Chapter Text
If we will have the wisdom to survive,
To stand like slow growing trees on a ruined place,
Renewing, enriching it,
If we will make our seasons welcome here,
Asking not too much of earth or heaven,
Then a long time after we are dead
The lives our lives prepare will live here,
Their houses strongly placed upon the valley sides,
Fields and gardens rich in the windows.
The river will run clear as we never know it,
And over it the birdsong like a canopy.
On the levels of the hills will be green meadows,
Stock bells in noon shade
On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down the old forest,
An old forest will stand, its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.
The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.
Families will be singing in the fields.
In their voices they will hear a music risen out of the ground.
They will take nothing out of the ground they will not return,
Whatever the grief at parting,
Memory, native to this valley, will spread over it like a grove,
And memory will grow into legend,
Legend into song, song into sacrament.
The abundance of this place, the songs of its people and its birds,
Will be health and wisdom and indwelling light.
This is no paradisal dream. Its hardship is its possibility.
Wendell Berry
Korra woke up with Asami snuggled up against her back, one pale arm wrapped around her waist. She sighed. Now that their vacation in the Spirit World was almost over, she couldn’t stop thinking about everything that she needed to do when they went back to reality. The aftermath of the war had brought on many challenges for her to deal with, but what weighed heaviest on her mind was what Toph had said to her back at the swamp about the world not needing her one bit. She’d proved Toph wrong. Hadn’t she? The world needed its Avatar. She was gone for three years, and the Earth Kingdom descended into chaos. Aang disappeared for one hundred years, and the Air Nomads got exterminated. But should the world rely so much on the Avatar to maintain balance? After all, the Red Lotus could succeed in their next attempt to end the Avatar cycle. What then?
The thoughts churned in her head, one question leading to another. The ideas started to coalesce, she was getting glimpses of what the grand design would be. Her grand design. It was ambitious, but it had to be. The hard part would be setting things in motion. Beginnings were always difficult. Like mornings.
Asami stirred and pulled Korra closer to her, nuzzling the back of her neck. Korra smiled. Waking up with Asami next to her made mornings tolerable. She turned around to kiss Asami. There would be plenty of time for thinking later.
---
A few days later
Zaheer strolled through the Spirit World. Thankfully, things seemed to have eased back to normal, or what passed for normal in these parts. When he had last manifested here, the spirits had been practically oozing glee and vivacity. Even the landscape had seemed to exude a sense of euphoria. The rivers sparkled a little brighter as they flowed, flowers bloomed, their colours almost painfully vivid, and bird-like spirits had appeared, piping their sweet melody. That last had done it for Zaheer. He could put up with the bright cheerfulness of the surroundings, even it was not (for him) conducive to a calm, contemplative state of mind. However, when the demon avians started up their cacophony, he'd pulled his consciousness back into his body so fast that he actually jerked the chains. Music had not been one of his earthly tethers. He'd spent the next two weeks studying the walls of his cell and thinking.
He frowned. Someone was walking towards him. Someone human.
"Greetings, Zaheer."
"Hello. Do I know you?"
"You should. I've been waiting almost my whole life to meet you."
Zaheer studied the figure in front of him.
"You have your mother's eyes."
"So I've been told. My face takes after yours, though, don't you think?"