Disclaimer: I don't own anything...really.
Author's note: Just had to get some Makorra off my chest...
"I…I can't."
Mako felt his heart sink into his stomach as he watched the woman he loved turn her back on him. He felt like time stood still as she mounted her polar bear dog and took off, without even a second glance.
Every fiber in his body was tense, his mind in tangles as he could do nothing more than stare, the cold, icy air around him engulfing him. He didn't move when Tenzin approached, mumbling something about time and patience and other things that didn't matter.
She left me. Here. In the cold. After I told her I loved her.
The firebender turned to the older gentlemen in genuine confusion. "What?"
"Korra needs time," Tenzin repeated, "to accept what has happened to her. It's not going to be an easy transition for her."
"No." Mako stared hard at the South Pole gates.
"I beg your pardon?" The airbender gave him a quizzical look.
"No!"
"Mako I don't understand what you're trying to say."
"Who does she think she is?" Mako exploded, his clenched fists warming with heat against the cold. "I told her, I finally told her how I feel about her, and she runs off and says she can't? CAN'T WHAT?"
"Young man, I think the weather is getting to you," Tenzin tried, bewildered at the sudden outburst of the usually even-tempered Mako. "Maybe you should go inside."
"I need your air bison."
"Oogi? What in spirits for?"
Tenzin contemplated running back inside as Mako took a crazed step towards him. It was times like these that he wished he didn't offer words of wisdom where none was needed.
"That, woman," Mako snarled, "came into my life and disrupted everything! I was perfectly fine working and living the normal, homely life with my brother when she waltzes in with her polar bear dog and Avatar title. I didn't need her coming in and telling me that she thinks we're meant for each other, or how I think about her when I'm with Asami and just tangling everything up! Now, NOTHING is the same! Then, she goes and gets held up by some crazy bloodbender who's brother just happens to be running around the city taking away peoples bending, and she expects us to be okay with it?"
"And just when I learn to accept everything, just when I come around to realizing my feelings and confess to her, she says she CAN'T? WHO THE HELL DOES SHE THINK SHE IS?"
Tenzin glanced over his shoulder to see everyone standing at the door, watching Mako's tirade. Signaling for help, he received nothing more than shocked looks and his mother's twinkling smile.
"So either give me your air bison or I'll give you a trim."
Swallowing cold, South Pole air, he turned back to the disturbed firebender who was inching closer and closer to his beard with fiery fingers.
Tenzin watched helplessly as Mako steered Oogi away in the sky, fingering his beard for any singes. "That boy has completely lost it."
"I agree," Katara smiled, "completely lost in love with his Avatar."