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Korra felt supremely uncomfortable in her dress. While she would have worn her traditional Water Tribe dress, it, among many of her possessions, had been burned by the Equalists during their conquest of Air Temple Island. Korra sighed as she put up her hair in a more feminine bun, remembering how her shopping trip with Asami to purchase said dress had gone.
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"Come on, Korra, you’re going to love this store. It has everything!" And by everything, Asami meant everything. Korra’s eyes widened at the floor to ceiling racks of clothing, shoes, accessories, and things she couldn’t even put a name to.
How am I going to find anything in here? Normally, Korra would have just let her trepidation at the daunting amount of baubles and bits show, but somehow she felt she had something to prove. If Asami could be beautiful and kick butt, so could she! Korra marched behind Asami to the dress rack, determined to find something.
That was until she looked at the dresses on it. Beading, sparkles, intricate lacework, seas of red, yellow, blue, and every in-between color imaginable swam before her eyes. Looking at Asami, perusing casually as if she did this every day, Korra decided to wing it.
Racks upon racks of dresses were organized by color, so Korra went towards the blues, knowing that she would be more comfortable surrounded by the colors of her native attire. She felt a tap on her shoulder, it was Asami.
"What?" Korra asked, worried she was doing something wrong.
"Look, I know you’re from the Water Tribe, and you’re the water reincarnation of the Avatar, but, politically, it would make more of a statement if you didn’t use any of the four elements’ colors." Korra gulped at Asami’s logic. She hadn’t even thought of the political ramifications of her color choice. Asami saw Korra’s eyes bug out of her head and moved to help her friend.
"I have a few ideas. Why don’t you take this," Asami handed her a creme gown, “and head to the dressing room? I’ll bring you some more dresses." While the Avatar’s pride was hurt, she knew she could trust Asami to help her.
As she walked to the dressing room to try on the sleek ivory dress, Korra tried not to let her thoughts get too tangled up. Mako wouldn’t really care what she wore, he would find her beautiful no matter what… but Asami always seemed to just glow. Not only that, but Asami had betrayed her own father for the cause. All Korra did was do what she believed in. While Korra thought of Asami as one of her best friends, it was hard to keep bitter thoughts from leaking in. Maybe Mako would think Asami looked better? Even if he didn’t care how his erstwhile girlfriend looked, it would still bug her.
Who knew getting the guy would be this hard? I wish I didn’t care. Asami’s my friend, and I hated feeling jealous all the time when she and Mako were together. I shouldn't be jealous now of all times.
The Avatar sighed, just trying to keep her emotions in check for a little while. All she would have to do was dance around a party for a few hours, even if she didn’t look as good as Asami, she was determined to have fun!
When she entered the dressing room, there were a few girls there, powdering their noses and gossiping with high giggles. They looked down at her boots and traditional pants and continued giggling, but at Korra. The girls were making fun of her. Ashamed, Korra averted her eyes and locked herself in the farthest dressing room. Again, another thing she had never considered, that her daily attire mattered. She merely wanted to have the easiest and most comfortable clothing for fighting, Korra wasn’t trying to make a fashion statement.
Angrily, Korra threw her clothes off and rammed the creme gown over her head. She heard a knock on the dressing room door, “Korra, are you in there?" Calming herself down with a deep breath, Korra took a moment before opening the door.
"Wow, Korra! That looks great on you, do you want to come and see it in the mirror?" While Korra trusted Asami, she worried that her friend was just trying to make her feel better. She nodded her head in the negative. Asami looked around, seeing the girls down the end of the hall, still giggling, and put two and two together.
"Don’t worry, when they see you in this, they’ll fall off their high horses," Asami whispered with a wink. Korra smiled shyly, glad to have Asami as a friend.
Korra stepped out to look at herself in the three-way mirror. The tight crepe material clung to the sides of her hips, making her curves stand out, and draped down her front in scallops of chiffon. The girls quietly stopped powdering their noses and left, heads down.
"Anything more interesting in that pile of dresses?" Korra asked, now eager to find something she would wear. Asami grinned.
"Here, have a look." Asami handed over the pile of dresses on her left arm to Korra, and swung into another dressing room with the pile on her right arm. Korra looked through them, but they were all black, white, creme, ivory, silver, or gold. Nothing really stood out to her, even if they would make a more neutral political statement. Seeing that Asami was still trying on dresses, Korra sneaked back into the shop to find something with more of a wow factor. When she found it, the perfect dress, she swiftly moved back into the dressing rooms to put it on.
When Korra emerged from her room, Asami was already there, smoothing over a strapless champagne dress with rivulets of ruffles and beads streaming down it. Asami gasped when she saw Korra, both in shock that Korra could pick out such a dress and that she looked so good.
Korra had pulled her hair out of her wolf tails and had it streaming down her bare back. Trailing out behind her were chiffon rivers of the colors of the four elements and more, somehow blended into an attractive paisley that bounded from behind her, contrasting to the tight black of the front of her dress.
Korra didn’t feel so inadequate anymore, after having found this dress by herself, and knowing that she could make a political statement and still take people’s breath away.
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The Avatar smiled to herself as she pinned her hair, putting on a necklace that streamed gems down her front and exposed back. Asami lent it to her, and, for the second time in recent history, Korra was grateful for her friend’s expensive taste.
Once they entered the dance held in honor of the city's restoration, Korra found that both she and Asami looked radiant. But Mako’s eyes were only focused on her, making all Korra’s worries moot as they made fun of the cuisine and fancy dancing, enjoying a night of being themselves after working for so long at rebuilding the city.