Chapter Text
Korra’s house was only accessible through a single, unmarked back-road which ran some forty miles north of Fairbanks. Very few people outside of her immediate family had ever driven on it, and ever since the house had become hers and hers alone, it had become her duty also to maintain this road, at least enough that it was consistently driveable. Raava, the off-white Jeep she’d been driving for her entire adult life, was more than capable of handling rough, uneven terrain, so admittedly Korra didn’t make too much of an effort when performing upkeep on her road. A weekly run-through with the snow plow would clear it off enough in the winter months. It was harder to maintain when it was warmer, since any sustained rainfall would quickly turn the whole thing into one long mud-slick. To Korra’s luck, her little slice of Alaska didn’t get very consistent rain. It always seemed to pour at least once or twice a year, but never for long. Consequently, living way out here all alone wasn’t unmanageable, and Korra liked it.
She had no problem with people; she really liked people, in fact. Her day job as a gym instructor in Fairbanks was nothing but dealing with people, and yet her home was entirely devoid of them. It wasn’t that she wanted to live alone, she just did. Once her mother and father got a new place for themselves off further northeast in the Yukon, putting them a lot closer to Korra’s extended family, her childhood home had become her adulthood home, also. The fortyish acres of land around the house came along with it, as did the two cows which had been in her family since she was a kid–Gertrude and Mildred. They weren’t good enough as milk cows to provide any financial incentive justifying their presence, but Korra didn’t really care about that. She loved the two of them like pets, almost as much as her dog Naga. And that was how she lived: out in the middle of nowhere with three quite large animals and a whole lot of nothing else.
The closest habited settlement to her house was a microscopic dot on the map called Oak River, which boasted a population in the double digits and a singular large building which served as just about everything the people could need: schoolhouse, town hall, general store, even a bar in the evenings. It was as good a place as any to socialize, mostly because it was insulated and had working heating. This was where Korra spent a lot of her free time, meeting Bolin there every Wednesday evening. In his opinion, that wasn’t nearly adequate.
“You’ve gotta get out more. You’re not going to meet anybody in this shack.” Bolin had recently begun dating a girl named Opal who was living in Anchorage for college, and this had made him unceasingly determined to play matchmaker for his friend. Korra was plenty happy for him, Bolin seemed very content with his relationship. Still, she couldn’t help but groan at his constant, unwanted advice.
“Bo, how many times do I have to tell you this? I’m not looking for somebody right now, okay? Summer’s around the corner and that means we’ll have more tourists, which means-”
“More temp clients, yeah I know,” Bolin finished. “For the record you’ve told me that at least ten times.”
“That doesn’t make it any less true.”
“So? What’s more work got to do with it? If anything, shouldn’t the summer be your best opportunity to meet somebody? More out-of-state people equals more chances to have that perfect, meet-cute moment you’ve been waiting for.”
Korra snickered, then shook her head. “Between the two of us, it’s pretty clear that you’re the one waiting for it, not me.” She sipped her beer then began to pick at the bottle’s label, and shook her head a second time. “Besides, a summer fling isn’t what I want anyway. I’m not about to go prowling through a college campus looking for some upperclassman to hook up with.”
“Okay one, offensive, and two, haven’t you seen any Hallmark movies? The small-town loves all arise from some big-city guy winding up in the boonies for a while, where he’s charmed by the local culture and a lonely homebody looking for someone to settle down with. Or vice-versa, the dude’s the small-town one in about half of them.”
“Who said it has to be a guy?” Korra asked incredulously. She didn’t have much history dating women (or anyone, really), but she never made any secrets about her sexuality. Perhaps she was such good friends with Bolin because he was so easy-going about that sort of thing. In such a rural place as this, not everyone was.
“Well, Hallmark movies are always heterosexual, but you could easily swap those roles out and it wouldn’t change much. The scripts are all so similar, you could probably just Mad Libs in new names to one of them and make a whole new film out of it. I’m sure they’ve done that before.”
“Since when do you watch so many Hallmark movies?”
“I don’t, actually. Opal’s seen about every one of them, though.”
Korra furrowed her eyebrows at him. “And you don’t watch them with her?”
Scratching the back of his neck, Bolin shrugged and muttered, “Sometimes.”
She could appreciate what he was trying to do, but she would appreciate it more if he wasn’t nearly so persistent. Plus, talking about relationships around Bolin always felt a bit strange. She’d dated his brother once upon a time, and it hadn’t exactly ended very well between them. Mako was off working as an FBI agent in the continental states these days, and she’d barely seen him in half a decade. Though none of that past drama had had anything to do with Bolin, talking to him about dating still dredged up some unsavory memories. Today was no different. Korra sighed. “Look, it’s just not a priority for me. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t plan on dying alone, but in the short-term I have other stuff to worry about.”
To Bolin’s credit, he never pressed much past this point. “Alright, point taken. I’ll surrender for now. But I want you to know that if I happen to meet anybody I think you’d like, I’m going to text you immediately.”
Korra nodded and gave a sarcastic smile. “Thanks so much.” Their regular meeting spot could only be considered a bar because they served discounted beers in the evenings, but it did have a pool table in the far corner. To switch topics, Korra turned and pointed at it. “If I challenge you to a game of pool, will it distract you from this subject?”
“Sure,” Bolin agreed, and got up from his stool.
***
Korra hadn’t even meant to do it, but she’d wound up spending that night curled up on her couch with Naga, watching a Hallmark movie. The protagonist of this one was a businesswoman who worked some vaguely-described job at a marketing firm, and she was made to come back to her small hometown due to a family emergency which was similarly vague. Just as Bolin had described, some local boy she’d never met before just happened to run into her early in the film, and from there they’d had a charming, if clichéd, whirlwind romance. Usually movies this corny would amuse her, but Korra watched the whole thing, beginning to end, and then just sat there for a while silently. Naga looked at her and her eyes almost looked expectant, which didn’t help. Eventually Korra forced herself to get up and get ready for bed by taking a long shower she hoped would clear her head. It didn’t, and that weird feeling in the pit of her stomach persisted until she was asleep.
A typical work day for Korra began at five in the morning. The cows were early risers, and she would not be able to leave for her job until they were properly tended to. So Korra would get up before the sun came out and lace up her boots and trudge out across the field to the barn on her property, one which, generations ago, was home to a whole host of livestock and horses. Nowadays it was the dwelling of just her two cattle, and they sure liked to make a mess of the place. Almost every morning she had to rake up a large quantity of randomly strewn-about hay, and shovel up several cow patties. Then she’d brush them both, and let them loose into the field so they could graze to their heart’s content. In the winter months Korra restricted their movement much more to ensure they didn’t get stuck outside in a storm, and would load up plenty of food for them in a trough in their barn. But the winter was over, and the grass outside was verdant. Gertrude appreciatively rushed out the second Korra unlocked the door, while Mildred remained laying down in the barn, and looked content to stay there for a while.
“Alright, see you girls this afternoon,” Korra told them as she started back towards the house. She was met by Naga halfway, who had come rushing out from the house excitedly. She knew Korra’s schedule as well as Korra did, and now it was her turn to be tended to. Naga was a rather free-spirited Great Pyrenees and tended to wander whenever she was out of the house, but she was also fiercely loyal, and incredibly well-disciplined. Korra could trust her not to run off if she was given free-reign of the property whenever Korra wasn’t home. Thus, Naga was free to roam wherever she pleased, and as such didn’t require nearly as much tending-to as the cows did. Korra would fill up two bowls of water and food, and that would sustain Naga for the duration of the work day. She had a dental chew which Korra would play tug-of-war with her over, then they would go on a short walk around the property before Korra herself prepped to leave for work.
Getting to the gym she worked at from her house took about fifty minutes, assuming her road was in good condition. Whenever it snowed or rained overnight, she’d either be looking at a delay of several hours or an unplanned day off, in which case her co-worker Kuvira (who lived in Fairbanks full-time) would step in to instruct whatever classes Korra had scheduled. Today, the road was in tip-top shape, and Korra got to work exactly when she needed to.
The only people who came to the gym at eight in the morning on weekdays were either athletes from one of the local schools or elderly folks there for an aerobics class, which meant the place was always sparse when Korra got there. She gave a polite wave to the front-desk guy Bryce and headed back to the employees-only area, finding Kuvira had already arrived. Ever-punctual, that one.
“Hey,” Korra said, slinging her duffel-bag off her shoulder and heading for her personal locker.
“Hey,” Kuvira parroted. “When’s your first class today?”
“I’ve got a yoga session at eight-fifteen. You?”
“Exercise bike instruction,” Kuvira said, glancing at her watch, “...in about half an hour.”
“What’re you here for so early then?”
That question seemed to irk Kuvira a bit. She frowned. “I can’t just want to be at work early?”
Korra finished unloading her bag and threw it into the locker before closing it up. “I didn’t mean anything by it,” she said. Kuvira wasn’t the most personable of individuals, but she was typically very civil. Or maybe she just kept her feelings to herself very well. Either way, she didn’t show any outward emotions often.
Fiddling with her hair, which was in a much less tidy bun than normal, Kuvira sighed. “It’s fine, sorry. Just stressed.”
“What’s going on?” Korra sat down on the couch where Kuvira was and looked at her. Her co-worker didn’t look like she wanted to talk about whatever was bothering her, but she also looked acutely bothered by whatever it was.
“I got into an argument with Baatar… something stupid.”
“If it’s bothering you this much, is it really stupid?” Korra hazarded to posit.
Kuvira persisted in messing with her hair. Eventually she huffed angrily and removed the bun entirely so she could knot it all up into a ponytail. “I don’t know. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”
“What was it? If you uhm, if you don’t mind.”
For a second, Kuvira seemed to debate with herself over whether she ought to tell Korra about it. Then she took a deep breath and said, “I was thinking of re-enlisting.”
“With the marines? Really?”
“You sound like he did. I didn’t say I was actually going to do it, but I mean, I sort of miss it. The mission, the structure… a purpose.”
Korra had multiple relatives who had served, her father included, and she had nothing but respect for the armed forces, but she couldn’t really think of a reason why somebody would want to return to that life after they got out of it. Kuvira hadn’t just been one of the recruits who went through basic and then spent the rest of their service time on a base somewhere as a glorified doorman, she’d seen combat. The way Kuvira talked about it, at least in the few times Korra had gotten her to open up, she’d seen death, also, close-up and personal. Why Kuvira would want to go back to that, Korra could not understand. “You’d go back to it all?”
“I can’t tell you one way or the other, and if somebody came and offered it all back to me, I’m not sure what I’d say. I mean, I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t seriously considered it a little bit. It’s not like I’m super content where I’m at now. I never thought I’d be teaching noodle-armed teenagers how to stretch properly for a living.” Kuvira arched an eyebrow. “You know what I mean?”
Korra shrugged.
“Come on, Korra, you can’t tell me you’re totally satisfied with all this, right?”
She was reminded of Bolin, and the conversation she’d had with him just the night before. “I mean… I don’t know, I don’t really think about it. I get up, I tend to the cows and Naga, I come to work and then I work and I go home. That’s just how it is.”
Kuvira’s voice gathered some level of staunch determination. “So? You don’t want some sort of purpose?”
She wasn’t sure where any of this had come from, but Korra couldn’t help but get a tad bit offended by that. “Why does what I have now have to be purposeless? I’m providing a public service. I’m plenty happy where I’m at.”
Her co-worker waved a hand dismissively. “Whatever. I’m just projecting, I guess.” She stared down at her shoes, then rose from the couch. “I’ll stop bitching, you’ve got a class to prep for.”
“Are you sure you’re alright? I can cover for you if you need to go.”
“I’ll be fine. I always think better when I’m busy anyway.” Kuvira stretched and checked her watch again, then left the room. Korra watched as she left, and the same strange feeling in her gut she’d felt the night before returned.