shadow

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 barely recognized herself; her reflection caught in the mirror, eyes glimmering faintly silver.

Mara gasped softly. “You look… different. The moon suits you.”

Korra smiled shyly. “I think it likes me better now.”

Still, not everyone welcomed her. One afternoon, as she carried a basket of folded laundry across the courtyard, two young wolves blocked her path. Their grins were all teeth.

“Look what the Alpha dragged in,” one sneered. “A drowned stray playing house.”

Korra said nothing as she stepped aside. But they followed, circling like predators testing a wounded thing.

“Bet she thinks she’s special now. Living in the pack house, eating our food”

“Maybe she’s the Alpha’s pet.”

Heat crawled up her neck, shame and fury twisting together. “I didn’t ask for any of this,” she said, voice low but trembling.

The taller one leaned close. “No? Then leave.”

Before she could answer, Mara’s voice cut through the courtyard like a whip. “Enough!”

She stood a few feet away, her eyes blazing with anger. “If you have so much free time, the laundry hall needs scrubbing.”

The bullies scowled but retreated.

When they were gone, Mara exhaled shakily. “You can’t let them smell fear, Korra. Wolves like that, they live for it.”

Korra’s hands shook as she set the basket down. “I wasn’t afraid.”

“Yes,” Mara whispered. “You were, but that’s all right. Courage isn’t the absence of fear.”

Days turned to weeks, and Korra’s strength returned.

The pack house had begun to feel less like a cage and more like a maze she was slowly learning to navigate. 

Sometimes, she dared to believe she belonged there, if only in the periphery. Mara remained her anchor; she taught her small things that became the map of survival — how to bow her head just enough when elders passed, how to scent the air before speaking, how to find humor in daily living.

One morning, as frost laced the windows, Mara tugged Korra from her bed.

“Come on,” she said cheerfully. “We’re going to market.”

Korra blinked, still half-asleep. “I thought omegas weren’t allowed beyond the grounds?”

“Not alone,” Mara said, grinning. “But with me? You will be fine.”

Outside, the air felt clean. Snow dusted the pine trees, and the distant peaks glimmered. The path led them through the heart of the pack’s territory, cottages, training fields, and the blacksmith’s forge.

Korra kept close to Mara at the market square, and for the first time saw the world from a new perspective. She watched as sellers and buyers bartered over hides and herbs, as pups darted between stalls. It felt strange to walk among them, to just exist without shrinking from fear.

Mara stopped by a stall lined with bolts of fabric. “You need new clothes,” she said, thumbing through the clothes.

“I have enough already,” Korra protested softly.

“You have two dresses, both threadbare,” Mara countered, holding up a soft wool tunic. “You will freeze before spring.”

Korra traced the fabric with cautious fingers. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

“Then take it.”

“I can’t pay.”

“You can,” Mara said firmly. “With your company, that’s all I ask.”

Something warm unfurled in Korra’s chest, fragile and unfamiliar. She nodded. “Then… thank you.”

Behind them, a low voice murmured something to the merchant in a steady, commanding tone, unmistakably of rank. When Korra glanced over her shoulder, she caught only a silhouette retreating through the crowd. 

Mara followed her gaze and smirked faintly. “Some eyes never stray far, do they?”

Korra frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” Mara said, turning back to the stall. “Just that you have more protection than most realize.”

Korra said nothing. But the image stayed, that brief flicker of a presence she could neither name nor deny.

They returned to the house at dusk, their arms laden with cloth and herbs. In the kitchen, Mara taught her to bake bread, laughing when flour streaked across her nose.

“You have to knead it like you mean it,” Mara said, demonstrating.

Korra tried, but her dough stuck stubbornly to the board. “It hates me.”

“No,” Mara said, guiding her hands gently. “It just doesn’t know you yet.”

Korra laughed then, a soft, startled sound that filled the kitchen like sunlight. For the first time in memory, laughter didn’t feel dangerous.

Later, as the loaves baked, she felt it again, that weight of eyes. Not hostile, just watchful, but not in the way predators stalk prey..

She turned, but no one was there. Only Loran passed by the doorway. When he noticed her look, he smiled faintly. “The kitchen suits you.”

She flushed. “I’m still learning.”

“Then you’re ahead of most,” he said. 

By month's end, Korra had learned the rhythm of chores. She scrubbed halls until her arms ached, tended the hearths, and helped the cooks prepare meals. Each act rooted her more firmly in this world. 

Mara noticed the change, too. “You seem lighter these days,” she said one evening as they shared a meal in their room.

“I think I’m just tired,” Korra murmured.

“Not tired,” Mara whispered. “Healing.”

Korra looked up. “Is that what this is supposed to feel like?”

“Sometimes healing feels like exhaustion,” Mara said with a smile. “It’s the body learning it no longer has to fight to survive.”

****************

Spring crept through the pack’s borders, painting the woods in green. Korra helped plant herbs in the garden behind the house; her fingers felt raw from the soil. It was strange to create rather than destroy. Sometimes, she found herself smiling for no reason and simply enjoyed the rhythm of life.

But happiness was a fragile thing. The pack’s hierarchy was a web, and one wrong step could tangle her fast.

One afternoon, during communal chores, she accidentally brushed shoulders with a higher-ranked she-wolf, a tall woman with sleek black hair and amber eyes.

“Watch where you are going,” the woman snapped.

“I’m sorry,” Korra murmured, lowering her gaze.

“Sorry?” the woman sneered. “Sorry doesn’t change what you are.”

Whispers rippled through the corridor, and Korra felt her pulse stutter. The old fear clawed up her throat, but before she could retreat, Mara appeared beside her.

“She’s new, Myra. Perhaps you could show her kindness instead of admonishing her.”

Myra’s lip curled. “Kindness is for wolves who earn it.”

Mara’s tone turned icy. “Then maybe learn how to show it without expectations.”

The others watched, hungry for conflict. Finally, Myra clicked her tongue and stalked away.

Korra exhaled slowly. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“I know,” Mara said with a faint grin. “But it felt good.”

That night, a letter arrived at the pack house; it was sealed and official. Loran entered the kitchen, where Mara and Korra were cleaning.

“Korra,” he said, handing her the envelope. “You have been assigned stable duty tomorrow.”

She blinked. “The stables?”

“It’s a test of endurance,” Loran said carefully. “Every new member does it. Don’t worry, someone will meet you there at dawn.”

Mara frowned. “The stables are freezing at that hour.”

“I will send extra blankets,” Loran said before leaving.

***************

Morning came with a biting cold, and the stables smelled of hay and earth. Korra worked in silence, brushing down horses, scrubbing troughs. Her breath steamed in the air, despite the chill, sweat dampened her neck.

Hours passed, and her muscles screamed, but she didn’t stop.

When she finally paused, someone entered; he didn’t speak to her, only set a basket down. It contained some food, a flask of tea, and a folded cloak.

She stared. “You shouldn’t have…”

But when she looked up again, he was gone.

Only his scent lingered.

Her hands trembled as she touched the cloak. The fabric was warm, heavy, and lined with fur. The same kind of cloak she had once seen on the Alpha’s son's shoulders.

For a long moment, she just stood there, surrounded by the quiet breathing of the horses.

From that day and after she left the stables, small things started to appear: her broken shoes mended and left by the bed, a book on herbs resting at her table, a new comb when hers split.

When she asked Mara about it, her friend smiled knowingly. “Maybe the goddess still watches over you.”

But Korra wasn’t sure the goddess moved with such quiet, human care.

Sometimes, she thought she saw a figure at the edge of the woods when she hung laundry to dry. Sometimes, a shadow flitted past her window before dawn. Always distant and gone before she could call out.

And though she feared it, she also began to wait for it.

One evening, after a long day, Mara found her sitting by the fire, the new cloak wrapped around her shoulders.

“You’re thinking too loudly,” Mara teased, sitting beside her.

Korra smiled faintly. “Is that a thing?”

“Oh yes. It’s when your face says everything your lips won’t.”

Korra hesitated, then whispered, “Do you ever… feel like something’s waiting for you? Something you can’t name?”

Mara studied her quietly. “Sometimes. But whatever it is, it’s not here to hurt you, Korra. You’ve had enough of that.”

Korra’s throat tightened. “Maybe I don’t know the difference anymore.”