Chapter Text
“It would be a really big boat,” Korra was saying as she spread her arms wide. “Like this big. I mean, if my arms were like three hundred feet long.”
“Okay...”
“Like a floating hotel, with health and beauty spas or whatever, but also fun activities. A water slide, a trampoline, mover screenings, all-you-can-eat buffets, the works! So people on the boat could have a great time while out on the water!”
Asami made a face. “Korra, I think you’re overestimating how many people would actually enjoy living in the middle of the ocean.”
“I would love to live at sea!”
“Says the waterbender.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “But it wouldn’t only be about the ocean. Every day or so the boat would dock at different ports around the world. Like it would start at Yue Bay in Republic City, spend a day at sea, then dock at Ember Island and people could spend a day or two there. Then the boat sets sail again and lands at the Western Air Temple for a day, and then maybe a stop at Rojonu Beach in the Earth Kingdom before looping right back to Republic City!”
Asami actually stopped walking.
“That’s...wow, that’s an amazing idea.”
“There could be different travel paths, too. In the summer when it’s milder, there could be a southern loop that brings you to the South Pole, the Southern Air Temple, and Kyoshi Island!”
“Multiple lines available at different times of the year…” Asami mused. “Each ship would have to spend at least a week at sea, but that’s about how long good vacations are anyway. And it’s a different port with different things to do and cultures to see every day, so it’s like a bunch of vacations rolled into one.”
“Exactly!”
“Korra, you’re a genius .”
“Aren’t I, though?”
Asami was already drawing up ship blueprints in her mind. She grinned.
“We’d have to get the proper permits for this, although I imagine there isn’t a category for this kind of ship yet. Then there are border agreements we’ll have to draw up, since this would be an international system. And the sanitation concerns, insurance issues, liability waivers, emergency protocols, communication bridges - “
“Okay, this got considerably less fun.”
“No, no, I can do all that,” Asami insisted. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your floating ocean hotel.”
“A cruise.”
“What?”
“Cruise,” Korra repeated. “We can call them cruises, because they'll be cruisin’!”
She made a waving motion with her hand, causing Asami to bark out a laugh.
“Nerd.”
“You mean ‘best fiancee ever’.”
“If you say so.” She clasped Korra’s hand in hers and continued down the path.
The small rings on their fingers glinted in the sunlight, and the natural glow of the Spirit Portal. The day really was perfect. Even the Portal seemed to be relishing it, shining so brightly and excitedly it was almost like flashing lights. Even more perfect, the new Avatar Korra Park hadn’t officially opened to the public yet. That meant for one more day, it belonged only to them and their friends.
In the weeks following Kuvira’s downfall, Asami had discovered that the devastation around the Spirit Portal, where the industrial and commercial center of Republic City had once stood, was irreparable. This was largely due to the spirit flora and fauna that kept springing from the crumbled buildings and scorched earth. She had sent an environmental team to investigate and found that the Spirit Portal had completely changed the makeup of soil in the area. Even if they had tried to build up the skyscrapers to their former glory, the heavy buildings would just sink into the ground and be overrun by spirit foliage unless supported by several hundred-million yuans worth of construction.
Korra had outright refused to bulldoze the newly grown spirit life, and President Raiko denied the funds that would have allowed Future Industries to support the skyscrapers. In the end, it was Asami that drew up the ultimate solution - move Avatar Korra Park to the site of the Spirit Portal, and rebuild Republic City’s downtown area at the Park’s former location.
“You guys did a really good job here,” Korra murmured, pressing a light kiss on her cheek.
The spirits seemed to agree. The vines, which had been re-growing for months, took to their new park fondly. Instead of shooting through buildings and bridges, they wrapped themselves around the perimeter of the New Avatar Korra Park. They coiled together forming braided fences and fantastic tree-like structures, buried themselves beneath the ground to form new hills and valleys, and peeked from the grass to create natural benches and shade.
Two years after the space was little more than a dusty crater, plant and animal life from both the physical and spirit world could now flourish in harmony. It was a peaceful haven for human and spirit alike. No other place on earth was more suited to being named after Korra. There was no better place for a Spirit Portal to proudly beam.
“A new park and a big boat,” Asami mused. “Who did you say was the best fiancee ever?”
“Hey, the boat was my idea. I’ve been thinking of telling you about that for like, a month!”
“Why didn’t you?”
Korra grinned. “If you didn’t agree to marry me when I proposed, I was going to share the idea with Varrick and let him get the jump on you.”
Asami snickered and whacked her on the shoulder. “Rude!”
“I’m kidding!”
“Obviously.”
“I just wanted to wait until you wrapped up the contract for Ba Sing Se’s monorail before you tackled your next big project. You dive into every new thing head first, and I just wanted to make sure you didn’t have too much on your plate.”
“How considerate,” she snorted. “You just assumed your idea was so good I wouldn’t be able to help myself?”
Korra puffed out her chest. “All my ideas are good! When have my ideas not been good?”
Asami just gave her a look.
“Okay, yeah, fine. Whatever."
Asami smirked. “Come on, we should walk faster. If we leave Bolin with the food for too long we won’t get any.”
They were meeting up for a picnic lunch with Mako, Bolin, and Opal by the pond. It was the one rare day in what seemed like forever that they were all free at the same time. Mako was back with the RCPD and recently made detective, the youngest on the force in it’s history. Opal was well on her way to earning her airbending master tattoos, and worked as Tenzin’s assistant on Air Temple Island. Bolin had gotten a job with Asami’s construction team, working on the relocation of Avatar Korra Park and construction of the new commercial and industrial center at its old site. Meanwhile, Future Industries was buried in restoration projects, and Korra was currently traveling back and forth between Republic City and the Earth Kingdom, trying to stabilize their newly-installed parliamentary democracy. Between the five of them, they barely ever got chances like these to come together.
Korra and Asami had been engaged for two weeks, but they’d done it abroad on business in Ba Sing Se, in a blissful private moment that had become such a rarity lately. Once the rest of Team Avatar caught wind, they’d demanded a reunion.
“I bet you five yuans Mako is wearing his detective uniform even though he’s off duty.”
Asami pinched her in the side as they approached their friends. They had thrown a blue table cloth over a short clump of spirit vines and were sitting around it on the ground. As expected, Bolin’s cheeks were already bulging with seal kebabs.
“There they are!” Mako stood up to greet them, wearing a plain white collared shirt and brown pants. Korra accepted his hug, and pouted over his shoulder in acknowledgement of her five yuan debt. Asami disguised her giggle with a fake cough.
“LET ME SEE!” Bolin swallowed his food so hard his neck looked he’d inhaled a walrus-bear whole. He and Opal launched over their picnic spread and made a beeline for them. Specifically, the engagement rings on their fingers.
Bolin practically tackled Asami to the ground trying to grab her finger, while Opal raised Korra’s wrist over their heads to watch the sun shine off of the platinum band.
“These are beautiful!” Opal gushed, pulling Korra into a hug.
“I cannot believe you guys are engaged!” Bolin squeezed Asami to his chest. She allowed herself to turn purple for a few moments before struggling to get away. “I can’t believe you did it without us! Your closest and best friends in the whole entire universe!”
Korra laughed and tried to tug at Bolin’s shoulder before Asami passed out.
“We do everything with you guys. This was just for us. But we promise you’ll be at the wedding, okay?”
Bolin frowned.
“You’ll be in the wedding.”
The frown turned into a pout.
“And you’ll...plan the wedding?”
“YES!”
He pumped his fists in the air and released Asami, who staggered on her feet, gasping for breath. Opal barely noticed as she swooped over to look at her ring as well.
“What kind of diamonds even are these?” she wondered.
“Water Tribe diamonds,” Korra said proudly. “They’re super rare, practically mined out of existence by the Fire Nation during the Hundred Year War, but Fire Lord Zuko released most of them back to the world. Each Nation has a few now, even the Air Temples have artifacts set with these diamonds.”
“I heard the ring Avatar Aang gave Katara was a Water Tribe diamond, too,” Mako said, inspecting the princess-cut stone set in Korra’s ring. As he turned her hand, the tiny blue flecks characteristic of the rare diamond shined almost like little lights.
Asami nodded and held out her own. “That’s this one, actually.”
“Katara gave it to me when I mentioned I wanted to propose to Asami,” Korra said. “She thinks it would be nice if there was some kind of Avatar heirloom that could get passed down from generation to generation.”
“So where did Asami get the one she gave to you?”
Asami shrugged. “I got a hold of some for use as superconductors to see if they would improve a few of the circuits in my designs. Anyway, I took one, which pissed off my foreman a little, but he’ll make do.”
“Romantic,” Opal snorted.
“Hey, you find me a more cost-effective superconducting network solid than a Southern Water Tribe diamond and I’ll gladly…”
She trailed off, but no one seemed to notice. Bolin had started on a new story.
“Mako, do you remember when we were kids and the Triple Threats tried to use us to steal a diamond out of that museum?”
“ What?!” Opal demanded.
“Oh yeah! They were - ”
Asami didn’t even hear his response. Her eyes were averted up to the Spirit Portal, which beamed brightly over them.
Something was off. At first, she assumed that it was just glowing differently in the afternoon sun, but it wasn’t just it’s blinding yellow color that was different. The Spirit Portal was almost crackling now, as if imbued with more electricity than it could hold. Jagged lines of energy reached out from the center of the portal, almost as if it were trying to grab something out of reach. Asami could feel the air get warmer around them. The fine hairs on her arm stood on end.
There was no sound. It took her another moment to realize that there was no ambient noise at all. At some point, all the spirits and other animals that had been floating about lazily had disappeared.
“You guys…?”
They all fell silent as they stared at her, and then up at the Spirit Portal.
“What the - ?” Mako’s eyes widened. “Korra, what’s going on?!”
She blinked. “I don’t know. I don’t feel anything different. I mean - “
Suddenly a bolt of energy burst from the Portal and struck a nearby tree so sharply that it was cut cleanly in half at the trunk. Three whole seconds ticked by as they gaped in shock before Asami cried out.
“Run!”
Korra grabbed Asami around the waist and nodded at Bolin to get the others out of the park. He pulled Opal and his brother towards him. A moment later, a pillar of rock shot out of the ground and launched the three of them into the sky. Opal managed to glide them further before Bolin raised a rock slide to smooth their landing.
Korra launched herself into the sky the exact same way, clutching Asami to her chest. The only difference was that she had waited just a moment longer, to make sure no one else was in the park first.
It only took a moment.
Another bolt of energy zapped out of the Spirit Portal, so close to them that Asami felt the sizzling heat sear her cheek. The air itself seemed to burn and melt right before her eyes.
Then, the reassuring warmth from Korra’s body was gone from behind her, and she was falling from the sky.
“Korra?! ” she cried, grabbing her fiancee’s arm, still wrapped loosely around her.
It was just her arm, flesh burned away completely at the bicep, as if it had been cut by a high powered laser.
The Southern Water Tribe Diamond on Korra’s cold, dead finger gleamed brightly as Asami screamed.
“Will you marry me?”
Asami stared at her in disbelief. Korra smiled nervously as the seconds ticked by in silence.
“Um. Asami?”
She gaped at the ring, and then at her. Korra, down on one knee. Alive and whole.
“Listen even if you say no, please, just say something, I’m about to - “
Suddenly Asami grasped at her back as she squeezed the Avatar as close to her body as she possibly could. She felt her warmth, her heartbeat against hers, she inhaled the scent of her hair. Korra smelled of smoke and ice, wind and grass.
“Asami? Asami - you’re - wait, those aren’t happy tears, are they?”
She was sobbing. Tears ruined her mascara and salted her lips. It had felt so real. The air blowing on her cheeks as she fell. The sizzling heat of the Spirit Portal as it became unstable. The gut-wrenching limpness of Korra’s severed arm.The sheen of their rings being the last thing she saw as the ground of Avatar Korra Park rushed up at her.
“This isn’t happy crying,” Korra decided, holding Asami as she trembled and gasped. She didn’t know what she was trying to say, only that nothing was coming out as actual words. Just hysterical sobs and cries. “Asami, what’s going on?! What’s the matter?!”
Korra carefully lifted her off of the balcony and whisked her back inside, laying her on their bed.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay. Whatever it is, it’s okay,” she said soothingly, gently pushing Asami’s increasingly unruly hair away from her face. “What happened? Are you hurt? Tell me where. Asami, please. ”
She couldn’t answer. She’d seen Korra die. She felt Korra die. It was so real, there was no way it couldn’t have been. Asami had had plenty of dreams before, more nightmares than any one person should ever be allowed. But none like that.
Korra curled herself around her, unwilling to let her go until the incoherent weeping slowed. Once her breathing began to normalize, and the tears ran dry, she tried again.
“Are you all right?”
“You’re okay,” she croaked finally. “You’re alive. You’re…”
Korra looked at her, concern etched in the lines of her forehead.
“Um…”
“I - you - we - “ Asami felt her eyes start to burn again. She swallowed and tried to collect her thoughts.
They were in Ba Sing Se, that much was obvious. It was the Royal Palace, where the two of them had stayed while Korra and Tenzin attended meetings with the Earth Kingdom Parliament, and Asami met up with the contractor to negotiate a deal for renovating the outdated monorail. This was their last night, before they headed back home to Republic City.
But what the fuck ? What the fuck was that? Asami was guilty of being a bit of a daydreamer, but only when she was immeasurably bored, and being with the Avatar was just about the least boring thing that could ever happen. Was it a hallucination? What kind of hallucination let her see, feel, hear, and smell Korra’s burning flesh?
Or maybe all that was real, and she was hallucinating this.
“Fuck. Oh, fuck.”
Korra dropped the ring box, which held the Southern Water Tribe Diamond ring that Avatar Aang gave to Katara, once upon a time.
Fuuuck.
“Asami, you’re freaking me out.”
“This isn’t real,” she whispered.
“What? Tell me what’s going on. I’m really worried over here!”
“I was falling. I must have hit the ground, hit my head. I’m in a coma or something,” Asami continued to herself. That was the only explanation. “I’m unconscious. I’m dreaming. I lost you, Korra. You were killed, and I held your arm, and you were dead - “
“I’m not dead!”
“You were. I felt you die. You were holding me, and then you weren’t. The Spirit Portal - “
“Asami - “
“You’re dead. You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead - “
She didn’t even realized she was rocking back and forth, hugging her knees, until Korra stopped her. She took her chin and lifted Asami’s face up until she stopped trying to look away.
Her eyes were so blue. Like looking into the hottest part of a blowtorch flame. As electrifying as the sparks coming off one of her welding machines. Korra’s eyes were a wonder.
A wonder that couldn’t be replicated in some crazy dream. That brought Asami back to reality so abruptly it was like being doused in ice water. She shuddered. This was real.
“K-Korra?”
“I’m here,” she murmured. “I’m always here for you, Asami.”
“B-b-but…”
“I love you. So much.” She hugged her so tightly Asami felt like she was the only thing holding her together. “Now will you tell me what that was all about? One second we’re having this amazing night and literally the next second you’re completely losing it.”
“You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
“Never. Asami, please. ”
So she told her, between renewed sobs and gasps.
To her credit, Korra did not immediately commit her to a mental institution, nor did she look at her with any sort of pity or dismissal. Instead, she took her hand in hers.
“I’m confused,” Korra admitted.
“ You’re confused?”
“I mean, I’m not sure what that vision - “
“It wasn’t a vision,” Asami rasped forcefully, her voice still thick. “It wasn’t. I know it wasn’t. It was just real as this is, right here.”
“But - “
“You want to build a really big boat,” she blurted. “A boat that sails around the world, with activities for everyone on board in between international ports, like a floating hotel. You call it a 'cruise'. You’ve been sitting on this idea because you want to make sure I seal the deal with Ba Sing Se before taking on another project.”
Korra blinked. “How did you know…?”
“You told me,” Asami said. “Before the Spirit Portal exploded or whatever, we had that conversation. And I know that ring you have is the same ring Avatar Aang gave to Katara when he proposed. It’s a rare Southern Water Tribe diamond. I know because you told me. Because it was real.”
Korra fell quiet for a very long time, simply staring at her as she tried to control her breathing. The silence was almost maddening, until she squeezed Asami’s hand.
“I have no idea what's going on, but I promise we are going to figure it out.”