Chapter Text
"Are you sure you don't mind?" asked Korra before they stepped through the portal. "We could just keep walking. I mean, there's so much I haven't shown you yet and we were going to go for another week and..." She trailed off, unsure of how to continue, as Asami smiled at her.
"It's fine Korra. I know Jinora said it wasn't urgent, but she wouldn't have contacted you in the first place if it wasn't more important than she tried to let on. Neither of us will be able to relax until you speak to Tenzin and get the details on what's happening. Besides, this way we can check in with everybody else and catch up on the news. I'm just surprised you don't want to go to the South Pole instead." Asami nodded across the valley to the other Spirit Portal, which would have lead back to Korra's home in the south instead of to the Northern Water Tribe.
"I thought about it, but it's only been a week and my mom and dad probably aren't back yet. They were going to stay in Republic City for a few days, and it almost wouldn't be like home without them there. Just an empty house and...oh, I'm so sorry." Korra broke off suddenly when she realized that she would be reminding Asami again of the loss of her own family, but to her surprise Asami smiled and waved it off.
"You never need to apologize, Korra, not for your family. I love your parents, and I understand completely. Now let's go, the sooner we reach a radio station and find out what has Tenzin so worried in the Fire Nation, the sooner we can come back."
At that, Asami grabbed Korra's hand and walked her into the Spirit Portal. Korra, for her part, had nothing else to say once Asami took hold of her hand. It had been only a week since the two of them stepped into the Republic City portal for their vacation in the Spirit World, and the very tentative first steps into their own relationship, and the magic that came from simply holding Asami's hand had not left Korra's heart yet. Smiling, she stepped up behind Asami as the light of the Spirit Portal overwhelmed them both.
Unfortunately, the smile was knocked off her face as she was hit by wall of arctic air colder than anything she had experienced.
"What's going on?" Asami asked, looking around and already shivering under the blistering temperature. "I though the spiritual energy kept the area around the portal warm."
"It does," said Korra, "and it shouldn't be this cold, anyway." She was starting to shiver herself, even though she had begun firebending almost as soon as the cold hit her. "It never gets this cold at the South Pole except the middle of winter." When another gust of air hit them, she added "If it even gets this cold at all."
Korra and Asami quickly took off their packs and began to pull out the additional warm clothing they had packed, but there was not much of it. They had started their vacation from the much warmer climate of Republic City and had not planned to come to the North Pole at all, packing what minimal warm clothing they had as a token gesture and from Water Tribe tradition. They were already wearing much of it in the expectation of the cool air of the area around the portal, and had planned on getting proper gear from the Northern Water Tribe soldiers that would have been nearby before they ventured out into the cold wastes. Now they rushed to add what additional layers they could as Korra used her firebending and waterbending to stave off the worst.
"Where are the soldiers?" Korra asked as she looked around. "They should be here to watch over the portal."
"I have a better question. Where's the portal?" Asami's voice was flat, like she was trying to keep any emotion at all from coming through, but her surprise leaked out regardless. With a gasp Korra turned around and noticed that Asami was correct: The Spirit Portal was gone. There also was no sign of the thawed forest which should have surrounded the portal, nor any evidence that it had ever been there at all. The two of them were alone on a waste of ice and snow that stretched uninterrupted to all horizons.
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"First problem on the ice is cold, everything else comes after. You can go without food or water for days, and the odds of an animal attack are tiny, but the cold can get you in hours or even minutes. So, you deal with the cold first."
Asami could tell that Korra was not talking to her exactly, but was running through the survival training she had gone through in her youth. She was speaking almost in a monotone, reciting the lessons that had been drilled into her by her parents first and then the Order of the White Lotus as they trained her to survive the vast tundra that covered the South Pole. Half was for her own benefit, and half was to keep Asami focused.
"Firebending works in the short term, but you can't keep it up while you sleep or when you're doing other work. So, to beat the cold you need shelter. For shelter, snow insulates, and you'll probably have a lot of it to work with."
Her voice had a brief touch of warmth on the patently obvious end of the last sentence, then resumed its calm recitation.
"If you have time, build up. If you don't have that luxury, dig down. Learn from the animals that are born to the snow, they know how to use it to survive. Polar bear-dogs dig down to hibernate in the snow, take lessons from them."
As she spoke, Korra was walking in a wide circle, pacing out the area she would enclose in the shelter she was going to construct. She had never raised a structure in its entirety all at once before, and she needed it to be flawless. For her own sake, and for Asami's.
"Make sure your walls are strong enough to withstand the wind and the roof is sturdy enough to support any new snowfall. The environment is your enemy here. The cold will kill you if you give it a chance. Do not give it that chance."
Korra stopped and stared at the area she had marked off with her long strides, then burst into a flurry of motion. Long, wide arm movements drew up snow in wide sheets, then coalesced into solidity as she resumed her pacing and began to circle with her arms. The walls thickened at the base and leaned inward, meeting at the center in a dome as perfectly spherical as the human eye could detect. There would normally be a chimney left open at the top, but Korra and Asami had seen no wood with which to make a fire and so Korra had formed a solid surface. A single opening was left on one side for them to enter, after they waited a few moments to make sure it would not collapse under its own weight.
Asami gasped as she saw the shelter rise whole from the ground. She had seen Korra perform much grander and more powerful bending feats before, but nothing as precise. This was not an issure of power, which the Avatar had and to spare, but was an example of her focus and clarity.
"Wow, Korra, it's fantastic."
Korra smiled, although even that was shaky from the cold and her lips had long since turned blue. "Thanks, but we should get inside and warm up as quickly as we can. Then we can try to figure out what's going on."
Moments later they and their packs were inside, huddled together as they dug through their supplies for whatever they had available. Their small cooking stove was set up for its meager heat and they huddled under blankets as Korra kept a small flame going for as long as she could.
After the heat began to sink back into their bones, Asami asked the question that had been on both of their minds. "Do you have any idea what happened?"
"No, and I was hoping you did. I didn't recognize any of the area where we arrived, I don't think we're at the Northern Spirit Portal."
"But if we're not at the Northern Spirit Portal, where are we? The Southern Spirit Portal?"
"No, the portals don't connect like that, you can't go through one and come out the other. Plus, this definitely isn't the South Pole. We should be at the North Pole exactly like we planned. Did you notice anything?"
Asami reflected that a few years ago Korra would have been fuming at the situation, practically enraged at the universe for not working like it was supposed to. That, or she would have been enraged at herself, self-critical over her inability to solve the problem instantly. Now, even though she was clearly confused and worried, she was calm enough to consider and discuss. It made Asami smile at how much she had grown. How much they had both grown.
"I didn't notice anything, but traveling to the Spirit World isn't my area of expertise. You've done it a lot more than I have and have the history with Raava to guide you."
"I know, and I probably should know what's going on, but..." now the frustration did begin to creep into Korra's voice, but even now it was subdued and controlled.
"Don't worry," Asami soothed, "we'll figure it out, no matter what this is. We've got food for days, which should give us time to find somebody, and....and we've got each other." She blushed at that, or would have if she had been warm enough to blush, but she meant it. She reached out and took Korra's hand that wasn't maintaining a ball of flame, holding it tight. "We'll be okay."
Korra looked down at their intertwined fingers and smiled, already reassured. Even though she was the one who actually had the experience dealing with surviving in the cold, and traveling to and from the spirit world, Asami's calmness was helpful nonetheless. She squeezed her hand and the two of them were silent for a while, just thinking and taking in each other's warmth. Despite the sensationalist lessons of the adventure romance novels the White Lotus did not know she had read as a teenager, Korra knew to keep her and Asami's clothes on as another layer of insulation, but she was still warmed by the simple fact of lying together with the woman she....loved? Maybe. Probably. Almost certainly. They were still trying to learn what it all meant, to each other and themselves, but whatever it was, Korra was glad that it was Asami that was with her.
Slowly, the two drifted off to sleep.