[Fic] Always the Challenge
Finally...a finished fic! I feel better now. (Although now I'm having writer's block when it comes to fiction for school...go figure.)
Title: Always the Challenge
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Korra, Aang
Word Count: 490
Prompt: Written for avatar_500, Prompt #26 - Glow ( original post)
Summary: She hates it too.
Notes: I imagine Korra will have even more of a challenge with the Avatar State than Aang did, given what we know of her personality so far… (My first ever Korra fic - whoo!)
When she was younger, every tantrum, every fight, threatened to bring it on.
It was never a pleasant feeling, and she felt as though a lot of people misunderstood that. They thought she enjoyed it, the way she relished her power and skill as a bender. The way she never let things go, the way she held grudges. The way she never backed down from a fight, verbal or otherwise.
The way mastering firebending had never been a challenge for her, something that shocked everyone, most of all herself. She had grown up being told, assuming, that a natural born waterbender would have to struggle to learn that element so apparently contrary to her and her people’s dispositions. But somehow, it felt just as natural, moving just as fluidly from the palms of her hands, like water created out of her own chi.
Korra was known as the firebender of the Water Tribes. She resented that. That there was that assumed opposition between those elements. Between any of them.
And she resented that people assumed she enjoyed It. That she enjoyed losing control. Because she was so strong, so powerful. But power was not a loss of control, it was a complete and total embracing of it.
Not like It. That glow. That glow that possessed her, that hollowed her out, that replaced her self-identity with an energy that had a mind of its own. That glow that blinded her, that moved her arms in ways she never willed them to, that could make her bending all the more powerful, too powerful. That glow that took the place of her eyes and nearly all of her mind and left her somewhere in the middle of it all, lost and tiny and confused.
She was terrified of it. She hated not having control. She hated being controlled. She hated feeling It reaching deep inside of her body, using her like a puppet, as though she, Korra, didn’t matter, never mattered, was only an instrument.
It made her back down sometimes, just so she didn’t have to feel it. It was a threat held over her head, a horrible punishment.
“It shouldn’t be this way though, should it?” she asks him, near tears with frustration. “It’s supposed to help me, it’s supposed to protect me.”
“Yes.”
“Then why does it have to feel this way?”
“It reminds us that…we can go too far. That we need to be patient.”
“But…it’s not always that way. Kyoshi created an entire island thanks to it.”
“And she could have destroyed just as much. It’s a balancing act. That’s what it teaches us.”
“How long…how long does it take?” Korra looks towards Aang, translucent-blue in the early afternoon sun of the solstice.
“As long as it needs to.”
Korra sighs, long and hard. I’ll be 112 by then, won’t I? she thinks, and although she doesn’t say it to Aang, she can feel him smile.
Title: Always the Challenge
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Korra, Aang
Word Count: 490
Prompt: Written for avatar_500, Prompt #26 - Glow ( original post)
Summary: She hates it too.
Notes: I imagine Korra will have even more of a challenge with the Avatar State than Aang did, given what we know of her personality so far… (My first ever Korra fic - whoo!)
When she was younger, every tantrum, every fight, threatened to bring it on.
It was never a pleasant feeling, and she felt as though a lot of people misunderstood that. They thought she enjoyed it, the way she relished her power and skill as a bender. The way she never let things go, the way she held grudges. The way she never backed down from a fight, verbal or otherwise.
The way mastering firebending had never been a challenge for her, something that shocked everyone, most of all herself. She had grown up being told, assuming, that a natural born waterbender would have to struggle to learn that element so apparently contrary to her and her people’s dispositions. But somehow, it felt just as natural, moving just as fluidly from the palms of her hands, like water created out of her own chi.
Korra was known as the firebender of the Water Tribes. She resented that. That there was that assumed opposition between those elements. Between any of them.
And she resented that people assumed she enjoyed It. That she enjoyed losing control. Because she was so strong, so powerful. But power was not a loss of control, it was a complete and total embracing of it.
Not like It. That glow. That glow that possessed her, that hollowed her out, that replaced her self-identity with an energy that had a mind of its own. That glow that blinded her, that moved her arms in ways she never willed them to, that could make her bending all the more powerful, too powerful. That glow that took the place of her eyes and nearly all of her mind and left her somewhere in the middle of it all, lost and tiny and confused.
She was terrified of it. She hated not having control. She hated being controlled. She hated feeling It reaching deep inside of her body, using her like a puppet, as though she, Korra, didn’t matter, never mattered, was only an instrument.
It made her back down sometimes, just so she didn’t have to feel it. It was a threat held over her head, a horrible punishment.
“It shouldn’t be this way though, should it?” she asks him, near tears with frustration. “It’s supposed to help me, it’s supposed to protect me.”
“Yes.”
“Then why does it have to feel this way?”
“It reminds us that…we can go too far. That we need to be patient.”
“But…it’s not always that way. Kyoshi created an entire island thanks to it.”
“And she could have destroyed just as much. It’s a balancing act. That’s what it teaches us.”
“How long…how long does it take?” Korra looks towards Aang, translucent-blue in the early afternoon sun of the solstice.
“As long as it needs to.”
Korra sighs, long and hard. I’ll be 112 by then, won’t I? she thinks, and although she doesn’t say it to Aang, she can feel him smile.