A World Of Grey (Legend of Korra)

Chapter 39

Korra cracked her eyes open, a groan issuing from her throat. Her body was telling her it was too early to part from the comfort of the bed. It urged her to turn over and close her eyes again. But then irritation prickled across her skin and underneath the covers Korra blindly reached up to her chest. Fingers rubbing across her eyelids, she slowly massaged herself, wishing the prickling sensation away. It was annoying and far from welcome.

Appearing to be soothed, Korra quieted a yawn with the back of her hand. She briefly continued worrying her eyes with a knuckle, blinking away the lingering cobwebs of sleep. Then she dropped her arm and looked up towards the wall, smooth and unremarkable.

Korra got around to working on it halfway through the week Mako spent at his brother's apartment, helping the crutch and cast laden Bolin settle in again after finally being discharged from hospital. However, he was typically dismissive of the effort Korra put into fixing the walls upon her enthusiastic unveiling. "About time," Mako told her simply. She made him express his gratitude more thoroughly later that night.

He was at present an unconscious shape curled up behind her, warm and with an arm lazily draped across her waist. The urge to sleep losing its grasp on her, Korra gently extricated herself from Mako and slid out from beneath the covers.

Her eyes were half open as her feet settled on the floor, stretching her hands towards the ceiling. A quiet, strained note left her lips as she lifted herself up onto her toes. Korra lowered her arms with a grimace however, chest prickling again. She carefully massaged the swell of her breast while reaching down, retrieving a plain vest from beside the bed. She slipped it over her head and shrugged into it as she made for the bathroom.

Korra eschewed the light switch as she entered, walking over to the bath. Twisting the cold tap open, she coaxed water towards her with a small gesture and sat down on the edge of the tub. She began with her left arm, enveloping it up to the elbow in a fluid sleeve. The water was cool against her skin. There were no dressings to worry about now.

Two days ago, at her last hospital appointment, the doctor examined her hands and arms with an evident air of confusion. Having suffered second degree burns there, the estimate for her recovery was between 6-8 weeks. Four weeks on from that night at the docks and the burns were nearly fully healed. Her skin was still a little pale, not quite returned to its healthy brown hue, but the worst of the pain was very much a distant memory. There was very little evidence of scarring and the full dexterity of her fingers was quickly returning.

The doctor had never seen such a rate of recovery for the kind of injuries she bore in his entire career. Korra laughed and simply mentioned that she always healed well. She said nothing of the method by which she did so.

Eyes glowed in the darkness of the room, casting sloping shadows on the walls. Korra confidently assessed the condition of her limb, making small manipulations of her energy as and where needed. She discarded the water within a minute and drew another ribbon from the tap, flattening and wrapping it around her right arm before repeating the examination of herself.

Korra had become a student of her own body, studying and growing acutely familiar with it. The process of manipulating her energy was not an automatic one – she always had to be extremely careful and precise, but she was more than adept at it by this point.

It was an idea derived from her encounter with Lieutenant Bao, spurred into action by the agony that kept her awake at night. Katara never had much opportunity to teach Korra how to deal with burns. She was remarkably proficient with firebending by the age of ten and the accidents that did occur were few, far between and minor. Korra had to wait on the specially trained healers as she lay in her hospital bed, driven at times to near tears. Not to mention that to even think about bending seemed to set her limbs on fire.