Heads or Tails: Book 1 ~ Arin's Tale

Reality Hurts

Heads or Tails

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Book 1 – Arin's Tale

I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender or Legend of Korra or any of the characters. Only the OC's.

Chapter 8: Reality Hurts

Mako's POV

Time: 191 A.G.

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When we first made our way through these long hallways we walked. It was a reasonable pace, not too slow since there was no hurry, no need to rush, no time limit to beat. But now it seems like the complete opposite as the three of us run back down the stone brick halls heading for the courtyard, the one place the kids like to play the most since it was such an open space. We ran as best we could, even Lin and Tenzin were able to keep up the pace (although who's to say Tenzin wasn't using his tricks of air?). The two elders were determined to make it on time as if it were a race to the finish, the first person to cross the line to the outside world wins.

But the thing is, I don't want to win.

Winning would mean seeing the possible truth. Winning would mean that everything Bolin and the others said was true. Winning would mean that our entire world was about to change, just like it did thirteen years ago when we were saying our goodbyes to Korra, only this time, our dear friend won't be here to join us.

Although I've ran plenty of times during my time in the police force, weekly trainings with the recruits and fellow officers, my breath felt like it was being taken away from me; heavily panting, heavy exhales matching my racing heart, matching my repeating thoughts. It can't. It can't be. It can't be true.

We kept running. We ran like our lives depended on it, only ours didn't, but Korra's fate did. We kept running, even when we saw the sunlight at the end of the hallway, and we didn't stop until we slammed into the stone sandy-white railing, hunched over as we look around, our eyes landing on what we dreaded the most.

In the courtyard by the wall fountains was Hana and Kya, Tenzin's seventy-five-year-old sister, a master waterbender and Hana's teacher, guiding Arin through the same steps of waterbending.

There was so many things that were different about the girl, my little niece. For starters, she was wearing water tribe clothes, clothes she most likely borrowed from Hana for the feel of their culture. Dark blue pants with brown boots, a light blue short-sleeve decorated with dark blue waves going from her waist up to her shoulder, the light blue matching her eyes. If it weren't for her earthbending background, you would almost think she originated from the tribe; perhaps she did somewhere down her line of unknown ancestry. But what was even more different and concluded to believing she could be from the water tribe, was the trail of water she was slowly guiding through the air, with Kya and Hana on each side of her with their own perfect trails of water to follow at a slightly faster pace, the young girl trying to repeat the moves. It wasn't perfect, the water wobbled through the trail, the trainee struggling and getting frustrated when a few drops escape her focus, but she was waterbending nonetheless. Arin was waterbending. She really was waterbending. Having witnessed her earthbend plenty of times, this solid evidence only proves everyone's theory correct: Arin is the avatar and Korra ... she really was gone.

Our stunned disbelief of silence was disrupted when the rest of the group arrives next to us, having walked unlike us: Su, Bataar, Rohan, Opal, and Bolin. Though the sadness and defeat remain on their features, there was something else there. Acceptance.