Author's Note: Here's a sort of sad fic I wrote on a whim one night at around ten when I was thinking about this other story I'm writing on a dare from my friend. Rain features heavily in it, so I started thinking about rain and how the Fabulous Bending Brothers were certain to have watched the rain at some point in their lives, especially Mako. So I wrote this. It's not actually that sad, more…reflecting.
As the Rain Fell
A Legend of Korra fanfic
I.
It splashes onto his shirt, his pants, soaking him to the skin and chilling him to the bone. The acrid scent of smoke, sharp in the clean crisp air shadows him, haunting him. Beside him, his younger brother whimpers and clutches at his hand as he tries to explain that mother and father are gone, and that they're never coming back. The two stand in the rain, watching the droplets douse the fire that consumes their home, leaving nothing but dark ashes and darker memories. This is their first night on the streets. The sun sets, but the rain does not cease, pattering endlessly on the branches of the trees that do so little to keep them dry. Later, after his brother falls asleep, he stands outside, watching as the sky sheds the tears he cannot, and thinks it strangely fitting.
II.
The night is black, a dark foreboding grey, even without the threat of heavy clouds looming low above them. They run through the streets just as the clouds turn on them, drenching them in minutes. The winter here is harsh and unforgiving, but he thanks the holy spirits that it only rains here, and that they are spared the horror of trying to survive in snow. They turn a corner, and suddenly there's a barrage of water that shouldn't be there in front of them, not even now, when the rain-swollen gutters are roaring with thousands of water droplets. Not in the streets. And he tries frantically, desperately to firebend, knowing the attempt is futile, as soon as he tries, that it won't work, that it wouldn't work even at the height of summer. And he's steeled himself for this death, a drowning in the back alleys of the black market, when suddenly the water reverses direction and speeds back towards its owner twice as fast as it came, whistling toward a sallow-skinned man who has just now turned the corner into his sight. He spots a fat old man with a beard striding towards them, the rain collecting into two spheres in the man's palms. Then the world swirls around him. Dimly, he hears a gruff voice telling him that it's okay. But inside, he's sure it's not.
III.
The night of their first match is greying, dark and wet. As he buckles in his helmet, he glances outside, worried that nobody will come. But the flooded streets are hardly the dark and desolate areas he expects, but are jammed with people waving lanterns and laughing. He's almost certain that they are here to watch them get creamed, and it's in that instant that he tells himself that he will do anything to prove those people wrong. The match is a blur of action and reaction, of sending flames flying, of ducking streams of water, of watching earth disks slamming forcefully into the stomachs of their opponents, and of the soothing rush of rain on the roof of the building.
IV.
They are so close. The rain glances off her dark skin, covering her in a light mist of rebounding raindrops. So close that he can feel that mist tickling his nose. She leans in, her brown hair brushing his ear, the droplets hanging off the ends of her ponytail dripping onto his shirt, though he's not sure if they aren't from the willow tree they sit under. She turns to watch the pattern of the drops on the surface of the river, in Central Park and he shifts to follow her gaze. Even though he is wet and cold, he is for once content. Then she tilts her head and shifts to look at him, her blue eyes burning into him in a way that should have been impossible in this weather. Overhead, the irregular beats of the rain match the frantic beat of his heart. And he's almost certain, when she kisses him, that now the rain is singing, just like he is inside.
Author's Note: Please review. Somewhere around a thousand people have read my fics, but only two have reviewed. Much thanks to Bralt and C.T. Moon!
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