Mara taught Korra how to braid bread dough, how to light the hearth without choking on smoke, and how to laugh without glancing over her shoulder first. Once, Mara gifted her a pale blue dress. Korra stared at it for a long moment, fingers trembling. “This is too much.”

“It’s just cloth,” Mara said with a grin. “But sometimes the right cloth makes people look twice and see a person instead of a story.”

She didn’t know what to say. That night, when she put the dress on, she ...