It all started with a snowball fight. Tarrlok was maybe four or five, that age on the edge of remembrance when things are sort of fuzzy and fascinating. He couldn't really recall what Noatak had looked like back then since his image had since merged with his older one, but he remembered the impression he'd left of something mature and unknowable. It was for this reason that whenever Noatak did something silly, Tarrlok loved him ten times as much.
Their father was off hunting seals, probably, and the two of them immediately applied themselves to the ancient art of precipitation warfare. Tarrlok wasn't the most skilled of snowball warriors. Noatak would get three hits in before he could make one tight enough, and then Tarrlok would miss him by feet because he had slush in his eyes. By the time he scored his first hit he was already soaked and shivering and the muscles in his cheeks were sore. Naotak said something teasing and he laughed some more and they looked amazingly similar when they smiled.
Things got very blurry, and snow is always confusing, especially when it's fresh and still very white and the sunlight bounces off of it like the surface of a mirror. It was probably a good while before they even noticed anything. But when Tarrlok threw a snowball that was definitely too big and too dense and too fast, Noatak just made this downward motion in the air, and the snowball dropped immediately to the ground.
Tarrlok was awe-struck. He didn't really know much about bending back then, since neither of his parents were waterbenders and didn't have much to say on the subject, but one thing that had been clearly evident to him was that Noatak was magic.
Noatak had looked a little sheepish, and admitted he'd been able to do things like that for a while. He showed Tarrlok how to move and what to focus on to make water do what he wanted it to, and after several fruitless attempts and a few successful ones, they proceeded to engage in the single best snowball fight in unrecorded history.
It was the first and last time Tarrlok had wholeheartedly enjoyed waterbending.
xxx
At first, their father had been so happy. He had laughed loud and musically and swung the two of them around in the air. He said that he'd hoped, that he'd feared, that he hadn't been sure, but here his two wonderful sons are both waterbenders and at so young an age, too. He said that he would teach them everything he knew and more. He said they would become the greatest waterbenders in the entire North Pole.
Tarrlok had almost wished they'd discovered their bending sooner. It wasn't very long before he'd started wishing for the exact opposite, however.
One day he found Noatak in the kitchen, whistling. He was leaning over a bowl, a bucket of water and a jar of sugar beside him. With twirling, feathery motions he lifted the water out of the bucket and spun it into snow. Then he sprinkled it with sugar and folded it into itself and onto the bowl, bouncing a tiny ball of it in his mouth.
"Tarrlok!" he called when Tarrlok stepped closer, and turned to face him with an icy, fluffy beard. "Look what I made!"
Tarrlok laughed and waterbended a piece of the beard off his brother's face. It tasted like sugar and snow.
"That's amazing, Noatak," he said solemnly. "Sweetened snow. You should get a patent on it or something."
Noatak grinned at him and bits of his moustache flaked off. "What do you know about fine cuisine, anyway? You don't even like Mom's steamed sea-prunes."
"Bleugh." Tarrlok stuck out his tongue in disgust. "I can't believe you actually like them. You know me and Dad are just pretending, yeah? We have more sea prunes buried in the backyard than secrets."
"You wish. I know all your secrets." Noatak stuck out his own tongue. "And they're all boring."
"Well, so are yours!"
"You only think that because I actually know how to keep the interesting ones," Noatak said with a smirk.
Tarrlok slammed his palm downwards and the left half of Noatak's beard spilled down his shirt.
"Aw, my beard." Noatak frowned and siphoned the water off his shirt with two fingers. "And I just had it trimmed, too."
Tarrlok snorted and Noatak sent the stream of water his way.
"What are you doing?"
They froze. The sound of their father's voice could be very warm sometimes, but it could also be chilling.
"What is this?" Their father stepped into the kitchen, his eyebrows pinched and the corners of his mouth twisted in a scowl. He looked at the bowl of snow and the half-empty jar of sugar, at the water spilled all over the floor, at the half snow-beard on Noatak's face. "You think this is funny?" he said. "You think waterbending is a joke?"
"We were just… having fun," Tarrlok said weakly.
"Yeah?" His father turned to glower at him. "I don't see you puttin' half this much effort into your training. You think I'm doing it for fun?" He knocked the bowl to the ground. "Waterbending is the most important thing you got, understand me?"
Tarrlok stared at him, bewildered, and nodded vigorously. He'd never heard such vehemence in his father's voice.
"And Noatak, you…" His mouth worked silently for another second; then he growled in frustration and kicked at the spilt snow on the floor.
"Why do I even bother?" he muttered as he walked out.
Tarrlok watched his brother clean up the mess with quick, disjointed gestures, his eyes downcast.
"Noatak, what's wrong with Dad?" Tarrlok asked in a voice that was a lot steadier than he'd expected.
Noatak threw the snow back in the bucket and turned away. "How should I know?" he spat. "Because I'm his favorite, right? Because I'm the one he loves best."
He threw Tarrlok a glare that really looked much more like a squint, and left.
Tarrlok sat down on the floor next to the now dry, scattered sugar and rubbed his palms over his eyes. His brother was born before him and he'd always been more mature, but he had never seemed like so much of an adult before.
Tarrlok really didn't understand adults at all.
xxx
Arteries and veins aren't the most durable of vessels. It's so easy to push too hard, pull too tightly, twist too sharply. A slip of the wrist or a jerk of the elbow are all it takes to cut through them, and then all you can do is watch as your unwilling puppet bleeds out on the inside.
Tarrlok had gone on many hunting trips. He'd killed buffalo-yaks and turtle-seals and arctic hens, using pikes and spears and daggers. He'd slit a lot of throats and cleaned out a lot of entrails, sometimes quickly and efficiently and sometimes too slowly, clumsily, so that he had to listen to their moans and watch the desperation in their eyes. None of it was as terrifying as making them drop with a tiny, inadvertent motion, like stepping on an ant, like nudging a stranger standing next to you, like forgetting you're holding something and relaxing you grip and letting it fall.
His father always berated him when it happened, with no horror on his face, for all the wrong reasons. Bloodbending is a terrifying weapon, he'd say, and so it should be. But the power is in the control and the precision; killing without intent is a weakness. It's sloppy, wasteful, crude. It isn't something that gives you horrible chills, keeps you up at night, makes you hate and fear everything inside you. It definitely isn't something that makes you cry.
Tarrlok never saw his brother cry. Maybe he just never did. But whenever it was dark and late and Tarrlok was doing everything he could to make no sound while his pillow got damp and his nose got stuffy, Noatak somehow always knew to turn over and snore extra loud.
"Dad isn't always right," he told Tarrlok once in a voice that was a little bit gravelly. "Sometimes he just forgets to understand."
Tarrlok didn't get how understanding was something you can forget to do or why that was relevant, but he didn't ask. One day, he figured, he'll be able to make cryptic statements too, and not ones you have to work on a few hours in advance. That's when he'll finally be able to understand Noatak and Dad, and never, ever cry.
xxx
Tarrlok never waterbended if he could help it. Waterbending wasn't truly a part of him, or something that he'd wished for. It was just there, and it really wasn't good for anything besides disappointing his father. He'd rather wash dishes with a rag, let the air dry his laundry, heat soup on the fire. He'd rather make wooden marionettes dance by strings.
For Noatak it was different. For him, waterbending was a necessity. It was present in every one of his motions, constant, unconscious. Like humming a tune so familiar it's less conspicuous than silence, or scratching at a spot that hasn't itched in a while.
They sat on the lip of a frozen lake, fishing through a hole in the ice. Noatak leaned back on his elbows, his fishing rod stuck in the snow, fingers tapping distractedly and making the slush dance. When he dragged back his heels the snow smoothed itself over, and when he exhaled through his mouth his breath curled like picture book smoke.
"I wish we couldn't waterbend," Tarrlok said quietly.
Noatak said nothing. The moisture in his breath twisted around itself in long, foggy fingers and dissipated in the air.
"If we couldn't waterbend anymore, everything would go back to normal." Tarrlok flicked tufts of snow around with the point of his boot. Nobody really needs bending to make things move. "Dad wouldn't make us train all the time. He wouldn't have a reason to get so mad anymore."
From the corner of his eye he saw Noatak's fingers tighten into a fist, and the snow underneath them tighten into ice.
"I miss how Dad used –"
"Shut up, Tarrlok." Thin spikes of ice crept over Noatak's fist like mold.
Tarrlok drew his legs close and hugged his knees, hard. "I just miss it," he said, his voice even smaller, the cloud of his breath vague and unformed. "The way things used to be."
Noatak resumed his tapping, now accompanied by the clink of ice against ice.
The wind slapped the fur lining of their coats and tugged at the slack fishing wire, creating ripples in the dark water. Tarrlok glanced over his shoulder at Noatak, who looked back at him with his eyes hooded and his eyebrows bunched.
Finally he sighed and allowed the ice surrounding him to crumble back to snow.
And he said, "Me too."
Later they caught two medium-sized fish and had sour soup for dinner. No one said a word throughout the entire meal.
xxx
Mom used to read him stories with morals to them. Some were about heroes and lovers and beasts, but some were about good people and the things that make them turn bad. In these stories, you always know from the start how they're going to end because the point is the journey and not the outcome and it's important to understand where evil comes from and how deceptive it can be. But even though you know the ending, you don't really believe it; the heroes start out brave and selfless and happy, and you can't imagine anything that'd be able to make them so vengeful and bitter.
And then comes the turning point, and even though their behavior suddenly contradicts everything that was previously established and it doesn't make sense, there's nothing you can do since not everything is sensible in life and that's how the story goes.
These stories, Tarrlok knew, were called tragedies. And the thing they made him understand was that evil is senseless and inescapable and has nothing to do with the choices you can make. In the end, all the vows you've made and the intentions you've had and the things you believed in don't matter, and that one little flaw you've never thought too much about is enough to turn you into the thing you used to hate.
Looking back, he thought he'd probably known, even as he'd made the promise never to bloodbend again, that someday he'd break it. One look at his father was enough to tell him how the story goes.
But it wasn't fate; it was inevitable only in retrospect. Isn't everything?
Noatak had told him he loved him. He'd told him he'll always be there for him, because he was his little brother and because he was worth it. He'd promised to always explain why he was mad and always listen when Tarrlok called his name, so that they could always understand each other, so that they'd never be like their father.
And all of that, it meant a lot; but it didn't matter even a little.
Tarrlok never forgot the opaqueness in Noatak's eyes when he had looked at him, measured him, and found him lacking.
xxx
Tarrlok loved the North Pole. He loved it for its vastness, its whiteness and its unpredictability. He loved the parts of it that were smooth and the parts that were jagged and the parts that were soft and crumbling and transient. He loved it because it was beautiful and dangerous and because it was home.
When he turned eighteen, Tarrlok left the North Pole on a fur merchant's ship in exchange for his favorite coat, and never looked back.
It had been seven years since his brother's disappearance, three years since his father's death, and six months since his mother's. He had no one; he was no one. And just like his father and, as he'd learn later, his brother, he was going to make himself into someone. He was going to change things. He was going to make a difference.
It wasn't idealism in any recognizable form; it was fueled by rage and resentment, disappointment and regret. He wanted to make things better, not because he believed in happiness and harmony, but because things were shit.
Republic City, in its own sunny, colorful way, was every bit as beautiful and dangerous as the Arctic, and in time, it also became home. Tarrlok found work in a tannery and received an allowance from the government as a desirable immigrant. He lived in an attic apartment in the laborer quarters and used his fists and his knees to get out of fights. He witnessed pro-bending hype with contempt and kept mostly to himself.
And he read. He read about Republic City's architectural, geo-economic and sociopolitical structure. He read about its history, the effects the founding of Cabbage Corp. had on its economic and technological development, all the factors that contributed to its becoming the most progressive city in the world. He learned everything there was to know about Republic City; and he was ready to make it his own.
He got a job as a scribe at the Office of Transportation, got off of welfare and moved out of the slums. He was promoted to archivist and later research assistant, and when he'd lived in the city for three years and could apply for citizenship, it was approved as soon as he'd submitted the request.
He moved from the Office of Transportation to Human Resources and eventually to Emergency Management, where he'd worked as director for four years. By the age of twenty-seven, Tarrlok was elected as representative of the Northern Water Tribe on the Republic City Council. By the age of thirty-three, at the advent of the Equalist movement and the mounting unrest among the non-benders community, he became its chairman.
He'd crossed many lines and stepped on many toes. He'd lied and threatened and manipulated, all with subtlety and an affable smile. He'd done a lot of things that could be gloated evilly over, and some things that would just be plain embarrassing to recount. But it was all worth it, of course, because power corrupts, and who better suited to wield it than a man who'd been corrupted plenty in advance.
At long last, he had everything his father had ever wanted at his fingertips; and he couldn't care less.
He had a new obsession, one all his own, one that had nothing to do with his past or his legacy. He had something to fight for, but mostly against, and it in no way reminded him of any of his skeletons.
Of course, he wasn't aware that Amon, whose profile he'd tried to piece together for the better part of a year to little success, was in fact the ugliest skeleton in Tarrlok's closet, and the only person he'd ever really been close to.
Well, at least until Amon pressed his thumb to Tarrlok's sixth chakra and bloodbended it easily shut, of course.
xxx
For the first time in a long time, Tarrlok didn't feel angry, or restless, or bitter. He felt like laughing. He wasn't a waterbender anymore! He'd never be one again.
And wasn't it ironic, wasn't it delightful, that his brother, the most powerful waterbender in the world; their father's favorite; the boy who couldn't walk a step without kicking up tiny pebbles of water from the ground; the man who could take the Avatar's bending away –
No. No, it wasn't.
But it was slightly amusing, in the saddest possible way, that the only person the king of the Equalizers couldn't rid of their bending was himself.
Tarrlok bent his knees and leaned his back against the wooden wall of his cell. Incarceration wasn't nearly as irksome as he'd have imagined it to be. In fact, it was hardly worth noting. Noatak was alive! He was his number one enemy, the object of his obsession for the past several months, the source that drained the largest portion of the city council's budget that year. And more importantly, he was someone who had sufficient means, knowledge and geographical proximity to come by the office some day and say hi.
Or maybe say, 'Hello, Tarrlok. It's me, your long-lost brother whom you'd presumed to be dead. And I'm not. I'm a domestic terrorist advocating the polar opposite of all of your political convictions. Next time we meet we will probably be trying to incapacitate each other by any means necessary, up to and including lethal force.
'Just a heads up.'
But he didn't. He didn't. He didn't, and now, sitting in the oddly shaped cell Amon had locked him in and suppressing a painful laugh and not even minding the strands of hair getting in his eyes, Tarrlok couldn't bring himself to blame him for it.
The only thing he couldn't stop asking himself, demanding, accusing, was: How could I have not recognised his voice?
xxx
Tarrlok followed his brother out of Air Temple Island and onto a waiting speedboat in silence. The Mo Ce Sea's waters looked gray and drab in the dusky light and the wind whipped Noatak's hair behind him, accentuating its shortness. He wouldn't even be able to tie it in a proper wolf tail anymore, Tarrlok thought dully.
There were many things he wanted to say to Noatak. There were even more things he wanted to yell at him.
He wanted to demand to know what had him so occupied that he couldn't send a single messenger hawk, even after their father's death, even after Tarrlok had left the North Pole, even after all the crumbs of their damn childhood had been brushed off and thrown away. He wanted to spit in his face all the uncomfortable details of their mother's dying days, all the times she called his name, all the questions she'd asked that weren't rhetorical but couldn't be answered anyway. He wanted to accuse him of being the worst kind of hypocrite, of cheapening all of his ideals, of becoming another ugly piece of Tarrlok's ugly backstory.
He wanted to tell him that he'd missed him and that, despite everything, he's happy to see him again.
"Noatak," his brother said and breathed a muted chuckle. "I had almost forgotten the sound of my own name."
But this wasn't Noatak anymore, and really, Tarrlok had nothing left to say to Amon, not even I told you so.
The pile of Equalizer gloves was exactly within reach; he wouldn't even need to stretch. He looked at Amon, but he didn't turn around.
They could maybe start over together. They could maybe buy themselves new faces and new names and new purposes, and find love and have families and smile at each other with teeth and good intentions. They could maybe have good things and they could maybe be happy.
But all of those things were what lead to everything terrible in their lives, and happiness is no guarantee for itself.
Tarrlok had always loved his brother. He shouldn't have let him destroy himself alone. But it's okay. Some mistakes really can be rectified.
"It will be just like the good old days."
And salt water and electricity go so nicely together, don't they?