"Okay somebody explain it to me. What happened?" The others looked at Bolin incredulously, as if they would be able to explain what just happened. "Tenzin," He turned to the airbending master. "You've gotta have something, you're the spiritual guy." Tenzin blushed for a moment and stammered before adjusting his robes and starting to stroke his beard.
"It's not right, nothing like this has ever happened before. Maybe the trauma of reconnecting with three elements including Korra's native element, along with the restoration of Lin's strong earthbending overloaded her system."
"Does that mean she's de-" Bolin swallowed his words when he saw the tears forming in the eyes of Tenzin's children. "What's that Pabu?" He said in an attempt to distance himself from even the thought of Korra being gone. He looked to his shoulder where, after a few moments, he noticed there was no fire ferret. "Pabu?! Where's Pabu! Maybe what happened to Korra happened to him, maybe it's catching mayb-"
"Bolin!" Mako didn't have to say anything else to silence his brother. Mako was a firebender of few emotions, while Bolin fluctuated wildly to the highs and lows of the emotional spectrum Mako was rarely as upset or happy as his brother could be. He always explained it as by-product of the responsibility of care he had had over Bolin after their parents died. This time, however, Mako looked broken. He and Korra had accepted the love they had for each other and kissed, they were an item, one Makorra. In a single moment, not an hour after they had begun, what they had was ended. Some breakups leave the couple as good friends. Instead of a breakup Mako got to witness his girlfriend vanish in a rainbow shockwave. Pabu could wait. Bolin sat down with Mako in the snow and placed a hand on his back. For these brothers words were not necessary.
"Er, guys." Another voice called. It was Asami Sato, the gifted non-bender who, as of the past few days, had inherited Future Industries from it's founder: her father, the disgraced member of the equalist terrorist organisation. While Mako had collapsed, Bolin panicked and Tenzin stayed with his wife, mother and young children Asami had sprung into action. Asami, along with Korra's parents, Tonraq and Senna, Lin Beifong, and Korra's polarbear-dog, Naga, had fanned out in hope that they could find the missing Avatar or, failing that, a clue help explain what had happened.
"What is it?" Mako shouted, shooting up to his feet.
"It's a horse."
"A tiger-horse?" Asked Ikki, Tenzin's second daughter.
"No."
"A dodo-horse?" Ventured Meelo, who, before the birth of Rohan earlier this week, had been both Tenzin's youngest child and only son. Asami glanced down to where she had come and tilted her head slightly. She shook her head.
"A horse?" Ikki, the eldest airbender, asked. "Don't look at me like that Ikki, they're weird but they exist. When Grandma Katara went to the Earth kingdom with Grandpa Aang the Earth King had just a bear."
"Weird." Meelo muttered, trying to picture such a creature.
"Looking at it again I'm not sure." Asami called. "It's like a small horse but it's smaller, more like a pony." Tenzin and his wife, Pema, ignored the size their daughter's eyes had grown to.
"This is ridiculous." Lin, who had been listening from across the way, ran over to Asami. "This isn't the time for this kind of thing. If it's a horse then it's a... what is that?"
"Pony." An unfamiliar voice said. Asami and Lin went pale. "I'm a pony." Everybody suddenly understood why, Jinora and Ikki became slightly more excited. "Would somebody be able to help me here, this is quite a big hole."
Lin regained her composure first. "You." she pointed to Bolin. "Get over here." Bolin made his way over to the police chief and looked down to see a dark, deep hole, at the bottom of which was the silhouette of what looked like a stylised miniature horse. As he kept looking, and began to stare, he noticed something else.
"Pabu!" He called to the fire ferret perched on the pony's back.
"So that's your name!" The pony said cheerily, "Can you guys help be and Pabu, (did I get that right?) out of the hole please." Slowly Lin and Bolin pulled the ground beneath the pony towards the surface. When they were finally done the dark green pony stepped gingerly onto the snow. "This is my stop isn't it?" She winced at Lin's stony faced lack of reaction and whispered conspiratorially to Pabu. "Celestia, Pabu, who died?"
"Let's leave that one." Bolin said as Pabu leapt onto his arm and scurried to his shoulder. Not wanting to waste anymore time that could be spent looking for Korra Lin told Bolin and Asami to 'deal with the livestock'.
"We're looking for our friend." Asami explained, "When I saw your hole I thought we may have found her. I guess we were wrong."
"Woah, woah, woah." The pony said, she blew her dark brown bangs out of her eyes and fixed Asami with a steely look. "Let's not go assigning people holes, okay? That wasn't my hole. Quaker doesn't live in a hole, I think."
"You think?"
"I think. I'm not remembering much. I'm Quaker though, I remember that much." The dark green, and very talkative, pony who was now identified as Quaker held out one of her front hoofs. Asami stared at it, unsure of what to do. Gingerly, Asami reached out a hand and shook the outstretched limb. Quaker frowned and turned to Bolin to perform the same gesture. Before Bolin had time to try and decipher the strange custom Pabu ran along his arm and bumped a paw against the hoof. "See, Pabu knows. He doesn't talk a lot but he knows a hoof bump."
"Yeah Asami, it's a hoof bump. Duh." He reached out and bumped his fist against the hoof of the once again grinning pony. "That's her name, by the way Quaker. Asami Sato. I'm Bolin."
"And that's Pabu. Wow I am meeting so many people today! So do you guys not spend many time around ponies?" Bolin awkwardly scratched the back of his neck and Asami blushed.
"You're the first one we've met." Asami explained.
"What, the first Earth Pony?"
"First pony. In fact you're the first being that we've ever met that can talk, that wasn't a human that is."
"And that's what you guys are? Humans are tall!" Quaker's head came up to a little higher than Asami's waist as she looked up at her and Bolin.
"What did you mean by Earth Pony?" Bolin asked, "Is that like a bending thing? Are there Water or Air or Fire Ponies too?" Quaker giggled.
"No, not that I know anyway." She could tell from the look she got back from Bolin that her answer was not very helpful. "You see, I'm pretty sure that we have Pegasus Ponies with wings, so they're kinda Air Ponies but there are also Unicorns who have magic from their horns which isn't really fire or water. Can I ask a question?"
"Um.. I guess?" Bolin was starting to get a headache, first contact was difficult.
"What's bending?" He collapsed headfirst into the snow, eliciting laughter from both Asami and Quaker. He was very, very in over his head.
"Come on," Asami said to their new friend, "you should meet Tenzin. He can explain this to you."
"And Tenzin is a human, not a thing?" Asami nodded. "Wow, I am good at this!"
By the time Quaker, Asami and Bolin returned to Tenzin, Mako had gone. With Asami distracted and Bolin not with him the firebender had just needed to be occupied, to help. While Tenzin explained the concept and fundamentals of bending to other people before, specifically his children, it was new experience doing so with a being of another species. Quaker enjoyed the instruction though, asking questions along the way.
After taking it all in Quaker sat still and thought about it all. She turned to Bolin. "So you and the angry mare," She began.
"Woman," Asami corrected.
"Woman, thank you Asami. So you and the angry woman used earthbending to get me out of the hole?" He nodded. "How?"
"Well I'm an earthbender so I can do that kind of thing."
"Well, duh, I did listen to Tenzin. But how do you do it?"
"I just sort of... feel it." He stamped his foot and brought up a small wall of stone from the earth. "It's like I can feel that I'm pushing the earth down and then willing it back up where I want it to."
Quaker screwed her eyes closed tightly and rose up onto her front hooves and brought the back down. In front of her a block of stone rose from the ground, just as it had with Bolin. Everyone was stunned except for a giggling and grinning Quaker.
"Like that?" She sang. "Easy! How about you Tenzin, how do you do airbending?" To everybody's surprise it was Pema who answered first.
"He pulls the air-currents with his body and wills them to go faster as they move past him." She explained.
"Can you do it?"
Pema frowned. "No, I'm an air acolyte. I lived like the old airbenders did but I can't airbend. I can, it seems, make airbenders well enough though. No other woman will ever be able to say that she helped quintupled the entire airbending population. At least I hope they won't, for their sake." Quaker, Asami, Pema and Katara winced.
"Can I do it?" Quaker's eyes suddenly widened in shock. "Not that. Can I airbend."
"No." Mako said. He and the others had returned to the group partway through Pema’s explanation. "Only the Avatar can use all four elements."
"Well lucky her, that sounds pretty fun, bet it's not all fun though."
"It's not," Tenzin said, "the Avatar is the bridge between this world and the Spirit World, the Avatar is a mediator in conflict and dedicates their life to the betterment of the world."
"That sounds like a hard job to have done." Everybody looked at the floor in silence, nobody wanted to think about Korra being ‘done’.
While all this had been happening Meelo had gotten bored and had climbed to the top of Katara’s house in the snow. As it turned out the top of the house was significantly higher than he had thought it was and he was now stuck. It was okay though, he could just airbend his way down. Unfortunately Meelo pushed a little too hard and began to soar through the air, his scream caught everybody’s attention as he hurtled, headfirst, towards a boulder.
“Meelo!” Cried Pema and Tenzin while the others gasped. Lin and Bolin pulled the boulder out of the way, Katara used her waterbending to pile the snow up to cushion his fall but it was a sudden gust of wind that blasted the bhoy out of the way and into a snowdrift.
“Thanks Dad!” Came Meelo’s muffled reply from the snow.
“That wasn’t me.” Tenzin said slowly, turning slowly.
“Wasn’t us either.” Jinora and Ikki agreed simultaneously, looking worried at their father's shocked gaze. Quaker blushed under their shocked stares. If anything they looked more shocked than when she had trotted over.
“Why are you all staring at me?” She asked nervously. She glanced behind her in the hope that they were looking behind her but instead her eyes lit up and her grin returned. “My cutie mark! I should have had that ages ago, I think. It’s my special talent!” She squinted at the complex white shape with light blue markings that had appeared on her flank. “What… what is it?”
“It’s Raava.” Katara whispered, tears were in her eyes but she was holding them back. Mako, Tonraq and Senna did a much poorer job of suppressing their tears.
“What does that mean? What’s a Raava?” Tenzin’s children, and Bolin, nodded at Quaker’s question and looked to Katara.
“It mean’s you’re the Avatar. Which mean’s that Korra’s...” Quaker slumped to her rump started to blink back her own tears.
“Oh my,” she said, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t to be, it’s not on purpose, I promise. I don’t even know how I got here. I’m sorry.” Mako gave Quaker a look of disgust before storming off into the snow.
“It’s okay Quaker.” Tonraq said, forcing a smile while still holding his wife close to him. “This wasn’t anything that you did. Korra will live on in you though, just like all the other Avatar’s.”
“Maybe...” Quaker said. “maybe she’s not gone.”
“Quaker.” Asami said softly, placing a hand onto her back.
“No hear me out. I’m clearly not from here but here I am. There were rainbows and then i was in a hole. From what I heard in the hole there was a big rainbow when Korra disappeared. Maybe she’s okay but just stuck where I was.”
Senna wiped the tears from her eyes and smiled at Quaker. “Well if the ponies from where you’re from are as nice as you are-”
“They are. I think.”
“Well then at least we know Korra will be safe, and happy. So if Korra’s being welcomed there then we should welcome you here. You’re welcome to stay with us as long as you need.”
“And with me,” Bolin added.
“Or with us.” Tenzin said with a smile and a backing of giggles from Jinora and Ikki.
“Not with me though.” Lin said gruffly. Tenzin shot her an incredulous look. “I have a small apartment Tenzin. I doubt it will be practical.”
After a long debate over whose house would be most suitable for Quaker, one which she found fun to watch take place, it was decided that Asami would be the best choice. Quaker was to live in Republic City, for better or worse, where she had a lot of learning to do if she was going to be the Avatar.
That night Mako didn’t return to the group, instead he roamed around the ice, blasting fire at random piles of ice. While it made him feel like he was getting rid of his anger it was futile, no matter how much he burned he was just filled with more and more rage. The angrier he got the hotter his flames became. None of it stopped him being angry. None of it stopped the hurt. None of it brought back Korra.