Title: Penguin sledding, take two
Fandom: Avatar the Legend of Korra
Prompt/Summary: Korra takes anyone penguin sledding. It can be Mako, Bolin, Asami, hell it can even be Amon. Make it hilarious and cute if that’s how you wanna play it.
A/N: Again, with what little material’s available, characterization based on impressions and elaborations on those impressions. Also includes some theorizing with character backstory. Original prompt and fic posting here at http://ficbending.livejournal.com/578.html?page=4#comments.
[[MORE]]Amon stared at the photos of the current Avatar. He lingered on the snapshot of her on that polarbeardog. As quick as a sudden shift in air, his mind went back to when he was young and foolish and weak and not Amon.
###
years ago
The adolescent decided being devoured right now by some beast was vastly preferable to freezing out in the cold. It would be quick.
He made not a sound as a large paw pinned him down and applied pressure to his cracked ribs, threaten to tear through cloth and bandaging. The white maw lowered, and…began to lap at his face, above the scarf that covered his mouth and nose.
“Naga, you’re gonna smoosh him!” Some girl shrieked.
The older boy blinked as a small Water Tribe girl ran up and tugged on the beast’s ears. It removed its paw and switched its licking to her. It was then the adolescent realized it was a polarbeardog.
“Hi, I’m Korra and this is Naga, she’s real friendly, she just gets excited about new people—!”
“Has she…’smooshed,’ strangers before?” The boy asked as he gingerly sat up, readjusting the scarf around the lower half of his face and the hood on his head.
Korra stared at him, then laughed again. “Nah, but she’s so big, we gotta be careful!”
The boy felt some amusement as the girl rushed forward and tugged his arm, exaggeratedly heaving as she tried to pull him up.
“So what’s your name?”
Considering, he finally decided to lie. “Li.”
###
“Naga and I are running away,” the girl had declared, standing as tall as possible and puffing out her chest.
Li gave a mental shrug. He didn’t feel like talking the child into taking him back to her village right now. After washing ashore on some ice float and abandoning the broken pieces of ship that had brought him there, and then barely surviving as he started his trek through the snow, the adolescent’s energy was still less than desirable.
Korra did lead him to a cave she’d picked as hers and Naga’s hideout.
“I got some fish we can share,” she said eagerly, shuffling around in a large bag hanging from Naga’s saddle, her back to Li.
Scanning the cave quickly, Li took some twigs from a pile of wood the girl had apparently gathered, making him admit the child had put some forethought into running away. He then grabbed the adequate stones, and sparked a fire to life.
When Korra whirled around with her fish and caught sight of the fire, she lit up as much as the blaze. “Ooh, cool, you’re a firebender too!”
Li blinked at the girl. “No,” and he held up the stone, “I started the fire with this.”
Her brow furrowed. “How can Earthbenders—?” and then it was Korra’s turn to blink. (And the adolescent idly theorized that an Earthbender probably could start a fire by striking stones the right way with their bending, but that was the extent of it, there was no way they could manipulate the fire as well as an actual Firebender.) Then the girl perked up. “Oh, you start fires like my Papa!”
Then she looked around the cave, curious, as Li carefully watched her and mulled over what she just said, and how she said it. “Where’d you get the firewood?”
Li blinked at her, again. He silently pointed to the woodpile. Had that been here before, and she never noticed?
Immediately the child frowned, even stamping her feet as her little fists balled up around the fish tails. “No, those were my swords!”
Li was at a total loss. He finally decided to continue to humor the child. “…All of them?”
“Some of them were knives. One was a staff,” snapped the girl.
“You weren’t going to use any of them to cook your fish?”
“Don’t need them!” Korra pouted, then demonstrated. Li’s eyes widened as the fish went ablaze in her hands—not at the act, but at how fast and wild the fire was, approaching her too closely—
The adolescent lunged forward as the girl yelped. Kneeling down, he grabbed her wrists, moving them down from her hair and face. She waved her hands around in his grasp, and the fire disappeared. The burnt fish had fallen into the bent crook of Li’s arms, balanced precariously.
Korra sucked on a clearly singed hand, glaring at Li as if it was his fault. Then the child said, slight drool still coming down her mouth, “I cooked ‘em better last time.”
“Really?”
“Yes!”
Li said nothing more, just let go of her wrists. He then slowly lowered himself to a sitting position, his legs outstretched, and carefully shifted the fish from the crook of his arms to his lap.
“Can you find a clean, flat stone for the food?”
The girl made a bending gesture, and a suitably flat and clean stone swept toward them. Li knew what that meant, but made no comment.
Replacing the fish from his lap to the stone, the older boy closely examined them. There seemed to be no point in gutting them, they could just be eaten as is.
He arched a brow as the girl did just that, picking up a fish and crunching down on its head. She threw another to Naga and passed one to Li.
Li ate quietly and at a neutral speed while the girl chewed noisily and talked in between or during mouthfuls of food, her mood lightening.
“So, are you an earthbender, or a waterbender?”
“Neither.”
The child’s brow furrowed, she chewed her latest bite more slowly. “Then what are you?”
Li arched his brow again. “A nonbender,” he said slowly, thinking it should be obvious.
“I figured, but are you Water Tribe—ooh, northern Water Tribe? Or are you Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation—?”
The older boy started to feel uncomfortable. “Sea folk, if anything,” he conceded. “I was born on a ship, and have lived on many of them.”
Korra’s eyes widened, her smile beaming. “You’re a pirate!”
Li took a larger bite than he would’ve normally deemed acceptable, and chewed it far slower than was necessary.
###
Eventually Korra led Li back to her home. When he first caught a glimpse, it reminded him more of a military compound, especially the guardtowers.
The girl stopped Naga suddenly, and Li stiffened, trying not to fall off the beast.
The girl remained silent and still, and Li almost asked her what was wrong, before she finally twisted in her seat and aksed-slash-demanded in a rush, “Wannagopenguinsleddingwithme?”
Li found her grin rather manic.
“…How big are your penguins?”
“Big enough for you, don’t worry!”
“…Right.”
Taking that as consent, the girl cheered and turned Naga away from the compound.
###
“Li, c’mon, let’s ride ‘em now, you can pet ‘em more later!” Korra whined, her arms flailing as the older boy gently petted the penguins that had come for their bait (he found the gesture and the animals’ response oddly relaxing).
He quietly stood up and paid attention to the girl’s instructions.
Then they were off on their penguins.
Li heard the girl whoop and holler excitedly over the rush of wind, the pounding and delighted howling of her beast as it raced with them. The only experience he could compare this too was driving a Satomobile, but smaller, and more of a sliding sensation, he wondered if there was a way to adapt Satomobiles to snow terrain—
And Satomobiles definitely did not do full loops on curving ice. It was a hell of a rush.
Remembering the girl’s rushed tip before, Li twisted and snapped out his leg, making the penguin skid to a stop. He stood up, letting the penguin go. His hood had flown off during the ride, and as he moved to replace it, he heard a higher, eager pitch to Korra’s shriek, coming from above. He looked up. Her penguin had braked hard, stopping at a small cliff edge, but the girl just kept going, arcing through the air, her shouts still full of joy—would she airbend?—she started to plummet—
The adolescent dashed under her, skidding to a halt. His arms began to rise then stop, as he watched the girl make a quick gesture with her hands. The older boy stiffened but remained perfectly still as the snow around him rushed upward to catch Korra, freezing and letting her thud on it.
Laughing, the girl peeked from her icy perch, finding Li looking up at her with his gray eyes. Stifling her next laugh, Korra made another gesture and the ice turned into water, splashing her and Li as she fell. Still, the older boy caught her.
Taking one look at the water that made Li’s dark hair stick to his skull and how unimpressed he looked, Korra pointed at him and cackled.
The girl was silenced as something swept the two up, and Li’s grip on her jerked, dropping her. The boy saw a flash of Korra, getting caught up by another bending platform of ice, before hearing and feeling a sickening crack in his leg.
Swearing, Li futilely clawed at the ice that held him up and kept most of his body immobile, only allowing his arms their useless panic and his half-masked face air.
He glowered at the Lotus guard whose arms were raised manipulating the ice.
“No, he’s my friend!” The girl shouted, actually bending a large wave of snow at the guard. Caught by surprise, the Lotus guard succumbed to the child’s bending, her focus compromised and the ice that held up Li shifting back into snow. The snow didn’t soften the blow at all, the adolescent felt another painful break in his leg as he crashed down.
Facefirst in the snow, scarf over his mouth and nose and the hood that had fallen back in place providing some cover, Li heard Korra shout. “No no, Naga, careful, you’re gonna smoosh him!” Li rather wished the pain in his leg was enough to make him pass out.
###
“So Li can stay and my mama and papa can make him dinner and then we can go penguin sledding again—?”
From the old healer’s side, Li watched the balding Lotus Order member say with a sniff and narrowed eyes, “It’s up to your parents whether ‘Li’ will have dinner with you.”
The adolescent smirked slightly. Nothing like using a common alias to demonstrate quite clearly a refusal to share one’s name. The practice had been lost on the girl, but served Li well. But even with a wounded leg and damaged ribs, the older boy felt some of his energy return, ready to deal with older people again.
Li watched with some amusement the way the girl pinwheeled on her heel and turned to her parents. “Can Li—?”
“He’s welcome at our hearth,” said her mother. “As for penguin slidding….”
The old healer finished waterbending over Lin’s leg (she’d already seen to his ribs), turning to the others. “Not immediately—”
She turned back to Li, the loops in her hair swaying, “But not too long, either.”
“How long until the next trade ship arrives?” The boy asked, ignoring the way Korra immediately drooped.
“That shouldn’t take long either.”
Li nodded, satisfied.
“Thank you, ma’m.”
“Call me Katara.”
The adolescent tried to have his eyes widen only slightly at the realizaiton that he was in the presence of a war hero.
###
Korra made the older boy watch her bending. She was very pleased, and he supposed it was impressive to do such maneuvers at her age, and over more than one elemental discipline. Perhaps others were more impressed, perhaps he should’ve been more impressed—but the boy had been careful to withhold emotion, perhaps he’d grown skilled enough to do it unconsciously.
The adolescent noticed she brought no children her own age to gape at and batter him with questions. She seemed to split time between him, Naga, her parents and training. And that training seemed to only ever involve bending or curriculum geared toward creating an Avatar, nothing else. But the girl seemed to really like throwing fire and hurling water and throwing rocks, which wasn’t exactly surprising—it went well with all the energy she had. Li idly wondered if she would ever mellow out as she grew up.
The girl’s fondness of him grew to the point that she let him ride Naga on his own, so that he could get the fresh air he wanted without using the leg Master Katara forbade him to use until her say-so.
While riding Naga by himself, Li finally saw Korra approach children just outside the compound. Some didn’t bend, some did, and of course the ones that did could only bend one element.
It didn’t take long for Li to see that the meeting didn’t go well. The other children seemed to regard her multiple bending styles with wariness, jealousy. He heard some insist games with her weren’t fair, because she’d always win. But Korra didn’t have long to wallow in disappointment, she was off training again.
Li really had no room to draw comparison or draw any conclusions, his older sisters had trained him often to join in their profession when he was of age.
###
Li was careful not to really answer anything about his past. Korra’s father had told his daugther that his past was his own, and that seemed to calm the girl’s questioning for a time.
While the girl’s parents were strangely understanding, the balding Lotus member and most of his Order were wary about his silence. It was clear they were just as eager as he for the tradeship to arrive.
###
“Will you come back?” The girl asked him plaintively. It was the night before he’d leave with the departing trade ship.
“I can’t promise anything,” the older boy answered honestly.
Korra looked down to her small boots. “Where’s your ship going?” she mumbled.
“Republic City,” he said, as he shifted around in the inner pocket of his coat. Finding what he was looking for, he knelt before the girl.
“Your father said it was all right to give this to you, he’ll teach you how best to use it later,” Li said, giving her the sheathed knife.
“A real one!”
“Yes, to replace the ones I burnt,” Li referred quite seriously to the wood Korra had insisted were sharp weaponry in that cave of hers.
Delighted, the girl asked if he got it from a pirate.
Li just regarded her with a flat stare.
###
“Wait,” and Li paused at the voice of Korra’s father. His wife was awake, but their Avatar daughter still asleep. The hour was early, the ship would leave early. Li had already said all the farewells and good-byes he’d planned to before having to go. “Korra really wanted you to have this.”
The adolescent accepted a wooden carving from the older man.
“I showed her a few things, but she made it herself.”
“…It’s a fish.”
“A penguin, actually,” the older man corrected. He then wished the boy a safe journey.
And “Li” was gone, bound for Republic City.
###
Amon had lost the carving at some point, only remembered that it went missing before he had donned the mask and worked to shed his identity.
Understatement of the decade to say that he had changed and was no longer that adolescent who humored little Water Tribe girls.
The revolutionary leader reminded himself to not even idly wonder if she kept the dagger, or if she’d lost that too over the years. It was ancient history that shouldn’t be allowed any influence over current events.
Finished clipping out the photos of the Avatar and her polarbeardog from the newspapers and other relevant articles, Amon filed them all away.
(At the time and occasionally afterward, the boy had flashes of pity over this child being randomly chosen to be apart from everyone, like all the other Avatars. Then his mind darting to histories of the Hundred Year War, how just the Avatar’s absence, the disappearance of only one individual, apparently engulfed the entire world in war, which didn’t seem…fair, or acceptable, for the whole world to rely so on one person. Shouldn’t people be able to cooperate on their own, and isn’t it too much pressure for one person, already isolated by the anomaly of being able to bend all the elements? And the Hundred Year War only ended after the returning Avatar removed Fire Lord Ozai’s bending—didn’t that indicate that the major problem with the tyrant had been his bending, for without it he was defeated and the war over? And the girl had wondered what he was if he was not a bender, without that power it was not clear what nation he belonged to, and why should nations be so defined by the bent element, how did that become tradition? The only logical thing to believe was that the benders decided the set-up of the four major—only nations, any input from nonbenders not truly considered long ago at their inception….
Such things minor and major contributed to the masked man at the head of a revolution today, including that sense of pity over the little girl who estranged the other children and seemed only ever allowed to bend.)
###
On Tenzin’s island, Korra whittles a wooden figure of the Fire Ferret mascot with Li’s knife, remembering penguin sledding and a leg broken by an overly protective Lotus guard.
A/N: So this became more thoughtful than I thought, but I still think there’s some sweetness and humor in between. And there are some deliberate references to the old series in situations that happen, if the audience can find them.