Technically a rewrite of LoK Book 1 ending which will develop into an attempt at addressing the issues of inequality between benders and non-benders, so you have been warned. Will definitely be a Makorra, may be hints of Zutara, and perhaps some Irohsami if it feels right.

I am still working on Protected... so sorry for the delay! I'm having an awful block on one of the scenes in the second chapter.

Disclaimer: A:TLA and LoK and all its original characters do not belong to me.

Diffraction

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Noun; the bending of waves around obstacles in their path.

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-I-

.Loss.

"Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things."

-Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena.-

The comfort of her familiar place did little to quell the numbness creeping through her limbs – numbness that did not stem from the cold. Yet, Korra was thankful for the sound of the waves roaring, crashing against the base of the icy cliffs, because anything was better than silence, like the deafening silence that had filled her whole being when her bending had been taken. She couldn't feel her elements, their vitality, their energy, the life that they had given her since the day she was born.

It scared her.

Korra sank to the ground, choking out a sob. The vast whiteness of her Southern homeland that she had so loved before was beginning to scare her, too, because she couldn't feel the water, its calmness and its quiet power. Naga whined softly, nuzzling her mistress' trembling back in worry. Korra couldn't bring herself to care, breaking into heaving, gasping sobs that wracked her usually strong frame as she curled into herself, seeking any kind of warmth, any reassurance that the tiniest spark of her elements still existed within her.

There was nothing. Nothing.

She needed to fill this silence, needed to fight this numbness seeping into her bones, so she did it the only way she knew how – by getting angry.

"Why me?" she whispered, almost pleadingly, but the icy wind whipped her words away, just like everything else that had been taken from her. The anger that had manifested itself deep within her ever since the reality of her loss sank in and a roomful of people had looked at her with eyes full of pity and false reassurances rose to the surface, exploding in a furious frenzy of subconscious Airbending that lifted her violently trembling form up in a massive sphere of air, whipping at her hair and clothes. She distinctly heard Naga's frantic whining somewhere beyond this place of self-pity and despair, but the anger quickly overpowered any concern for anyone beyond herself, beyond the loss of her bending, her identity. Korra roared at the emptiness both without and within, afraid that the silence would consume her if she didn't fight it.

"WHY ME?"

Why Amon and his misguided Equalist movement? Why my bending? Why did he have to take my whole identity away from me?

Why. Why. Why.

Korra let her tears flow unchecked. What was pride when she had lost everything else? Tenzin's words felt like a joke in poor taste. It was not going to be 'okay' or anywhere near it. No one would look at her twice without her bending – the disgraceful Avatar who had stumbled her way through Republic City, through her first real challenge, and finally, finally defeated Amon and his Equalists – only she had done it far, far too late, and at too great a cost.

"Your pathetic whining is giving me a headache." A stern female voice rang out from right next to her.

The pain registered moments after Korra felt something very hard and very cold come into contact with the back of her head. She yelped, forgetting her tears as her head whipped upwards to see her attacker. "How dare you-"

Avatar Kyoshi snapped her golden fan shut with an audible snap. It struck Korra that it was suddenly quiet around her – no roaring waves or whipping air – and she hated the silence that once again crept over her.

"Leave me alone, Kyoshi!"

The green-clad warrior had her other fan out and smacking the side of Korra's head before she registered the need to dodge. "I would if you were doing anything more productive than drowning in self-pity! Get up, Avatar Korra! You're supposed to be a warrior and a woman, and the Avatar above all that – you have no leisure or right to be sitting around feeling sorry for yourself! The Avatar-"

Avatar, Avatar, Avatar.

Is that the only thing about me that matters to people? That I'm the bloody Avatar?

"SHUT UP! Haven't you been reading the Avatar news? My bending was taken. I can't feel my own damn elements and I only have my half-assed Airbending left – I can't bend – I'M NOT THE AVATAR ANYMORE!" Korra was on her feet, waves of anger coating the world in a crimson haze as she screamed at Kyoshi with fists clenched and ready to hit anyone, anything, if only just to feel more than the constant emptiness within her.

"Yes, you're right, you're not the Avatar," Kyoshi sneered, tucking her fans away and crossing her arms. "You're just a pitiful little girl-child who doesn't know how to get up and walk after a little fall, and chooses to sit in the mud crying and ignoring those trying to help her!"

A little fall? How dare Kyoshi-

"WHAT DO YOU UNDERSTAND, KYOSHI? AMON TOOK MY WHOLE LIFE AWAY FROM ME! I've been the Avatar, I've been able to bend since I could remember – WITHOUT MY BENDING I AM NOTHING!" By now, Korra had Kyoshi by the front collar of her uniform, shouting in her face.

"You are nothing only because you believe yourself to be so!" Kyoshi's kohl-lined eyes stared back into Korra's tear-filled ones unflinchingly, almost menacingly. "A warrior without weapons is still a warrior as long as she fights. But I'll tell you what you are, Korra. You're just a pathetic, whimpering, cowardly girl who doesn't deserve to be Avatar and should just run back home to cry – instead of disgracing generations of great Avatars by hiding from the battlefield because you can't deal with a few scratches."

Korra's grip slackened, her fingers trembling, Kyoshi's words hitting home. Yet, something stubborn and selfish in her refused to let her admit defeat, accept the pity, and do something about it. The silence kept reminding her of what she had lost and what she no longer was.

"You're too hard on her, Kyoshi," another masculine, but gentler voice sounded from behind her. "She has suffered a great loss." Korra whirled around.

"Aang," she whispered. Aang, whom Katara so loved that sometimes Korra felt like her teacher and mentor was looking at her but also right past her at someone else that she missed too dearly. Aang, whom had been trying so hard to help her, warn her. If only she had realised sooner – she really didn't deserve to be Avatar, after all.

"And you, Aang, always too soft," Kyoshi cut in, her face hard and unrelenting as she turned to face the Airbender spirit. "If you had killed Hakone instead of just taking away his bending and leaving him to stew in vengeance and bring up his sons poorly to destroy and wage their own wars, Korra would not have suffered this 'loss' you speak of."

Aang's lips thinned. "You have your values and I have mine, Kyoshi."

The female warrior ploughed on, ignoring Aang's words. "She doesn't need you doling out badger-mole hugs to make her pride feel better. Kyoshi warriors who cry and whine about battle wounds get a sound beating, and that's exactly what this Avatar-girl will get from me if she doesn't woman up right now and do something about her problems!" Kyoshi's fan whipped out and Korra's anger flared, her arm whipping up instinctively to block the hit.

"DAMN YOU, KYOSHI! STOP MESSING WITH ME!"

Kyoshi's painted lips curved very faintly into a smile as she snapped her golden fan shut. "There. The fire you just felt, and what you just said. Remember that here," the warrior woman tapped her closed fan lightly against Korra's chest, "and tell that to your problems. Persevere. That's all you need to do."

Korra stared at her predecessor, dumbstruck at the abrupt change in Kyoshi's demeanour. The warrior was already tucking her fan away in her belt, turning away from Korra to face Aang.

"She's all yours, herbivore. My work here is done."

The green-clad warrior vanished with a cursory wave.

"What's her problem?" Korra gaped at the empty spot.

Aang sighed. "Kyoshi's methods can be… hard to swallow. But she has a good heart, and she means well."

"Everyone means well," the young Avatar replied bitterly, shoulders slumping. "Everyone means well, but no one understands what it's like to feel so angry and scared and empty at the same time. I'm sick of Tenzin and Katara and everyone else telling me everything will be alright because I've lost everything and it won't."

Aang said nothing, his expression deeply contemplative as he walked towards the edge of the icy cliff and sank into the lotus position with ease. He beckoned for Korra to join him, his signature orange robes billowing in the sea breeze, and Korra felt a pang of envy for the peacefulness that seemed to radiate from his being – the Airbenders' signature calmness that she had found so difficult to grasp during her training, and absolutely impossible to grasp now.

She moved slowly to sit on the ice next to spirit-Aang, her legs hanging precariously over the edge as she stared into the dark, swirling waters far below them.

"What are you thinking, Korra?"

The young Avatar turned to look at the tall Airbender next to her. Nobody had asked her about what she thought or felt after the Amon fiasco. Everyone had simply pitied her, and expected her to need their empty reassurances, their painfully inadequate words of comfort. Aang wasn't doing that. Yet his eyes were gentle and full of the compassion that he had been known for in his lifetime, and his features only reminded Korra of Tenzin's pitying expression. It irritated her, and she looked away.

"I don't want to fight anymore," she answered quietly, refusing to look at Aang. "I'm tired. I defeated Amon, but he still won. I'm not the Avatar without my bending. I'm not the Avatar because I couldn't even save myself, much less the people I'm supposed to protect. I failed, Aang. I lost."

"But you are not the only one who has suffered loss."

Korra was silent for a long moment. "What if, Aang… what if I say that I don't want to care either? What would that make me?"

Aang swallowed a chuckle, inwardly marvelling at how similar Korra was to his younger self. "I once hated being the Avatar, you know."

The Water Tribe girl looked at him in disbelief. Avatar Aang, who had done so much to restore the world and generate precious alliances between the nations after the war, hating his duty?

"I know what you're thinking. But the Hundred Years' war only lasted that long because I chose to run away from my responsibilities as the Avatar. And later, when one of my teachers told me that in order to master the Avatar State, I had to forget about Katara, I hated it too. I hated that I was supposed to forgo the freedom and the love that I held so dear simply by virtue of being born the Avatar, and having to serve the world before I could serve myself. There were many, many moments in my life in which I felt like I couldn't care less about what happened to the world as long as they left me and my family alone," Aang said simply.

Korra tried to wrap her head around all she had been taught about Aang's celebrated achievements and what the man himself had just revealed to her. All her life, she had been told that he was the perfection that she was supposed to live up to, the Avatar whom so many people loved. And yet…

"What I mean is that we are only human, Korra. We feel as everybody else feels, the good and the ugly," Aang smiled. "But what truly matters at the end are the choices we make – and whether or not we can live with the consequences of those choices."

The Airbender's face turned serious as he looked Korra directly in the eye. "If you make this choice, this choice not to care – and I am by no means telling you that it's the wrong choice, because it's your right – can you live with it? Do you think it's the right choice for you?"

The Water Tribe girl looked away, disliking the pressure of his gaze, the pressure of choices. "I don't want to chose. I can't choose. I just want my bending back."

Aang looked grave. "It is the choices we make when it is the hardest that reveal our true character. The choice will have to be made for you and those affected to move on."

Korra hadn't heard a word of Aang's sage advice as realisation dawned on her. "Aang," she whispered excitedly, pulling her legs up from the edge of the cliff and twisting to face him. "Aang, you can energybend, can't you? You took away Ozai's bending, and Hakone's – surely you can give my bending back?"

She felt a surge of hope, stronger than anything she had ever felt before – hope that she had lost and replaced with dull dread and constant fear ever since she had learnt of Amon's abilities, despite how she tried to project otherwise. She had tried to hard to be a good Avatar. Surely – surely she deserved her bending back.

Aang met her hopeful gaze with eyes full of sorrow. Korra started, trembling, feeling as if her heart had plummeted down the cliff and into the depths of the icy waters below as her rising hopes crashed. "You… you can't?"

The older Avatar was very quiet for a long, long moment, during which a myriad of expressions were reflected in his grey eyes, before finally settling on resigned determination.

"I am able to return your bending to you," Aang's voice was careful, as if trying to make her understand, but had an underlying tone of firmness, a decision made and not to be retracted. "But I will not. Not yet."

Korra stared uncomprehendingly at him, unsure of how she ought to feel. She chose anger. It was the easiest, and she felt the red haze slowly creeping back in to fog her mind as her voice rose in a crescendo. "But – why? My bending was mine, and Amon took it away! I deserve to get it back and you can help me, so why won't you!"

"Because giving your bending back won't make you any less lost than you are now!" Aang's voice was louder, stronger, calm and stern. "Because loss is something you need to learn from before you can regain what is yours, or you will just lose them all over again!"

Aang inhaled deeply, quieting his emotions. Korra needed a lesson in loss if she was to bridge the growing divide and unrest between benders and non-benders, yet watching her now, looking about to collapse from a mixture of desperation and desolation, made his decision a difficult one.

Difficult, but necessary.

"Someone I know was once told to think about what he wanted from his life, and why, by one of the wisest men I ever knew," Aang stood, and knelt before Korra's frozen form, gently grasping her shoulders. Her eyes were filled with unshed tears, and Aang felt a pang of guilt that he quickly tamped down on. "Perhaps that is what you need. Think about it, Korra."

Her numbed senses registered Aang's larger hands drawing across her forehead, obscuring her vision.

"Now, rest."

Her world descended into darkness, a strangely welcome comfort.

Please review.

Note: Pairing flames will be ignored. Flames will be ignored too. Constructive criticism and praise are welcome.

Cheers,

Rave-chan