Undiscovered
Chapter One
"Guess what Korra!" Gommu came bounding over, bearing their morning fish. Korra smiled fondly at her friend and continued absently poking the fire she had going, awaiting his approach.
"What is it Gommu?" smiling encouragingly, Gommu sat down and straightened up proudly,
"Well, I have you a job!" Korra stared at him open mouthed,
"Really?"
"Yep!" Korra flung herself at him, happily chanting,
"Thankyouthankyou!"
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"Your job, is to simply keep the food warm" Korra nodded, glancing round at all the food karts that were everywhere in sight.
"You're a firebender yes?" Korra nodded again,
"What's wrong with you? Don't speak?" Korra shook her head,
"That's fine, you won't scare off the customers then" He laughed to himself and pointed at the underside of the red kart in front of them.
"Stay out of view" Korra nodded at his gentle reminder, and slipped her hand under the kart, making a small flame to heat the fireflakes.
Hidden out of view from all the passers-by, Korra was able to really take in the world around her. How people laughed and smiled, and came in groups and alone; each having their own story that she didn't know, but she wanted to. She wanted to listen to their achievements, things they were grateful for, and their problems. She wanted to listen and help and be a source of support. But she kept her mouth shut. If you don't say a word, you can't be ridiculed, if you don't say a word, you can't get into trouble.
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"Hey, Mako, can we get some fireflakes? I'm starving!" Bolin rubbed his belly dramatically with a wide pleading smile up at his brother; Mako just rolled his eyes and nodded,
"YIPPE!" Bolin victoriously jumped into the air before dashing off like a bullet towards the one kart that sold fireflakes among many they frequented.
Mako shook his head fondly at his brother's behaviour taking his change out of one of the deep pockets in his long grey coat. As he caught up with his brother he flicked the coins at him,
"Get me a pack" was his comment; Bolin nodded and eagerly faced the kart,
"Hmm, I'll take…"
"Bolin! Mako! It's good to see you!" The two brothers smiled at the old man,
"I see you got your kart up and running again" Mako commented,
"Oh yes! It's working wonderfully now! No more cold fireflakes" He chortled, Mako and the merchant spoke whilst Bolin waited impatiently for his food, but due to all his jigging about he dropped one of the yuans he was holding.
Bolin muttered under his breath, "Come out come out wherever you- AHH!"
Jumping up from his kneeling position on the floor he latched onto his brother, his legs wrapped around Mako's waist,
"Bolin, get off, what's the matter-" Mako dusted off his coat, looking over at his brother concerned,
"T-there's a h-hand under t-the kart…CORPSE MAKO! THERE IS A CORPSE!" Mako rolled his eyes, fully aware of how Bolin could over exaggerate, rolling his eyes towards the merchant Mako realised he looked slightly nervous.
Hesitantly, the firebender knelt down, slowly leaning to look under the kart, and there was a hand there, as Bolin had said.
This hand had a small but fierce flame burning in its palm, presumably to heat the kart. Mako leant to the side, to see a girl of no older than 16, curled up defensively in a ball asleep near their not so friendly merchants feet.
"What do you think you're doing?" Mako spoke in an angry whisper, as to not wake the clearly exhausted girl,
"It's against the law to exploit a bender under 19 for street businesses, and they can't work for more than four hours, how long has she been here, she looks exhausted…" Bolin watched as his brother spoke heatedly at the merchant, he took a peak at the girl and his heart went out to her. She was grubby, and impossibly thin; face sunken and every bone visible and poking at the skin. She seemed so small. Yet she still had the power, the inner strength to keep a fire so fierce going, for god knows how many hours.
"Well she got here at 5-"
"FIVE?!" Mako's eyes flashed with pure fury,
"Hey, hey" Bolin laughed uneasily as he tugged his brothers arm,
"She didn't start until 6 though!" The merchant's hands went up defensively,
"This girl has been here, bending from 6am, that is illegal, not the mention immoral. We should hand you in" Mako said through gritted teeth,
"Pft, take her, she doesn't even talk, I'll find someone else" The merchant roughly looped his hands under the girls arms and chucked her towards the brothers, she had woken up sharply and began whimpering small, barely audible screams. Supressed fear.
Bolin caught her but immediately let go, if she didn't like being touched he didn't want to distress her. Mako coldly glared over his shoulder at the merchant, turning his attention back to Bolin and the girl, his younger brother was desperately attempting to calm her down, but she kept stumbling forward away from them. She had a limp and was cradling one of her arms.
"Shh, it's alright, we aren't going to hurt you" Bolin was trying to be as non-offensive as possible, but he was a big guy, and someone so muscled up hovering over someone so small was mostly likely terrifying.
"Bolin…" Mako whispered to his brother, he turned but kept an eye on a girl,
"Look Mako, we can't just leave her…"
"She probably has a home you know" Bolin raised an eyebrow,
"Look at her, does it look like she has a home. When we were on the streets, I had you, she doesn't have anyone"
"She's not our responsibility" Her was doing what was best, they didn't have the money, or the space to take her in, not really,
"Mako, don't do this…" Mako looked at the girl, really looked, and she turned to face him, her big, blue eyes staring at him, not pleading, not wanting, analysing,
"Do you want our help?" He asked her quietly, her head began to shake furiously,
"See, she doesn't want our help!" Bolin narrowed his eyes incredulously at his brother,
"I know it's hard to trust us-" Bolin crouched down, giving her a chance to sit down on the floor and rest a little,
"And I know you think you can go out alone by yourself, but now that I've met you, I can't just leave you alone, even if its just for tonight, let me take you back to our place, we'll get you some foot, and place to clean up, somewhere warm and safe to sleep, and then, if you really don't want to stay, you can leave" Mako was not aware Bolin had it in him, and his chest panged as the girl slowly crawled forward, and wrapped her impossibly thin arms around his brother.
"Thank you" She whispered, and that was when Mako realised, she had been on the streets a long time. Not a year, or even five, it comes later, when you know the ins and outs of the city so well that you know you're better off not saying a word. Because you can easily get yourself into the wrong crowds, the wrong situations.
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The girl and Bolin chatted all the way back to their loft, well, Bolin talked and the girl happily and enthusiastically nodded along. She threw glances back at Mako but he looked down at his feet, defensively shoving his hands deep into his pockets.
The street lights cast a warm orange glow over the streets and caused long shadows along the pavements. Mako had never been very good with people, but he felt like he should really try to reach out this girl, but he couldn't. And as he looked on at her with his brother, he hated the fact that he wanted to snatch her away and hold her to his chest and tell her everything would be ok.
And that was wrong. And he knew it. She was scared and probably only 16; he was 19 and should be far more responsible. It didn't surprise him that his 17 year old brother could connect to her better than he ever could, didn't mean he had to like it.
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"So this is the kitchen, up there are our beds, and just down there is t washroom room-" Bolin was leading the girl round the loft, not that there was much to see. Mako smiled to himself at his brothers enthusiastic and charismatic ways as he tended to the stove.
"Dinner will be ready in a bit" Mako said plainly not looking up from his work,
"So as you see, it's pretty homey and we're going to have lots of fun and-" Bolin froze, and as Mako turned round with two bowls in his hands and over resting on his toned forearm he caught his little brother blushing madly,
"Um, not like that" She cracked a tight uneasy smile, but nodded, resting a hand on Bolin's shoulder in a form of consoling him out of his embarrassment,
"Hope you're ready to eat" Mako said quietly, figuring the girl probably had enough of Bolin's loud voice,
"OH MAN I'M SO HUNGRY!" Not that Bolin seemed to be as mindful, Mako shot her a look to see if she minded but her eyes were on her hands as she twisted them in her lap. Mako sighed and left Bolin to get his helping, making his way over to the window seat.
He sat next to her, at a nice distance away and leaned his forearms on his thighs,
"What's your name? I never thought to ask" he tilted his head when she didn't reply, getting frustrated quickly due to his lack of people skills and how he wanted to make her comfortable but couldn't because he sucked at this kind of stuff, people stuff.
"I know you probably just want to leave and feel really uncomfortable but-" Mako was stopped mid-sentence as her hand grabbed his arm, she was shaking her head, eyes pleading with him,
"No, no, I-I really like it here, please" Her voice was impossibly quiet, Mako had to strain and he was a mere 30cm from her. Mako smiled softly at her and nodded,
"I would love to know your name if you're going to be living with us then, makes conversation a lot easier" He teased, knowing he probably just did something socially wrong, was he meant to be serious now or..?
"Korra"
Mako smiled, and led her to the small dining table, Korra, a pretty name.
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