[ option a ]
The air is frigid, but there's no wind to make it truly unbearable. Korra stands in the middle of her training arena in the South Pole, facing Master Katara and her White Lotus teachers, who stand on a platform above her.

When she looks down, there's a knife in her hand, and Chekov sits with his back to her.

"Begin."

She brings the knife down, stabbing the young man in the back. Blood splatters on her hand, her torso, her face. She pulls the knife out and stabs him again. And again. And again. And again.

She can hear Master Katara turn to her White Lotus teachers. "You were right about her," the Avatar's wife says. "She is a failure."

[ option b ]
She's held on stage by two giant brutes, their hands gripping her arms hard enough to bruise. The stage lights burn her eyes; she can't see the crowd except as a faceless mass surrounding her on all sides. Her attention isn't on them, anyway. Her entire focus is on the other side of the stage, where the leader of the Equalists stands.

"I am not without compassion or justice," Amon says. "I will give the Avatar the chance to fight to keep her bending."

The guards holding her arms let go and Korra immediately unleashes a volley of fireballs. Amon charges at her and dodges each one, moving like a leaf in the wind. She tries to block him with a column of earth, but the stage is made of wood. She wipes the sweat from her brow and sends it flying as razor sharp icicles, but Amon is already gone -- behind her -- twisting her arm and forcing to her knees.

In a moment, with a simple touch to her forehead and a blinding flash of pain, it's over. Her bending is gone.

Korra slumps to the ground as the crowd roars in approval. She doesn't have the strength to resist when Amon kicks her, sending her off the stage with a brutal shove. What does it matter, anyway? Things can't get any worse.

The crowd parts, allowing four shadowy figures to approach.

"What use is an Avatar who could not save her friends?" she hears Amon ask the crowd as the ghouls of Asami, Mako, Bolin, and Tenzin advance on her. "What use is an Avatar who cannot even save herself?"

[ option c ]
Her limbs are twisted, contorted, wrong. The pain is agonizing, but not nearly as bad as the feeling that her body is not her own. Her very blood is bent to Tarrlok's will. With it, Tarrlok sends her floating down the stairs, down into an airless steel container. She screams, struggles, but she can't stop him from throwing her inside and closing the door.

"YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH THIS, TARRLOK!" she screams, pounding on the door. "LET ME OUT!"

Except she's no longer seventeen, but seven. It's dark and she's scared and she doesn't know where her parents are. The door opens and she stumbles out.

The old man leers down at her, and the woman too, and other faces she knows from the Underground. She throws fireballs at them, and boulders, and jets of water, but the crowd just laughs and the circle around her grows smaller and smaller.

[ option d ]
When the nightmares become too much to bear, her past lives step in.

Aang offers her a memory of Tenzin's childhood -- a warm summer day on Air Temple Island. He, Katara, young Kya, Bumi, and little Tenzin are playing on the beach. He passes on a pure, easy joy.

Roku offers her a memory of a quiet moment in his garden -- no people around, only a warm cup of tea in his hands and the peaceful sounds of animals around him. He passes on a feeling of serenity.

Kyoshi offers her a memory of her lover -- a sweet-tempered woman who steadied the earth beneath her feet, who shared the burden of the decisions she had to make. She passes on the comfort of her love's embrace.


[OOC: Hit with Dream Vortex - take your pick! You can mix and mingle, have one dream transition into another if you so choose. A & B, characters can interact with Korra as she is now; in C, characters would interact with baby!Korra; and in option D, characters would interact with either Aang, Roku, or Kyoshi.]

They're woods.

Thick woods, and it's night but it's not dark. It's as though the moon isn't just bright, it's like a lamp, shining on everything. All the smells and sounds of the woods are thick and overwhelming, ashy and heady, but then there's the smell of fire, the painful crackle of it, but no matter where anyone looks, all that's visible is the flame and the smoke, but not what's on fire.

The screaming starts a few minutes later.

The air is yet a little chill, but the sun streams brightly enough to make up for it. This dream starts between the roots of a great tree-- too wide around for five men to circle it with their arms, and even half a dozen would have to stretch.  Its branches start low, arching and splitting and reaching to claw the clear sky, as brilliantly blue as it ever has been.  They're still largely bare, neither leaf nor bud, but the scent of life is in the air.  The soil beneath your feet is dark and rich, a few bedraggled strands of half-dead grass interspersed with the shadows of branches.  

A little distance away, where the sun streams unhindered, a riotous crowd of flowers is starting to rise.  Crocuses of every color, the blinding green of new growth on low bushes, the heady scent of lilac.  Daffodils stretch their yellow maws toward the sun.  A hundred thousand other wildflowers creep along the withered grass and claw their way out of the earth, some seasonable and others not; some familiar, others strange.  The further from the tree, the greater the quantity; soon enough your line-of-sight fails, blocked out by the rising curtain of wild color.  There is, for all intents, nothing in the distance.  

And now, perhaps, you might notice a splash of color on the tree.  Hanging from a low branch is a crown of twigs and dry branches, twined with a rose vine which trails down to root in the earth.  These flowers, too, are in luscious bloom; the petals are colored a pale green, their perfume delicate but oddly energizing.  

The roots and branches, over here, are gently sloped and close together. If you squint, they almost form a staircase, winding its way up and around the tree... 

[ooc; separate threads will be considered separate incidents with different people, unless otherwise arranged, and will pan out differently for everyone <3 No continuity expected and OPEN to ALL comers. Extremely backdating friendly!]

( Sins are all forgiven here, yours and mine... )

> |


[OOC: This is an open dream post! Everyone is welcome, and things will be pretty freeform in here: like a true text adventure, things will unfold based according to the choices you make! Separate threads will be separate encounters, please, unless specifically requested otherwise. Just let me know! o/]

[ The room is a bar.

It's old - peeling posters and dusty glasses against the walls - and the only two souls inside are the soldier sitting on a stool and the bartender who's face is obscured by shadow. Rows of doors are lined up on the other side of the room and occasionally the bartender takes a halting step towards it, dragging his leg slightly. There's a gun on the counter and the filled tumbler in Bucky's hands is red in the dull light.

Every beat or two and the room shakes with the sound of an explosion and he doesn't look up, doesn't flinch, but his hand moves to the gun beside him, fingers dragging along the barrel. ]

( ooc: so i figure this can be as surreal and strange as we want it, and i'm pretty happy to go along any route. come dream hop. make him go through a door etc. )