Chapter 1
Asami
“Please?”
“I’m not hungry,” Korra replied with a petulant frown, crossing her arms as if to further prove her point.
Asami gently pushed the bowl of noodles closer to the indignant Avatar.
“Korra, you haven’t eaten all day. You have a healing session later, and you know how tired that makes you.”
For weeks Asami had been taking Korra to those healing sessions and they always left the injured woman exhausted, weak, and if possible, even grumpier. Asami couldn’t blame her though. Those sessions were brutal. The healers tried everything they could think of to help restore the broken Avatar back to her previous health. Deep tissue massages, acupressure, physical therapy, water bending healing… They’d done it all. And nothing seemed to be working. Asami had begun to wonder if the injuries weren’t all the result of the havok the poison had wreaked on her body.
“What’s the point?” Korra mumbled.
“What do you mean?” Asami asked carefully.
“Nothing is working!” Korra yelled in exasperation. “I can’t walk, I can’t sleep, and everything hurts all the time. Nothing is getting better, and those training sessions are torture that leave me feeling worse than I did going into them!”
Asami frowned. Though Korra’s words definitely echoed her own thoughts, she didn’t think it was entirely fair to blame it all on the effectiveness of the healing. Korra had initially made a serious effort to do what she could to expedite the healing process, but after several weeks of minimal improvement, it was almost as though she had given up hope. She was obviously deeply depressed. Lately her mood range consisted of angry and mean, to lethargic and hopeless. Her attitude had become extremely negative and lately only Asami had the patience or fortitude to bear the moody Avatar for longer than the briefest of encounters.
“You’re not exactly helping,” Asami mumbled. At the look of rage that started to contort the water tribe girls face, Asami winced.
“Excuse me?!” Korra yelled, knocking over the bowl of noodles in her anger as she leaned across the table.
Asami sighed and weighed her options. She could let the issue drop, but knew that the things she had to say Korra definitely needed to hear. From day one, Asami had been by Korra’s side, helping her dear friend in every way she could. As the weeks had passed and Korra had become more and more depressed, visits from the rest of ‘Team Avatar’ had become less and less frequent. Asami understood that everyone else had lives and jobs to get back to, but she felt bad for Korra. To her, it probably felt like she was being abandoned by everyone.
Asami couldn’t blame them, though. While everyone loved and cared for Korra immensely, being around her lately was close to abusive. Korra was pretty much the most important person in Asami’s life, and there was no way she would abandon her friend in any way, but Korra needed a swift kick in the ass. And since no one else was going to do it…
Asami chose her words carefully. “Look, Korra. You went through something terrible. Everyone knows that. I can’t even imagine the pain and fear you endured-” Before Asami could continue, Korra slammed down her fist with a loud BANG!
“No! You can’t! No one can! Not that anyone even cares anymore.”
Asami felt her control snap. “Korra, Spirits know I love you, but you need to STOP!”
Korra’s eyes widened in shock and outrage. While Asami was fairly certain Korra wouldn’t attempt to kill her (out of respect for their friendship), Asami still had to repress the urge to back down at the look of seething anger Korra gave her. Before she had a chance to say anything back, Asami quickly continued her speech, intent to get it out in the open. Who knew? Maybe she could get the other girl so mad that she wouldn’t have a choice but to start walking and bending again, if only to accomplish the goal of throttling her.
“It’s honestly no wonder you’re not making any progress. You’ve given up hope! If you had it your way, you would sit around and mope all day just wallowing in how terrible you feel. I’m not saying you don’t have it rough. You’ve been through more than most can possibly hope to survive but for goodness sake, if you don’t have hope and the drive to help yourself get better, how the hell do you expect anyone else to?”
Asami was standing by the time she finished speaking, leaning over until she was practically yelling in Korra’s face. She saw the moment when Korra shut down. Her eyes narrowed until they were barely slits, and the look she wore was cold and hateful. Asami could barely suppress a shiver.
“I’m sorry your Avatar is such a disappointment,” Korra growled.
Asami just sadly shook her head. “This isn’t like you Korra. We aren’t trying to help you because we want the Avatar back. We’re trying to help you because we want our friend back. I want my friend back.”
When Korra didn’t respond, Asami turned and walked out, pushing her chair aside. The sound of her chair scraping across the stone floor was almost offensive as it pierced the tense silence that had settled over the room. She could feel the hateful glare stabbing her in the back as she walked out, but Asami took a deep breath and shook her head.
It was very clear Korra was so deep in the hell she had created that she’d given up entirely. For her to have even a chance at restoring her body back to its former glory, she needed to start with her mind and Asami had a feeling that that healing process was going to be much more difficult. While Asami hated that she had to be the one to deliver this particularly difficult message, she only hoped that by having someone finally stand up to Korra, she would snap out of it and really begin to heal.
