"Noatak." He looks up from his breakfast to meet the eyes of Councilman Tenzin. Korra sits beside him, her attention shifting from their conversation to the sun appearing behind the clouds outside the window. Noatak notices Tenzin glance worriedly at Korra before turning back to him. "Make yourself at home but I will relay your situation to the Northern Water Tribe councilman so that we can assist you in getting back to your family."

Ah, his family. His family forged from the one he's left in the storm two days ago, rather forty years ago. He still fails to grasp the fact that he's here, that he's in the deceased Avatar Aang's air temple and that he's sitting next to the now-Avatar Korra having breakfast. But he gives a smile, a false smile, and sees the councilman leave on his flying bison. Yet he feels a glow blooming in his chest because he thinks of how selfless it is for them to even house him, a mere stranger, no – Yakone's son.

He has not told them the truth yet. He does not want to. It's pointless. He's going to make a new start here, to make do with whatever he ended up with. With the Avatar, with Korra.

She's older than him, he learns, by three years or so and he is somewhat grateful that he's her height, if not a little bit taller. While they walk towards where she usually practices her airbending, they talk, easily, casually, as though they've been friends for longer than two days. They talk like people, like equals. Not like the saviour of the world speaking to a tyrannical criminal's son.

"This is funny, I left the South Pole but I didn't have friends down there," she begins casually, pacing around in circles as she evens out her breathing. Noatak sits on a step across her, taking a sphere of water from a muddy patch of grass and wringing out the dirt that floated in it until it was clean. He frowns at how easy her laugh is when she talks. "You're the first water tribe person I've made friends with, not counting Sifu Katara, I mean."

He doesn't realize what he says next. "That's sad."

He wishes to take it back as soon as it passes from his lips but he keeps his composure while hers flares. But before she can even snap at him and eat him alive he keeps speaking, in that deathly nonchalant tone of his. "I don't blame you. I wouldn't even bother being friends with the people who kept me caged up either, if I was I mean."

"Noatak, shut up." Her voice is short, clipped, and she on the verge of jumping at him as her fists were visibly shaking at her sides. She scowls at him, but she eases herself through her breathing. "But you're right, they did do that to me. But they only meant to carry out what Aang asked them to do. He told them to protect me-"

"And did they by keeping you caged up in that compound down South?" he scoffs. He can hardly believe it. A girl like her without friends, hidden away like an animal, like an invalid? If she'd come from his village, Tarrlok would've been friends with her in a heartbeat. He would too, but then they would argue, like they have now. "They should've let you go around and learn how Avatar Aang and Roku did. They should've let you travel and see the world, learn about it-"

"What, so I'd be a better Avatar? Is that it?" Her voice is curt but he can feel the insecurity resurfacing in her, and she's taking measures to keep it from doing so, to no avail. He can feel it, like he has earlier at breakfast. She was unsettled, still fresh from a nightmare about that masked revolutionary running around, he's guessed. He sighs when she turns away from him, her strong veneer collapsed into her hunched figure. "Yeah, I guess they should've. Otherwise I'd be able to airbend by now, maybe talk to Aang…"

He doesn't like her weakness, it feels awkward on her to say the least. Because she feels so much like the brother he's left behind. But who is he to decide who she is? He supresses the urge to bend the nerves right out of her, and instead splashes her with the water in his hands. Funnily enough, he does sort of bend the nerves right out of her in a way, because they are gone when she sprints after him down to the beach.

She forgets her anger, her insecurities and he forgets his past. It is like being free. It is like being a child again.

He mimics the spirals that she draws on the pavement and he learns how easily it was to learn the art of airbending. But to actually bend air, now that was a different story. When she halts her stances, she turns to him, he sees curiosity peeking through her blue eyes.

"You said that you have a brother right?"

"Yeah." He quirks his eyebrow as if to ask her where she plans on going with this conversation.

"What's he like? Is he as much of a stick in the mud as you?" she asks jokingly.

"He's younger than me but I think you'd like him better," he admits because he believes it to be true. He doesn't realize that he has a smile on his lips until much later, when they've returned to practicing their stances.

At the end of the day as the sun has set, when they're all tired out, they just spin around to the music playing on the radio. It's almost like dancing, Noatak notes, but then again, airbending did look like dancing to him anyway. When the soft jazzy music fills the silence between them, this is when Noatak first hears Amon's voice.

"Good evening, my fellow Equalists. This is your leader, Amon," a smooth voice drips out from the speaker and Noatak somehow sees the revolutionary lounging easily with a microphone in his hand while his followers surround him, serving him when he makes his message to the city. He shifts his focus to Korra when he feels her stiffen from the voice on the radio, her heartbeat increasing in pace. "As you've heard the Republic Council has voted to make me public enemy number one proving once again that the bending oppressors of this city will stop at nothing to quash our revolution."

"But we cannot be stopped." Noatak sees Korra's bright eyes take that fearful spark to them that reminds him so much of Tarrlok's fear for Yakone, because it reminds him of weakness. He walks towards the device, his hands moving steadily to turn it off. "Our numbers grow stronger by the day. You no longer have to live in fear. The time has come for benders to experience fear."

As Korra starts to hyperventilate in a strange quiet manner, he unplugs the device instead, not knowing what switch to press to cut off the quiet trumpet that begins to fill the air again. When he turns back to see her, he is not sure to feel about the cold sweat that coats her brow in a fevered sheen.

Her nerves are erratic and as much as he tells himself that it not his right to do what he will do to her now, he goes through with easing her. With his bloodbending he takes away the anxiety and he forces her chi against its aberrant flow. She doesn't notice because she thinks that the breathing she does is what helps her.

"So that was Amon," he says after a beat, his voice low. "He speaks well."

Korra watches him uncertainly before lowering her head and giving a fatigued sigh. "He does, doesn't he?"

It doesn't take much for him to sense that she is weak; she doesn't do as much to even try and conceal it. When he walks back over to her, he puts on his a smile that he's used on Tarrlok, a comforting smile and settles an assuring hand on her shoulder.

"I think we've done enough training for today," he tries his older brother approach, hoping to ease her further without the use of his bending. "You've been really focused today, Korra. Take a break, have some food."

On cue her stomach emits a less than dignified rumble and his follows. They laugh as they walk back inside the air temple, the fear from Amon's announcement subsiding from her. "Yeah, food does sound good. I think I'm in the mood for some seaweed noodles."

Pema and the children, Jinora, Ikki and Meelo greet him easily when they settle down for dinner, they greet him as though he was a distant cousin of some sort, and he's made to feel like part of the family. Ikki's mentioned something about looking like Korra because of their similar hairstyles and he understands, somewhat. They quiet down when Tenzin begins to say grace for them all.

"We are grateful for this delicious food, for happiness, for compassion, and—"

"I'm not interrupting, am I?" A voice chimes in from outside and it sets him on edge because of the alien familiarity. Noatak almost chokes on his drink when he sees his father, albeit younger than he's even seen him walk into the room in a sharp water tribe oriented clothes than they would never have been able to afford. His surprise simmers down to indifference when everyone at the table forces their eyes to the man bowing out of courtesy.

Noatak finds himself leering at this man with Yakone's face when he takes Korra in with a calculating glance. Noatak grinds his teeth, because he wants to throw himself on this man, to get him out of this home, because he feels nothing but tribulation emanate from him. Because this man with Yakone's face will, and he knows, ruin whatever he's already built for himself here. Then the man's eyes find Noatak's.

For a moment, the time stops. The man's breathing hitches ever so slightly, and while the others may not have noticed, Noatak does. He sees the boy, the fearful boy he's left in the storm once more when he stares deep into the pair of grey eyes that he thought he's never going to see again. He clenches his fists on his lap and looks away, turning instead to his food with a waning appetite.

"What-" Tenzin chokes out, indignant. "This is my home, Tarrlok. We're about to eat dinner."

Of course. He should have guessed that growing up would mean that they will have their father's face, something that neither he nor Tarrlok would ever come to avoid, unless an accident happens of course. But it's become quite clear that his younger brother, now thirty-seven years of age, has not been in an accident just yet.

His surprise at seeing Noatak disappears back into that charming guise and Tarrlok gives an easy laugh. "Good, because I am absolutely famished. Airbenders never turn away a hungry guest, am I right?"

He keeps quiet, but he laughs from behind his glass of water when Ikki comments on Tarrlok's ponytails and his smelling like a lady with the vanilla and citrus. He refrains from scoffing when he unwillingly listens to Tarrlok talk himself up at Korra's expense, at him being the Northern Water Tribe councilman, listening to his younger brother relay her bravery in attending an Equalist rally that's happened a while back, about her initiative-

"Enough with the flattery, Tarrlok. What do you want from Korra?" Tenzin cuts from across the dinner table.

"Patience, Tenzin. I'm getting to that." When he glances across Korra, Noatak notices that Tarrlok speaks not only to her, the Avatar, but to him as well and no one else. "As you may have heard, I am assembling a task force that will strike at the heart of the revolution and I want you to join me."

Noatak is not surprised when Korra turns his brother down, because he's understood her, he's taken measures careful, discreet to read her. Now he sees her as an open book. He keeps himself from smiling at Tarrlok's initial distraught but then this is short-lived because the fear in Korra resurfaces again. Tenzin interrupts any of the other councilman's further attempts in persuading Korra.

"Korra gave you her answer. It's time for you to go."

"Ah, not yet, Tenzin." Tarrlok's gaze shifts from Korra to him, and for once, he doesn't see anything, he doesn't read anything from his brother's eyes. "I've also dropped by to see this young man here. Noatak, your family and I have been worried sick about you."

"Wait, hold on." Korra snaps out of her deflated reverie to glance between him and Tarrlok. "You guys are related?"

"Yes, he's my nephew. My brother's contacted me from the North saying how Noatak was lost at sea after Tenzin approached me about finding a mysterious water tribe boy on his island yesterday." It's a lie if he's ever heard one, Noatak thinks, but it connects to his story way too much to be just a coincidence. The airbenders and Korra don't seem to notice because Tarrlok lies so easily with that silver tongue of his, something Noatak's seen at its early stages.

"It saves me from wasting time not knowing where to look for you, Uncle Tarrlok," he hisses out the word severly, annoyed at how the balance has so clearly shifted. "It's nice to see you again, thanks for coming."

"I assume you're going to take guardianship of him now, Tarrlok?" Tenzin asks, the hostility gone from the earlier exchange. Noatak wonders if all politicians have the ability to change like coins at a moment's notice, if it's Tenzin's nature as an airbender or Tarrlok's natural talent for being such a liar that got them their positions on the council. He doesn't linger on it when he notices Korra looking at him worriedly.

"You can't just leave," she whispers to him when they eat, while Tarrlok, Tenzin and Pema discuss him.

"I'll still be around, Korra," he tells her but he doesn't want to leave her, the airbenders and this peaceful home either. Is it because he's not yet as keen as seeing Tarrlok again? After calling him a weakling in that storm? After leaving him to the wolves? "We just won't be in the same house anymore. I'll visit, right Uncle?"

It takes Tarrlok a while to become acclimated with his self-proclaimed title. "Yes, of course I'll let you visit. Your father would be so delighted to know that you've made friends with the Avatar, Noatak."

Noatak grimaces at the underlying insinuation, but then he remembers Yakone is gone from him. There is no use worrying. If anything, the old man would be dead by now. "See? You did promise that we'll visit those probending athlete friends of yours."

"Oh, yeah. We can do that tomorrow if you want. I'll meet you-"

"You'll meet him at City Hall, Korra. I still haven't given up on you," Tarrlok says as he eyes both of them behind his mug of tea. Korra laughs uneasily but even when she smiles at him, he can feel the fear settling itself somewhere close to the surface; just enough to peek through when she knows no one is looking.

When he and Tarrlok leave on the last ferry back to Republic City's docks, they remain silent. Noatak knows that there are a million questions his brother has for him and he for his brother but they don't verbalize any yet, not when his mind's so preoccupied about the prospect of leaving Korra alone to her fears of that masked revolutionary, Amon.