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Call it intuition, but something was pulling her. Something deep in her chest was saying to run. To be somewhere other than where she was in that moment. Something was so deeply wrong that her heart and soul was screaming at her to move her feet. It was a sense that you couldn’t quite put into words or understand unless you had felt it yourself. The feeling of someone needing you somewhere in the world, but not knowing what would await you once you got to them. It was a sensation drenched in dread and hurt. Oh, did it hurt. It was like being able to feel another person’s anger, sadness, and longing throughout your entire body.
When a soul truly connects with another, it’s almost like seeing yourself in a mirror. You can feel what they feel. See what they see. Love how they love. A soul can mirror another when they finally intertwin with one another. It can be the most heartbreakingly beautiful thing to become of two people. There are the moments of light and unadulterated bliss that also come with the most heart wrenching tragic depths of desperation and loss a soul can experience. Everything you feel, they feel. Every high. Every low. Everything in between.
So, she ran. She didn’t know where she was running to, but she let her soul go where it needed to be in that moment. She didn’t bother to study her surroundings. The closer she got, the more her entire body screamed to push just a little faster. A little more and she would be there. Where there was had yet to be made clear, but she kept going. She felt like she was racing against a clock. Her lungs were begging her to just slow down, but she couldn’t. She needed to be somewhere. She had to be somewhere. One lost soul calling out for another. It was like another souls pleads where reaching out and calling to hers. Everything around her faded, sound, light, everything paused, as she reached the door.
When she finally saw the body, the person, on the other side, it was like time had stopped. She saw the blood and the tears that streaked down the beautiful face she had come to know so well. There was a moment where blue locked onto green that her soul felt like it was pierced with a knife. How befitting for the situation really. The knife was glinting in the moonlight, but the gleam wasn’t quite right. Where a steel reflective blade should be fully clean, it was covered in crimson, dripping down the handle and the wrist of the possessor.
“Korra.” She whispered out hoarsely.
Her feet moved of their own accord. Again, with the magnetic pull of a broken soul in need of mending. She kneeled down beside her and slipped the blade out of shaky bloodstained hands. She didn’t realize she had tossed it aside until after she heard it metallic clank as she pulled the younger girl into her lap and just held her. She didn’t care about the blood or tears that soaked through her shirt as the woman she loved clutched at her like her very being was being held together by the woman holding her. To Asami, it very much felt like she was trying to hold the pieces of her love together, like if she let up for even a moment that they both would crumble away.
They sat like that for a while. Breathing slowed. Blood dried. Sobs turned to hiccups. Sweet words were whispered. The blatantly peace night that surrounded the two women was a stark contrast to the emotions felt deep within their chests. It was haunting really. An eerily calm silence was all around them, but the thoughts that roared in both minds was anything but.
That intuition. That pull. That gut feeling. That’s what brought Asami here. She knew Korra had been struggling since Zaheer. It was something she felt and heard every night since they had returned home. The screams Korra let out, unable to escape from the terrors even in her sleep, would haunt Asami for the rest of her life. It was not an easily forgettable sound. Tonight, had been so quiet. So very blatantly calm. Now she knew why. She pulled back from Korra to place her forehead against a sweat and blood covered one.
“I’m here. You are so loved. You are needed. I need you. I love you with every fiber of my being, and I’m here. For any and every thing you could ever need or want.”
“I’m tired Asami. I am so very tired. I don’t want to feel like this anymore.”
“I know, honey. I know.” She whispered as she placed a kiss against the place where her forehead previously was. She tucked Korra closer to her chest and let her ear rest over her heart.
She tried to put as much love, reassurance, and hope into the embrace as she could. She wanted to take everything that Korra had been through and give it to herself. Someone so young should not have to bear the burden of a world so quick to relinquish every hellscape it had to offer. Someone so full of life and love should not have to take on the sins of a world so quick to criticize and berate all because of a title. No one saw the girl who had been forced to grow up too quickly because of impatience and greed. It was heartbreaking to watch it all come down on such a person so underserving of everything she has been through. She supposed that’s why their souls called to one another. Longed to be near one another.
It was a little while longer before she felt Korra’s breathing even out. Her legs had long been numb to the cold, hard floor they were sitting on. Nothing really mattered outside of getting to Korra and never letting her go. It was this moment above all others that sealed her fate. She was fated to love the Avatar, and she was truly glad for that fact. She saw Korra as Korra first, not the Avatar. She saw a 17-year-old girl that played fetch with her polar bear dog in the training grounds on Air Temple Island. She saw the blue eyes that lit up every time someone mentioned seaweed noodles. She saw the pure delight of a girl that rolled in the snow in the Sato estate gardens with no sleeves because she missed her home deeply. No one got to see this part of the Avatar, her Korra, but Asami would be damned if she wasn’t going to preserve what little part of that girl that remained after everything.
She finally shifted enough to get feeling back in her legs without waking the beautiful soul in her arms. She picked Korra up bridal style and had to keep herself from crying when Korra whimpered and snuggled as close to Asami’s chest as possible. For someone as strong as Korra, it was easy to forget that she craved affection and peace just like the rest of them. She would deal with the blood when they woke up. You couldn’t get her to separate from Korra. She laid down on the bed with Korra curled into fetal entirely on top of Asami. Both were so thoroughly wrapped up in one another that you couldn’t tell where one began and the other ended. It was honestly the most comfortable either girl had been in a very long time. This… this was the thing that their souls needed. The longing for a mirrored image of their own hurt or pain. There was a certain finality that settled in Asami’s chest. This was it for her. Korra was it for her, and she would do anything to keep her. When she pulled the blanket to cover them both, she made a promise to herself, Korra, and the universe itself.
“I promise to love you through this. I promise to stay with you.” She whispered with a kiss to Korra’s head.
But it’s never really that simple, is it?