Tahno watched Korra dance. She was in the arms of another. His name was Mako. He was tall and handsome and they glided together as if they have loved and lived in the skin of each other for years, exploring and falling into the comfort of knowing the other would always be there to catch them. The young man was only drawn out from the crowd by the vibrant sorrow wrapped around his neck.
Tahno was on the outside looking in. It was a strange, unfamiliar place to be. His eyes, burning with intensity and devotion to her form, her honey flesh, her long arms that carried a world too heavy. Her form was blurred slightly by the webs of ice that spun over the window. He blinked back ire that was boiling up inside of him. He blinked and the snowflakes on his eyelashes met their death on his cheeks, which were still warm with bitterness, desire and those other shriveled things that flickered in him before the onset of complete apathy.
"Watch it," Tahno managed to sputter out when a passerby bumped into him. With his scruffy hair and torpid expression he was mistaken for a pauper more than not. No one knew who he was anymore. The endorsements, the interviews, everything stopped. Who am I? Who am I without bending? There was no crisp snap of the fingers, igniting a spark in his mind. Korra. The thought of her, simply her name kept him hopeful. His chapped lips weren't brushing over hers, drawing out the truth he desperately needed to hear, did she feel for him like he felt for her. His words weren't at her throat, but he felt her like his own breath.
Tahno looked away. At the ground, at how many steps it would take to get home and crawl under the sheets. Too many, but he couldn't stay here freezing in the streets, dreaming of a life he no longer lived.