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Tenzin stalks back onto the ship near midnight and declares not only that three potential Airbenders slammed the door in his face but there’s a wanted poster of Asami at Rina's Inn, which is annoying because Rina's Inn serves the best drinks, although admittedly Korra has only gotten drinks there. Rina herself had served them, Bolin suggesting that they should all come up with a way to get a free drink, but in the end only Asami succeeded, waltzing back to their table with a bright green concoction and winking completely unsubtly at Rina when they left.
Asami shrugs and says she’s been wanted before, which is incredibly unfair and also cool, and Korra points out that she’s 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘴, how could she be 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥, and Asami responds with nonchalant shrug. Mako rolls his eyes and mutters something, but the entire airship is in the habit of ignoring him after he thought Lin's snoring was thunder and caused the entire crew to have an impromptu meeting in their pyjamas.
Korra brushes off the incident- it’s not her face on the poster, and as long as Asami stays on the ship it’ll be fine. Besides, Tenzin successfully scared off all the Airbenders in the vicinity, so they have to move on from this city anyway. Tenzin does not seem reassured, which is insulting because Korra has actually thought this one through, but he goes to bed anyway because he needs his beauty sleep, or something.
Korra goes to bed too, because she also needs beauty sleep, and one by one her friends file in after her. She hears them all click their locks shut and turns to fall back on her mattress.
There's an obstacle in the shape of a small boy on her bed. Korra groans.
“Look, kid, I'll give you an autograph in the morning or something. Get out.”
The kid gives a shit eating grin. “It would be kinda vain to get an autograph from myself.”
Well shit. Korra rubs her eyes and blinks a few times, and sure enough Avatar Aang sits on her bed, tattooed and twelve. Maybe. She’s never been good at guessing ages.
“I’m too tired for spiritual stuff,” Korra admits. “Can you give me untapped wisdom in the morning, maybe?”
Aang shrugs and says he can’t leave, and is also a ghost. Korra starts to think she’s hallucinating, and also vows to start writing down all the weird stuff that happens to her so the next Avatar isn’t flying completely blind. She pushes Aang off the bed, because he may have stopped the Hundred Year War but he's also a twelve year old kid and he’s also 𝘩𝘦𝘳, and he stares at her balefully from the floor. Korra ignores him and climbs under the covers, kicking off her boots. It’s cold in an airship, but she had brought quilts from home, and the smell of the tribe clings to them and soothes her to sleep.
She wakes to a very blue arrow in her face. Korra wrinkles her nose and pushes it off. She wonders for a moment the genetic chances of an Avatar passing down a different element to their children, but shrugs it off because she doesn’t even want kids, so it doesn’t matter.
“Why are you still here?” she asks Aang, alert despite just waking up.
Aang whips his head around to look at her. “Thank Spirits you’re awake! I don’t think ghosts can sleep, I was pretty bored.”
Korra sighs and pushes the covers off. “Why did you stay here all night then?”
Aang looks pensive, an odd expression on a face so young. “When Zuko and I founded Republic City Kyoshi hung out with me the whole time. She said it was because founding a nation was her thing.”
Korra stares. “So you’re hanging out because your thing is being on an airship?”
Aang laughs, bright and cheery. It’s equal parts endearing and off-putting. “No, I think it’s travelling.”
“That’s stupid,” Korra blurts out. “Sorry. But every Avatar has to travel, do you really have to hang around in your twelve year old body every time?”
“I think being wanted by an entire nation has something to do with it,” Aang grins, then blinks. “Wait, am I twelve? Damn. Don’t tell Zuko, he was always making fun of me for peaking at twelve.”
Korra just leaves the room, partially to see if Aang has to follow her and partially to see if he'd notice or keep talking. Bolin is in the hallway, fruitlessly trying to smooth down his hair, and Korra uses a mix of Airbending and Metalbending to muffle her footsteps until she’s close enough to jump on his back. Bolin yelps but then he twirls her around and she laughs, giddy, until she sees a blue blur through her squint. She punches Bolin's shoulder until he drops her, then nudges Aang forward with her foot to introduce them.
Bolin raises one eyebrow, something they had practised together in front of a mirror but only he could pull off, and Korra looks from Aang to Bolin to Aang again before realising that Bolin simply can’t see him. Which is annoying, because now he’s looking at Korra like she maybe didn’t sleep enough- he opens his mouth to maybe bring up that time at training when Korra was so tired she ranted about how Asmai took her hair down from a ponytail and it 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘥, while Korra takes her ponytails down and her hair stays stuck in that position for an hour. Luckily, she grew up with dozens of cousins with dubious relationships to herself, and her tattletale instinct is sharp as a knife, and she whips her hand over Bolin’s mouth before anything comes out.
He licks it.
Aang laughs, and for the first time Korra understands that maybe they are the same person.
Then the whole airship quakes, and she’s racing to the front to ask the captain what’s going on. It turns out they’re out of fuel, which isn’t ideal but isn’t disastrous, either, but they’re just about in the middle of nowhere, and need to land.
Korra watches the ground approach, sloped and rough and wild. Mako reveals that he brought supplies for this exact situation, and Lin reveals she brought supplies too, which turn out to be an extensive alcohol supply. Nobody can see Aang, who finds this hilarious and becomes determined to make Korra look crazy in front of them.
Lin signals her and Bolin, and they rush forward to create a landing pad, and the landing is rough and ends up with a tangle of limbs and bad tempers but everyone’s uninjured, which meets Korra's standard. She goes back to her room and grabs her quilts and a canteen before regrouping outside. It’s still early morning, and the pale sunlight is more cold than anything else. Korra stretches, shaking out her arms when they pop, and Mako makes a face. He’s already building a campfire, and reminding everyone around him that he was prepared for this. Bolin is making faces behind him.
There’s a shriek as Tenzin's kids rush out of the airship, half asleep and grumbling about missing out on the fun. Jinora does a dramatic double take and stares at Korra, who immediately asks Bolin if there’s something on her face, but Jinora shakes her head and asks if Korra had been in the Spirit World recently.
Behind her, Aang goes very still. “Is that my granddaughter?”
Korra nods.
“I knew it!” Jinora cries. “There’s loads of spiritual energy around you.”
“Wait, no-' Korra says, but then Lin tells her to check for danger in the area, and the last time she disobeyed Lin this early in the day she ended up in the badger-mole tunnels searching for discarded Toph statues, because apparently when she invented Metalbending she took the opportunity to make literal hundreds from abandoned Fire Nation scraps.
Which is cool, actually. Korra should practise her sculpting.
The ground is steep, but the twisted roots at her feet help her do a sweep of the area. She reports back to Lin that the only thing that could pose any danger is Mako boring them all to death, and he splutters and Asami idly pulls a stick out of her hair.
Korra plays with the Airbender kids for a while, inadvertently letting Aang meet his grandchildren- he can’t interact with them, but enjoys twirling around Jinora and watching her ask about the weird wind patterns, as if anyone else would be able to recite them. Aang takes a suspicious lack of interest in Bumi, which Korra thinks is strange, because that’s his 𝘦𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘯, who is now an 𝘈𝘪𝘳𝘣𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳, and she’s trying to think of a way to ask Aang why he doesn’t care when Asami taps her on the shoulder
Her hair’s in a low ponytail, and she’s wearing old clothes with grease on them. Korra knows she spent the morning trying to repair the parts of the airship that were damaged in the crash.
She smiles, and there’s lipstick on her teeth and it should really not be so endearing. “Do you want to go look around with me? I bet there’s some great views on looking over the valley.”
She asks the question like she already knows Korra will say yes, her mouth curling somewhat into a smile, and if were anyone else in the world Korra would say no- just to catch her by surprise, to see her lips form a little 'oh', to place a line on her brow that she could smooth out with her finger.
Korra accepts, and Asami doesn’t make an 'oh' but she does smile brightly, encircling Korra's wrist with her slender fingers and taking off in a run, and Korra feels like her Spirit was yanked ahead of her body, the breath stolen from her chest. She finds her feet and tumbles through the undergrowth after her, fucking under low branches and sticking her tongue out at a stray deer that flicks it ear at her.
Asami, inexplicably, seems to know where she’s going, and Korra lets her lead, content to run after and try not to get Asami's hair in her face. Her fingers have slipped from Korra's wrist to tangle with her fingers, pale and painted the same red as her lips, cut short after she had tried to greet Meelo's lemur and had accidentally scratched the creature. Meelo still carries a grudge, but he also has a grudge against Korra for calling him short last year, so.
They burst into a clearing, and Asami was right because the view is incredible. She drops Korra’s hand and spins to face her, talking about travellers and spiritual energy and Korra doesn’t understand it but the sound of her excitement is enough to bring a blush to her face that she blames in the running.
Asami smiles knowingly. “Fire Lord Zuko had a theory that Spirits flocked to the Avatar,” she says, and Korra looks up.
The sky is full of sun and clouds and cold crisp air and Spirits, and it takes her breath away. They’re dancing, or flying, or maybe just existing, and Korra watches them for a moment before waving frantically, and Asami tilts her head up to the sun and laughs, and a small lemur creature appears beside Korra and pokes her roughly. She tells Korra that her grandpappy knew her once, and Korra feels all at once a hole open in her chest and fill with something that leaves a bittersweet aftertaste on her tongue.
Asami sits down, careful to avoid the spattering of wildflowers that dot the clearing, then pats the space beside her, smiling brightly up at Korra, who crashes down beside her. Aang floats hazily in the key, determined to make Korra look bad with his grace, completely at ease being in the air. Korra watches him, under the guise she’s still staring at the spirits. They’re flying back and forth, as if unable to choose which Avatar to follow when Aang drops a wink and his arrows turn white, leading the spirits away like some sort of Pied Piper.
“How did you get the free drinks?” Korra blurts out, and Asami cuts her a look from the corner of her eye before turning completely to the side, eyes hooded and dark.
“Because I actually lived in Republic City for a week before I figured out the currency exchange,” Korra rambles, blood rushing to her cheeks. “I had never left the Tribe before, and um. It would be useful for me too get free stuff. So.”
Asami leans forward, her breath hot over Korra's neck, and Korra grips the grass tightly, stares straight ahead. Asami whispers something but she doesn’t really hear her, and then Asami's holding her chin and turning her face and she’s so close.
Asmai kisses her, soft and sure and with no hesitation, and Korra thinks Mako never kissed her like this and 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬?
Asami leans back a fraction, and Korra opens her eyes. “Tell me to stop,” Asami whispers, not sounding particularly convincing.
Korra leans forward to close the gap, and Asami’s mouth falls open, makes a little sound when Korra pulls her hair out of her ponytail to run her fingers through it. It's as soft as she had always imagined, and Korra files away the information that she apparently thought about it before, and then she pulls it ever so softly and files away the noise Asami makes at that.
Aang wolf whistles above her, and Korra jumps back. Asami isn’t even flustered, standing up and dusting herself down. Korra stands up too, suddenly awkward.
“So, you do that every time you want free stuff?” she asks, not wanting the answer but also she can’t stand not knowing.
Asami laughs. “Not exactly. I got carried away.”
She glances back to the trees. “Lets get the boys- I bet there’s a lake that we can go swimming in.”
She starts walking, and Korra watches her, touching her lips ever so gently. Aang lands beside her looking extremely smug, and Korra shoves him because Katara told her that he was the worst at flirting and she had to do all the work. Aang darts forward and sticks his tongue into her ear, and Korra cries out in disgust and starts sprinting to catch up with Asami for about five seconds before Aang points out she’d be faster on an air scooter. He’s right, which is why she sprints faster instead.
She takes a different route back and ends up back at the camp before Asami, and Bolin asks her what happened because he notices 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨, and Korra finds she doesn’t know what to say. Mako points out that she’s blushing and he’s stupidly unobservant so Korra splashes water on her face and refuses to say why, which was equal parts good and bad idea because now everyone’s staring at her and why didn’t she just say she’s flushed from running instead of being weird about it and then Asami jogs out of the trees.
“Act natural,” Korra hisses, and Mako starts asking about her scope of the area from this morning and Bolin pulls up a rock to rest his chin in his hands and stare at her lovingly because he’s not as boring as his brother but also kind of insufferable.
“Wow, Korra,” Asami says when she reaches them “I always forget how fast you are.”
She turns to the boys. “We were thinking of going swimming, do you want to come with?”
Surprisingly, Mako is the one to agree- Lin managed to contact the nearest city but reinforcement won’t be arriving until tomorrow, and he had packed swimming clothes as part of his ultimate adventure supply kit, and Bolin takes little to no convincing.
The sun hangs over their backs as they begin the search for suitable lakes, Korra checking each for unfriendly creatures until they find one that’s just pondweed. Bolin makes a suitable staircase into the shallows while Korra creates an overhang that towers over the deep, and she’s just pulling off her outer layers when Asami runs past in a blur, disappearing over the edge of the cliff.
Bolin whistles. Korra kicks off her shoes and follows, feeling her feet strike the earth until they’re not striking anything, and then she’s falling, air whipping all around her. She can’t open her eyes, but can hear Aang to her left whooping and hollering, not doubt pulling off some fancy flips. Korra flicks her arms out and let’s the air turn her over and over, and when the hits the water it welcomes her.
She surfaces with less grace than she landed with, sucking in huge breaths and wiping the water out of her eyes frantically. Asami laughs and swims over, hair like black ink in the water.
“Cold, huh?” she says, and Korra let’s out a fluid string of curses, drawing inspiration from days spent at the old bars in the Tribe, her people giddy and alive after a hunt.
Asami's eyes widen. “Woah, I forgot you could speak Tribal!”
There’s a splash as Mako and Bolin land almost simultaneously, and then Bolin’s shivering and Makos gloating about Firebenders running hot, and Asami tries to get their attention with a splash that turns into a full, raging war. Waterbending is banned the second Korra raises her arms, and Firebending moments later when Mako's splashing gets suspiciously hot.
It ends in a draw directly before the point of tears, and Korra lets herself lie back until she’s floating flat on the surface, watching the sun break through the trees and sparkle in the water. If she focuses, she can smell the wildflowers and peaty earth. Aang hovers above her, just out of reach.
“𝘋𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘦?” Asmai asks, sticking out her leg to kick Korra and jostle her until she’s submerged.
Korra pouts and pushes herself to the surface. “𝘠𝘦𝘢𝘩. 𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘬𝘦 𝘛𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘢𝘭.”
Asami hesitates. "𝘛𝘰𝘰 𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘵. 𝘚𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘺, 𝘮𝘺 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥. 𝘐 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴.”
Korra stares at her. “Asami, that’s. Wow.”
Asmai blushes and swims upright, starts threading water. “Thanks. My family was originally from the Colonies, so I can only speak Common fluently.” She tucks some wet hair behind her ear. “I know Common is pretty much everywhere these days, but it’s useful to know the basics.”
“Don’t mind us,” Bolin cuts in. “Why should Mako and Bolin be included in the secret Girl Language.”
Korra rolls her eyes. “It’s Tribal, Bolin. It’s my first language.”
Bolin suddenly looks troubled. It’s an unsettling emotion to see on his face, which already has laugh lines etched in. “Oh. I only know Common.”
“Aren’t you from the Earth Kingdom?” Asami asks.
Mako purses his lips. “We were born in Republic City, and our parents just used Common.” He shrugs, one pale shoulder breaking from the water. “Dad spoke the Earthen Common, and even though Lord Zuko enforced learning languages in the Fire Nation people didn’t bother teaching their kids if they moved out, so Mom only spoke Common.”
“That makes sense,” Korra admits. “I could teach you, if you want.”
And there’s the smile that went astray. Bolin lights up immediately, and even Mako cracks a grin. Asami smiles and somehow she’s close enough that her legs are tangled with Korra's, and Aang takes his first venture into the water and yelps when he gets wet. Korra sends a splash at him, and he huffs and sticks out his tongue.
Her friends ask why she’s arguing with thin air, and Korra decides it’s time to introduce them. Aang waves at each of them, rating their reactions aloud- Mako’ disbelief turned spluttering and coughing gets one star; Bolin's Twenty Questions game gets three; Asami's 'I was wondering who you were talking to' gets solid four.
Korra asks him what constitutes five stars, and he launches into a story about Suki finding out Kyoshi was hanging around and whipping up a full alter out of scaffolding, face paint and some very confused children, and if her friends didn’t believe her before they definitely believe her when Korra sends a tidal wave into the air to shut him up.
They stay in the lake until a chill settles in the air, and when they traipse back to shore Korra pulls the water out of their hair and Mako warms their clothes. The bonfire is still roaring back at the campsite, and Tenzin seems to be leading some kind of Zumba class which Korra steers clear of. Jinora perks up when she sees them, and starts preparing dinner. They polish off rice and smoked fish with Lin's alcohol selection, and it burns Korra’s throat and loosens her smile.
“Crazy how fast the day went,” Bolin comments, laying his sleeping bag in front of the campfire and dropping down to sit on it. Korra agrees easily while Lin grumbles about them slacking off for all of it, but even she can’t stay cranky as the stars start to come out.
Aang settles beside her. “The sky was so clear when I was young.”
Korra glances at him- he’s so young and so old all at once, and she’s surprised at the sharp tug in her stomach that she knows is love. She twitches her hand until it covers his, and he smiles at her gently.
“I’ve got it!” Ikki cries suddenly, and music starts pouring out of the radio that they used to contact reinforcements. She looks unbearably smug, and starts explaining how it was actually her radio, and all she had to do was reprogram it to find other frequencies-
Korra stops listening in favour of taking another swig from the bottle and jumping to her feet. She kicks off her shoes and jacket and pulls Mako to his feet. Bolin catches on and joins them, and Korra spins and winks at Asami to convince her up too. Jinora laughs delightedly and grabs Ikki's hands, dancing clumsily, and everyone joins in, jumping and spinning around the fire, which roars up pink and blue and green.
Korra watches everyone dancing. It’s easy to forget that they’re wanted criminals, that she’s banished from her city, that she’s probably getting herself into 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 insane situation by existing here and now. Everyone looks so happy, so alive, pink cheeks and bright eyes that could be from the drink but could just be from being stuck on a mountainside with a crashed airship and each other.
The song ends, and the beat switches to something relaxed and with a low bass. Asami locks her wrists together and nods her head, and Aang flicks her head.
"You're the Avatar,' he teases. "Take it from a 140 year old- pull yourself together."
"Take it from a bitchass twelve year old," Korra mutters, then smiles, all teeth, and steps over to her. Asami's eyes flicker down to meet hers, and Korra keeps dancing, tilting her head and moving her body until they’re pressed together.
Asami licks her lips. “What are you doing?”
Korra smirks. “Getting my free drink.”