving block. In that instance, her eyes were squeezed shut behind her goggles, underwater, the currents she had ripped through still sliding their way past her skin. But in the survey of her mind she saw it all, every trembling atom of them like a tickle in her vision. She loved it.
Now clinging against the wall, she burst to the surface, and that was another rush of sensations altogether, the return of the real world—the sight of it, the smell, the noise , not just the clean physicality of the swim. Everything above water was so much more golden than the smooth pale blue of the painted pool, so much warmer, and she savored this for a moment more before lifting her head.
On the electronic scoreboard far above the audience stands was the number 1 listed proudly next to her name. She felt a brief surge of pride before looking at her time— 1:38:76. Her personal best. Certainly a new record for Temple High—maybe even one for the whole of Republic City too. She could wait till later to find out.
Seconds passed. Then the other swimmers arrived at the endpoint, lifting their heads above water, panting, then smiling, self-deprecating, as they reached over the floating lane lines to Korra. Some of them were more than happy to shake hands with the young legend of Republic City—and, very soon, it was said, of the world—and Korra responded with equal enthusiasm.
The crowds cheered again when Korra lifted herself out of the pool, and she did a little wave before Tenzin stalked over her, raising an eyebrow. She ducked her head and rubbed the back of her neck in embarrassment. He sighed, the sound of it inaudible over the din of the swim meet, but Korra caught a proud smile tugging at his lips as he draped a towel over her shoulders and shoved a bottle of water into her hand.
The next event was due to begin soon—men’s relay, 400m—so Korra and the rest of the athletes were herded toward the locker rooms, Korra starting some light chat with a few of her competitors. Before she crossed the door, however, she lifted her eyes again to the stands to search for— But there they were. Bolin, jumping up and down with a rolled-up newspaper in one hand and a banner in another, and Mako, holding up the other end of the banner with the usual look of perpetual grump on his face. Then, beneath the bright green YOU GO KORRA YOU GOOOOO GURRRRRLLLL stitching, was Asami.
Her eyes met Korra’s. Korra, who had been waving wildly their way, felt shy all of a sudden, her hand now by the side of her face in a little half-wave. Asami blew a kiss her way. Korra felt her heartbeat ramp up again, like it had just been seconds ago that she finished first in the best event of her life. She wanted to race to the edge of the stands, climb up the railings, and lean her lips against Asami’s own, let them meet halfway—but the other swimmers around Korra was sweeping her through the door, so she settled for dorkily catching the kiss, seeing Asami’s small giggle, and returning one of her own.
“So, senior year, huh?”
Korra and Asami were settled in one of the dozen of rooms in Varrick’s mansion of a house, listening to the party outside drum bass beats and the occasional cheers against the closed door. This was Varrick’s end-of-the-year summer farewell party. Korra had spent the first hour of the party exchanging hugs with members of her summer teammates, some of whom were due to leave Republic City the next day, and beating Bolin and Mako at beer pong. At half past eleven, Asami dragged her into a dance to Taylor Swift’s latest hit, then Korra dragged Asami behind the hedges in the backyard for a make-out session. And now, giggling and tired from the day’s swim meet, Korra let Asami lean into the crook of her neck, tracing patterns on the skin above Asami’s wrists, just below the sleeve. The alcohol was siphoning off, and Korra felt at once cooler and lighter as the night rolled on.
“Yeah,” Korra said.
“Hard to imagine, isn’t it?” said Asami.
It was, and Korra’s mind drifted, inevitably, toward graduation. Strange as it was for her to say, given that she had her fair share of national and international competitions, it was impossible for Korra to imagine a life outside of Temple High. She would miss this, the closeness Katara had told her only existed in these strange and tender teenage years: classes with Mako and Bolin, practice with Tenzin and her teammates, and silent moments like these with Asami.
There was another reason, too, that Korra did not want to look too far ahead of the horizon. Korra had spent her entire life dreaming of becoming an international champion, competing against the best swimmers of the world. Already, recruiters from Berkeley and Stanford were coming to Temple High School to watch her practices, after her record-breaking performances at the national meets her junior year.
Republic City had no universities that would get Korra where she needed. Yet Republic City was where Asami must stay after graduation. Ever since Hiroshi Sato was convicted in their freshman year, Korra knew that Asami would do everything in her power to keep Future Industries running and redeem her family name. That Asami had managed to do so all these years while maintaining her status as their class’s valedictorian hopeful was a miracle in itself—Korra couldn’t ask her to leave Republic City too, just to be with Korra.
But they still had an entire year’s worth of memories to make. It was too early for these kinds of thoughts.
“Yeah,” Korra said. Then her thoughts turned and she heaved out a long, dramatic sigh.
“Thinking of classes?” Asami teased.
“Yup,” Korra said. “ Pre calculus was hard enough, and now I have to take calculus ? I don’t even know where to start.”
“It’s alright, I’ll tutor you,” Asami said, reaching up to kiss Korra on the cheek. “Just like before.” Just like back when she was dating Mako, and Korra was wildly jealous on two ends and torn without understanding why. Man, was she glad to put freshman and sophomore year all behind her.
The morning after the party found both Bolin and Mako extremely hungover and, the latter, still slightly drunk. When Korra pulled up Asami’s car to the front of their apartment building, the two boys groaned simultaneously.
“No, Asami, please,” Bolin said, letting his brother collapse to the ground as he sank to his knees next to the shotgun seat. “Please, have mercy. We already puked three times each and maybe busted the plumbing—”
“Gross,” Asami said, but she was smiling.
“—please, please don’t let Korra drive. Me and Mako just might die on the way to the beach—”
“Oy!” Korra called out.
“ Please .”
“Well,” Asami said pityingly, with the wisdom of a rich girl who had seen too many other rich children make the same mistake with alcohol at a much younger age. “This will be a good lesson for you next time, won’t it?”
Korra laughed as Mako hauled Bolin off the ground, shaking his head and muttering darkly at his friends. They then drove north.
Three hours and many winding mountain paths later, they arrived at the small cottage that Bolin’s friend’s cousin’s hairdresser’s daughter’s son-in-law had agreed to lend to the four of them for a weekend. The car remained beautiful and stainless on the inside and out, but that was likely because of an unspoken and unshakable understanding that blowing chunks in Asami’s self-funded, self-designed, self-engineered sports car would result in some bloody and painful demise. The cottage itself was a short, squat thing, built back when the surrounding countryside of Republic City, including this suburb, had maintained its economy through fishing. The water scars along the side of its painted brick walls told of countless hurricanes weathered, countless thunderstorms endured.
There was a balcony on the second floor that faced the sea. Bolin discovered it first, and his gleeful hollering brought Korra and Asami, then Mako, by his side. The sun was fierce in its place high in the horizon, bleaching color out of the sky. Feather-wisps of clouds dusted the surrounding air. Over the rising jut of the cliffs was the ocean itself, stirring, deep-green and smooth. Little brightly colored dots indicating surfers rode the waves.
“Last one there has to wash the dishes tonight!” Bolin suddenly called out, darting back out of the room.
“Hey, not fair!” Korra yelled, but ran after him nonetheless, because she wasn’t about to take any chances. “You just don’t want to do chores!”
It took them three minutes to reach the beach—Korra won, of course, she was as fast on land as she was in water. Mako and Asami meandered by a few minutes after Bolin, proudly, but Korra knew that was simply because they didn’t want to lose and colluded for a tie instead.
They spent most of the day on that beach. They played Chicken against each other more times than they could count. Korra and Bolin had a sandcastle contest that eventually devolved into burying Mako from the chest down and sculpting a mermaid’s body below his neck, Asami gleefully bedazzling his tail with shells. While they hiked around the tidal pools, Korra found a pale pink conch shell in the saltwater crevices and handed it to Asami—“They say you can hear the sea anywhere, with one”—which prompted Bolin and Mako to make loud gagging noises with shouts of Sap! . In response, Asami rolled her eyes at the boys and kissed Korra full on the lips.
They woke up the next day to a light drizzle—a bummer, since they had intended to spend another day at the beach. The weather reports assured them the rain would dissipate in the afternoon. At Asami’s suggestion, then, they decided to hike along the seaside cliffs for the morning instead.
The sky did clear briefly around noon. Korra, who lost the rock-paper-scissors match that followed, was charged with buying bentos as the others made their way to the beach. It took her forever to find a convenience store that didn’t charge tourist prices: a bleached concrete cube pinched between a souvenir shop and a restaurant both dressed in the style of a thatch hut. Outside the grocery store was a man with a shaved head in simple gray robes. He sat cross-legged on the still-wet pavement, back straight, eyes closed.
Korra did not notice him at first. But when she arrived at the shop’s doorsteps, the man spoke:
“You’re a city girl, huh?”
“Um.” She wasn’t sure if he was talking to her: he had not moved from his meditative pose. “Yes, sir, I am. From Republic City.”
“Republic City,” he repeated.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “Um. Are you—are you from Republic City too?”
For a long stretch of time he was silent. When Korra figured he had no more to say to her, she moved to open the door. But the man interrupted her again.
“Mercury in the water,” he said, his eyes still closed.
“Sir?”
He chuckled. It was then Korra sensed there was something different about the man—that despite his outward appearances, he was nothing like the monks in her local temple that led men and women in prayer songs. “Isn’t that an idea? Young woman, mercury in the water .” He began to laugh. “Mercury in the water. Mercury in the water...”
Unnerved, Korra ducked into the store. When she exited later, the man was no longer there.
Clouds had gathered while she was in the store, and the weather deteriorated even faster as she made her way back to Mako, Bolin, and Asami. Soon it was raining again, falling in wavering silver sheets on the asphalt. Korra weaved between one-story buildings and across cars shining yellow lights that made the skies look darker. What she thought to be a ten-minute walk took at least twice the amount of time before she finally reached the beach, fogged up now with the rain. People were hauling picnic baskets, umbrellas, and pets past the beach’s sand dunes back to town.
“Hey—” she called out to Asami, who was standing next to the huge log they had gathered at yesterday. Asami waved back and ran up to her, Bolin and Mako trailing behind. “I got the food, but do you guys want to head back instead—”
“ Help! ” came a scream. A woman was running across the sand. “God, someone help me, my child— My son is drowning someone please, please help me oh my god—”
Korra turned to her, swept in front of her as she was passing Korra. “Ma’am, what are you saying, your son—”
The woman was tall, broad-shouldered, and her grip across Korra’s shoulders was strong. Her face was caught in a twist of pain, her tears blurred into rain. “My son was swimming not far off when it started to rain and all of a sudden I couldn’t see him anymore please young lady you have to help me—”
Something in the horizon drew the woman’s gaze away. She shouldered past Korra and pointed: “There, oh god I see him, please, he’s only nine, I don’t know— oh god oh god I need to—”
Korra couldn’t see anyone through the rain, but she didn’t doubt a mother. The woman was about to run back to the surf, but Korra stopped her. “Please, ma’am, let me. I’m a swimmer. I got my lifeguard license when I was fourteen. I’ll be able to bring your son back—”
“ Korra ,” she heard Asami whisper behind her. At some point during the conversation, she, as well as Mako and Bolin, had come to stand behind her. “I don’t know if you should do this. The waves are too strong—we should be calling the coast guard—”
“He’s right there,” the woman said above Korra. “ Please , he’s right there , there isn’t time— ”
“Call the coast guard,” Korra told Asami, and smiled. “In the meantime, let me handle it.” She pulled Asami in and kissed her on the forehead, even as Asami looked away to hide her frown. To the boys, Korra handed off the bentos and said, nodding toward the mother, “Take care of her for now, won’t you?” And to the mother herself, she asked, “What is your son’s name, ma’am?”
“Red,” the woman breathed, her face slack with relief. “His name is Red.” Korra memorized her features, wondering if the boy had the same lotus-white skin and fire eyes.
Korra nodded. “I’ll find him, ma’am.” She kissed Asami’s fingers once. “I’ll be back just a bit,” she said, before slipping away.
When she dived into the water, the chill of the sea slipped right under Korra’s skin and pushed into the marrows of her bones. The currents too were stronger than what she was accustomed to in Temple High School or the city pool, but they were nothing she could not handle. She was strong enough to master them all.
When she broke surface, sea winds beat her over the head and scarred her cheeks and the tips of her ears. She pulled in a gulp of air and began to swim.
It felt like climbing up boulders in the middle of a snowstorm. Lifting her head was difficult—the rain was so heavy, and the waves so uneven, that more often than not she was choking on water, then choking again as she tried to cough out the water that had entered her windpipe—the first day of water polo all over again.
A few minutes into her fruitless peddling in the water, she looked back, convinced that she was only a few meters away from shore—and found that she could not see the beach at all.
There wasn’t any time to think about that. She cut past the first set of waves and treaded water as fast as she could to lift herself up.
“Red!” she shouted. “Red, where are you? Your mother sent me—” She coughed out a mouthful of saltwater after a wave caught her by surprise. “Red!” she called. “Red, are you here? Red—”
She was slammed into the water.
She opened her eyes. She saw a matted layer of foam painted dull green under clouds of sand. Spread out above her. A giant, looming hand.
Then a stray curl of current shoved her bodily into the ocean floor. The back of her head landed on something hard. She felt a burst of nausea. Black stars rolled sickeningly along the bottom of her vision. Her chest caved in from the weight of the blow. Her breath left her in a flutter of bubbles. They wobbled away like jellyfish.
Then she was scraped along the ground, cutting ribbons of her arms. Then she rose, thrust midway up the seafloor. She was caught. Her hair fanned around her head. Everything was still.
Another current tunnel through. Korra was swung into a sandbar, head-first.
She landed wrong. She was hit in a bad way. She could tell. It was her last thought before she blacked out.
Water sloshed off her face and there was air again. Breathing felt like someone shoving a thousand metal needles down her throat. She needed to save the boy. She needed—
The burst of brightness pierced straight into her skull. She couldn’t open her eyes, so she focused on keeping her head lifted above the water. She couldn’t, and she felt conscious submerging again with the fading light.
There was a change in elevation. Her head was laid lightly against what felt like a plastic tarp. The ground jolted, pressing into that tender spot in her skull. She felt like hurling. There were human voices around her. Caging her in.
She came to from a familiar scent—Asami’s hair, bunched together in thick strands from the rain. Korra could see the tear tracks down Asami’s cheeks.
“Korra, dear, please talk to me—” Asami was babbling. “Tell me, where does it hurt? Help’s coming soon, alright baby? Please, hang on—” And Korra would remember this, later on, remember Asami’s cool, soft hands stroking her face, Asami’s warm tears dotting her cheek.
Pain was a simple sensation to understand. The lack of it was not. And it took long, horrifying seconds for Korra to realize that she felt nothing else at all.
“I can’t—” she gasped, and it was as though she was underwater again. “I can’t move.”