The wandering knight

Questions

When Asami finished talking, everything fell into place.

No wonder she was trying to keep her distance, no wonder that at the very beginning she said specifically that she couldn't persue this, no wonder she resented her father so much, no wonder she didn't want to go home, it all made so much sense.

When the tan girl thought about it, she could distinctively recall from when she was assigned for the mission some black haired man moping around the castle saying he could save the princess himself. But Hiroshi waved him off saying that a future king shouldn't bother himself with such low level missions. Apperanatly he considered saving his daughter an undignifying task.

At the time, Korra assumed he was a cousin of some sort. Now she knew better.

Everything made so much sense, yet about a million questions flooded Korra's mind, questions that ate her from the inside out, questions that begged to be answered.

How? How did this happen? How come I didn't know? How could your father do that to you? How could you do that to me?

What? What next? What were we to begin with? What will become of us now?

Why? Why did you agree to this? Why didn't you fight harder for your freedom? Why are you telling me now? Why not sooner? Why are you the one tearing up, shouldn't I be the one crying?

And all these questions branched out to more and more and more, yet none of them managed to reach her mouth. Instead, she only managed to choke out a single question, a single word. "Engaged?" She repeated in shock and confusion.

"I'm sorry, Korra," Asami said with a trembling voice "I'm so, so sorry..."

Korra could hardly hear her past the the heartbeat thumping in her ears, she could hardly see her behind the water in her eyes, she could hardly comprehend the situation from how much her mind was racing. She stared at the sobbing princess with wide eyes, filled with hurt and disbelief.

This can't be happening again.

"You're engaged," she said again, disbelief filling her voice "this whole time, you've been engaged?"

Asami averted her eyes, pursing her lips together and nodding, a pained and guilty expression on her face.

"How can you expect me to believe that?" Urged Korra, reluctantly extending her arm in order to reach out to her, to touch Asami's soothing warmth and to be assured that it was just a lie, a joke, a nightmare.

But Asami's assurance never came. The princess took a step backwards and the only thing the watertriber's hand met was the cold, piercing air. The simple gesture she was greeted upon was enough to let it all sink in. It was true, it wasn't a joke, Asami was really taken, and the tan girl's heart shattered to approximately a million pieces just at the thought.

"This whole time, you've been furious with me for lying." Korra hissed "And the entire time, you hid this from me?"

"It wasn't like that..." the pale girl choked out "I couldn't talk about it... It would make it real..."

"It is real Asami!" She snapped "You devised me! You lied to me, and over what? Not wanting to believe the harsh truth?"

"You don't understand..." The other girl said miserably "It wasn't like that."