Asami Sato understands the basic principles behind bending. A good portion of her life was spent examining every element—it’s helped her understand all types of benders. So far, there have been no surprises. Every bender she’s met is what she expects them to be, ultimately reduced to the essence of the element they wield.

Fire is an easy one. It is power, life, and energy. It’s an element she and her father are familiar with—they harness fire in their inventions. The combustion chambers in Satomobiles, pistons and turbines pumping and spinning, smog and smoke billowing out from exhaust pipes in service of speed. Her creations are powered by it. It surges through her family's legacy, permeates every branch of the Sato tree.

Fire is obvious. It is surface emotions: unbridled anger and passion and lust. Things she’s learned to keep hidden, swathed under a cool façade. Asami finds that it’s more surprising this way, heat and desire revealed like an afterthought. But it’s never an afterthought; it is a show of control. Emotions can be weaponized just as easily as the lightning from her glove. She wields both so well.

Earth is a foundation. It is unmoving, the heavy burden of principle and loyalty carved with diligence and care over the course of her entire life. Earth is both simple and anything but. It is standing your ground, holding fast to the monument others have built for you, clinging to it because there’s nothing else to keep you rooted to the world.

Earth is layers and layers of stone, a hard, unyielding wall formed from a history of suffering, every moment of injustice traceable, one on top of the other, all of it compressed and hardened into something indestructible and unforgiving. It is collective strength found through individual hurt. It is a boulder at the top of a hill, heavy and cumbersome to an individual alone. But together with a few more determined hands, joined in a single movement, one forceful push—it is momentum, terrifying and strong, hard-won through determination and faith.

Air is freedom. It is flying. It is joy. It is a feeling she hasn’t had since she was a child. When she was young, she soared through the world untethered, anchored by nothing but her immediate whims and desires. Lately, she can sense faint wisps of it stirring within her again, but she pushes it down. Crushes it deep inside herself. Because this is an element she cannot afford, for she is bound to a cause that cannot be abandoned. Leaving isn’t an option, no matter how badly this thread of innocence wishes to surface, coaxed from hiding by blue eyes, given wings by warm, brown hands.

Water is motion. Adaptability and mutability. It is the physical embodiment of how quickly things change: rivers can switch course, they can dry up or flood over its banks. Water is sensual, it is perception, it is being attuned to touch and reactions, it is responding in kind, it is recognizing want and giving in to need. Slick sweat beading hot on warm skin, then settling cool in the afterglow. It is fingers trailing up flesh, tingling with every exploration. Naked trust and synchronicity. Fluidity.

Water is the tides of change. And things do change, sometimes too fast. It is blue, like her eyes, like the skies above them and the ice under their feet. Blue is drowning, if she isn’t careful.

Chi-blocking is a thrill. To Asami, there is a certain pleasure to be gained from removing power at its source, disabling those who’d seek to abuse it. Chi-blocking is an intimate act, it is Asami telling a bender that she knows their body better than they do. Leveling the ground, stripping a bender of their elemental gifts until they stand before her, naked and human and mortal just as she. This is something she craves, because more than anything, she loves a fair fight. And Asami has come to cherish the moment of realization that dawns in her opponent’s eyes as she disables them. Panic, surprise, then resignation. It’s always the same, everytime, and though she comes to expect it with every battle, she can’t help but let pleasure play across her lips in a smile.

So, what is this feeling now? Her gloved hands lifting strong, tanned arms, applying lightning-quick jabs across the pressure points scattered across a body with which she’s become intimately acquainted. There’s something different about tonight. It feels a little like desecration to revisit curves and crevices with such violence when just the night before, she’d worshipped them with tenderness. There is no triumph or joy in locking chakras down the spine, that delicate curve she’s made a habit of tracing with tongue and teeth.

A part of her is grateful, then, when helpless blue eyes light up blinding white. There will be no victory at the end of this battle. Realizing this, she feels an odd sense of relief—soon her conflicted feelings will be resolved and her guilt put to an end along with her.

The air around them has turned electric, howling winds spiraling and swirling with ages-old rage. If she’s to be punished for her hubris, she would prefer to face her fate as herself, confront betrayal and look it straight in the eye. For, in spite of her guilt, Asami is brave and honest and proud. She refuses to hide behind a mask like some coward.

So, she does not hesitate when she rips off her cowl to reveal her identity to the Avatar. Asami braces herself as a calmness comes over her, taking the place of shame—something that feels a little like stoicism and tastes like freedom.

To her surprise, neither air nor fire, rock nor water come hurtling her way. No retribution, instead, the ghostly winds die down, the air settling calm and quiet and still. What she doesn’t see coming is white eyes bleeding back into peaceful, serene blue, and for steady hands to grasp her shoulders, pulling her close.

As Asami leans down to kiss Korra, she hears birds flutter and cry somewhere in the distance, heralding the coming of dawn.

Though she understands much about the world, sometimes things just don’t turn out the way she expects. And Korra, with her kindness and her strength, is a welcome change that Asami willingly accepts.