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Everyone's heard about the girl in the tower. Some say she's a myth, a legend. Some believe she's dead, or cursed, or stuck in an enchanted sleep. Others claim she's imprisoned there, trapped for eternity. Stories differ on whether or not she deserves it.
But whichever version, everyone knows it. Every child's been tucked into bed and had parents whisper “once upon a time...” and heard about a girl, trapped faraway.
Some knights claim they've been there, found the tower, seen the girl or loved her, but their tales are tall. They don't believe the story, not truly; tell it as a legend to gullible pageboys or to make a lady take a second glance their way.
Then there are the few who stick to their tales. A breadcrumb trail of viable accounts, of terrain too difficult to cross, an impenetrable wall of thorns, strange sights in the woods around.
Most people don't believe them. Korra, though? She does. She's always believed in the story, ever since it surfaced. Maybe before. Knows it in a way that feels bone-deep, in a pull, constant and profound, towards something out there, far away.
Because for all they say “once upon a time...”, she remembers when it first spread, gossip like wildfire, making a myth. The tower is modern, the girl still young. If she's there, she could still live. And Korra has always wanted to find her. Learn her story. Set her free, both from captivity and from the designs of the men who seek her, who believe, at best, that if they liberate her, marriage is their reward.
The trouble is, women don't get to go on mythical quests. For all Korra's been sparring since she was old enough to walk, scrapping with village boys and cutting her hair to sneak into tournaments, no one was going to let her go. No one was going to come with her.
So she's grown, and trained, and fought, dark courtyards and bruised knuckles, stolen clothes from local boys and foregone dresses, ridden through fields ignoring side-saddle etiquette and a 'ladylike' trot. And she has tried again and again to find her way to the tower in the forest, thwarted at every turn by her parents, or people from the village, or knights, or the poor quality of her own equipment, because this is an illicit, scrappy solo mission that has always, always failed.
Until now. Until this day, this moment, where she has been turned around by a half-dozen storms and cut by a score of vicious branches and yet somehow, here, there is a clearing, and a wall of thorns stands before her, and beyond them, the turrets of a castle's highest tower.
She tethers her horse and stands still for a moment, staring. The thorns are almost beautiful, gleaming and symmetrical and vicious. She wonders if the few knights who allege to have made it here ever really tried to fight through them, if they bothered, for a story, a story and a tower that looks abandoned.
Korra steps forward, tugs her hood over her hair as the trees part over her head, letting the rain drive down. She's never much minded the weather, but she curses the seventh storm for making this harder, in the moment she's finally won.
She circles the perimeter, studies the wall of thorns for any crack, any weakness, any way through. Like a defiance of nature, it seems to be the same strength all round, thick and dense.
She draws her sword, an old, scarred thing of her father's, passed down by a man who had an open mind when it came to a daughter who wanted nothing more than to be a knight. Less tolerance, perhaps, for her relentless pursuit of a story, but that, even she has to admit, is to be understood.
The blade ricochets off the thorns and almost slices a line across her face, so great was the force of her hit. Looking close at the attempted damage, she finds a dent in the stem, but that's all. It seems impossible. No plant can be that strong.
She tries again, more care in the cut. Again, the stem is only creased.
It's an hour of different cuts, different blades, another five perimeter walks, before she finally gives in and admits she's not getting through this way.
Sheltering under the trees, leaning her back against the warmth of her horse, Korra considers fire. Surely, there is no plant in the world that doesn't shrivel away into ash when burned. It could be days until the rain stops, until the thorns in the clearing are dry enough to catch. But she's waited years for this. She's not about to leave.
She finds the most densely-covered place close to the clearing, and after several failed attempts, manages to start a small fire for herself in the shelter of the trees, though the damp leaves make the flames sputter and threaten to die.
Still, she curls close to the warmth, wraps herself in her cloak, and tries to sleep.
When she wakes, there is a figure in the clearing.
It takes her a while to realise that what she's seeing is real. She's been dreaming again, of towers and trapped girls and faces that fade as she wakes, and for a moment, she's certain she's still sleeping, that the person she glimpses between the trees is nothing but her own imagination.
Only, she's spent a long time believing in things other people think are impossible. So she stands, treads carefully, one hand on her sword, wondering if someone else has stumbled upon the tower, or worse, followed her here.
A grey dawn has washed over the sky, giving her enough light to see by as she walks softly to the edge of the clearing, hides in the shadow of a tree just a couple of metres behind the figure. They're kneeling down, back to her, seemingly studying the edge of the thorn barricade, which, impossibly, appears to have grown even wider overnight. The stranger is wearing red, dark hair falling almost to their waist.
Cautiously, Korra edges forward, trying to get a closer look.
Crack.
A twig snaps sharply under her feet, like every mistake she rolls her eyes at in the stories.
The figure moves faster than anyone she's ever seen. Around in an instant, on her in another, a sharp kick catching her in the side, knocking her to the ground, winded and entirely shocked.
The stranger doesn't give her a chance to recover, taking her sword from her belt and then pinning her to the ground, their knees either side of her hips, their hands taking her wrists and holding them down.
Korra blinks dirt out of her eyes and looks up at her attacker. It's dim, in the dawn and the edge of the trees, but she can see clearly enough. The woman holding her down is young, maybe a little older than she is. Dark hair falling around a pale face, green eyes blazing down at her. Something about her is almost familiar, like a half-remembered song from childhood. Like a dream long forgotten.
“Who are you?” she demands.
Korra is breathless, from the kick and the fall and the weight on top of her, and she's hopelessly wrong-footed, because she wasn't expecting any of this. Not the figure, not the attack, not the fact that this woman is easily the most beautiful person she's ever seen, and that's the strangest thought she's ever had, when said woman is currently pinning her down in the mud of a forest.
“Um,” she manages.
“Did my father send you?” For a moment, the stranger doesn't look angry. Just so terribly sad. Then the fire snaps back into her eyes.
“What?” Korra wheezes, still fighting for air. “I don't know what you're...”
It hits, suddenly: did my father send you?
Send. Send, like this girl isn't just a wanderer. Like she's been... staying here. Like...
“You're her, aren't you?” Korra breathes, hardly able to believe it. “You're the girl from the tower.”
“Who wants to know?”
“Oh. Um. I'm Korra,” Korra says, reflex making her try to hold out her hand for a shake, before she remembers the woman she's greeting is currently pinning that hand to the floor, and a flush burns her cheeks for some reason. “Nice to... meet you?”
Unexpectedly, the woman laughs. “Nice? I've got you pinned to the ground.”
“Yes,” Korra acknowledges, feeling her face burn hotter. “Normally, I'd be more upset about that.”
“And you're not, because...?”
“You're... I've been looking for you,” Korra says, instead of you're beautiful, and you can pin me to the ground any time you'd like. “I've been looking for you for years.”
“Why?” The tower-girl's defences are back up, fear in her eyes.
“Because...” Korra trails off. It's a little hard to speak when she's being sat on, yes, but mainly... she's not sure what to say. Because you're a story I knew was true, even though most people didn't believe it, and I swear there's a totally logical and rational reason for that, namely a gut feeling and several dreams where I think I might have even seen your face, if you can believe it.
(That, she thinks, is the echo of familiarity. It seems impossible, but she could swear she knows this face, and yet she's also certain that they've never met.)
“Because I wanted to,” is all she can think to offer. “Because... I thought you might be in trouble. I don't know. I swear no one sent me. I mean...” A familiar bitterness rises in her throat. “You know no one would send a girl.”
The stranger-who-is-not-a-stranger regards her for a moment, then stands. Korra almost wishes she wouldn't, and wonders what's wrong with her mind today. There's no time to think on it, because Tower Girl extends a hand down to her, and she takes it, lets herself be pulled to her feet.
Without the half-fear, half-who-knows-what that was distracting her when she was being pinned to the ground, she fully registers the mud clinging to her cloak, the damp cold that's sunk through her clothes and into her bones. This isn't going as planned.
“Sorry,” Tower Girl says, unexpectedly. “For...” she gestures to the vaguely Korra-shaped imprint in the dirt. “All of that.” She smiles, and her eyes light up in a way that makes Korra feel winded all over again. “I'm not usually that... violent in my greetings. Or, well. Not naturally, would be more accurate. Circumstances have made it a necessary precaution. But... perhaps not in your case.”
“What circumstances?” Korra asks.
The woman looks at her. “I don't think we're that close yet,” she says, something almost teasing in her tone.
She's still guarded, but more relaxed now, like she believes Korra isn't here to... well. Korra doesn't know what exactly she's been afraid of, but at least now, she seems to believe Korra isn't a part of it.
A thousand questions swim in Korra's head, but first, she realises, with a twinge of embarrassment, there's something very obvious she hasn't asked.
“What's your name?”
Tower Girl studies her for a moment, then smiles again. She's dazzling. Korra needs to lie down. “Hmm. You really don't know me. I'm Lady...” She stops, shakes her head. “No. Not anymore. Just... call me Asami.”
“Asami,” Korra repeats, unable to stop herself smiling back. “Nice to meet you.”
“You said that already.”
“Oh. Right.”
Korra shivers, the cold catching up to her, and Asami hesitates, seeming to think something over.
Then... “So, Korra, the girl no one sent. Do you want to come inside?”
Korra looks from Asami to the wall of thorns, then back again. “How?” she asks blankly, the practicalities of it all suddenly hitting her.
“Let's just say...” Asami grins, starts walking towards the wall with perfect confidence. “The stories love a trapped girl much better than they love a girl who makes the trap.”
“You... made a wall of thorns?”
Asami shakes her head. “It's a little more complex than that. Come inside, and maybe...” She considers Korra once more, and it makes Korra wish she wasn't dressed in storm-soaked clothes and a good layer of mud. “Maybe I'll trust you.”
“Trust me with what?”
That smile again, and Korra thinks wildly that she might follow this girl anywhere. “The true story.”