Korra blasted the pictures strung up on a wire across the practice room. The flames her fists emitted made a feast of the paper and ink, distorting the original image past recognition until only the blackened edges were left. One grey eye was the last visible feature, glinting proudly at Korra until the fire disposed of it as well.
Her aim was impeccable and her control had greatly improved. Mako and Bolin noticed this and high-fived her, one on each side. She grinned, relished the feeling of being a vital part of their trio. She could almost forget the real reason she gathered all those posters.
They hadn't been hard to get. Tahno had his face plastered on the walls of half the establishments in Republic City. When Korra had half a dozen shoved in her cloak, she crouched by the lake and spread them in front of her. The idea was to absorb all their details until the ebb and flow of the lake claimed the posters for itself.
Korra wasn't infatuated or intrigued or any such romantic garbage, she was sure of that. But still- but still- something about the arrogant waterbender she'd only seen once made him impossible to shove out of her mind. In the restaurant they'd met in, she couldn't look away despite Bolin's warning; actually, his worry just made her hope even more that Tahno would approach them. He had, and they'd exchanged words with double-meanings, her tone daring, his alluring.
It wasn't like she had any good excuse to search out the man, so she took the posters instead, meditating on them by the lakeside like a good airbender-in-training. Why? she asked them silently.
The answer suddenly came. Simply put, that brief encounter with Tahno was the most invigorating experience she'd had since moving to Republic City (save a few terrifying minutes with a psychopath in a mask, but that was really in a different category altogether).
Figuring this out gave her a sense of triumph, but then she'd heard the voices of her fellow Fire Ferrets. She cringed and lifted her hands to waterbend the posters out to sea, but it had been too late.
Mako and Bolin stared down at the pictures of Tahno in confusion. "Uh... Korra... What are you doing with those?" Bolin finally asked.
"They're for practice," she blurted out. "You know. Target practice."
They accepted the explanation easily enough and liked the idea, so that was why the posters were pinned up at eye level for the following morning's practice session. But even though they were reduced to smoky ashes, Korra's feelings remained unchanged, and she looked forward intensely to her match against the White Falls Wolfbats.
"I'll go toe-to-toe with you any day, pretty boy," Korra muttered, and she could almost see Tahno standing in front of her with his taunting smirk, willing her to prove it.