(no subject)
Title: Towards the Sea
Recipient: rosemusek
Rating: PG?
Characters/Pairings: Ikki, Jinora, some talk of Avatar Yangchen
Summary: Ikki and Jinora steal away to tell stories on the beach
The moon was high in the sky by the time Ikki managed to escape the ever-watchful eye of the White Lotus sentries posted outside the main temple and the Air Acolytes scattered about within. She kept to the shadows, picking her way across the practice stages and over the smooth cobblestone paths in the dark. She glided on the night breeze down the first tier of creaky wooden steps to the mediation pavilion and curled into the corner of the railing. All over the island, nighttime quiet seemed to gather like dust in the nooks and niches. They were dark and forgettable-the perfect spots for hiding.
Early winter was humid and chilly in and around Republic City. The air seemed to saturate Ikki’s clothing despite the wind, which swept at intervals through the pavilion, slow and heavy like the tide. From her hideaway, Ikki could see Asami’s lit window on the bottom floor of the women’s dormitory. Her shadow scraped along the wall every so often, distorted by the angle and the flickering yellow lamplight. At the tower doorway, she could barely make out a shaven headed acolyte pretending to sing passionately into the top of a broomstick. Around the side, another was smoking a long, spindly pipe, trying his best to keep hidden, blowing the smoke up towards the stars and the purplish clouds that collected in huge clumps above their heads. In the distance, the sky bison creaked and groaned in their cave like great ships. Hundreds of feet below her, she could hear waves slapping rhythmically against the bluffs.
Jinora’s bedtime was half an hour after Ikki’s, but she nearly always asked for an extra fifteen minutes to read. It would be a while before the lights were shut off in her room and Jinora managed to wriggle away unnoticed. Sighing, Ikki closed her eyes and grasped the thick wooden bars of the railing that encircled the pavilion. She carefully leaned backwards, her upper body hanging off of the pavilion, took a deep breath, and opened her eyes. The bay stretched out behind her and above her head, as if the sky had turned to water and the water to stars.
This was good. Even without Jinora to keep her company, this was completely, overwhelmingly good.
Her sister may have been the family bookworm, but Ikki had read a few in her day as well-adventures, for the most part. Among her favorites were those stories about extraordinary kids-usually based quite clearly on her grandparents and their friends-who did all sorts of exciting things and never quite settled down. Since early childhood, Ikki had known one thing was truer than most-that air was the element of freedom, and it was the air that filled her bird bones and her heart. She loved the Island and her family; she loved the Acolytes even though they would only let her have one sweetcake; she loved Korra and her friends and the strange little glimpses that she caught of their lives. Only when she read her adventure stories, only when she remembered that she could fly, did she feel like she was missing out on anything. Here, in the dark-past her bedtime! -with the cool, autumn wind off the bay blowing softly through her flyaway hairs, Ikki was freer than she had ever been. It was like something the kids in the stories would have done. It was small, but it was daring and nearly outrageous.
She pulled herself back into the pavilion feeling like a tiny tornado had swept through her chest, emptying out her heart and leaving the place louder than ever. Both of the Acolytes had gone but Asami’s window was still lit. The air suddenly felt colder and damper than it had when she first left the house. Ikki untied the cloth covers from her hair and stuffed them into the breast pocket of her pajama shirt, shaking her head and letting her hair fall about her face. Then, she leaned back out of the pavilion again. There was nothing else to do but wait, and it seemed like ages before she finally heard Jinora’s light footsteps moving towards her.
Ikki sat straight and opened her eyes. As she raked her fingers through her tangled hair and realized that somewhere on the island, someone had turned off an outside light, sending everything even further into darkness.
“Jinora?” Ikki said in a soft half-whisper that earned her a sharp shh! Her sister’s soft voice came from the top of the stairs. Ikki sighed and stretched her back.
“You have to be quiet or we’ll be found out!” Jinora whispered urgently once she came into view. Ikki giggled at that-it was just a moment too late for the statement to carry much drama, no matter how her sister tried-and began to push herself to her feet. Jinora caught her arm tightly and pulled her the rest of the way up. “Follow me. There’s a better place and I need to get the lantern.”
It was almost certainly too dark to see, but Ikki nodded sternly in agreement. She took off after Jinora in a stumbling half-run, trying and failing to avoid the creaking parts of the pavilion walkway and the perpetually slippery patches on the stairs. Ahead of her, Jinora took giant, breezy steps, air blowing through the folds of her housecoat and beneath the bottoms of her sock feet, and Ikki followed suit. She caught the breeze beneath her arms, propelling herself ever higher, leaping weightlessly and quietly between the buildings and towards the path that led down to the beach. Here, they calmed to a walk, but the cold and the sudden burst of excitement had left Ikki breathless, and with every step she had to work to keep her feet planted on the cool ground.
As they walked, the lights from the dormitories faded to a soft glow behind them. Across the bay, Republic City sparkled gold and red, like the glistening innards of some great, complex machine. Even from far off, Ikki could feel the energy of the city, the heat cutting gently though the breeze off the water. From there, the temple’s ferry was visible, anchored to the edge of the dock, rusty red sails turning slightly as they caught the wind, brightening as they picked up the light. Jinora rifled momentarily through the bushes in the bend of the path, finally and with some effort pulling out an unwieldy silver lantern, which she proceeded to thrust wordlessly into Ikki’s unprepared hands. Ikki fumbled with the cold, metal handle. The lantern was even heavier than it looked and she twisted her elbows and sagged under its weight. Beside her, Jinora put her hand to her brow and peered down towards the dock through narrowed eyes.
“It’s clear.”
Ikki smiled broadly at this, squeaking a small “Yes!” and punctuating with a small shake of the lantern, though not quite loosening her iron grip on the handle. Jinora turned back to her with a knowing smile before she set off again. Ikki was so excited, she hardly even cared that her sister had abandoned her halfway up the path with the lantern.
Down on the beach, the air felt lighter for the open space and the warm, golden light from the city, still streaming over the water. Ikki hung back, traveling slowly as Jinora dashed across the shore, so light-footed that she left no marks behind. Ikki dragged her bare feet through the sand in wide semi-circles. The wind was fiercer here-biting, salty, and specked with sand particles and tiny droplets of water.
“Hurry up!” Jinora called, eager rather than impatient. She stood balanced on the highest peak of a small rock formation on the far end of the beach, right where the thin strip of shore curved sharply to border the inlet on the eastern corner of the island. Bathed in dull light from the moon and the city, Jinora looked to Ikki like a one of the spirits from the stories they had read together, washed out and small, but ready to distribute knowledge and visions of the future in cryptic, bite-sized doses whenever the hero or heroine was in need. “I need the lantern!”
“I’m coming!” Ikki shouted back. She remembered her excitement like a bolt of lighting, though she continued with her drawn-out walk, swinging the lantern and letting the weight drag her forward little by little. Then, she added, “And I have the lantern!” A swing. “Right here!”
Jinora sat down on the rock, waiting and toying with a little box of matches in her hand. When the lantern was finally delivered to the floor of the small well in the rocks and lit with difficulty, the hideout was almost cozy. Ikki jumped inside and dug her wiggling toes deep into the cool, damp sand, working her back into a dent in the rock that seemed engineered specifically for her. Hidden away, it seemed as though the only people in the world were Ikki and her sister. Even the wind could hardly touch them tucked that deeply between the rocks.
“So, you were going to tell me a story tonight, Jinora? What story is it? Is it the story of the General and the moon? Is it the Princess and the Sun? Oh, I love those stories!”
Jinora sighed and stood, leaving the lantern flickering happily at her feet.
“Tonight’s tale,” she began, her voice even and measured, “is one unlike any you have ever heard before.”
“You always say that, but is it always true? I don’t think so. I think that’s talk. Have you ever heard Chief Beifong say that? She said that to dad the other day. That’s talk. It means-“
“Ikki, I know what talk means,” she said quickly.
“Okay, okay,” Ikki bent forward, splaying her finger across the sand. “But a lot of the stories are the same! There’s always somebody saving the world and learning a lesson and then doing it all over again.”
“New stories do that purposefully.” Jinora leaned against the rock and looked up towards the sky. Ikki followed her gaze to the giant, smiling half-moon. “It’s because so many old stories were structured that way. I don’t know why, though. I haven’t learned that yet.”
For a moment, Ikki was at a loss for words. This, however, was a problem quickly remedied.
“But this story isn’t like that! This story is ‘unlike any I’ve heard before’!”
Jinora grinned. “Just a little. I read it yesterday in a book of stories about the past Avatars-the past Avatars from a long time ago, not Grandpa Aang.”
“Plus, it’s different because we’re outside now. And it’s nighttime.” Ikki added, suddenly smiling again, as if saying it out loud made the whole thing more real.
“This is a very appropriate venue for the tale I shall bring you tonight.” There was a pause as Jinora stretched her arms over her head in a dramatic pose and squeezed her eyes shut. Then, she opened one to send a pointed look towards her younger sister. “May I begin?”
“Certainly!” Ikki chirped, smacking her hands together a few times to brush away the sand. In the distance, a wave cracked against the shore, and the sudden sound was enough to startle both girls, but neither said a word.
“This I once heard,” began Jinora as she did with most stories, “that long ago, when Avatar Yangchen was still a young girl, she traveled to the Northern Water Tribe to learn waterbending from the masters. The Avatar, already a skilled airbender, was a promising student-patient, hardworking. During her studies, she befriended another student, a young woman named Senna.”
“That’s Korra’s mom’s name.” Ikki chimed in. Jinora nodded.
“Senna was training to be a healer under a different master, for at the time, women in the north were only permitted to learn healing-“
“But-“
“Yes?” Jinora dropped her pose, placing her hands on her hips.
“Avatar Yangchen was a girl. Did she learn healing, too?”
“She learned everything, I suppose. They must have made an exception for the Avatar.”
“Okay.” Ikki dug her feet deeper into the sand, then, looking up to Jinora, she added. “I’m sorry. Keep going.”
Jinora was a performer on nights like this, but Ikki was the only person who ever got to witness. The stories were alive in her voice and her body, delivered reverently and with obvious awe. She cleared her throat, probably for emphasis, and after a moment’s thought, shrugged off her housecoat, letting it fall in a limp crescent on the flat, sandy ground. Beneath, she wore a long, yellow nightgown that looked almost gray in the lantern’s light.
“Over the days that they spent together, Yangchen and Senna grew very close-almost inseparable-until one fateful night, not unlike this night. It was a cold, early winter evening when they broke away from the town, as young people are wont to do, and took a boat out onto the water. There, they watched the moon and the stars for hours and hours, ignoring the signs that a fierce storm was approaching quickly from the east. Soon, their boat began to rock back and forth-“ Jinora tilted and waved her arms in the undulating motions of the sea, “-and the clouds began to roll over them with a sound like a hundred stampeding ostrich-horses.”
To augment the story, Ikki attempted to make a sound like a hundred stampeding ostrich-horses, giggling madly in between smacks of her hands on the ground and the low rumbling she generated unevenly from her throat. Jinora did not seem to mind.
“Only then, when the icy, slushy rain began to fall on their heads, did Yangchen and Senna pay notice to the storm. Yangchen tried to waterbend them back to safety, but her skills, though great, were underdeveloped. Yangchen then tried to airbend them back to safety, but it was no use-the storm was too great a force. As they struggled, a great wave overtook their small boat, nearly overturning them, and swept Senna into the ocean.
“When Yangchen recovered her senses and saw what had happened, she allowed the Avatar Spirit to overcome her, setting her eyes and airbending tattoos all aglow. She bent the storm around her effortlessly, scattering it in parts to the south, to the east, and to the west. She took to the water, searching for her lost friend, but the waves had already pulled her to the bottom of the ocean-a depth too far for even the young Avatar to travel. Finally, Yangchen was forced to give up her search.”
“Bummer,” Ikki sighed, plucking an insect from the rock behind her and setting it on her knee.
“For years, Senna drifted in the freezing, arctic sea,” continued Jinora, leaning over and stepping towards the lantern, casting her now-twisted face in eerie shadows. “Her fingers and toes became frostbitten and broke off, turning into tiger seals and arctic hippos. At the bottom of the ocean, she grew a tail like a fish and began to commune with the spirits that occasionally visited from the Spirit World. In time, long after her family and nearly all of the people who knew her as a human had died from old age, Senna became a spirit herself-the guardian of the animals in the sea. She was an angry spirit though, a true child of the storm that ripped her from the world. She was a guardian, sure, but she was, in turn, a bringer of storms.
“Eventually, it came to be that the sea storms were making it impossible for the people of the Northern Water Tribe to take their boats to trade and hunt. For a time, life became difficult and the people were hungry. They remembered the drowned girl from the records and the stories that their grandparents had told them, and they sent for the only person they thought could help them, the only person who remembered Senna as she was in life.
“Avatar Yangchen was a hundred years old, but youth and strength still clung to her like a sweet perfume.” (Cool, whispered Ikki, though she had known from her own reading that the Avatar could live for fifty years or five hundred.) “She had mastered the elements in their order and grown into a wise leader, keeping balance in the world and between the worlds. She went to the Spirit Oasis and meditated for many days and many nights at the water’s edge, with Tui and La endlessly circling each other before her. Finally, on the night of the full moon, she deemed it the proper time to enter the Spirit World, and she did.
“For a number of days and nights equal in number to those she spent meditating, the Avatar searched for her lost friend, finally discovering her in the far, frozen reaches of the Spirit World. Here, she lived in an icy cave lake, sending her anger and her loneliness into the mortal world, creating storms and shortages of animals to hunt. When she saw Yangchen, though, her rage calmed to friendliness.
“’It has been a long time,’” Jinora leaned against the rocks and put on her best sea-spirit voice for the role of Senna.
“’It has indeed, old friend.’” Her Yangchen was calm and collected, with a voice only a bit lower than Jinora’s own.
“’Did you forget about me?’ asked Senna of the Avatar, ‘It’s been so long. I’ve missed you terribly.’
“Avatar Yangchen was kind and truthful to Senna, telling her of her many responsibilities in the mortal world, and how she had little time for personal friendships-for she was like a caretaker, and the love she shared with the world was more than enough to sustain her. ‘I’ve missed you, as well, though,’ the Avatar finally confessed. ‘What can I do to help you calm the seas?’”
There was a note of sadness in Jinora’s strong Yangchen voice. For but a second, Ikki imagined her sister was talking to her-having gone on a journey like the children in the stories, having come back changed, with new skills and new fears and new thoughts in her head. I’ve missed you, she would say to Jinora, and Jinora would say those same magic words back. Then, of course, they would go off again-together, this time-free as Ikki’s flyaway hair over the edge of the meditation pavilion.
“Senna, who had been lonely for so long,” Jinora continued, “and who no longer had any fingers,” (Ikki struggled to contain a smile at the bluntness of that statement) “asked only that Avatar Yangchen comb her long, brown hair, which she had been unable to do herself for a hundred years. Yangchen happily obliged, and in return, Senna calmed the sea and returned the animals for hunting.”
At that, Jinora sat down heavily on the sandy ground and pulled her housecoat over her shoulders. Ikki frowned, then knelt over the lantern, bringing her face very close to her sister’s. Something was wrong.
“Was that the whole story?” she inquired, aiming a finger at Jinora’s chest.
“That’s all that was in the book. Did you like it?”
Ikki settled down, falling back onto her heels. She wrapped her bathrobe more tightly around herself and then stroked her chin with her thumb and her index finger. “I think so, but it felt like it wasn’t finished. Are you sure there’s not more? Don’t try to not tell me scary things, because I can handle anything you throw at me!”
“I’m not!” Jinora said with a slight smile. ‘That’s all there is in the story. It’s a story about how sea animals were created. It’s probably not completely factual, but I thought it was interesting and kind of sweet. Certainly a departure from our usual fare.”
“I think it needs a better ending.” Ikki decided with a yawn, leaning into her rock niche and stretching her legs out in front of her. It felt like hours since she had last been standing, but suddenly, she was sleepy, and wouldn’t have gotten up to stretch if her life depended on it. “I think they should have left the Spirit World together and gone on a treasure hunt for Senna’s lost fingers-or the exact animals that they turned into. But I liked the way you told the story. I liked their voices. Yangchen sounded a lot like you, but not just because you were doing her voice.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Jinora stretched out against her side of the well. “You know, I was afraid you weren’t excited for this. You seemed oddly subdued on the walk down. Are you afraid of something?”
Ikki shook her head. In their hideout, as on their Island-protected by their father, the White Lotus, and their own powers-they were safe from most things. Though the conflict in the city spilled over in the form of Korra and her friends, their father and the politics he brought home with him, it seemed far removed. And even then, every bone in Ikki’s body seemed to cry out for adventure. She was sure she could fight off anything that came her way.
“No. I was just thinking.”
Jinora nodded, and Ikki slid down the rocks, laying head-to-feet with her sister on the cool, sandy ground. She could feel the grains grinding into her loose hair and the salty moisture settling on her skin. She didn’t care. Ikki was tired and the night was deep. She couldn’t sleep too long, or their parents would blow a gasket, but Jinora was there and Jinora would wake her up before the morning bells rang and the sun rose. Jinora would put the lantern out. Jinora would be there at the end of her nap and on her adventures all the same.
* * * * *
Ikki woke that morning, disoriented on the clammy beach. Her sister was still lying asleep beside her, the extinguished lantern between their damp bodies. The sky as seen through the low rocks that surrounded them was shaped like an almond, dense with creamy gray clouds like those that gather in the time between the light rainfall and the downpour. Her neck hurt just a little, and her hair was matted to the side of her face.
Slowly, carefully, Ikki leapt out of the well, perching on top of the jagged rocks. The first thing she noticed was how calm the city seemed at the hour that was best described as hilariously early. The whole place seemed as dark as the pro-bending stadium had been in recent weeks, though not nearly as dead. Quiet was the best word; so quiet was the word she chose.
There was a fog over the bay, nearly the same color as the sky, but much thinner than the clouds. She turned to get her sister. It was time to go home.
Recipient: rosemusek
Rating: PG?
Characters/Pairings: Ikki, Jinora, some talk of Avatar Yangchen
Summary: Ikki and Jinora steal away to tell stories on the beach
The moon was high in the sky by the time Ikki managed to escape the ever-watchful eye of the White Lotus sentries posted outside the main temple and the Air Acolytes scattered about within. She kept to the shadows, picking her way across the practice stages and over the smooth cobblestone paths in the dark. She glided on the night breeze down the first tier of creaky wooden steps to the mediation pavilion and curled into the corner of the railing. All over the island, nighttime quiet seemed to gather like dust in the nooks and niches. They were dark and forgettable-the perfect spots for hiding.
Early winter was humid and chilly in and around Republic City. The air seemed to saturate Ikki’s clothing despite the wind, which swept at intervals through the pavilion, slow and heavy like the tide. From her hideaway, Ikki could see Asami’s lit window on the bottom floor of the women’s dormitory. Her shadow scraped along the wall every so often, distorted by the angle and the flickering yellow lamplight. At the tower doorway, she could barely make out a shaven headed acolyte pretending to sing passionately into the top of a broomstick. Around the side, another was smoking a long, spindly pipe, trying his best to keep hidden, blowing the smoke up towards the stars and the purplish clouds that collected in huge clumps above their heads. In the distance, the sky bison creaked and groaned in their cave like great ships. Hundreds of feet below her, she could hear waves slapping rhythmically against the bluffs.
Jinora’s bedtime was half an hour after Ikki’s, but she nearly always asked for an extra fifteen minutes to read. It would be a while before the lights were shut off in her room and Jinora managed to wriggle away unnoticed. Sighing, Ikki closed her eyes and grasped the thick wooden bars of the railing that encircled the pavilion. She carefully leaned backwards, her upper body hanging off of the pavilion, took a deep breath, and opened her eyes. The bay stretched out behind her and above her head, as if the sky had turned to water and the water to stars.
This was good. Even without Jinora to keep her company, this was completely, overwhelmingly good.
Her sister may have been the family bookworm, but Ikki had read a few in her day as well-adventures, for the most part. Among her favorites were those stories about extraordinary kids-usually based quite clearly on her grandparents and their friends-who did all sorts of exciting things and never quite settled down. Since early childhood, Ikki had known one thing was truer than most-that air was the element of freedom, and it was the air that filled her bird bones and her heart. She loved the Island and her family; she loved the Acolytes even though they would only let her have one sweetcake; she loved Korra and her friends and the strange little glimpses that she caught of their lives. Only when she read her adventure stories, only when she remembered that she could fly, did she feel like she was missing out on anything. Here, in the dark-past her bedtime! -with the cool, autumn wind off the bay blowing softly through her flyaway hairs, Ikki was freer than she had ever been. It was like something the kids in the stories would have done. It was small, but it was daring and nearly outrageous.
She pulled herself back into the pavilion feeling like a tiny tornado had swept through her chest, emptying out her heart and leaving the place louder than ever. Both of the Acolytes had gone but Asami’s window was still lit. The air suddenly felt colder and damper than it had when she first left the house. Ikki untied the cloth covers from her hair and stuffed them into the breast pocket of her pajama shirt, shaking her head and letting her hair fall about her face. Then, she leaned back out of the pavilion again. There was nothing else to do but wait, and it seemed like ages before she finally heard Jinora’s light footsteps moving towards her.
Ikki sat straight and opened her eyes. As she raked her fingers through her tangled hair and realized that somewhere on the island, someone had turned off an outside light, sending everything even further into darkness.
“Jinora?” Ikki said in a soft half-whisper that earned her a sharp shh! Her sister’s soft voice came from the top of the stairs. Ikki sighed and stretched her back.
“You have to be quiet or we’ll be found out!” Jinora whispered urgently once she came into view. Ikki giggled at that-it was just a moment too late for the statement to carry much drama, no matter how her sister tried-and began to push herself to her feet. Jinora caught her arm tightly and pulled her the rest of the way up. “Follow me. There’s a better place and I need to get the lantern.”
It was almost certainly too dark to see, but Ikki nodded sternly in agreement. She took off after Jinora in a stumbling half-run, trying and failing to avoid the creaking parts of the pavilion walkway and the perpetually slippery patches on the stairs. Ahead of her, Jinora took giant, breezy steps, air blowing through the folds of her housecoat and beneath the bottoms of her sock feet, and Ikki followed suit. She caught the breeze beneath her arms, propelling herself ever higher, leaping weightlessly and quietly between the buildings and towards the path that led down to the beach. Here, they calmed to a walk, but the cold and the sudden burst of excitement had left Ikki breathless, and with every step she had to work to keep her feet planted on the cool ground.
As they walked, the lights from the dormitories faded to a soft glow behind them. Across the bay, Republic City sparkled gold and red, like the glistening innards of some great, complex machine. Even from far off, Ikki could feel the energy of the city, the heat cutting gently though the breeze off the water. From there, the temple’s ferry was visible, anchored to the edge of the dock, rusty red sails turning slightly as they caught the wind, brightening as they picked up the light. Jinora rifled momentarily through the bushes in the bend of the path, finally and with some effort pulling out an unwieldy silver lantern, which she proceeded to thrust wordlessly into Ikki’s unprepared hands. Ikki fumbled with the cold, metal handle. The lantern was even heavier than it looked and she twisted her elbows and sagged under its weight. Beside her, Jinora put her hand to her brow and peered down towards the dock through narrowed eyes.
“It’s clear.”
Ikki smiled broadly at this, squeaking a small “Yes!” and punctuating with a small shake of the lantern, though not quite loosening her iron grip on the handle. Jinora turned back to her with a knowing smile before she set off again. Ikki was so excited, she hardly even cared that her sister had abandoned her halfway up the path with the lantern.
Down on the beach, the air felt lighter for the open space and the warm, golden light from the city, still streaming over the water. Ikki hung back, traveling slowly as Jinora dashed across the shore, so light-footed that she left no marks behind. Ikki dragged her bare feet through the sand in wide semi-circles. The wind was fiercer here-biting, salty, and specked with sand particles and tiny droplets of water.
“Hurry up!” Jinora called, eager rather than impatient. She stood balanced on the highest peak of a small rock formation on the far end of the beach, right where the thin strip of shore curved sharply to border the inlet on the eastern corner of the island. Bathed in dull light from the moon and the city, Jinora looked to Ikki like a one of the spirits from the stories they had read together, washed out and small, but ready to distribute knowledge and visions of the future in cryptic, bite-sized doses whenever the hero or heroine was in need. “I need the lantern!”
“I’m coming!” Ikki shouted back. She remembered her excitement like a bolt of lighting, though she continued with her drawn-out walk, swinging the lantern and letting the weight drag her forward little by little. Then, she added, “And I have the lantern!” A swing. “Right here!”
Jinora sat down on the rock, waiting and toying with a little box of matches in her hand. When the lantern was finally delivered to the floor of the small well in the rocks and lit with difficulty, the hideout was almost cozy. Ikki jumped inside and dug her wiggling toes deep into the cool, damp sand, working her back into a dent in the rock that seemed engineered specifically for her. Hidden away, it seemed as though the only people in the world were Ikki and her sister. Even the wind could hardly touch them tucked that deeply between the rocks.
“So, you were going to tell me a story tonight, Jinora? What story is it? Is it the story of the General and the moon? Is it the Princess and the Sun? Oh, I love those stories!”
Jinora sighed and stood, leaving the lantern flickering happily at her feet.
“Tonight’s tale,” she began, her voice even and measured, “is one unlike any you have ever heard before.”
“You always say that, but is it always true? I don’t think so. I think that’s talk. Have you ever heard Chief Beifong say that? She said that to dad the other day. That’s talk. It means-“
“Ikki, I know what talk means,” she said quickly.
“Okay, okay,” Ikki bent forward, splaying her finger across the sand. “But a lot of the stories are the same! There’s always somebody saving the world and learning a lesson and then doing it all over again.”
“New stories do that purposefully.” Jinora leaned against the rock and looked up towards the sky. Ikki followed her gaze to the giant, smiling half-moon. “It’s because so many old stories were structured that way. I don’t know why, though. I haven’t learned that yet.”
For a moment, Ikki was at a loss for words. This, however, was a problem quickly remedied.
“But this story isn’t like that! This story is ‘unlike any I’ve heard before’!”
Jinora grinned. “Just a little. I read it yesterday in a book of stories about the past Avatars-the past Avatars from a long time ago, not Grandpa Aang.”
“Plus, it’s different because we’re outside now. And it’s nighttime.” Ikki added, suddenly smiling again, as if saying it out loud made the whole thing more real.
“This is a very appropriate venue for the tale I shall bring you tonight.” There was a pause as Jinora stretched her arms over her head in a dramatic pose and squeezed her eyes shut. Then, she opened one to send a pointed look towards her younger sister. “May I begin?”
“Certainly!” Ikki chirped, smacking her hands together a few times to brush away the sand. In the distance, a wave cracked against the shore, and the sudden sound was enough to startle both girls, but neither said a word.
“This I once heard,” began Jinora as she did with most stories, “that long ago, when Avatar Yangchen was still a young girl, she traveled to the Northern Water Tribe to learn waterbending from the masters. The Avatar, already a skilled airbender, was a promising student-patient, hardworking. During her studies, she befriended another student, a young woman named Senna.”
“That’s Korra’s mom’s name.” Ikki chimed in. Jinora nodded.
“Senna was training to be a healer under a different master, for at the time, women in the north were only permitted to learn healing-“
“But-“
“Yes?” Jinora dropped her pose, placing her hands on her hips.
“Avatar Yangchen was a girl. Did she learn healing, too?”
“She learned everything, I suppose. They must have made an exception for the Avatar.”
“Okay.” Ikki dug her feet deeper into the sand, then, looking up to Jinora, she added. “I’m sorry. Keep going.”
Jinora was a performer on nights like this, but Ikki was the only person who ever got to witness. The stories were alive in her voice and her body, delivered reverently and with obvious awe. She cleared her throat, probably for emphasis, and after a moment’s thought, shrugged off her housecoat, letting it fall in a limp crescent on the flat, sandy ground. Beneath, she wore a long, yellow nightgown that looked almost gray in the lantern’s light.
“Over the days that they spent together, Yangchen and Senna grew very close-almost inseparable-until one fateful night, not unlike this night. It was a cold, early winter evening when they broke away from the town, as young people are wont to do, and took a boat out onto the water. There, they watched the moon and the stars for hours and hours, ignoring the signs that a fierce storm was approaching quickly from the east. Soon, their boat began to rock back and forth-“ Jinora tilted and waved her arms in the undulating motions of the sea, “-and the clouds began to roll over them with a sound like a hundred stampeding ostrich-horses.”
To augment the story, Ikki attempted to make a sound like a hundred stampeding ostrich-horses, giggling madly in between smacks of her hands on the ground and the low rumbling she generated unevenly from her throat. Jinora did not seem to mind.
“Only then, when the icy, slushy rain began to fall on their heads, did Yangchen and Senna pay notice to the storm. Yangchen tried to waterbend them back to safety, but her skills, though great, were underdeveloped. Yangchen then tried to airbend them back to safety, but it was no use-the storm was too great a force. As they struggled, a great wave overtook their small boat, nearly overturning them, and swept Senna into the ocean.
“When Yangchen recovered her senses and saw what had happened, she allowed the Avatar Spirit to overcome her, setting her eyes and airbending tattoos all aglow. She bent the storm around her effortlessly, scattering it in parts to the south, to the east, and to the west. She took to the water, searching for her lost friend, but the waves had already pulled her to the bottom of the ocean-a depth too far for even the young Avatar to travel. Finally, Yangchen was forced to give up her search.”
“Bummer,” Ikki sighed, plucking an insect from the rock behind her and setting it on her knee.
“For years, Senna drifted in the freezing, arctic sea,” continued Jinora, leaning over and stepping towards the lantern, casting her now-twisted face in eerie shadows. “Her fingers and toes became frostbitten and broke off, turning into tiger seals and arctic hippos. At the bottom of the ocean, she grew a tail like a fish and began to commune with the spirits that occasionally visited from the Spirit World. In time, long after her family and nearly all of the people who knew her as a human had died from old age, Senna became a spirit herself-the guardian of the animals in the sea. She was an angry spirit though, a true child of the storm that ripped her from the world. She was a guardian, sure, but she was, in turn, a bringer of storms.
“Eventually, it came to be that the sea storms were making it impossible for the people of the Northern Water Tribe to take their boats to trade and hunt. For a time, life became difficult and the people were hungry. They remembered the drowned girl from the records and the stories that their grandparents had told them, and they sent for the only person they thought could help them, the only person who remembered Senna as she was in life.
“Avatar Yangchen was a hundred years old, but youth and strength still clung to her like a sweet perfume.” (Cool, whispered Ikki, though she had known from her own reading that the Avatar could live for fifty years or five hundred.) “She had mastered the elements in their order and grown into a wise leader, keeping balance in the world and between the worlds. She went to the Spirit Oasis and meditated for many days and many nights at the water’s edge, with Tui and La endlessly circling each other before her. Finally, on the night of the full moon, she deemed it the proper time to enter the Spirit World, and she did.
“For a number of days and nights equal in number to those she spent meditating, the Avatar searched for her lost friend, finally discovering her in the far, frozen reaches of the Spirit World. Here, she lived in an icy cave lake, sending her anger and her loneliness into the mortal world, creating storms and shortages of animals to hunt. When she saw Yangchen, though, her rage calmed to friendliness.
“’It has been a long time,’” Jinora leaned against the rocks and put on her best sea-spirit voice for the role of Senna.
“’It has indeed, old friend.’” Her Yangchen was calm and collected, with a voice only a bit lower than Jinora’s own.
“’Did you forget about me?’ asked Senna of the Avatar, ‘It’s been so long. I’ve missed you terribly.’
“Avatar Yangchen was kind and truthful to Senna, telling her of her many responsibilities in the mortal world, and how she had little time for personal friendships-for she was like a caretaker, and the love she shared with the world was more than enough to sustain her. ‘I’ve missed you, as well, though,’ the Avatar finally confessed. ‘What can I do to help you calm the seas?’”
There was a note of sadness in Jinora’s strong Yangchen voice. For but a second, Ikki imagined her sister was talking to her-having gone on a journey like the children in the stories, having come back changed, with new skills and new fears and new thoughts in her head. I’ve missed you, she would say to Jinora, and Jinora would say those same magic words back. Then, of course, they would go off again-together, this time-free as Ikki’s flyaway hair over the edge of the meditation pavilion.
“Senna, who had been lonely for so long,” Jinora continued, “and who no longer had any fingers,” (Ikki struggled to contain a smile at the bluntness of that statement) “asked only that Avatar Yangchen comb her long, brown hair, which she had been unable to do herself for a hundred years. Yangchen happily obliged, and in return, Senna calmed the sea and returned the animals for hunting.”
At that, Jinora sat down heavily on the sandy ground and pulled her housecoat over her shoulders. Ikki frowned, then knelt over the lantern, bringing her face very close to her sister’s. Something was wrong.
“Was that the whole story?” she inquired, aiming a finger at Jinora’s chest.
“That’s all that was in the book. Did you like it?”
Ikki settled down, falling back onto her heels. She wrapped her bathrobe more tightly around herself and then stroked her chin with her thumb and her index finger. “I think so, but it felt like it wasn’t finished. Are you sure there’s not more? Don’t try to not tell me scary things, because I can handle anything you throw at me!”
“I’m not!” Jinora said with a slight smile. ‘That’s all there is in the story. It’s a story about how sea animals were created. It’s probably not completely factual, but I thought it was interesting and kind of sweet. Certainly a departure from our usual fare.”
“I think it needs a better ending.” Ikki decided with a yawn, leaning into her rock niche and stretching her legs out in front of her. It felt like hours since she had last been standing, but suddenly, she was sleepy, and wouldn’t have gotten up to stretch if her life depended on it. “I think they should have left the Spirit World together and gone on a treasure hunt for Senna’s lost fingers-or the exact animals that they turned into. But I liked the way you told the story. I liked their voices. Yangchen sounded a lot like you, but not just because you were doing her voice.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Jinora stretched out against her side of the well. “You know, I was afraid you weren’t excited for this. You seemed oddly subdued on the walk down. Are you afraid of something?”
Ikki shook her head. In their hideout, as on their Island-protected by their father, the White Lotus, and their own powers-they were safe from most things. Though the conflict in the city spilled over in the form of Korra and her friends, their father and the politics he brought home with him, it seemed far removed. And even then, every bone in Ikki’s body seemed to cry out for adventure. She was sure she could fight off anything that came her way.
“No. I was just thinking.”
Jinora nodded, and Ikki slid down the rocks, laying head-to-feet with her sister on the cool, sandy ground. She could feel the grains grinding into her loose hair and the salty moisture settling on her skin. She didn’t care. Ikki was tired and the night was deep. She couldn’t sleep too long, or their parents would blow a gasket, but Jinora was there and Jinora would wake her up before the morning bells rang and the sun rose. Jinora would put the lantern out. Jinora would be there at the end of her nap and on her adventures all the same.
* * * * *
Ikki woke that morning, disoriented on the clammy beach. Her sister was still lying asleep beside her, the extinguished lantern between their damp bodies. The sky as seen through the low rocks that surrounded them was shaped like an almond, dense with creamy gray clouds like those that gather in the time between the light rainfall and the downpour. Her neck hurt just a little, and her hair was matted to the side of her face.
Slowly, carefully, Ikki leapt out of the well, perching on top of the jagged rocks. The first thing she noticed was how calm the city seemed at the hour that was best described as hilariously early. The whole place seemed as dark as the pro-bending stadium had been in recent weeks, though not nearly as dead. Quiet was the best word; so quiet was the word she chose.
There was a fog over the bay, nearly the same color as the sky, but much thinner than the clouds. She turned to get her sister. It was time to go home.