I Am Avatar Korra

Chapter 1: Senna

The school would keep me hidden, at least for a little while. It wasn't a plan I liked but I didn't have much of a choice. I would stay overnight in the grounds to reduce my chances of being recognized in town.

Already, I have spent seven and a half months in Ba Sing Se, three months in the Northern Water Tribe, even two weeks in the empty Western Air Temple. But I never go to Republic City. Fear pulsed in my blood like poison whenever I thought about whose bodies I would find. Asami? Mako? Bolin? Are they okay? Are they alive?

They may have died to give me the chance to escape. I didn't want that kind of blood on my hands. I want to be Korra again, the young woman who set off from the South Pole to find her destiny, not this Korra, the scared woman years beyond her age and running everyday for the rest her life.

My hands were shaking again. I was well acquainted with the symptoms by now. I set down my bag with my meagre possessions on the edge of the red velvet bed and found myself a quiet corner in the dorm room the school had provided. There I sat, rocking back and forth on my heels.

I often worked myself up like this. Ever since the attack, my thoughts always led me in the wrong directions. It was so easy to lose hope. The key was finding calm again. I just had to remember why I was here, why Mako and Bolin risked everything to get here.

Where did I go wrong? And how can I fix it?

Until the attack, I thought it was only possibly to fail the expectations of yourself. But it seemed I failed the whole world somehow, and now they wanted blood and would stop at nothing to spill it. I need to know why.

I need to know why.

My breathing was measured and back to normal and my hands still. I took my time getting to my feet, trying to recover my thought pattern before my ideas spiralled out of control. I was unpacking.

I didn't have much that was my own any more. The only thing that strongly attached me to my identity were my traditional Water Tribe armbands. It was too risky to wear them any more so I stowed them away at the bottom of my knapsack. Anything else just added to my disguise. Who I was, where I was going - those only prevailed in my memory.

No longer was I Lin, a noble earthbender pertaining to the royal guard. No longer was I Kanna, healing master of the North. Now I was Senna, a non-bender returning home. But when I was done here I would move on and take a new persona. I am never Korra, and I can never be Korra again.

My new belongings included books I had picked up while travelling to Shu Jing, several articles of Fire Nation clothing, bundles of food and a couple maps and journals. Personal, yet none were mine. They packed themselves into drawers and shelves, filling the space in the room that tried to trick me into thinking I belonged here.

Silently, I changed from my travelling clothes into the Fire Nation's socially acceptable nightwear. It was thin and uncomfortable compared to the warm and tight furs I had grown accustomed to wearing in the North.

Times change, and so must I.

I settled under the blankets before the moon rose.

***

Nightmares haunted my opening hours and there was no exception for when I was asleep. Blood and bodies dotted my dream landscape like fields of fire lilies that never wilted and never died. I saw the embodiment of regret standing before me and it sent me spiralling into the pits of my own fears.

"Korra! Korra! Korra!"

"No!" I called back. "You can't call me that any more!"

All the voices would blur together and my friends would appear. Mako, Bolin and Asami. Then Tenzin appeared behind them, beside his wife and children as well and Lin and Katara. But they were frozen, locked in place with glass faces. And I would kneel beside them and cry because I couldn't remember their voices.