A/N: Of course, I don't own any of this. This sandbox belongs to Bryke and Nickelodeon, but I'm having fun playing in it!

Everything takes place a few months after Kuvira's defeat.

Prologue

Korra relaxed in the early morning sun, at peace with the world, one of Asami's legs draped across her own. Bright, iridescent creatures played in the tall grasses of the spirit plains, wrestling and chasing one another, completely oblivious to their one-woman audience.

Korra smiled.

It was hard to tell how long they'd been in the spirit world, wandering, meeting spirits, living off the land. It was nice, and their biggest worries were simple ones. Where they were going to camp for the night, what they were going to eat, how they were going to spend their day.

Just a little longer, Korra thought. She didn't want to have to go back to the physical world yet, where every hour brought new problems and even the most simple decision seemed to have unexpected, long-reaching consequences. She felt she finally understood where Aang had been coming from in his reluctance in becoming the Avatar. Even as a little kid he must have realized the gravity of his position and been scared by it. It had taken Korra much longer to figure that out, as tied up in the freedom and joys of bending as she was.

Next to her, Asami stirred, pulled her leg off of Korra's lap and sat up.

"Morning." Korra gave her a peck on the cheek. "Tea?"

Asami rubbed some sleep from her eye. "Yes, please."

Korra got up and prepared breakfast, while Asami made a few notes in her journal. They ate in comfortable silence, packed up their camp and went on walking.

They were crossing a wide, grassy plain, though as the days went by, the terrain was slowly changing. The hills were getting steeper, and tall yellow trees were beginning to dot the landscape.

"What's that?" Asami asked as they crested a hill.

On the far side of the slope, a low pile of bricks, concrete and iron stretched for nearly a mile. Korra trotted down the hill to investigate. She came to a halt with a stomp that shook the ground. A chunk of concrete rose into the air.

"It's earth," Korra said once Asami had caught up. She made a claw-like twisting motion with one hand and a piece of reinforcing steel tore itself out of the concrete. "And metal."

"Yes, but where'd it come from?" Asami asked.

Korra shrugged. She'd accepted a while ago that sometimes things in the spirit world didn't make sense.

"It doesn't belong here," Asami said with authority.

"What makes you say that?"

"Look at it," Asami said, bending over to examine the pile of debris. "It's building materials. Man-made stuff."

"You don't think it came through the portal, do you?"

"Maybe. How far is it from here?"

Korra closed her eyes and thought about it. Distances were strange things in the spirit world, and how long it took to get from place to place depended more upon how you were feeling and what the stars were doing than how many miles stood between you and your destination.

The portal glowed like a beacon in Korra's mind. She could feel it always, was drawn towards it like north drew a compass needle. It was a little like tracking a person's spiritual energy, only easier because it had so much energy.

She opened her eyes again. "Not too far. Maybe a day or two."

"That's still pretty far. Way too far for it to have come out of the portal. We should ask around, see if anyone knows how this stuff got here."

Korra wrinkled her nose. "Or we could keep going. Don't you want to see that forest?" she asked, waving at the yellow hills.

Asami frowned back at her. "Aren't you curious?"

"Asami, that sounds like work. We're on vacation."

Asami hitched up her backpack. "We've been on vacation for weeks now and all we've done is wander around and look at stuff. Not that it hasn't been great, but I feel like I've learned everything I can from that. If we want to figure out how the spirit world works, we need to dig deeper. And look!" She waved at the pile of junk in front of them. "A mystery to solve."

Korra couldn't help but smile. "Okay, detective Sato. What do you propose we do?"

1

"Some detective work," Hyen said to me as we got back into our cruiser to go over our notes in privacy. We had parked in the shade of a red brick apartment building, in a spot with a good view of all the cars and people coming and going in the busy neighborhood.

"What?" I said, genuinely confused. "All I said was it was probably a kidnapping."

"Mako, we got sent out here to investigate a kidnapping. The parents called to report a kidnapping and you and I are part of the missing persons department. Everybody knows it's a kidnapping."

I scrutinized my partner's face. Was this that sarcasm thing again, or was it seriousness? I couldn't always tell and Hyen's plain round face held no clues.

"What are you saying?"

Hyen sighed, arms folded. "I'm saying you shouldn't have said to Mr and Mrs Gu that little Ying was probably kidnapped."

"But it—"

Hyen held up a finger. "Yes, she probably was. But since everybody knows that already, you don't have to say it out loud."

I scowled. "Fine, O Great Social Guru. What should I have said?" Chief Bei Fong had made Hyen my partner not because she thought the two of us would work well together, but because she thought I might learn a few "social skills." Hyen, being a detective, had unfortunately figured this out and had since become dedicated to the cause. This meant lots of lectures like the one I was currently weathering.

"Nothing!" Hyen snapped. "Just that we're sorry for what happened and we'll do everything we can to get Ying back as soon as possible."

I wanted to point out that saying "we would do everything we could" was not the same as saying nothing, but even I realized this was pedantic and kept my mouth shut. I grunted and looked through my logbook.

The kidnapping had happened only a couple hours ago, in broad daylight in the middle of the morning. Mrs Gu and her daughter Ying had just gotten back from a morning walk and a trip to the corner store. During the thirty seconds it had taken Mrs Gu to locate her keys and unlock the outside door to their apartment building, her daughter had vanished. One moment Ying was there, the next she was gone.

Before her daughter's disappearance, nothing odd had happened. No strange men following them around, no menacing letters, not even any unusual sounds before the event.

At the moment, we were parked opposite the Gus' building, across from the last place Ying was seen. I caught Hyen staring up at the roof of the building, eyes narrowed in thought.

"You think they hoisted her up?" I asked.

"Maybe. Where else could they have dragged her in thirty seconds? They were in the middle of the block. There's no alleyways, no hidden corners the kidnapper could have pulled her into without Mom seeing. And she was adamant about there not being any cars."

I looked up and down the street. Hyen was right. All the buildings were butted up against one another, and there weren't even any shops the kidnapper could have ducked into on the Gus' side of the street—it was all apartments.

"She would have screamed," I said as Hyen dug out a pair of binoculars from under the seat.

"Mm." Hyen made an agreeing noise. "What do you think, then?"

"Maybe they went down. An earthbender could have pulled her underground faster than she could scream and any noise or shaking from the bending itself could be mistaken for traffic." I waved at the busy cross street.

"Good thought." We both sat in silence for a moment, thinking, before Hyen spoke again. "I wonder if this is related to the Balcony Snatcher."

The idea had occurred to me as well. The Balcony Snatcher was a serial kidnapper, mainly abducting children, mainly from high, inaccessible places like balconies or upper floor apartment windows, often in broad daylight.

"It's possible," I admitted, and checked my watch. We'd spent more time listening to Mrs Gu than I'd planned for. "Listen, I gotta do that eval for Choi. Can you drop me at headquarters and start interviewing the neighbors? I'll compare this with the rest of the Snatcher cases, see if this might be a match."

Hyen shook my hand. "Deal."

####

As a part of my police academy training, I had received some remedial firebending lessons to fill in the gaps of my very patchy education. The process had been long and often embarrassing as I struggled with the basic forms alongside ten-year-olds, but in the end it had been worth it. I wasn't a Master, but I was a better bender now than I ever could have hoped to be. This newfound ability meant it was now my job to assess the skills of new firebending recruits.

Joy.

I jogged through headquarters to a stone-paved courtyard out back, hoping I wasn't too late. The other evaluator, Sergeant Kuri from Special Forces, was already there, along with Officer Choi, the new recruit's supervisor. The two of them nodded as I joined them under a multi-colored awning suspended off the back wall of the building.

"Sorry I'm late."

"It's fine," Choi said. "Yan, this is Junior Detective Mako. He and Officer Kuri will be observing your performance today. Are you ready?"

The new recruit, Yan, stood in the middle of the courtyard, sweating a little, either from the sun or from nerves. He was stocky, with wavy hair, dark skin and muddy yellow eyes that were almost brown.

Yan saluted. "Yes, sir!"

Choi stepped back and let Kuri take over.

"Show us the Basic Ten, please," she instructed.

Yan bowed and moved through the forms, blooms of yellow flame heating the already warm summer air. I shared a glance with Kuri, confirming that she saw what I saw. I jerked my head at the patio and Kuri gave me an approving nod.

I left my spot under the judges' awning, went to stand next to Yan, trying to put on a friendly face. The kid looked so nervous he might have thrown up right there. He couldn't have been more than sixteen.

I folded my arms across my chest, let my posture slump so I didn't seem quite so tall and imposing. "Lemme guess. Scrolls from the library and traveling circuses? Every circus has a firebender."

"And movers," the kid said, defensive.

"Don't trust movers. Most of the time they just use non-benders and special effects. Believe me."

He nodded again, but he looked disappointed. "Yes, Sifu Mako."

I was by no means a sifu, but I let it slide. I glanced at my fellow evaluator. "Kuri, what do you think? Does Master Akoza have room for another student?"

"I think so."

"Tell you what," I said to Yan. "Why don't I show you where Master Akoza's school is?"

"Yes, Sifu," Yan said. I took the new recruit by the shoulder and led him out of the training yard, catching an approving smile from Kuri.

I led Yan out to the street and we walked along in silence for a minute as I tried to decide on the best small talk to initiate. Where he was from? Family? Why he wanted to join the force?

It was the new recruit who thought of something first though.

"Is it true you know the Avatar?" Yan asked.

I wasn't totally surprised by the question. I'd made the papers a couple times for Avatar-related business, and there was always pro-bending. "Yes."

"Do you... Do you know where she is?"

"No," I said, giving him the same answer I gave everyone who asked. "I mean, yes, kind of. She's in the spirit world, somewhere."

"Do you know when she's coming back?"

I sighed. "I wish."

Yan let the topic go, seeming to understand that I didn't want to talk about it. We turned the corner and came into view of Master Akoza's school. It was huge and gaudy in the way only Fire Nation architecture could be. Curled roofs; columns, stairs and windows all dripping with statuary and ornaments. Even the banister on the front steps was carved to look like a dragon. A look of unease crossed Yan's face as we admired the building.

"You know, Akoza was my teacher too," I said. "Really, you're getting a great deal. She's a good teacher and the force is paying for the classes. I thought I was hot stuff, being a pro-bender and everything, but there was a lot I didn't know. Just do what she says and she will make you a better bender."

Yan still looked doubtful, but I decided there was nothing else I could say to change his mind.

####

I picked up a bowl of noodles on my way back to the office and settled down at my desk with a large box of file folders marked "BS-likely." It was, unfortunately, one of several such boxes gathering dust in a corner of the room. Most of the boxes had gone totally unattended for weeks or even months thanks to the chaos following Kuvira's attack, and now they were cold, beyond hopes of solving. This was one of the newer ones, being a post-attack box, but it was still cold.

I cleared some space on my desk, got out a pen and a stack of loose paper and began making notes, careful not to drip broth on the files. My partner found me hunched over my desk three hours later, still scribbling and crossing things out.

Hyen grabbed a chair and plopped down next to me. "Find anything?"

I grunted and finished what I was writing before looking up. Hyen looked tight-lipped and tired, like the fact-finding mission amongst the neighbors hadn't gone well.

"Yes... and no," I said. Hyen cocked an eyebrow at me and I went on to explain. "Ying Gu disappeared quickly and without signs of a struggle in broad daylight. She's small, probably under a hundred pounds, she's on the peninsula and comes from a family middle class family. This is exactly like all the other Snatcher victims, except number four, Shuju, who weighed one-twenty-five."

"You think she's number eleven?" Hyen asked.

I nodded.

"Anything odd about her?"

"Besides being on ground level, no. But she is the first victim to have possibly come in contact with another victim." I pulled out the file for victim number five from the box. "Fusha. Age six, from the same neighborhood. They might have gone to school together."

Hyen took the file and glanced it over with a resigned look. "We should talk with the teachers, interview her parents again, their friends..."

"Any luck with the Gus' neighbors?"

"No. Same story. Nobody saw anything. The guy from the print shop across the street thought he might have seen a man in a black cape around the time of the kidnapping, but he wasn't too sure. Struck me as an imaginative type anyway."

Hyen went on to describe the rest of the neighbor interviews, but I only listened with half an ear. Black cape. It sounded like something from a mover or a penny dreadful, but...

I dug out the file for victim number nine. Shiro. The boy's father had sworn he'd seen a dark shadow take off into the sky from their balcony, his son in tow.

"Dark cape," I said, and handed over the file.

"Well, shoot," Hyen said after skimming the file. "I'll talk to print shop guy again."

I nodded. Together we filled out a request to be put in charge of the case and made a plan on how to move forward.

####

To my surprise, Bolin was waiting for me when I got off work, sitting on a bench, twiddling his thumbs and staring intently at the dull abstract art on the lobby walls. He was more dressed up than usual, wearing the brown suit he reserved for weddings and holidays.

"Bolin? What are you doing here?"

"Mako!" Bolin jumped up, gave me a hug. "Guess what!"

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. I just go hired by Frost Fire Films," he said, pretending to polish his nails against the front of his suit jacket.

I slapped him on the back. "That's great! But I thought you said you didn't want to be an actor anymore."

"I'm not! I'm doing special effects." He wiggled his fingers as though performing some magic spell.

For what felt like the first time all day, I smiled. "Good for you."

"And to celebrate, I'm taking my big bro out for a night on the town." He hooked his arm around mine and dragged us both out of the building. "My treat. What do you say?"

I winced. I'd been planning on reviewing the Snatcher cases some more at home, maybe catch the tail end of that night's pro-bending match, get up early to practice my forms and go for a run...

But Bolin was looking at me with puppy dog eyes and I couldn't say no.

"One drink."

Bolin grinned and not too long after, I found myself drinking something cold and foamy in a noisy bar, while Bolin sipped on a large glass full of frighteningly orange liquid with a pink umbrella in it.

"Mako, you have to try this." Bolin pushed the glass at me.

I pushed the glass back. "I'll pass. Tell me about the job."

Bolin took a sip of his orange potion and made a face that said I had just missed the opportunity of a lifetime. "It's a historical film, about the life of Avatar Kyoshi and her battle with Chin the Conqueror," he said in his best dramatic voice. "They had a heck of a time finding a girl tall enough to be Kyoshi and who knows how to act. But of course she's a non-bender, so I'll be doing all the earthbending. And firebending."

I snorted into my foam and wiped my face. "Firebending?"

"Fake firebending. You know..." Bolin looked around the bar, leaned in close to whisper in my ear. "Lava."

I wasn't sure how Bolin could make lava look like fire, but I didn't ask because after a drink or two, he might want to demonstrate. Inside.

"How'd you end up getting it?" I asked, and Bolin launched into a convoluted saga involving at least twenty different friends, acquaintances and contacts in the mover biz, none of whom I was familiar with. I listened patiently, smiling and congratulating him when he was finished. Bolin had had a rough time coming back to the city after leaving Kuvira's army. He'd refused to go back into acting, or pro-bending, and quickly got bored of any job that hired him purely for being an earthbender. Digging ditches and paving roads was not Bolin's thing.

"How about you? How's it going, being a bigshot detective?"

"It's... good," I was surprised to hear myself say. Sure, it was hard and frustrating and sometimes I had to do things I didn't enjoy, like writing press releases and holding stakeouts, but all the hard work, the research and investigating, it was so totally worth it when we did solve a case.

"How's it working out with that new partner Bei Fong stuck you with? She's kinda cute, you know."

"I wouldn't call Bei Fong cute. She might hurt you if she finds out."

Bolin rolled his eyes. "Not Bei Fong. Hyen!"

"Oh." I frowned in confusion. "Bro, Hyen's a dude."

"But..." Bolin gestured with one hand to show how short Hyen was and then made wavy motions around his head and shoulders to indicate long hair. Bolin had met Hyen very briefly at a police fundraiser gala a month or so ago when I'd brought him along as my plus-one.

"He's Earth Kingdom," I said. "He wears it in a knot when he's on duty. And lots of dudes are short. You're short." This wasn't precisely true, but compared to me, most people were short.

"But Hyen's a girl's name!" Bolin shouted, ignoring the brotherly jab.

"Not always. Why do you care, anyway?"

"Because." He took a sip of his fruity drink. "How long's it been since you and Korra broke up?"

I shrugged. "A while."

"A while? Four years is a while? Have you seen anybody else since then?"

I scowled. "No. So what?"

"You gotta get back out there, bro."

"I'm out there, I socialize."

"Like what?"

"Sometimes I play cards with the guys from Homicide, and I spar at Akoza's on Sundays."

"And how many girls go to cards and sparring?"

"Plenty. Can we not talk about this anymore?"

"Okay, but-"

I shot him a grumpy look and Bolin clapped his hands to his mouth. "Okay. Shutting up."

We both took a drink and sat in silence for a minute. I was fine with us just quietly enjoying each others' company and the atmosphere of the bar, but I knew Bolin wouldn't be, so I struggled to think of a new topic of conversation. The easiest thing to do was ask how Opal was doing, but that was dangerously close to the topic we had just left, so I had to think of something else.

Fortunately, the bartender changed the station on the radio and turned up the volume, giving us something definitively happy to talk about: sports. It was the Hog Monkeys versus the Eel Hounds that night, and pretty soon the whole bar was listening to me and Bolin's semi-professional commentary and criticisms of the game in progress.

By the end of the game, Bolin was sloppily signing napkins and dribbling orange slush on his shoes, pink umbrellas decorating his button holes. I paid the tab and escorted a complaining Bolin outside.

"But, Mako! Fans!" He leaned on my shoulder and gestured back at the bar.

"Think about your bed, Bo." It was certainly what I was thinking about.

"Mm. Yeah," Bolin said dreamily. We walked along through the pleasant summer night, Bolin leaning on my shoulder while I carefully lit the way with a handful of flames to fill in the gaps between the street lights.

"Hey, Mako?"

"What?"

"Do mangos grow on trees or in the ground?"

"On trees, I think."

"Me too." There was a beat, and then Bolin said, "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Do you think Korra and Asami got together because Korra was a guy in her last life?"

"She was a girl in some of her lives before that."

Bolin nodded into my shoulder. "Yeah, but, I mean... It's not normal, right? I never..." Bolin cut himself off with a burp. I tensed for a second, worried he might be sick, but nothing happened. We kept on walking.

"What do you mean?" I prompted.

"I mean, I never heard of two girls being, you know... How would they even..." He waved his one free hand in a vaguely suggestive way.

"I dunno, bro." And then, because Bolin wasn't the only one with lowered inhibitions, I voiced a worry that had been eating at me for a while now. "You think it was something I did?"

"Nah. Well, maybe. Did you hypnotize her or something? No, why would you do that? Korra hypnotized Asami, that has to be it."

I snorted, not satisfied with Bolin's past-life/hypnosis idea. I would have poked holes the theory, but we were already at his building. I made sure he got inside and had a glass of water, then walked back to my own place, my brain trapped in a loop of thinking about things I didn't want to think about.

Yay, first chapter! If you haven't noticed, this is going to be a very Mako-centric story. I apologize for the lack of action, but there should be plenty coming up! If you have any comments, questions or criticisms, please leave a review.

Besos,

Apocope