Chapter Text
Korra is pretty sure she’s had worse plans. She must have. Well. Okay. Usually plans weren’t so much her thing and maybe that was the root of a lot of her problems, but this time she’d sort of had a plan.
Although, Korra reasoned as she tested the strength of the cuffs trapping her wrists behind her back and keeping her chained to the ground, it is possible she could have thought this one through just a bit more.
In her defense, getting from the tiny manufacturing village that had a fraction of the resources of Republic City all the way to Caldera without being able to tell anyone who she was— That had been hard! Like, really hard. And, so, yeah, maybe when she got to the Fire Nation and the Fire Lord’s palace, famously home to one of the Avatar’s most staunch allies, she thought she had hit the easy part of her plan. But apparently it is a bit difficult to get an audience with the Fire Lord when you can’t say you’re the Avatar and then when you get a bit frustrated about that fact, the Fire Lord’s guards get jabby.
Chi-block jabby to be specific.
The Chi blocking had faded a bit ago and technically, technically, Korra could probably get herself out of these cuffs. She was new to metalbending still, but she didn’t think this would be that tricky. The trickier part would be all of the guards and firebenders in her way, plus the fact that she came here for help, not a fight.
Then the door to her cell began to open and Korra realized there’s more than one way to get an audience with the Fire Lord. And Korra always did have a habit of choosing the hard way.
“Fire Lord Zuko,” she greeted.
She had actually met the Fire Lord on a couple of occasions, of course in her time he was a former Fire Lord and much, much older. This Zuko? This was Fire Lord Zuko at his prime— less than a year out from beating his sister in the Agni Kai that won him the throne on the day the 100 year war ended. She’d seen the portraits, but it was still strange seeing him this young and with his hair so short.
Shit, Korra thought. I’m actually older than him right now. Freaky.
“My guards tell me you were seeking an audience with me,” Zuko asked with his arms crossed and eyes narrowed.
Korra knew the statement wasn’t as simple as it sounded. She maybe hadn’t quite remembered that this Zuko was also in his prime of assassination attempts. So, yeah, she should have thought better about charging up to the palace in the night and refusing to take no for an answer.
“Is there uh… is there anyway we could talk in private?” Korra asked, glancing at the two Kyoshi warriors between Zuko and the cell door. “It’s, um, it’s about the Avatar?” she stammered uncertainly.
Zuko glanced at the short haired Kyoshi warrior to his right. She must have seen something in his gaze and tells him plainly, “Zuko, no—”
“I’ll be fine. Just go.”
“We don’t know if she’s a bender.”
“You said she didn’t bend at the front guards.”
The Kyoshi warrior hesitated. “It sounds like she didn’t fight so much as just… struggle. And not follow commands. She wouldn’t vacate. But all of that could have been a plan to lure you into meeting her alone here.”
Zuko raised an eyebrow. “Where she’s bound and chained? Even if she is a bender, what can she do? Just go, Suki. You too, Ty Lee. This’ll just take a couple of minutes and I can handle myself.”
Wait, Suki and Ty Lee? Korra looked the Kyoshi warriors up and down again. More legends right in front of her and she hadn’t even realized.
“We could Chi Block her again,” Ty Lee offered.
Korra winced and despite herself assured, “I promise that’s not necessary. You gotta trust me. I have no reason to want the Fire Lord dead. I need his help.”
“You said this was about the Avatar,” Zuko said, suspicious.
“That is… also true,” Korra said. “Both. Really, just…”
Zuko nodded for Ty Lee and Suki to leave and the warriors did, but not before Suki gave a warning glare to Korra, who had heard enough stories about the girl to take the warning very seriously. When Zuko turned his attention back to her, for the first time in her life, Korra didn’t have to struggle to imagine the notoriously short tempered banished Prince he’d been only a year prior. “Talk.”
Okay, this part Korra had planned for, even if she hadn’t anticipated being in chains for the conversation. “There’s a mysterious spirit near my hometown. I need the Avatar’s help. I’m sorry that everything got so messy, but that’s why I’m here. I need help with a spirit.”
It was the skeleton of the truth, but nothing she said was a lie.
Zuko’s expression didn’t change. “Why did you ask for me then? Not the Avatar?”
“Well, I didn’t know where to find him. You’re pretty much the only one of his regular companions who’s largely stationary. I was hoping you could help me find him.”
Now Zuko looked confused. “But—”
The door slammed open. “Zuko, you really have to stop confronting assassins—” the new body in the room froze, staring at Korra oddly.
Korra felt her entire body sag in relief. “Aang.”
And again, she had seen the portraits, but tui and la she hadn’t been prepared for how young Aang looked. He couldn’t possibly be older than fourteen, barely older than Jinora, and dressed in his informal air nomad clothes that left one of his arms and shoulders exposed. At his back were Suki and Ty Lee, making the small cell officially quite cramped.
Aang was still staring at her quietly and Zuko was glancing between the two of them, looking a bit thrown. Aang opened his mouth to ask, “Who are—?”
But his words were cut off as his eyes and tattooed began to glow right as Korra felt the Avatar State descend on her as well.
A moment later, Korra was blinking the light out of her eyes and everyone else was staring at her with an entirely new sense of alarm. Zuko, all weak attempts at a proper manner abandoned, shouted at Aang, “What was that?!” before turning his attention to Korra. “Who are you?!”
“She’s me,” Aang answered, looking more perplexed than anything. “I don’t know how, but she’s the… an Avatar.”
“Like… one of your past lives?” Suki asked.
“Actually,” Korra said, “He’s one of mine. I’m the Avatar after him.” And then figuring she might as well drop the pretenses, Korra metalbended the cuffs off of herself and waved, hoping what once would have been an easy feat of bending didn’t make her visibly sweat. “Hi.”
“How did you—?!” Zuko asked as Korra slowly got to standing, watching the Kyoshi warrior drop into fighting stances carefully.
Aang just frowned. “Wait, I can’t metalbend. Why do you get to metalbend?”
“You can metalbend?” Suki asked.
“Yeah, it’s not exactly common, but a lot less rare where I come from. And I did mean what I said earlier, Fire Lord Zuko.” She turned her attention to Aang. “I came across a spirit, which definitely isn’t uncommon in my time. Spirits are a bit more… wild and… available, but I hadn’t seen a spirit like it before and suddenly it was charging me and there was a flash of light and the giant city I had been staring up at was suddenly a tiny little manufacturing village. After that, it wasn’t super hard to realize that I had somehow been thrown into the past and the spirit who did it was nowhere to be found. I didn’t know what to do so… i did what everyone else does. I came to ask the Avatar for help.”
Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is a longer conversation and this room is officially suffocating.”
“Council room’s empty,” Suki quietly suggested, her eyes not leaving Korra.
“We’re just letting her go?” Ty Lee asked.
Zuko was already out of the room as he called out, “If you want to challenge an Avatar, be my guest, but I can tell you from experience they’re difficult to pin down.”
Aang just smiled at that and winked at Korra.
###
Apparently, the council room was really just the old war room, but war room didn’t exactly set the tone Zuko and Aang were going for. So they swapped the name and the table too, replacing it with a giant round one. “So no one’s at the head of the table,” Aang explained.
“Pretty sure you’re at the head of every table you sit at, Aang,” Zuko pointed out. “No matter the shape.”
“Zuko is anti-round table,” Aang stage whispered.
“I am not—” Zuko stopped himself and huffed. “I got the round table, didn’t I? And it’s a good idea even if it is mostly just metaphor. Why are we even talking about this? We literally have an Avatar from the future here. I feel like I’m going insane,” he added as a mutter that seemed mostly for himself.
It was just the three of them now, with Suki and Ty Lee outside at the door after doing a thorough sweep for any spies or assassins. “I’m not usually this paranoid,” Zuko had defended after sending Suki and Ty Lee into the rafters to do checks, though Aang sent her a disagreeing look behind his back. “But I’m pretty sure it would be a bad idea for anyone to know what’s going on.”
Korra had just nodded. “No arguments from me here.”
So now that they were assuredly alone, Korra realized she hadn’t formally introduced herself. “Right. So, my name’s Korra by the way. I’m from the Southern Water Tribe and… that’s probably all I should say about myself, I guess. Probably shouldn’t have even said that. I am sorry about bringing this to you. I tried finding the spirit myself first but—” Korra finished her sentence with a frustrated grunt.
“Have you heard anything like this before?” Zuko asked Aang.
For a brief moment, Aang looked frustrated, but it faded so quickly Korra wasn’t sure she’d seen it at all. “In any real sense? No. Hei Bai was the first spirit I ever encountered and that was less than two years ago. I used to hear weird stories about the spirit world and people being lost in time, but those were just scary things the older monks said to make sure we took our spirit world meditations seriously. And besides, when they said lost in time, I’m mostly pretty sure this isn’t what they meant.”
Zuko looked a bit uncomfortable as he suggested, “The royal library, I know there’s plenty of texts on the spirit world. Maybe not… It’s not an ideal collection, but you might be able to find something there.”
It took Aang’s twitch for Korra to realize what he meant. Oh. Right. This was immediately post imperialistic Fire Nation. The texts he was referring to probably didn’t originate here and the ideal collection of spirit world texts… Well, that would have been with the Air Nomads, right?
But Aang just nods. “Right. We’ll check there first. Um, after our council meeting. It should be done around nine bells?”
Zuko twisted to him. “No way it’s done that soon.”
“It starts at six bells now, remember? They moved it earlier.” Zuko’s expression made it clear he had not remembered, and Aang just smiled reassuringly. “Your staff would have woken you up in time. It would have been fine. Our real problem is, well…” Aang looked at Korra sympathetically. “What about Sokka and Katara?”
Korra had never had a chance to meet Sokka, but Katara had been Korra’s healing master. She had desperately wanted Katara to be her regular water bending master, but the woman had simply said, “I think training one Avatar is enough for a lifetime. Besides, I’m a bit old to be fighting like that these days.”
Of course, that hadn’t stopped Katara from watching over Korra’s waterbending training and occasionally stepping in with corrections or improvements. Korra still remembered when one of her masters had made some comment about Korra being just some little girl and Katara had dismissed the man on the spot. The man had looked ready to fight until Katara simply narrowed her eyes.
A bit old or not, no one wanted to take a chance against Katara.
So, yeah. Katara was her childhood hero.
Meanwhile, Zuko just stared at Aang, confused. “What about Sokka and Katara?”
Aang looked the most uncomfortable he’d been the whole conversation, fiddling with a loose thread in his clothing. “Well, I just mean… Korra’s my future reincarnation.”
Zuko just kept his eyes locked on Aang. “Yes?”
Aang stared back at Zuko until he finally threw up his hands, voice tense as he said, “Do you want to find out which one of us dies first?” Zuko reared back at that and Aang’s face blinked in surprise before softening, looking away with only a one shouldered shrug to lead into his next words. “Avatar math, right? If you learn she’s met you, then you know I die before you. If you learn what year she’s from, you can figure out the exact year I die. I don’t want to know any of that. Do you?”
Zuko shook his head. “This is such a mess.”
“I’m sorry,” Korra felt compelled to tell them. “I—I can leave.”
“No,” Aang said before she could take a step back. “We can help, we just… I think maybe we should limit how many people really know what’s going on.”
Zuko didn’t look convinced. “So you want to lie. To Katara and Sokka?”
“Yeah.” When Zuko just stared at him, Aang straightened up his spine to defend himself. “I can lie! I pretended to be both dead and a Fire Nation citizen for weeks.”
“And this was when you joined a local school, got disciplined on your first day, and threw a secret underground dance party your second? That’s the skill at lying you’re defending?”
Korra hadn’t heard that story. “Wait what?”
“Don’t change the subject!”
“Aang, this was literally your subject. You are a great Avatar and a terrible liar.”
“We don’t even need to lie that much,” Aang pressed. “Korra is someone who needs the Avatar’s help to deal with some spirits. That’s literally my job description. And Toph is at her metalbending academy and isn’t due to come visit until the festival and that’s weeks away and if we don’t have an answer by then we’ll leave for Ba Sing Se and try their library.”
Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose again and paced away from the Avatars, fists clenched tight at his side, looking a lot like he wanted to punch something or set it on fire — and the best part of firebending’s style was that you often got to do both. Either way, Aang watched him unconcerned, like he was used to this rage filled processing from the young Fire Lord.
Finally, the firebender stopped moving, even if his expression was somehow angrier. “Well, Suki and Ty Lee know what's going on. I was going to send some of the Kyoshi warriors to check on Yu Dao for me to—”
“Get an update on the latest reports of protests,” Aang guessed, his expression overly easygoing. “Smart. They’re Earth Kingdom citizens working for the Fire Nation. It’ll show you’re taking it seriously without trying to impose a specific nationality.”
Zuko’s deadpan expression meets Aang’s forcefully positive one and neither crack. “And I wasn’t intending to send Suki herself,” he continues, “but if she goes I can tell her to take her water tribe boyfriend with her and then Sokka’s out of the way too. He’ll want to be back though before—”
“The celebrations, yeah. Toph, too,” Aang finished again, nodding thoughtfully. “Katara knows how delicate these talks and council meetings are. I don’t think we’ll be able to get her to leave.”
Zuko crossed his arms and stared down at Aang pointedly. “Do you—really—think you can lie to Katara?”
Aang’s expression became a bit more stiff, but it didn’t crack. “It’ll be fine. We don’t even… I’ve been really busy lately and I’m not about to get less busy.”
“So your plan is to avoid her?”
“Look, let’s just try to keep this circle small for now and if it gets out…” Aang sighed. “We’ll deal with that then.”
For a moment, Zuko hesitated, then he said, “When she finds out, I’m making it very clear this was your idea.”
Aang pretended to look hurt. “You’re just more scared of her than you are of me.”
“Absolutely,” Zuko agreed easily. “But for the moment it’s… way too late,” he said, dragging a hand down his face. “I’ll talk to Suki about Yu Dao and Sokka and I’ll keep Ty Lee around to listen for any word getting out about our new friend here.”
Both of them suddenly turned to Korra, as if just now remembering her presence and Korra had to keep herself from flinching at the attention. These were her heroes. Not just her heroes, the heroes, the ones who saved the world. And… and Korra was older than both of them. It was weird. Knowing their ages as facts was one thing, but seeing it in person was… disorienting. Impressive. Depressing.
“You’ll need a new identity,” Aang realized. “One that’s not Southern Water Tribe.”
Right. The Southern Waterbending genocide. “That’s fine I can be from the North, then. My dad was actually born there.”
Aang and Zuko share a look, but it’s Aang who spoke up. “That might not work either.”
“What? Why?”
“You’re a fighter,” Zuko pointed out.
Korra crossed her arms. “Yeah? And?”
“And a woman.”
For a brief moment, Korra felt fire start to lick her veins. “Excuse— oh. Right.” And just as suddenly, the fury leaves her, saving her from reaming out Fire Lord Zuko for some very unexpected misogyny when she remembered the old ways of the Northern tribe. Ways that… weren’t so old at the moment.
Aang grimaced. “They allow women to train in combat now, but only for the last year or so. Besides, we have delegates expected to come from the Northern Tribe in the coming weeks. It’s risky.”
“Okay. Sure. Earth Kingdom then,” Korra pivoted. “That’s where I’ve spent a lot of time recently anyway. And you can call me… Lin. I guess,” Korra said, immediately feeling a little weird about stealing the older woman’s name, but it was the first Earth Kingdom name she could think of.
“Are you an earthbender?” Aang asked.
Korra tried to hide her discomfort at the question, pitiful ring fights she should have won flashing in her memory. “What kind of question is that? Of course, I’m an earthbender.”
“No I mean… I saw you metalbend and plus you’re the Avatar. I know you can earthbend. But also—” Aang looked to Zuko for help but didn't find any. He sighed. “It has been explained to me that most Avatars don’t try to learn three elements in one year. And also that most Avatars don’t know who they are until they’re sixteen.”
Oh. “Uh, yeah, I kind of figured out who I was when I played pretend Avatar with all my friends and then almost lit one of them on fire. I’ve mastered the elements already. Well—” Korra considered. “Air is definitely my roughest, but I wouldn’t call me a novice either.”
At the mention of air, Aang’s entire expression slackened. “You’re… you’re an airbender.”
“Yeah, I mean…” With a quick twist of her wrist, fighting against the strain in her body and desperate to hide the evidence in her expression, Korra created a six inch tornado that softly wooshed against Aang’s face, who looked close to tears, looking back and forth between Zuko and Korra. Zuko watched Aang with wide, concerned eyes of his own.
Oh. Oh right, Korra realized, her hand dropping back to her side. The genocide of the Air Nomads, Avatar Aang as the Last Airbender… that was all history to Korra. Sad things she learned about so she could assure it never happened again. But that loss… that wasn’t history. Not to Aang, who, from his perspective, had been with his people just two years ago.
He’d never seen anyone airbend since.
Before Korra could figure out what to say in the landmine of things she was pretty certain she shouldn’t say, Aang just cleared his throat and shook his head. “You’re the Avatar. Of course you can airbend. And of course… Okay, so, Lin the earthbender it is.”
Zuko still watched his friend carefully, but said, “It’s… well past late. Especially with the council meeting tomorrow. We should all get some sleep. Aang, why don’t you take her to your old room?”
Aang’s lip twitched up at that. “Yeah. Okay, Korra, I’ll show you the way.”
Korra hesitated long enough to bow deeply to Zuko, her hands in the Fire Nation traditional placements. “Thank you, Fire Lord Zuko, for your help and hospitality.” When she stood back up, she heard a snort from Aang behind her as Zuko just looked uncomfortable.
“Um. Sure. Right. We’ll, uh, talk more tomorrow.”
Aang’s laughter only increased as he guided her out of the room.
“Did I do something wrong?” Korra asked. Maybe she misremembered traditions or they’d changed in the last half century?
“Oh, no, Zuko just hates people bowing to him like that.”
“But he’s the Fire Lord?”
That only made Aang laugh harder. “Yeah. He is.”