I made a change to the canon setup for this scene: in this fic, Amon still faked the scar on his face, but his public backstory is less a lie and more a distortion of the truth…
One of several directions I was considering taking the characterization of the bloodbending brothers.
Their stolen boat's speed whipped the spray into Tarrlok's face, a bitter mist of salt that stiffened his hair and left a light crust on his bare skin.
"You're quiet."
He glanced up. Noatak was looking at him, his ice-blue eyes – as always – unreadable.
What is there to say? I hate everything you stand for, everything you've done, everything you…
Tarrlok turned away, watching the ocean fly past. Once again instinct reached for it, just to feel its familiar pressure in his grip, and once again panic seized him when he found nothing.
And you did this.
"Don't you want to know where we're going?"
No. "Why do you think I care?"
"Because I am Republic City's number one enemy, and you devoted your life to protecting it."
Well, that much is true. Tarrlok sighed. But I failed…I failed long before I lost my bending. All I wanted was to protect it, to keep its people safe…
An image of the young Avatar, blue eyes wide with terror as her limbs left her control, flashed through his mind.
I am my father's son.
He looked back at Noatak. The man the world had known as Amon still wore his trademark uniform, but stripped of the mask and hood he seemed a different man. No longer an enigma, no longer a revolutionary, no longer a leader.
Yet his bearing still bespoke confidence, ease, presence.
"You told the world you were scarred by a Firebender," he said slowly. Noatak nodded, turning slightly to regard him with a questioning expression. "That this 'scar' was why you wore the mask."
Silence.
A tired smirk wormed its way onto Tarrlok's face. "So you lied about your past and your goals to gain the people's trust –"
"I did not lie about my goals," Noatak snarled, his eyes flashing wildly. "I could not tell them the truth about my identity – and with you rapidly rising through the ranks, becoming Councilor, how could I expose my face? But my ideals…there were plenty who would come after me if they saw the real scars."
A thin blade of water arced over Tarrlok's shoulder, slicing through Noatak's uniform at the left shoulder. It fell to reveal the discolored skin beneath, the splotchy red of horrific burns covering most of his arm.
"Do you know what it feels like to wake up with your life burning down around you?" His voice shook with contained emotion. "To know that your ideals brought this upon you? To hear the cries in the next room and know that with so little water to aid you, your family's only escape is by your hand? To see – and feel – the results of bending?"
Scowling, Tarrlok raised his arm, waving it in a vague imitation of bloodbending. "Interesting that you ask me if I've felt bending, Noatak."
Noatak glowered at him for a moment before visibly collecting himself. "The Equalists needed a story to relate to. I saw no reason to complicate matters with details."
He turned away.
Shame warmed Tarrlok's cheeks. Noatak was not one to forsake his ideals. The conviction in his manner on the night he'd left home, the determination in his voice…it was strong. He was as ardent in his beliefs as Tarrlok was to his own.
But of course. We're brothers.
Another thought hit him. Noatak had made a life for himself, found a family. A wife, a child, perhaps more than one. He had escaped, if only for a time.
"Why did you do it?"
You're going to have to be more specific. Tarrlok sighed, guilt gnawing at his insides. "Do what?"
A mirthless grin. "When I took your bending away, you had the Avatar in a metal cage. I take it the two of you didn't get along very well?"
She defended the people I thought your supporters. She got in my way. She was just as determined as I was. She drove me to the brink and beyond, forcing me to use the bending technique I'd hoped never again to wield.
"She looked at me and saw a tyrant."
Harsh laughter rose over the engine's drone. "And she looked at me and saw a villain. I wonder, whose view is correct? Hers, or ours?"
You were still a villain. After all you did to Republic City…
Once again, Tarrlok glanced to the side. To the row of Equalist lightning gloves lining the inner shelf of the speedboat. I'm…sorry, brother.
Noatak sighed. "And yet, the Avatar is supposed to represent everyone equally, regardless of nationality…or bending ability. The leader of our enemy, and yet now that I've failed, I can't help but wonder…if there had been some way to make her sympathetic to my cause…"
Am I hearing this? Tarrlok raised an eyebrow. "Next you're going to tell me you actually regret taking her bending away."
"Don't be absurd." His brother's derisive snort was somehow reassuring. "She was as bad as the rest of them – never a gesture of peace, never an offer of reconciliation. Amon was evil, his Equalists were rebels, bent on destroying the unequal society her predecessors had built. All she ever did with her bending was threaten and fight. The very model of a bending extremist. Almost like a naïve version of you."
A flash, a memory –
"And you don't? Isn't that what you came here to do? Intimidate me into releasing your friends?"
– and Tarrlok stared at Noatak's back, suddenly invigorated. "Not quite. She was headstrong, as unyielding as I was –"
"An oppressor."
Tarrlok shook his head. "But she confronted me. She told me I was going too far, that I was using my power unjustly. The only reason we fought…she was protecting her friends, but also the rights of nonbenders."
"And what do you think she'll do now?" The mocking edge in Noatak's voice knifed through the air. "Apologize to the hordes of Equalists who sought only a safer world? My lieutenant will be forgiven – she'll sympathize with anyone who has felt the effects of bloodbending – but the chi-blockers? The airship pilots? Hiroshi Sato? The men who made the bomb casings? The supporters at my rallies?"
He turned to face Tarrlok. "The Equalist movement is finished. Republic City is back where it was before I arrived."
His eyes shifted, narrowed, as he watched Tarrlok fiddle with one of the gloves. Tarrlok ignored him. So be it. If Noatak wants to stop me, he'll do so. He brought me onto a boat with anti-bending weapons and turned his back on me. There's nothing I can do that he hasn't implicitly allowed.
For some reason, that hurt almost as much as the loss of his bending.
He studied the weapon in his hands. He'd seen it before, handled them, even used one on himself to mask his capture of the Avatar, so he knew how they worked. Simple enough, really. Put it on, charge it up, and click.
"Do you think she'll see?"
Tarrlok scowled as he slid the glove onto his hand. "Why are you asking me all these questions? Why did you even bring me along? Where are you going?"
Silence.
Eventually, Tarrlok glanced up to see Noatak's steady, opaque gaze.
"You already know, brother."
Sympathy – cool, calming sympathy – trickled through Tarrlok's indifferent composure. Yes. I do.
"Then here's one I don't know the answer to," Tarrlok said, absentmindedly unscrewing the cap for the boat's fuel tank. "What would you have done if you'd succeeded?"
Noatak laughed. "What would you have done?"
Tarrlok paused for a moment, reflecting on the question. "I think I would have ruled Republic City."
"A bloodbender in charge…" Noatak's voice was gentle, almost sad. "We never could quite escape our father, could we? No matter how hard we tried…"
The cap fell, striking the boat's floor with a light metallic clink. Within the tank, gasoline sloshed the sides, barely audible over the crashing sea.
Charge it up and click.
A low whine, a slight ringing in his ears, as the lightning gathered within the glove, a vast store of energy. Probably generated in Sato's factories, where men and women bent lightning into the massive batteries for quick cash.
Killed by a Firebender…
"Noatak…"
"Yes, Tarrlok?"
"There might have been a way to avoid all this." Tarrlok swallowed, allowing himself a pang of regret as he held Noatak's questioning gaze. "I've often wondered…what if I'd gone with you the night you left? What if we'd been there for each other every step of the way?"
He smiled fondly, thinking of what could have been. "We were such a team."
The faintest ghost of a smile touched Noatak's lips. "There's nothing we can't do together."
Tarrlok nodded.
For a moment, Noatak's eyes seemed to shimmer. Taking a deep breath, he turned to face the ocean, the endless landscape before them. "I remember a time when we wanted to explore the world, when we looked out over the ocean and called it ours. I think…"
I remember, too. "It will be just like the good old days, brother."
At Noatak's touch, the boat sped up. Wind roared past them, water leaped in their wake as they raced forward. Nothing we can't do.
Click.
The truth? I saw this scene and immediately shoved my other projects aside so I could write something on it :)
Comments and critique are always appreciated. Thanks for reading!