"Once in a lifetime, you were mine."
The sky was as blue and clear as her eyes.
His eyes smoldered though, embers casting star-colored rays of love to dance inside a deep golden stare.
Her hands were so smooth, he distantly thought. Her fingers intertwined with his perfectly and as the murmurs of promise and affection knelled in his ears, he could ethereally feel her throbbing heart as he ran a finger furthermore her wrist. Warmth was given and shared between the two and both their lips curved up into brimming smiles.
He was covetous and decided to describe the feeling he had not endured before, a false attempt at calming his mind. He thought that it was as if the northern and southern lights fused inside his chest, sending streaming pulses of love to ignite and spark and he never wanted to rid himself of the emotion that crashed down on him like an unfaltering wave.
A lamenting voice governed him back to his love, and a steadied breath eloped him.
"Do you, Mako, accept Korra as your lifemate and one true love, promising to share in all that life offers and suffers, to be there for her in times of need, to soothe her in times of pain, and to support her in all endeavors, big and small?"
"I Mako, accept you, Korra, as my companion and my wife. I promise to care for you, honor you, and cherish you, for as long as we both shall live."
The man that stood amid them but did not sunder them veered towards Korra, and with cordial eyes repeated what he had said to Mako.
"Do you, Korra, accept Mako as your lifemate and one true love, promising to share in all that life offers and suffers, to be there for him in times of need, to soothe him in times of pain, and to support him in all endeavors, big and small?"
"I Korra, accept you, Asami, as my companion and my wife-"
A curbed gasped freed itself from the crowd before the three, and the color seeped from Korra's confounded face. Her breath escaped her in frayed, short gulps and she heard nothing but her bellowing heart rupturing in her eardrums. She could no longer restrain her hands, for they were now shaking in an odd rhythm that did not match her racing thoughts. A numb wind that was real or not (she did not know) braced her skin and she felt as if she were drowning, drowning in her own words. She strived to open her mouth to speak, but it was too dry, her tongue was stuck at the bottom of her cinching jaw. She was quivering violently now, and glared down at her hands, fingers curling into a fist, but she realized there was no hand to hold. Her head snapped up to Mako, who stared at her in remorse. He did not look cross, but dazed. She again tried to speak, but she knew her voice would stutter. The firebender's eyes never left her but Korra discerned she was no longer the person his mind was focused on. She turned hear head back to the crowd, and saw mouths forming words, though all she could hear was her heartbeat.
And she was glad, for it was all she ever wanted to hear again.
She forced her eyes shut, but did not see darkness, instead, familiar green eyes with specks of gold invaded her vision.
The Avatar hissed in pain, jaw constricting and eyelids stably shut as blood wept through a gash in her skull.
A gaunt figure flitting over her grunted in echo, eyebrows knit jointly in a disquieting glare. There was an air about him, some way he kept his posture, some way that he moved with self-certainly, the same way that he looked at her with cold appraisal that caused her to change.
"Mako . . " Korra gurgled, eyelids ebbing, darkness ensconcing her.
"You'll be fine," he groused ravingly. He blandly impelled a dampened rag against her head, compiling the blood that pooled out steadily.
Korra opened her dense eyes and saw her world was on fire when she dared to gaze up at her husband. She saw herself slowly fading from his mind.
His effect on her was still new. Korra's fear of him never used to shut her down as it did now, it used to wake her up. She had tried to heal what been hurt, but to no avail. His fire used to go out, but now it was dull, amplifying stronger and never fading. She never lost hope though, she had never lost hope for a day that would never come, though her skin now trembled at the thought of him.
"You promised you would never do that again," she mourned. Another line he had crossed; another scar carved in her heart.
His teeth bared. "Then don't try and leave," the firebender barked, voice severe. Although when the woman who could control all elements kept her gaze on him, she noted that his wide-open eyes were glazed and once more Korra was trapped in her own screams.
"I wasn't!" Korra jarred, sitting up. "I just wanted to go on a ride with Naga!"
"Why'd you have all that stuff?" Mako bellowed, leering down at the girl, heaving the rag aside. It slopped against a neighboring wall and sundered to the floor, in a tight, rayless corner of the room.
"You mean her saddle and food?" Korra stood up, embedding her feet adamantly on the ground. The couple's bodies were strained against each other, their eyes narrowing, breath fuming and fusing up into the air like mocking spirits. They both learned that either of them would not balk.
"Bullshit!" The man roared. "Why don't I just get rid of that stupid mutt?" He pushed his face in, more constricting, so Korra had to abjure in order for skin not to touch.
She could not stand the touch of him anymore.
"Huh?"
The Avatar trembled in angst and enmity, knowing there was nothing she could do to stop him. Her body shrunk, slinked away, knees contorting and unbuckling so she subsided onto the worn couch before her. He knew how to make her give up. She would do anything for the last friend she had, though there was now no voice left for her to sing the pain that he had caused.
Mako's lips pulled back and his hazel eyes glinted in the faltering light scattered across the living room, a complacent look on his face.
Korra glanced away, her lower lip jutted out in a bleeding pout, elevating a quavering hand to touch her head, causing her to flinch.
Mako felt words recessing on his chapped lips, though unable to elude. They were meant for amenity and solace, but his obduracy got the best of him and he bound his extended arm to reach out for his life and love to regress, turning his back on Korra.
"Sweetie," she started, scarcely able to stop her voice from staggering. Due to anxiety, stars were exploding in her vision as if he had already hit her. Her hands found their way to her elbows and she cradled them in her arms as if an infant, an obvious habit as she grimaced against the flesh that had been bruised the nights before.
Mako turned around, depleting sustained seconds when he heard a fragmented voice erupt.
"What?" Sarcasm laced his voice like poison.
Her gaze darted away from his without rousing her head. "You don't have to be afraid of me," she said with penchant swaying in her voice.
All at once Mako's muscles jerked and his eyes gripped onto a burning malice that buried itself inside him. He seethed, the calefaction of air pumping his blood, mimicking the act of his heart as the orphan who tamed dancing colors struggled to control his arm. "What makes you think I'm afraid?" he jeered.
His voice made the Avatar demur back into the dinged couch, eyes wringing shut, body tautened, though Mako did intend to believe she was preparing for percussion.
The air severed in what seemed two when the firebender reared his sinewy arm, glowering down at the shell of a woman.
Memories flared before his mind, purling around his head, jesting at him until he was calm, calm has Hell.
Mako's mind immersed in blazing memories of the night they spent at the old Republic City Park. He would not in the least forget when he felt a body shift and veer against him and he pushed closer so the Avatar did not yield down, but against him. Mako had opened his eyes and peered down at the brown haired, beryl eyed girl.
Her jaw was slacked, mouth ajar, inept to stop the stifled trail of drool that trilled from her mouth. Amore thundered in his heart as he used his thumb to wipe it away, like he had done to Bolin as a child so many times before.
She had stirred inappreciably, disarranged words tripping from her mouth.
Mako simply kept his smile and skimmed two fingers across her caramel-colored skin. He traced the feel of her skin against his pallid fingers, going from the bridge of her nose to her cheek, back to brush the soft skin around her eyes, as his mother had done to him at night when he was incapable of sleeping.
His ire boiled away when he thought back to retaining each perfect fault that she obtained; the things that made him love her more.
His mind again lulled away, drifted to the time after the defeat of Amon, when Republic City was tranquil for months.
He would wake Korra up at dawn on Air Temple Island, where they stayed. Her eyelids would flutter open and gaze fall on his, a sharp intake of breath meeting her lips as she sat up. Mako would prompt her ready, kissing her exposed skin as she would dress, laughing and shooing him away until she was ready.
They would take the ferry to the place where towers touched the sky, Korra in Mako's arms, trembling like a child in impulse. He would wring her enduringly to his lean body and kiss the top of her head, inhaling the ambrosial scent that framed the Avatar. The brooding firebender remembered how her teeth looked like glimmering snow in the aurora when she smiled up at him after he would situate himself to hold her.
They would bound off the boat too early, dancing feet over the stormy blue ocean waves. Mako would clutch a slender hand in his own and braid the Avatar through the people walking on city sidewalks, nudging them out of the way lightly, the couple bashful and apologizing until the duo came to where the train tracks laced the terrain. He had grown to love the people's somewhat familiar faces he had never grown to know solely and always simpered to the altruistic faces that breezed passed him in order to get to their jobs.
People that were bound to city lights were always scattered like stars on the hard ground.
He took her hand and led her through the teeming street, dancing to the natural city instrumentals. He favored the feel of her head on his chest, the harmonies of the murmuring crowd fusing with the tranquil wind that sent tongues of whispering lyrics to breath into the couple's ears.
I will pay off my debts in Hell.
"Did he really mess me up this bad? He ruined me, it was all part of his plan. And for me, the saddest part is that he didn't ruin me because or for to make my life a living Hell, but for Asami. He didn't care about me with the exception that I became damaged goods, so to make Asami suffer. I could never tell him the feelings he gives me when I think about him or see him, though, because then he would know. Then he would know that he had won. I guess it just takes a toll on you to know your own friend, your own boyfriend rejected you, and not just from the start. I mean, it wasn't like he had just met me, because that would honestly be better. No, he got to know me. He knew me for years, learned all my fears and hopes and dreams and secrets, and when I said her name at the wedding, that was when he decided to use me as revenge. He was more mad at her rather than me. Why? It was such an easy plan for him, he cared more about making Asami suffer rather than me. I was no longer a person, much less the Avatar, but property, a tool for his revenge. They say people's eyes can tell a thousand stories. I just want someone to look into my eyes, to know what I'm going through, someone to know that everyday when I wake up, I wake up dead."
"She's everything she has, she's everything she is."
Mako deluged back into the real world suddenly, memories abating him and eyes opening on darkness for a few moments before colors blurred into the shapes of his apartment.
And Korra's.
He came back fully when his arm gave away and it receded to his side. His eyes filled with glossy tears as he gaped at the love of his life.
She was now on angular knees, elbows retreating on the couch, head aligned on her arms, her body twitching in agony and fear, eyes shut tight, lips pulled back so he could see her teeth clinking together, and if she had a tail, Mako thought, it would be between her legs, quivering. Though he did not miss the crucial fact that tears did not stream down her cheeks.
The man thought back to the warm memories that had left him so suddenly, and he realized how much the Avatar had changed.
She was skinny and lankier then she used to be. Muscle did not cloak her paler skin as it once had. Her hair was frayed, too greasy, too long for Korra. Her cheeks bored inwards, almost every feeble bone in her body evident. Bruises and faint scars were harrowing reminders of what happened when she did not obey Mako. Even her clothes looked bland, for the only color arising were specks of blood that hadn't yet faded into blue. When her eyes opened they did not glare or were glazed over in hope, but were sullen that hid demons.
The firebender's limbs went numb from twinges of ache and empathy.
He resembled her, arms opening like the moments when he caught and twirled her around. She winced and her eyelids fell again.
He paced towards her. "Open your eyes," he murmured to his wife.
She shook her head tentatively.
"Korra." He scolded gently, defeated at her lack of response.
"No," she managed. "I'm not falling for that again," she admitted. "Because when I open my eyes they'll be blurry from your strikes," she snapped.
He bowed his head in response and knelt down in front of the girl. He softly ran a hand down her cheeks to her chin, lifting it to meet her gaze. She opened her eyes, sparks igniting into hungry flames.
Though she averted his own golden orbs and her gaze did not fall on his.
He felt a spark detonate deep in his abdomen and he brushed away the stray hairs that dipped down to lay over her eyes, kissing her forehead, a bad habit when she did not want to so much as see him, he noted, maybe he should stop.
"Mako," Korra said, her voice high in stress.
''I'm in love with you."
"You're lying."
"One is . . . true."
A/N: I know, I know, let me explain. This was not based off of their relationship or any of their personalities. Korra would never act lower then Mako and I could never imagine Mako even think of hurting the love of his life. Anyways, I got the first idea for this fanfiction from the song Almost Lover by A Fine Frenzy (note: when they were dancing in the streets to the "natural city instrumentals"), while the main idea for this story came from an idea to write something very different from other fanfictions, as well as something the readers (hopefully) would not forget (although I wouldn't mind if you forgot this one, it's not my best). Kind of like in A Child Called It (Dave Pelzer), I wanted it to be happy at first (more likely the first few sentences, and then some flashbacks later on) only to show that a normal relationship can turn into something terrible (depending on the situation or the person(s)). I wanted something realistic, something that a lot of people choose to look past. I suppose I wrote this to make people more aware? I betrayed myself, I guess. One of the most perfect relationships that I desire and want I made into this story. I opened my eyes and realized I wanted something real, believable, whether the couple could portray that or not. I didn't mean for it to get so dark, but one word led to another and a horrid sentence turned itself into more and then I was done with the story, forgive me! I promise you I am not as dark as this fanfic describes me, but I have never written anything like this, and I got a little carried away. I can't really say much else but apologize to anyone who didn't like this fanfiction, as well as if there were any misspelled words or inaccurate sentences. Also, did anyone notice the Friends scene?