Chapter Text
Barely a week had passed after Harmonic Convergence when Asami Sato became an airbender.
It was the morning of her meeting with President Reiko and Korra, an argument she was most definitely not looking forward to. To make matters worse, it was six thirty in the morning and she hadn’t even had her first cup of coffee.
“Ugh,” She groaned after waking up, seeing the time on her custom Future Industries clock.
Half of her wanted to just lie in bed for another full hour, like she’d done when Hiroshi was in charge. The other half wanted to get up, if only to purge all thoughts of Hiroshi from her mind, and drive around the track for a week or so.
But there was work to be done, as there seemed to be every morning. And she was a business woman, with responsibilities, that meant she couldn’t spend her time playing around all day.
Right on cue, her butler’s firm, but persuasive rat-a-tat sounded at the door, carrying the holy coffee she’d been practically addicted to since taking over the company.
“Come in,” She said as coherently as she could.
Her butler – Maru – did so, placing the tray on the bed before Asami. She removed her eye-blinders and lifted the cup to her lips, pausing to breathe in the blessed drink. She sighed as she took her first sip.
“Good morning, Miss Sato,” Maru offered after a moment.
Feeling controlled once more, Asami responded with a pleasant smile, “Oh, good morning.”
While she sipped at her coffee, he went around her room, tidying things up, opening curtains, organising her make-up just the way she liked it. A few years ago, Asami hadn’t even had a personal butler. Now, she couldn’t imagine living without Maru’s assistance.
Once she was finished her first coffee, Maru appeared immediately to pour her another, jug in hand, seemingly psychically in tune with his mistress as usual.
But Maru had misjudged how hot the coffee was and burnt his hand. In shock, he dropped the jug into Asami’s lap, as the liquid slowly poured onto her sheets. She prepared to roll off the bed before she ended up coated in the stuff.
In one moment, everything changed.
Instead of rolling to safety, Asami felt a sudden blast of cold air bursting through her room, blowing the coffee straight onto Maru instead. Maru didn’t seem particularly upset, however. If anything he seemed… amazed.
Asami looked at her own hands, crossed in a martial arts position she’d never learnt from any of her teachers. It wasn’t a particularly difficult position, yet she could never remember learning it. All the same, it seemed almost natural, as if she’d been doing it all her life.
And slowly, the truth dawned on her. The blast of cold air was coming from her fingers, she was airbending.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Said Korra, her voice dripping with sarcasm. She grabbed the President by the chin.
Asami, at the back of the crowd, found herself sighing. Diplomacy was not in Korra’s nature.
“Did I put you in a difficult position by fighting the giant force of pure evil that was going to destroy the whole world?” Korra’s face was steadily turning redder, her anger growing by the second and Asami could see that this was going to turn violent quickly.
Thankfully, before either the President or Korra could tear each other to pieces, Lin Beifong pulled them apart. The press continued heckling the two for photographs, interviews, anything to make their jobs just a little more exciting, but thankfully the pandemonium died down quickly enough.
“Eight percent approval?” Korra complained to Asami, once the crowd had dissipated, “Ugh!”
Asami smiled at her friend, feeling more than a little reluctant to share her own news. “Don’t worry, Korra. We’ll figure something out.”
“Sure, sure, sure! And then they’ll just find something else to blame me for!”
At her friend’s frustration, Asami gave a sigh. She really didn’t want to share her news now.
“What?” Korra asked.
“It’s just… well… you know… Harmonic Convergence,” Asami said slowly, trying to get the facts straight, “Something… Something’s happened.”
With a half-hearted laugh, Korra spoke, “What now? Spirit vines have suddenly gained minds of their own and are randomly kidnapping people of the streets?”
“No… no… Well…”
“Okay, Asami. What’s up?”
Taking a deep breath, Asami spoke, “I airbended.”
“WHAT!?”
“I know, I know! It’s not possible. It’s not just not possible, it’s completely ridiculous. I can’t be an airbender… I’ve never even wanted to be a bender! It’s so… well, Avatar-y.” Flipping her hair subconsciously, Asami gave her friend a glance with her green eyes, “Which is why I was hoping you might help.”
“No, no, no….” Korra raised her right hand in the international symbol for ‘stop right there, you are freaking me out.’ “Slow down. You… airbended?”
Asami nodded, sighed, and began all over again. She finished her tale with a demonstration, putting her arms into the same position that felt strange, yet so natural. Korra watched, her face frozen in complete bewilderment, her eyes wide, her mouth hung open, and her brown face almost white.
It looked so funny that Asami couldn’t help but laugh a little. Korra joined in, giggling with her friend until the shock had at least run its’ course.
“So… you’re an airbender?”
“I guess so,” Asami shrugged. “So are you, Avatar.”
Korra chuckled at that and linked arms with her friend. “We should take you to see Tenzin. He’ll definitely want to hear about this.”
“Yeah,” Asami swallowed, “I guess he will.”
The young Airbender family was at dinner when Korra and Asami finally arrived. As per usual, Bumi, Meelo and Ikki were chattering to each other like lemurs on eight tonnes of sugar. Jinora ignored them, reading books on spirits and other overly mature subjects. Tenzin, Pema, and Kya just looked exhausted at handling their oversized family. Bolin was also at dinner, but there was – unsurprisingly – no sign of Mako.
“Hey Korra, hey Asami!” Bolin waved at both of them. “Come on in, we’ve just started dinner. It’s great. Everyone’s having a great time, don’t you think?”
Asami and Korra looked at the exhausted Tenzin and Pema, and raised their eyebrows at Bolin.
“No, no, no! It’s cool! Look,” Bolin pointed at Tenzin, “Grumpy dad,” Pema, “put-upon Mum,” Bumi, “the wacky uncle,” the kids, “the crazy kids! Isn’t that just great?”
With a chuckle, Korra and Asami sat at the table besides Bolin, who continued talking excitedly, like he always did. Relaxing quickly, Korra served herself a bowl of rice and steamed vegetables while Asami watched as quietly as she could.
“Korra,” Tenzin’s tone brightened at the sight of her, “Did anything result from the press conference?”
Korra and Asami exchanged glances.
“Well…” Asami began.
“I guess you could say that the press was a complete waste of time,” Korra said between bites of food, “But, I suppose you could ask Asami about the other thing.”
Tenzin raised an eyebrow and fixed his eyes on Asami, who felt herself becoming smaller and smaller by the second.
But in her second worst bit of luck of the day, Meelo found just that second to play ball with one of the ceramic plates. And it just so happened that he wanted to play ball with the little bit of wall behind Asami’s head. It flew across the room, on a collision course towards Asami.
Before anyone could do anything, Asami’s hands flew into that same defensive position, catching the plate in mid-air.
Suddenly, all eyes were on Asami and the plate floating in a bubble of air.
She bit at her lip and focused instead on the plate caught in her hands. If the ground swallowed her up right now, she wouldn’t have minded in the least.
“You... you can airbend.” Tenzin said at last.
“Um… yeah.” Asami lowered the plate onto the table, staring at her hands.
A moment of silence entered the room, even the kids were silent, for a while at least. Finally, Tenzin spoke:
“This… this is wonderful news!”
Asami looked up from her hands to look at Tenzin, whose face was practically glowing. “Is it?”
“Why, of course! Asami, you are the first airbender I’ve met outside my family! Don’t you realise what this means? You represent hope for our culture! Everything could change because of you! Why, we could bring the Air Nomads back! There’s so much you must learn, though. And if… if this is because of Harmonic Convergence… then, there might be other airbenders as well!” Asami didn’t think she’d ever seen Tenzin this excited. It just made her feel all the more nervous.
She felt someone’s hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Korra staring at her.
“You wanna get some fresh air?” Korra asked.
Gratefully, Asami nodded and followed Korra into the courtyard, where the sun was slowly coming down. There were a few White Lotus guards watching them, but they thankfully kept their distance.
“So… Are you okay?’ Korra said at last.
Asami smiled a little, “Of course. I mean, why wouldn’t I be okay?”
“Because you’re life has just completely changed? Because Captain Airbender in there –“ she pointed at the family of airbenders, specifically Tenzin, who was still talking to the absent Asami, “Wants you to completely change your life and who you are to fit in with his plans?”
Asami swallowed. “I know. But, well… it’s what’s right. Right?”
Korra said nothing and put her arm around Asami’s shoulders, letting the two relax a little as they watched the sunset.
“Maybe there are other airbenders now. Maybe this is the beginning of a whole new age.” Asami smiled at this thought. It sounded good when she said it like that.
“Yeah,” Korra murmured, “That’d be something.”