Winding Legacies: A 'The Legend of Korra' Rewrite

Episode 1: A Breath of Fresh Air Part 2

The next morning, Korra left Lemaya to sleep in knowing she probably needed the rest and ventured out into the temple to find someone to drag on her quest to disobey Chief Beifong's exact orders. She would have chosen Mako or Bolin but they'd gone off somewhere and neither of them had a car. But you know who did have a car? Asami. And she was also super helpful.

"Are you ready to catch us an airbender?" Korra bubbled as she practically skipped to Asami's car on the docks.

"You seem more excited about doing what you were told not to than actually finding this guy," Asami laughed, fishing her keys out of her red coat. The coat, in fact, that she received from Zai. She wore it almost everywhere and Korra hadn't said a thing but she was practically itching to ask about it.

"I'm equally excited about both."

"You sure it's just those two things?" Asami teased. She pressed the button on her keys and unlocked the car, moving toward it with routine movements.

Korra, on the other hand, had other plans and snatched the keys from Asami, beating her to the driver's seat. "Today is a good day, Asami, and I think that in honor of that I should be allowed to drive your car."

Previously, Asami was quite thrilled that Korra seemed to be feeling better after the day before, but now? Not so much.

"Do you remember the last time you drove my car?"

Korra shrugged. "I was unsupervised. This time, you'll be here. What could go wrong?" Korra batted her eyelashes at Asami which didn't help her case, but what was Asami going to do? Fight the Avatar for the keys?

Asami groaned and made her way over to the passenger seat, doing all that she could to not clutch onto her seatbelt for dear life as Korra started jerking the car in feverous starts and stops. It wasn't until a car honked for a solid minute at Korra's feeble attempts at driving that Asami grabbed the wheel and said, "How about we start again? And remember, left is the brake, right is the gas."

"Ah, that makes so much more sense." Korra let the angry man pass her with an apologetic wave before lifting her foot off the brake and gently easing onto the gas. The car started to roll much smoother than before, and soon enough she was cruising down the road at a consistent speed, though much too fast for Asami's liking.

"So..." Asami gulped as she tried not to flinch at every sharp turn Korra made, "How's-"

"Whose name is stitched on the inside of your sleeve."

Asami blinked. "What?"

Korra's face flushed instantly. She hadn't meant to interrupt Asami like that but she couldn't help it. "I-you're sleeve. It has something like stitched in it." Korra raised her fingers, almost as if she was about to reach over and touch Asami's sleeves, but she kept her hands on the wheel, worrying that Asami might flail out of the car if Korra partook in any more unsafe driving practices.

"There's stitching in the sleeves?" Asami murmured, mostly to herself. Temporarily paying no mind to Korra—which Korra used to get away with not looking at the road and watching Asami instead which was definitely unsafe driving practice #1—Asami curled down both of her sleeves, looking for the stitching Korra was referring to.

For a moment, she thought Korra must have been mistaken. Surely with the many times she'd worn the coat and held its sleeves to her lips just to remember the faint smell of Zai on its fabric she'd have seen something inside the sleeves.

Lo and behold, Korra was actually right and on the inside of Asami's left sleeve was Zai's name stitched in golden lettering. Asami could already hear the low chuckle on Zai's lips as she said something flirtatious like, "See, now my heart's on your sleeve."