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Jinora woke up sweating. This time, Zaheer’s onslaught captured her, but they put her in a holding room separate from the rest of the airbenders. Then, when she blew the Red Lotus guard’s shirt up in an attempt to steal the keys, it didn’t work. Instead of walking off angrily, he kicked her repeatedly in the stomach until she was coughing up blood.
This was just one of many nightmares she began to have about the events of Zaheer’s attack on the Northern Air Temple. She had dreams about their luck going south every step of the way. Some dreams where she had to witness Kai dying at the hands of the Red Lotus over and over again. Other dreams where she tried forming the air vortex to suck in Zaheer, but her airbending stopped working and Korra died. However, there was one common theme in these dreams - she wasn’t strong enough to protect her friends and family, and she failed.
Wiping the sweat off her forehead, she gave in and got out of bed. It was the middle of the night, but she didn’t want to go back to sleep just yet - afraid of what dream might come next. She picked up her airbending staff from the corner of her room, deciding it might be a nice time to go for a midnight flight.
Propping open her window, she stuck her staff out the window and jumped. Quickly, she propped her feet up on the back of the staff to keep her legs from hitting the ground and took off into the night sky. The breeze around her felt nice, drying up the rest of the sweat as she circled around Air Temple Island. It was nice to be home again, but that alone wasn’t comforting enough to escape the nightmares. She sighed, closing her glider and landing on the ground next to one of her favorite trees on the island. She sat under the tree, admiring the moon and the lights of Republic City in the distance.
It could have been minutes or hours when she heard footsteps approaching. She stood up, getting into a fighting stance, pointing her staff forward. It was unlikely that there was an intruder on Air Temple Island, but with her dreams still in mind, she would rather be safe than sorry.
“Hey Jinora, it’s just me.” Kai approached with his hands up. He, too, had a staff in one hand.
“Sorry, Kai. I just had a bad dream.” Jinora took her seat next to the tree, pulling her knees against her. Kai sat down next to her, closer enough she could feel the warmth radiating off him.
They sat in silence, enjoying the view of Republic City together.
“So what brings you here in the middle of the night?” Jinora asked, breaking the silence between them.
“Same as you, I guess.” Kai shrugged, ruffling her night shirt due to his close proximity.
“I’ll tell you about mine, if you tell me about yours.” Jinora offered. Kai wasn’t usually one to open up about anything really, almost like he was afraid of showing weakness. However, in these last few months, they had been practically inseparable, and she was hoping she was chipping away at his defenses.
Deciding to be daring, she scooted closer and laid her head on his shoulder slowly, waiting to be rejected, but Kai relaxed into her and sighed.
“I keep having dreams about trying to distract P’Li to let you guys escape, but it doesn’t work and she explodes the pathway and you guys fall off the cliff or she captures me and then you guys and well… Let’s just say it’s not pretty. Tonight you screamed my name, and when I turned around to look at you, P’Li hit you head-on with a blast and I could do nothing to save you.”
Jinora raised her head from Kai’s shoulder and turned to pull him into a hug. “Well, I am here and I am safe.” Kai hugged her back hard, as if to make sure she was real.
“I actually went out flying to look in your room to make sure you were really there. I was surprised to see your window open. Then, I came to this tree figuring you would be here.”
“Seems like neither of us made it out of that unscathed.” Jinora commented sadly, still holding Kai. “My dreams are the same. Tonight, I dreamed that when we got captured by the Red Lotus in that cave, I was singled out and beat up by a guard for being disobedient.”
“But you were amazing in the cave!” Kai protested, pulling back from the hug to look her directly in the eyes. “Ikki’s told me on like twenty different occasions how cool you were when you stole that guard’s keys.”
“You know, I learned that trick from you.” She smiled at him and he smiled back. Even with bed head and eye bags, his smile still made her heart flutter. She felt truly relieved by his comforting words and could only hope she had done a decent job comforting him.
“When you’re an airbending master, do you think you can convince Tenzin to let me teach a class on creative ways to use airbending?” Kai leaned back against the tree and Jinora followed his lead, placing her head back on his shoulder.
“Maybe. Never know when we might need to make use of your creative airbending ways again.”
The breeze kicked up, blowing Jinora’s hair into Kai’s face. She awkwardly laughed as Kai moved her hair back behind her ears for her.
“I am not going to have this much longer.” Jinora commented, and Kai stared at her with a confused look.
“My hair, I mean. I have to shave it off to get my tattoos.”
“Are you nervous about getting your tattoos and having to go bald?” Kai asked curiously.
“For shaving my head, I am honestly excited to be able to honor my culture’s tradition and show off my arrows proudly. But I mean, yeah, I am nervous about the tattoos because it’s something I have been striving to get my whole life. It feels a bit unreal still. I just don’t want to disappoint anyone, and I am afraid of the responsibilities I might gain with them.”
“You’re still a kid and Tenzin is your dad. I am sure they won’t be expecting you to save the world. Just by being you, I am sure you will do a lot of great things.”
Jinora felt her face lighting up. “There’s another airbender who I think has a lot of talent and great leadership skills.”
“Opal?”
“No, I am talking about you! Without you, we couldn’t have even succeeded at the Northern Air Temple attack. You're brave and you're quick on your feet and you have natural talent. I wouldn't be surprised if you were the next person to get their tattoos.”
She turned her head slightly to watch Kai's reaction. His face was dusted pink, and he had one of the cutest smiles she had seen yet on his face.
“Thanks Jinora,” he said sincerely, a smile still glued to his face.
They went back to sitting in silence, watching the lights of the city together. Jinora lowered her head a bit so she could hear Kai's heartbeat. Her eyes closed on their own accord and she told herself she would go back to her room in a minute.
"There they are!"
The noise of people talking woke up Jinora instead of nightmares for once.
She lazily opened her eyes, suddenly realizing she was staring at the city skyline instead of her bedroom. She sat up suddenly looking around and saw Kai still peacefully slumbering next to her and the face of her very unamused dad approaching.
They were going to be in big trouble.