They heard the roar of the waterfall hours before they reached it.

To their right they saw, at last, the gleam of the River of Remembrance. It was such a brilliant white that it was almost blinding. Up close, the light's reflection grew so sharp as to hurt the eyes, so they found themselves walking at a distance, their heads half-turned away. The space between the black river and the white river narrowed.

As they walked on, the sky seemed to sink into twilight, according to the inscrutable rules of the Spirit World. The roar of the water grew louder and louder, so loud that speaking became impossible. Mist filled their vision, and they went slowly. Korra stopped. She pointed to a fissure in the rocks. They investigated, carefully now because the rocks were slippery. The fissure led to a staircase.

Who made these stairs? Asami wanted to ask. Human or Spirit? For what purpose?

No answers. Asami could feel something tugging at her, pulling her forward, calling to her with the water's voice. She heard it, and chose to follow. She and Korra made their careful descent.

It was a long way down. Down and forward. They kept one hand on the wall at all times, and the other hand in each other's keeping. The waterfall's noise never abated, but reverberated into their ribcages, their hearts. Again, they were silent. It reminded Asami of the morning that they had left Republic City.

Down and forward. Down and forward.

The stairs leveled out. Korra and Asami ducked through a low doorway. Before them thundered an unending wall of water, stretching in both directions, all colored moonlight-silver and struck through with rainbows.

It was just as well they couldn't speak. No words could match this sight.

They stood and stared a while, but then, at an unspoken signal, began to look for the next way to go. To their left the stone ground dwindled away; the path continued rightward. They went on, the mist beading into diamonds on their hair. Asami worried about accidentally inhaling water from the River of Forgetfulness. They kept walking, and their path ventured sharply to the left, where a jag in the cliff up above created a break in the waterfall. Asami found the path, barely visible.

They crossed. As they passed on the other side of the waterfall, the wind picked up. Fog and mist swirled into their eyes, making it nearly impossible to see.

The mists shifted. The light played on the surface of the tumultuous water. The two humans standing there changed, or maybe they only seemed to change.

The figure in front – strong and sure, a soul that knew fear, as well as compassion – turned around. He regarded the woman before him with a smile like fire lighting on the tundra. He reached out and stroked her long, dark hair.

The woman pressed his hand against her face. Her other hand she pressed to his heart, as if she would wipe away all of his sorrow. As she smiled, her eyes filled with tears. A betrothal necklace gleamed like new fallen snow at her throat.

She lifted her hand from his heart and set it along his jaw, then onto his shoulder. They began to dance.

Stately and graceful, joy measured out. Their feet seemed to simply know where water and rock would be. They followed the path without a misstep, even when it turned into a little string of stepping-stones. All this was done sightlessly – for they never took their eyes off of each other.

They halted at a large, flat rock, and circled very closely to one another. His hands brushed her stomach, her hips. She pressed on his shoulders and he lifted her up, clear of the mists. Now she laughed, and the sound carried across the water.

They made a few more steps, in a traditional Water Tribe dance forgotten over two hundred years ago. The dance drew to a close, with the man and woman – now, better to call them husband and wife – standing opposite each other, their hands clasped so tight. They looked at one another like there was no other source of light in the world.

The cold wind blew again, silencing for a minute the noise of the falls, and the mist scattered.

Their arms wrapped around each other, and they buried their faces in each other's shoulder. With a great, shuddering sigh, Asami sobbed, and Korra's arms tightened around her. They had never been so close.

And that was it, the magic was gone.

They were only themselves.

When they pulled away, neither said anything of what had just happened. They turned back, to look in wonder at the waterfall of Remembrance and Forgetting. After a while, Asami said, "We probably ought to find someplace else to sleep."

"Practical as always," Korra replied.

They hopped from stone to stone, and landed on a sandy beach. Looking around, Korra assessed out loud that they had just crossed a little strait. This waterfall fed into the greatest sea of the Spirit World, and they rested on its banks. This would be a good place to camp – Korra liked the idea of sleeping with the song of the sea in her ears.

Asami didn't quite hear. Instead she had her eyes fixed upward. In the darkness, she could see a light dancing in the sky. It looked like the Moon of the physical world – but it wasn't a sphere. It looked more like a coiling, gleaming white serpent… or two loops that fed one another, over and over, for infinity.

"Is that the Wheel of Rebirth?" she asked Korra.

Korra looked up. "You know," she answered, "I don't know. But it might be."

So that was where it all ended, Asami thought. All you could suffer and struggle with, cherish and love, give and take, it all ended up there, to be washed away before your soul was given to a new life. Memory didn't last, and that was a painful thought, but if everyone forgot everything, then it sort of evened out. And it was just another chapter of a lesson that Asami had learned when she was a child: nothing lasted, so love while you could, with open hands and an open heart.

Asami turned to her friend, her partner, her dear one. "Korra?"

"Yes?" Korra looked to Asami so quickly a lock of hair fell into her face.

Smiling, Asami reached over and tucked the lock behind her ear. "I love you."

Korra's face broke into a smile. "Asami, I love you so much."

They kissed and held each other in the light of the Wheel of Rebirth.

They were home.

THE END

A/N: Yes, the end. This began as a fairly silly idea, that I thought could make a little series of drabbles. Of course, "little series of drabbles" turned into a forty-thousand word retelling of the series from a new point of view. -sigh- It also became a spiritual, meditative character study and a chance to flesh out Korra and Asami's relationship, which is, in the show, a beautiful shadow of what it could have been. More than that, this story became something constructive to focus on when I was in a real rough patch. "As Ummi" is a piece that I'm very proud of, and very fond of. Maybe it's not perfect, but I'm happy with it.

My thanks to the Avatar Wiki for their episode transcripts, which helped me so much in keeping dialogue and action accurate. Any mistakes I made are probably because I failed to consult the transcripts.

I treasure every review I got - thank you, reviewers o' mine. And thank you to all of my readers - whenever you find this, THANK YOU for reading my peculiar but earnest story to the end. I hope that it brought you delight, as it did for me.