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Korra sank back - battered, fatigued, and bruised - into Asami's possessive embrace and exhausted a breath; a heavy breath which held within itself an entire universe. No one would ever see it, but Asami understood. No words would need to be passed between them for that understanding. The existence, the gravity, the depth, simply was..
This time though, it wasn't enough. The battle was over and won. A fleeting peace had settled in around them. But Asami knew that Korra hadn't allowed an end to her own battle. It raged behind her eyes, in the heaviness of her movements, in the pauses between breaths.
Korra sighed thoughtfully and Asami gave her a light squeeze in silent reciprocation, an unspoken offer. After a long moment, Korra finally spoke, "Does it ever scare you?"
Asami opened her eyes slowly, dutifully and unrepentantly preparing herself for the inevitable weight of whatever was about to come. "Does what scare me?"
"Tomorrow?" Korra asked; stated, really, so matter-of-factly and emotionlessly that had Asami not been anchored to her, she may have been shoved entirely off-balance by the force of its neutrality. She was grateful that from her position, Korra could not have seen the expression that ghosted over her face.
"I mean," Korra continued - back in her usual tone - with a pause. A wave of relief washed over Asami and it was only then that she realized that her teeth had been clenched so hard that in the few seconds which passed she had already given herself a headache. "Yesterday I was someone else." There was a tightness to Korra's voice, but the essence of Korra's self was present enough to soothe Asami's worries away. "Yesterday like, you know, proverbial or whatever, not like yesterday a few hours ago." There she was. Asami smiled softly and settled back into her position - back into her own self - and closed her eyes again, listening. "I mean not SO proverbial like 'yesterday I was Aang!' Just like yesterday I was a different Korra..." She could easily visualize Korra's brow flattening and dropping, her eyes widening, and her lips forcing a straight line as she fumbled her way through trying to explain her own explanations. Asami's smile widened a bit and Korra took a steadying breath. "Yesterday, I knew nothing. I WAS nothing. I thought I was everything, but really..." another breath, "I was nothing."
Korra paused again and Asami had to fight herself into staying silent. There was more to this. Korra needed to vent. Asami would know when she was allowed to interject.
"Then, I started to become something. Finally. And the next proverbial day it was all stripped away. Again." Asami could feel Korra's fingertips tracing absent-minded patterns on the back of her hands - a physical manifestation of her insecurity; simultaneously a confirmation of her comfortability in being insecure within Asami's presence. "I changed. It happens every time. And it always changes me..." A slight hitch in Korra's voice, tiny drops of moisture on Asami's hands, a change in pitch which told Asami that Korra had turned her face away. Away from Asami, or away from herself? Perhaps neither were sure. "I don't always come out of it better than I went in." That. There. A new tone, one which Asami had never heard before. She snapped her eyes open, but again remained still.
Korra had removed her hands from Asami's and was now absently kneading her own thighs. Asami watched briefly, her eyes beginning to sting, and felt her own emotions begin to surge. No. Shhh. She's not done yet. She lowered her head a bit and buried her face into the back of Korra's neck, hoping that she timed her own heavy sigh just right to align with Korra's so that it might slide by unnoticed.
"Today, I'm different." Korra's voice was soft now, almost distant, almost hollow. Perhaps as if she were stepping back through lifetimes and watching a thing play out in a way that Asami could never hope to understand. Or, perhaps, she was just being a regular person with regular fears. "What if tomorrow, I become too different? What if the next one actually changes everything that I am?"
Her last word was clipped. In a moment, her muscles relaxed within Asami's grip. She released a slight, punctuating breath and let her chin drop to her chest. She had no more that she wished to say.
Asami lifted her own head, set her jaw, and gently turned Korra so that they could look each other in the eyes. Determined as always, she explored the chasms of cerulean depths. She already knew what she would find there. She had known for years. Had always seen it. Sometimes it consumed her thoughts, threatened to swallow her whole. Life is always changing, but some things always remain.
"Korra." It was meant to be stern, but not forceful. She wasn't sure how it actually came out. She consciously softened her gaze and saw Korra react in kind. A beat, and Asami allowed the edge of her lips to curl into a smirk. "You are a sunrise."
The confusion that washed over Korra's features was so comical that Asami couldn't help but grin and press a firm kiss to her lips. When she pulled back, she allowed Korra some room to sit comfortably and look at her. She took a breath and composed herself. The gears in her head were reeling so quickly that it took a little extra effort to choose a track to follow.
"I used to watch the sunrise with my mother. Sometimes it was the only time she had for me, but she always made the time. And it was always perfect," an extra breath to banish the tidal-wave of emotion which came along with those memories. This was not the time for self-indulgent nostalgia. "We had an original prototype of the first still-photography camera. At one point I had made it my mission to capture the image of a sunrise. I needed to capture the moment. Preserve it and keep it safe. It never worked. A sunrise never looks as amazing on film." She had to pause and chuckle at herself. Sometimes it became easy to forget that at one point she was only innocent and curious and full of wonder, without the added weight of the baggage of life-experience.
Once, she was weightless.
‘How many lifetimes of weight does Korra carry on her shoulders? A thousand? More, probably. Does she even know she's carrying it?’
"Eventually, I realized that sunrises are not moments. They're events. In the blink of an eye, the sun moves, the colors shift, the clouds swirl. They are perpetually changing." She reached up and tucked a lock of dusky brown hair behind Korra's ear, gently dropped her hand to cup Korra's face. "We are not moments, Korra. We are events. You're not the same person you were yesterday. Neither am I. We are continually moving and shifting. We grow and we struggle and we adapt and we grow some more." She felt the smile grace her own lips before she could even consider stopping it. "I'm glad you're not the same. I don't want you to ever stay the same. My Korra is a sunrise: always changing, but beautiful the entire time."
Asami watched in seemingly-slow-motion as that crooked grin she loved so much grew into itself from the conception of a smirk. She watched as familiar bright blue eyes widened and began to shine with an extra shimmer. She processed, with every sense, in even-slower motion, as she was pleasantly assaulted with the sheer force of Korra. She reveled in the warmth of Korra's body, the taste of her lips, the smell of her hair. She immersed herself in the comfort of her presence, the strength of her trust, and the stability of her love. It was only seconds, but they were perfect seconds - precious and rare amongst the turmoil of the world in which they lived. She relished every fleeting instant of it. As she always had. As she always would.
Her favorite event though, was when Korra calmed, closed her eyes, smiled the most contented smile, and released the heaviest of breaths.
And became weightless.