Korra avoids Team Avatar's eyes on the long drive home. Instead, she stares out into Yue Bay with enough intensity that her eyes begin to water.
That's all it is, really.
Mako tries to break the tense silence once- clearing his throat, looking helplessly to his uncomfortable looking brother and stiff, unresponsive girlfriend- before subsiding. He reclines in the backseat and keeps his mouth shut.
Korra barely manages to hold in her sigh of relief, because she doesn't want to talk about it. She can't- she can't deal with this right now. She has too much to learn, too much to do and she doesn't have the fucking time to have a heart-to-heart with her teammates on things that were none of their business to begin with.
Which is why it terrified her that Amon had known her dirty little secret. Only Sifu Katara and the Order of the White Lotus had ever been privy to it- which meant that Amon had eyes everywhere.
Korra gulped, her mouth suddenly dry as her heart leapt to her throat, choking her. He'd been watching her, all this time. Amon could have killed her with a word- poison in her food, an 'accident' on the slippery slopes of the glacier… he'd probably knew every tic, every personality flaw, every hole in her bending style, all from some traitor who'd watched her grow up, every day.
"Korra, we're here." Bolin's voice was quiet, gentle, and unsure.
She blinked, then nodded, her eyes sliding into focus as they settled on the glimmering temple on Airbender Island; A place that was becoming less of a place of sanctuary, and more of a gilded cage. After all, it wasn't too much of a stretch to imagine spies among the Air Acolytes or the rotation of White Lotus guards. Sleeping in the park as she did when she first came was sounding like more and more of a good idea.
"You can go ahead, if you want." Mako said, incorrectly assuming that she was fidgeting from impatience at the slow rate at which the ferrymen were loading up their Satomobile rather than paranoia. "We've got it under control, right Bo?"
"Of course!" Bolin's voice was extra loud and cheery; it grated on Korra's ears and, for once, she had to force a smile at the two brothers.
Korra nodded curtly, shrugging out of her parka and tossing it into the backseat of the car. She turned, and trotted to the edge of the dock and, in one swift motion, dove gracefully into the frigid waters of the bay.
When she resurfaced, she heard a snatch of Bolin muttering "-it's Febuary!" before the rush of the water covered her head again and she began to swim in earnest. All she could hear was the rough rasp of her own breathing in her ears and the slap of her arms through the water.
It was easier not to think.
The Avatar knew they were talking about her. She saw the looks that Bolin, Mako, and Tenzin threw her way- like she was going to snap into angst or start sobbing during morning meditation (she'd started sobbing out of boredom once, which was not the same thing) and she hated it. She especially hated the pity.
Mako was the worst, ironically. She'd once admired his compassion and concern for others and had looked forward to seeing that in him, she now regarded with dread. The way his brandy eyes followed her as she moved had once filled her with elation- how different it was to be on the other side of that and hate it.
Bolin was both better and worse- he was awkward around her. He would stumble over his words in a way he'd never done, even when he'd only known her as the Avatar, or even as the pretty pro-bending fan.
Asami… Asami didn't say anything.
It all blew up a week later, after another of Amon's sermons went on air. The man's smokey voice had oozed around the room like black, acrid tar- passionate pleas for support mixed with condemnation of the bending oppressors.
"…and I"d like to publically give my regards to Avatar Korra. As I understand it, there is an important anniversary to be celebrated today."
The walls of the common room is shrinking around her as eight pairs of eyes pin Korra to her seat. She can almost feel Amon leaning forward, menacing, to speak further into the microphone.
"What is the saying? 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.'"
The air goes dead.
Korra awkwardly clears her throat and stands so suddenly that she almost drops a snoring Meelo who'd fallen asleep sprawled across her lap.
"I'll just put Meelo to bed." She stutters; she never stutters.
She takes the first chance to slip through the guard rotation, sluicing through the water until she'd scrambled up the rough wooden pilings and onto the shore. The inns, dives, and bars alongside the shore are alive with laughter and light- she doesn't think (again) and moves forward.
Later, much later, Korra sits, teetering over the dark water, and stares at the moon.
"I'm glad you didn't try to swim." Asami's voice nearly startles her off the dock. "I can smell that cheap booze from here."
"Oh?" Korra twists to look at the other girl, her eyes squinted, and sees Asami's face in the moon- or is it the other way around?
"Do you want to talk about it?" Asami's voice is candid; almost conversational, and Korra realizes with drunken clarity that she knows nothing about Asami beyond her name. And hadn't even that been stripped from her?
"I don't even know you." Korra said, turning back around. "You could push me right off this dock, if you want. They'd think I drowned swimming back to shore, or, hell, I'd even tried to-"
"Drown yourself?" Asami finished dryly. She plops down next to the Water Tribe girl, so close that their thighs are almost touching. Korra tells herself that it's the cold that makes her shiver. "You're starting to worry Tenzin- the mans at his wits end."
The wind whips at their hair, chilling exposed skin. Korra hunches over a little, even though she was used to far worse than a little chill. "Why don't you just say it?" Korra muttered. "Everyone is always tiptoeing around me since Amon opened his stupid mouth."
"Alright, enough of this." Asami jerks Korra around by the shoulders, giving the girl a little shake. Korra's teeth rattle. "This is bullshit, Korra. I expect a certain amount of it from Mako but a girl can only take so much angst before she throws someone into the harbor-"
"Don't touch me." Korra snaps back, leaping to her feet. "Who the fuck do you think you are?" It's the first time she's felt alive in weeks, this anger flaring around her like firebending except better. "You don't have any right to tell me how to deal with-"
"What, the fact that you tried to kill yourself!" The words ring out, loud and clear.
Silence falls between them, and Korra can't help but crumple a little around the edges. Asami takes a hesitant step forward, then squares her shoulders (her height gives her the advantage in this case) and carefully takes Korra's chin in her hands. "Show me." She asks softly, and it's a testimony to how much Korra hurts that she doesn't resist any further.
Asami slips off the fabric wraps that cover Korra's forearm from wrist to elbow, her hands soft on the other girl's soft skin.
"Like what you see?" Korra asks, her voice harsh with shame. The last person she'd want to see this would have to be this girl but it was too late now, wasn't it?
"No." Asami says honestly, running a long slender finger down one of the jagged scars that marked otherwise unblemished coffee skin. They were all irregular and jagged, not straight and surgical like the cuts her father sometimes accumulated from his razor.
"I was ten." Korra muttered, speaking as if the words were being dragged from her by the Avatar spirit itself. "Sifu Katara was visiting Tenzin and my parents had just had a new baby. I wasn't wanted there- I could tell. I didn't have the best grip on my firebending and things around me were usually reduced to ash." She let her breath out in a shaky exhale. "I didn't even know my Mom was pregnant."
Asami wasn't by nature a very compassionate person. Her father, while an idealist, had also clawed his way to the top with ruthless business and cutthroat politics. She considered herself a pragmatist; she played to win, after all, and nothing was gained from siding with the losers. She knows there's a ten to one chance that the Equalist will win. She's had her ear to the ground and she's used her less than savory connections to understand what's really going on. The non-benders are furious. It's only a matter of time before the rioting and the bloodshed begins in ernest- and why would Asami want to get sucked into that?
But something in her loosens- a little, not much- and Asami settled more comfortably next to the Avatar, her gloved fingers gentle on her silvery scars. Korra shivers a little but doesn't pull away.
"Why?"
Such a simple question, Korra thought bitterly. "My best friend is a polar-bear dog." She said succinctly, ignoring the lift of Asami's eyebrow. "It- the pressure- it really got to me that year, okay? My firebending instructor was… harsh. He took away everything I owned, piled it in the central courtyard, and lit it on fire as an introduction into firebending training." Korra smiled ruefully. "It was a very small fire."
"I don't know. One day I was fine- maybe a little lonely, but I was okay- and the next thing you know I'm wondering if the next Avatar would be a boy or a girl. Everything just seemed so pointless. Everyone kept telling me how great Avatar Aang was, and I heard the whispers between my teachers about how much better he had been at everything. So one night, when everyone was asleep, I snuck into the armory and grabbed the first weapon I got my hands on then high tailed it out of there." Korra's grin is rueful. "It's very hard to kill yourself with a Water Nation machete, though."
"Are you going to do it again?" Asami asks, and the question stilts the conversation and Korra pauses, tilting slightly from the alcohol coursing through her system.
"That's a loaded question." She says instead of answering, looking at Asami through one blue eye.
Asami shrugs.
"If Amon ever took my bending, then yeah." Korra said. "there's not much left for me if he takes that one thing from me that makes me important."
"That's incredibly self-centered for the Avatar." Asami points out, sickly bemused at how cavalier Korra is about her own mortality.
"I was raised in near seclusion with a bunch of morally ambiguous guards, old people, and snow." Korra laughed. "I don't really give a shit."
"You're a mean drunk."
"Yep."
It's climatically still at that moment. Silence falls between them and Korra ducks her head. Her liquid courage is starting to fail her and she can feel her innate social awkwardness creeping back. She's sad to realize that this is the most serious, longest, non bending oriented conversation she thinks she's ever had.
With anyone.
"Spirits I'm pathetic." Korra mumbled as she lurched to her feet, allowing Asami to grab her under the arm and keep her steady. She gives one of her most charming half grins to the Republic City girl. "Walk me home?"
Maybe something has changed between them- or maybe Korra's just drunk. All she knows is that this could be the start of something great; this girl could be something. All it takes is for Korra to talk, to be less awkward, and for Asami to just listen.
"Sure." Asami sighs, rolling her eyes and smirking.
Yeah, this could be the start of something awesome.