This chapter is set a month after Tahno gets his bending back before book 2.
His skin shrank and became brittle parchment stretched over his bones, his lips cracked and bled down his chin, and he thought (he knew) that he could hear the drip of water somewhere. He could never be certain if it was real or not but he could hear the tantalizing fall and the brief splatter as it laid there—not for him to touch and not for him to feel.
Drop
Drop
Drop
When he woke up every breath in felt like a battle as his fingers twisted in the sheets. He wanted to scream out the horror clawing its way up his throat, but he found the cold sweat trickling down his neck could be bent away by a feverish twitch of his fingers. He was struck with such relief that it tightened his throat and every other muscle in his body into absolute immobility and silence. He thought he could have died from the feeling of sheer relief.
He stared at the salty water in the hollow of his palm and he wondered when it would ever end.
Tahno realized the answer was never.
He sat in the same booth seat, the same thin glass in his hand making never ending circuits to his mouth. The same people were there, hunched over the table in an effort to get a good look at him. The gleam in their eyes told him why they were so interested—why they were so absorbed in whatever meaningless collection of words he let slip from his lips.
They were waiting for him to snap.
If he was being honest with himself, they always had been. Even before the incident they had leaned over the table in that same way, elbows braced on the wood and noses lifted to the air in search of smoke to ferret out the fire. Before it all he had just mistaken their morbid desire to see one so great tumble as admiration. He supposed it was in a way.
But now the predatory twist to their expressions was far too easy to see. The airy laughter and the quips came less easily and several times too often, he had to clasp his hands under the tables because damn it all if he would let them see him shake.
He wondered if this is how she had felt.
When he saw her again, he wasn't quite sure why he felt the need to hide.
After all, here he was, back in his crisp suit with simpering hands resting on his biceps. The crowd had been parting for him all night and it would have been terribly easy for him to make his way through all the clacking heels over to where she was sat next to the newly-elected President.
But he didn't.
He sent the clingers on their merry way and found that he had stumbled out onto the balcony to brace his arms on the marble balustrade. The air he sucked in was cold but he could taste the water in it.
In.
Out.
In.
"Hey, Pretty Boy."
It would be a lie to say he didn't nearly pitch over the barrier at the sound of her low voice that came suddenly from beside him. His eyes flashed open and he looked over—
She was laughing at him.
He wasn't used to being laughed at—of course there had been the derisive laughter when they saw him coiled in the alleys, too empty to drag himself out of the rotting slush—but this was not laughter he had known before. Kind eyes, a kinder smile, and interest that wasn't barbed.
She leaned an arm beside his. "It's polite to return greetings."
He blinked and it took a moment for him to reverse back into familiar territory. "Of course," he drawled. "How could I have neglected to greet one such as you?"
Her lips quirked and he couldn't tell if it was from irritation or amusement. "I'm not very forgettable, am I?"
He was suddenly very aware of the bitter tone in those words and the slight hint of resignation as she stared out at the view of the bay. But it was madness because she was never one to desire being—
"Neither am I."
His words came out and interrupted his own train of thought. They were said without pride and he wondered how the two of them could have come from boasting to regretting so quickly.
She studied him carefully with new intensity and when her eyes searched his, he felt like he'd been stripped bare. Yet one thing remained the same—he refused to look away. That first moment all that time ago had been charged and thrillingly electric, yet this one was just as powerful in its own way. He stared down and she stared up but there was no smirk and no bristling— just painful honesty that made his chest ache.
"Avatar Korra?" They both looked over at the attendant who had cracked the door open, letting the golden glow of the party's light spill across the stone floor. "It's time for your speech."
"Alright."
She stepped forward into the glow, leaving Tahno behind. The whole situation was far too familiar to be comfortable so he shoved his hands into his pockets where she couldn't see them shaking in fists.
"See you around, Pretty Boy."
He forced a smile and now this was just excruciating.
"See you around, Uh-vatar."