I'm going to be on holiday for the next few weeks, so the next update will be a while. Here is your chapter~

plus GUYS WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME THIS CHAPTER SAID SEVEN, it's said SEVEN for weeks now -facepalm- Corrected to FOUR!

FOUR

Evidently, the bandits weren't stupid; they launched themselves forward with considerable determination. Korra glanced nervously at her companions. She could fight without her bending, but she wasn't used to fighting without it against someone who could bend. Earthbending injuries weren't at all kind, and they tended to involve broken bones.

Amon held up his hands, and the gesture was so incongruous that one man stopped altogether. "Stop," he said, utterly calm. The majority of them hurtled still onwards, and he neatly flipped over a man wielding something that looked like a pickaxe, landing him winded and gasping on the ground. The sportswoman in Korra burned with jealousy to see the easiness and smoothness of those movements, minimalist but so powerful. He dealt with several more people; Korra ducked a rock which flew off harmlessly to the side, and tripped someone who was heading for Tarrlok.

When a good portion of their attackers were on the floor—they weren't taking prisoners, it seemed—Amon spoke again. "That unpleasantness could have been avoided," he said, and Korra recognised his statesman voice. Was some kind of speech coming? If there was, she was going to sit down; she was still tired from the travesty of yesterday. "You lack discipline." Korra rolled her eyes, and sat down on the bag she had been carrying. Amon ignored her totally. "I could give you discipline." There was a tone of heady excitement there. She frowned. Had he found a new project? He'd been a complete hypocrite as the leader of the Equalists—being a bender and all, not to mention a bloodbender, though neither of the brothers used it often—so perhaps he was just attracted to causes, to movements that he could exploit.

Bandits seemed a bit low after the Equalists, but Korra supposed that he was taking what he got. The men were listening, poor sods, poor, gullible sods—when one spat out, "We don't need you to tell us what to do," a few others simply looked wary and thoughtful and didn't say anything.

"It wouldn't necessarily be telling you what to do," Amon said, and he was charismatic. He moved fascinatingly, and his voice carried a tone of genuine urgency that was making her heart race that little bit faster. He looked around at his audience, pitiful as it was, and made eye contact with each person. "I could teach you to fight adequately, show you to bigger pickings… where do you live? Some hovel? I could hand you houses, riches… What do you want? Is it money, jewels—a good meal, perhaps, eating well and filling your stomachs."

Somebody snorted. "And how exactly are you going to do that?" Korra looked around—currently, it was as if she wasn't there at all—at each face, and didn't find the evil that she'd been expecting in people who waylaid strangers to steal their things. These people looked… tired. Thin. Most of them were scarred, and wide, distrustful eyes stared out, all fixed on Amon. Their clothes had once been fine, she was sure, but they were too patched and darned now to really get a sense of how they truly had been when new. The weapons were poor quality. The pickaxe seemed as if it was attached to the handle by only a thread; it listed at an odd angle, and Korra suspected that one day the bearer of that axe would do more damage to himself than anyone else.

Amon spoke quietly, but she could hear the passion in his voice. It rumbled through her and made her shiver. "First," he began, "I'd teach you to fight. Not to batter, not to bludgeon, but to fight, with skill and ease. I'd teach you noiselessness, to take from your opponent before they have even realised your presence. I'd find you targets; rich, weak targets and you would take their wealth effortlessly. With that wealth, you could better yourselves." He turned around, sympathy on his face, an utterly alien creature on those cruel features. "I know your lot. Poor men. You saw your fathers work, farm until their blood ran into the soil and they died as cracked as the earth, knew siblings to die of hunger whilst the life of your towns fled to the big cities and the hills became ghostly. When there was nothing left, there was nothing but stealing, and so you stole. After all, those people who fled to make their fortunes… they deserved it." He paused, and the air was tense. "I know you, poor men, and I could make you rich."

Korra was surprised to find her arms rippling with goose bumps. It was undeniably frightening to her how he used words, how he spoke them so softly that they seemed to lull her into agreeing with him before she really focused on what he was saying. She'd been too terrified when he'd been speaking at rallies to really listen, and now that she had she found a bizarrely magnetic man. She could… she could see why disillusioned people flocked to him.

There was a dull, dead silence, and then one of the men who had been crouching on the floor—having been thrown—rose to his feet. The look in his eyes almost made her look away from embarrassment. It was a naked sort of hope, desperation in what had been flat despair. "I say yes," he said feverishly, looking around at his companions. Most of the men looked troubled; some openly distrustful and a couple sharing the same zealous look. "I say—either way, does it matter?"

"Of course it matters, blockhead," snapped the dubious man from earlier. He was older, more middle aged, and time had not been kind to him, etching deep lines in his face. "You want to end up in prison? What's your bloody wife going to do then? Your kids?"

Amon chuckled softly. "I assure you," he said with quiet confidence, "that nobody will be taken prisoner under my tutelage."

"You can't say that for sure. There's always some idiot who don't listen to orders and then there's a pair of kids with no dad about the place what the rest of us have to look after." He looked around at the group of people, who appeared slightly more sheepish with that short, sharp speech. "I say we stay as we are, small but… surviving, surviving." He gestured loosely at the three of them. "Fancy strangers waltzing into camp… nothing good can come of that…"

"I understand your cynicism. Your life has been difficult, unbelievably difficult—no helping hand, not a single person caring," Amon continued, low and persuasive and almost heart-felt. "It seems too late in the day for hope to come calling. But my promises are not false and empty. You saw me fight; I can't give you that, this late, but I can teach you to overpower anyone but a master. Hazarding a guess, you are a non-bender? I can teach you to foil any bender in the midst of their native element. Is that not an attractive prospect?"

"Let's just take them back and see what the others say first," someone else interrupted, looking pleading. "Just to see… what everyone else says…" He trailed off under a fierce glare from the main speaker, and shrugged hopelessly. "It sounds good, even you can't deny that."

The other man grunted. "It sounds too good, lad. But if you want this so damn bad then I can't stop you." He looked around. "The rest of you?" he asked, voice heavy with contempt. Some of the others looked embarrassed, some actively defiant, but most nodded. Korra just sighed to be going further off the beaten track. Any hopes that the bandits might have managed to beat Amon dwindled quietly. "Well then," he said, "we should at least tie them up."

Amon shrugged. "I have no objections to that."

"I do," Korra spoke up, outraged. "I'm not being tied up again; my hands are going to fall off." Some of them were looking at her as if they'd never noticed that she was there, and she wobbled with anger. She was not going to run about with bandits in some godforsaken corner of the Earth Kingdom while Republic City was erupting into war and her friends had no idea where she even was.

"You don't have to be tied," the man said dismissively, and she considered that worse, if that was even possible.

"Excuse me," she said indignantly, "I am really dangerous."

"I recommend that you tie her," Amon interjected, and the man tying his hands looked up, startled as if a wild animal had turned on him. Korra was subjected to some dubious looks, which piqued her pride considerably, and then someone moved forward with a sigh, fishing some rope out of his pocket. She kicked him irritably in the back of the knees, a tried and tested method. With a surprised "Oof" he hit the ground, and she eyed him with a distinct lack of sympathy.

They tied her hands behind her back with somewhat more venom than was required, and she seemed to have hurt the pride of the man that she'd kicked judging by the way he kept glaring at her. Simmering, irritable, she marched along in the ludicrous parade they made, her wrists chafing uncomfortably. It wasn't long before she saw buildings in the distance; strangely lopsided, some of them, and as they drew closer she saw similar signs of neglect there as she had everywhere since Republic City. This corner of the world seemed to have been forgotten altogether, and it had clearly been decaying a long time. Despite the disrepair of the town itself—for this had once been a town, however many buildings were actually occupied now—she could see people moving about. This was inhabited, and by no small number.

"You brought people back?" a woman called from the shade of a sloping roof, coarse and raucous. "We need food, you dozy lumps." Laughter echoed around at that, though Korra failed to see how it was amusing. She settled for glowering at everyone, confused faces of adults and children alike peeping at them as they went past.

They halted in front of an unusually well-kept house, one that had clearly actually been repainted, and the more outspoken man rapped on the door. It opened almost instantly, and a cheerful face peeked out. "We weren't expecting you back so soon—oh, what's this?" The gap widened further and an Earth Kingdom woman, drying her hands on a towel, stood there looking out at them curiously. "What on earth you doing with people?"

"Long story," he said tiredly, running a hand through wiry black hair. "Chen home?"

"Yeah—main room. You can't all come in, though," she added, giving them a dubious look over—her eyes alighted on Korra with powerful curiosity, and Korra stared right back until the woman moved over to Noatak, who she gave an almost appreciative look up and down. Yuck. "Six at most, or you'll be spilling out the windows."

The man shrugged. "All right." He beckoned to his cynical companion, who slouched forwards and into the house, and one of the others who'd seemed sympathetic to the idea of putting Amon in charge. The three of them—all of them hostages now, Korra thought gloomily, though she knew that this situation was all of Amon's choosing and he could leave any time he wanted to—followed, awkward gait provided by their hands behind their backs.

The 'main room' was not impressive. There were a few chairs, some scrolls lying about carelessly and the remnants of a meal on a low table in the centre, and that was about it. Nothing adorned the walls, bare and warped in places, buckling inwards and outwards to create strange shapes. It was a little confusing to look at, and Korra turned instead to wiggling her hands and hoping fruitlessly to be untied soon. A disturbance startled her; a small man, previously unnoticed, rose from beside one of the chairs. He adjusted large spectacles as he shot up, and regarded the party with unveiled curiosity.

"What's this?" he asked, blinking owlishly, and Korra could tell that this man—Chen?—was of a different calibre to the others. The rest had a rough… peasant-y sound to them. Chen, with his spectacles, was definitely literate judging by all the scrolls and clearly in a position of power being in what seemed to be the largest and nicest house. Korra snorted quietly. Did she really want to figure out how this community worked? She wasn't interested. They didn't matter.

"This man's got a proposition," the outspoken man said, pointing to Amon. "I thought it was interesting, Zhen disagrees. Came to see what you think about it."

"Certainly," Chen said, pushing his spectacles up his nose. "Care to sit down?" He perched on a chair. Nobody else sat, and he sighed. "Fire away." Their guide explained, and Korra drifted away, bored. She stared at a knot in the wall, tracing it round and round. All she wanted was a good night's sleep—without a bed buddy—and maybe something nice to eat… Her stomach gurgled and she nearly moved to put a hand on it absent-mindedly before remembering that her hands were tied… Amon was speaking again, that sense of urgent charisma all through his voice, and she thought that he had probably already convinced them… She realised with a jolt that someone was pointing directly at her—oh good, they hadn't completely forgotten her—and woke up a little. "Who's she?" he was saying, and she opened her mouth to reply, eagerly, but Amon steamrollered right over her.

"A companion," he said in a tone that made it quite clear that whatever arrangement they had was not up to discussion. The men gave her a more interested look. She wondered what they thought she was. Amon hadn't said wife, so he wasn't intending to use that story here. He was just going to let people come up with their own ideas. Great. Even better.

"I see. Will your… companion stay with you?"

"Certainly. Our companion is not entirely reliable," Amon said—Korra glared at him—"and on occasion needs watching."

Chen squirmed a little, and Korra suspected that he had caught onto the fact that his visitors were not entirely innocents themselves. He looked uncomfortable. There were so many weird people in the world. He lived with bandits, people who stole other people's things, and he felt weird about those with dubious origins. Then again, she remembered uneasily that speech of Amon's about dying and starvation and poverty—she pushed that away. They must have had options. If Amon was allying with them, then she was fairly sure that they couldn't be any good. Look at the Equalists, whose leader had turned out to be a bloodbender…

"As long as you're responsible for her," he said awkwardly, flushing a little red, "and we don't see anything… worrying, then it's your business." He was very definitely not looking at her, she noticed.

Amon inclined his head. "Of course."

"We'll provide you with lodgings… nothing grand, you understand, but it's what we have. Food tends to be communal, although if you want privacy we can discuss that, it's just more difficult… Is there anything else…? Oh, I suppose we'll need a meeting tomorrow to introduce you to the others—oh! Your bonds—Liu, untie them, what are they doing still bound—" Korra didn't miss the eye roll given by the man, who finally had a name. Amon was untied first, and he didn't move, just rubbing at his wrists with an amusedly rueful expression. Tarrlok, who had become ghostly and silent again—Korra hoped that he was being conflicted and difficult in there and not just imagining ridiculous things—was next. Liu approached her more warily, evidently vividly remembering being kicked in the knees, and untied the ropes quickly and deftly.

With a sigh, she rotated her wrists and shrugged her shoulders. They were beginning to feel awfully stiff… and they probably weren't going to get better any time soon. She needed a proper workout to work out all these kinks.

"Show them to something appropriate, will you," Chen said, distracted. It was not a question, and another eye roll was directed in his general direction as Liu beckoned them forward. Amon's hand settled heavily on Korra's shoulder, propelling her forward. She shook him off and marched ahead by herself, only to be pulled right back. Instead, he put an arm around her shoulders and directed her gently closer to him.

"Behave," he said softly, sounding almost jubilant. "You'll be getting new freedoms here, if you're good. Don't jeopardise that." She scowled and crossed her arms, stumbling a little under his weight, and refused to answer.

The people of the ghost town were openly curious about them, stopping their miscellaneous tasks to watch as they walked past—some children ran alongside them for a few steps until parents called them back—and Korra felt odd under their eyes. None of them knew who she was, not one had recognition in their expressions, and it wasn't like Republic City where she'd delighted in surprising people, the shock on their faces amusing. She ached for someone to find out—surely they knew that the Avatar was Water Tribe, surely they knew…

"Here you go," Liu said stopping, with a sideways glance at Amon, that childish hope popping back up again. "Are you—you're serious about training, teaching the people here?"

"You're afraid of one more disappointed hope," Amon said, with a hint of a smile. "I understand. My full intention is teach those who are willing to be taught. My words were not hollow. I know those like these, who teeter on the edge of starvation, deep in poverty. I would not disappoint those people." Korra curled her lip. How saintly he sounded. Liu looked relieved, however, and gave an awkward sort of bow to them before opening the door for them and hurrying off. "Well," Amon added irreverently, gesturing ahead, "ladies first." Korra's frown deepened and she stalked into the building, just wanting to sit down and rest again. This was all making her head hurt.

The house had not quite fallen down yet, but it looked as if it was determinedly on its way out. Instead of peeling paint, there remained only random swathes of it on the walls. One wall had a hole in it, and she could see into a derelict, ancient kitchen. There was no trace of any electricity; there didn't even seem to be running water, and the house itself was not big. Whoever had lived here, they had not been rich, and the house didn't seem as if it had been occupied for decades.

"Needs work," Tarrlok said ironically, the first words that he'd spoken for what must have been hours. His brother laughed.

"A downgrade, perhaps, after the mansions and beauty of Republic City… but not a train floor, so it has its advantages. Beggars can't be choosers, after all. We'll improve it." Korra had found some stairs, leading to what looked like a tiny upper floor, perhaps just an attic. They had caved in at one point, but glancing back at the other two exploring the four or so rooms available she was seized by a reckless desire and set off up them. They creaked worryingly at the first step, but she ignored that and simply moved faster, stepping more lightly.

Tarrlok had noticed. "What are you doing?" he called, the beginning of a threat emerging. "Come down from there." She leaped a caved stair and turned back to stick out her tongue.

"Make me," she taunted, tired of being silent and talked over and ignored.

"I will if you make me," he said irritably. "Noatak," he called to his brother, wandering somewhere, "she's doing something foolish."

"She has a name, Tarrlok." Korra moved again, hearing the creaks increase in intensity as she remained stationary. She was reaching the big gap, debating how to clear it, only half her mind on the conversation. "And sure, call for your mum. Guess you can't do anything yourself."

He sighed. "Are you name-calling now? Don't be such a child. Come down from there before you hurt yourself." Gathering herself, she made a leap of faith and launched over the big gap. She nearly slipped, twisting in the air—below, she was sure that she heard a sharp intake from Tarrlok, but that might have been her, actually—but it didn't matter, she was going to make it anyway—

She landed lightly through a roll and up into a crouch, feeling inordinately pleased with herself. "Ha!" she said, turning around to poke out her tongue at Tarrlok again. "'Come down before you hurt yourself'," she echoed mockingly, doing the best impersonation of his voice that she could. She jumped a little when Noatak appeared silently alongside his brother at the bottom of the stairs, but stayed right where she was. Noatak shrugged at Tarrlok.

"She's not doing anyone any harm up there. If it pleases her, she can run around in the attic all she wants—"

"Stop talking about me like I'm not here!" Korra called, crossing her arms.

"—but it means no food until she comes down. Would you prefer that I went to get it, or do you not mind?" Tarrlok shrugged in reply. "I think we passed some cooking on our way in… can you remember where?" Korra pricked up her ears, outrage at being constantly ignored forgotten in opportunity. With only one of them in the house, perhaps she could make a break for it while Noatak was exploring. She was on the first floor, though… Were there any windows up here, to see what the jump would be like?

Tarrlok was leaving—she heard the door slam—and then she was up and moving as soon as Noatak disappeared out of her line of sight. It really was more of an attic than another floor, but she found a window without much trouble. She peered out, and saw that it wasn't that far down. If she got caught, though… Hadn't she wanted to plan this time around? She'd definitely wanted to plan, but this was an opportunity that she hadn't had in a while, being left alone, and if she didn't seize moments as they came then she'd never get away.

The window was big enough to get out of—more of a hole, actually, there was no glass and the frame had rotted away in places—and she moved towards it. One last glance towards the bottom of the stairs to check that Noatak wasn't down there watching, and she moved with the utmost care and quiet into the window, then gripping the side of the building to lower herself down. She thanked any spirits out there that it wasn't as fragile as it looked, clutching onto it and clambering down. Her hands were quickly injured and beginning to bleed, but she hadn't fallen or lost her balance.

With an involuntary hiss of victory, she dropped onto the dry earth, and checked the side of the house; no windows on the ground floor, Noatak couldn't see her, and she'd been as quiet as possible getting out… Sucking in air carefully, Korra set off at a run as fast as she could.

She had no fixed plan for her destination, except to take into account that she needed shelter. It was oddly comforting to hear her feet thudding into the ground and to feel the familiar exertion of exercise, but the clothing she was wearing was much more restrictive than her own, and that was making everything that much more difficult.

She settled into the rhythm of one foot ahead of the other, and headed coolly for a group of scrubby trees; they were half-dead, but they were cover, and she needed to be hidden. Every so often, the sound of other footsteps echoed in her ears, and she would twist to look back—there would be nothing there and she would lose her balance for a moment, and slow down, and curse herself for being paranoid.

Korra made it to the trees. She hurtled into the first one with over enthusiasm. Momentarily and literally floored, she blinked up at the sky peeking through the pitiful foliage above her and groaned. She'd made it to her first goal, but she didn't feel very comforted. It didn't feel far enough, or safe enough. Grunting, she pulled herself back to her feet, and moved onwards not at a run but at a speedy jog. It would be foolish to use up all her energy here and now. The grove was bigger than she'd expected from a distance, and she was pleased with that, it meant that it would be harder to find her—

That was noise. She was sure of it. She hadn't made it. Shit. "Korra," called a patient voice, and she stiffened with shock, nearly stopping altogether. He couldn't have followed her that fast, that silently, it wasn't possible.

"Don't be foolish. You can come back now. We'll eat, and you'll still be allowed gentle freedoms." There was a pause, and she quickened her pace, trying to be as quiet as she could. "I'm perfectly aware of where you are," Noatak added. "If you want a chase then I'll give you one." A quiet chuckle. "You seem to like chases." Then he burst out from between the trees, startling a shriek out of her, and she called up energy reserves to charge away, but the trees that had been such a potential help were getting in the way now and she couldn't move—

It wasn't much of a chase, she thought dully as he smashed into her side, knocking her forcibly to the ground. She tried to kick him, her tried and tested last resort, and he seized her leg and forced it down, throwing himself at her to restrain her wild thrashing, straddling her altogether and grabbing her wrists—oddly reminiscent of her, trying to wake up a panicked Tarrlok in the middle of the night, but of course nothing alike—forcing them down until she couldn't move at all any more.

He was panting, that odd sick smile across his face; he looked excited rather than irritated, staring down at her on the ground. "Unimpressive," he said, actively laughing, "your first attempt was difficult, but this—this—pathetic, Avatar—"

"Get off me," she snarled, trying to free her legs. She was becoming increasingly claustrophobic, panicked, the bubble building suffocating in her chest until it felt as if it could explode. Being this close to anyone was unlikeable; she didn't want to didn't want to didn't want to.

He chuckled again, still vibrantly excited and alive and pleased. "You'll come around," he said confidently. "You can have a life here, all of us can have a life—is it not a worthy cause, helping those who society has cast off and rejected for no reason but their perceived worthlessness?"

"Filthy hypocrite," she growled, and she spat in his face. He released one wrist to wipe it off, and she rose up furiously to punch him, twisting to try and get out from underneath him—they rolled frantically in the dirt for feverish, long seconds until her head thudded heavily against the hard ground and she stopped, stunned.

"Why a hypocrite?" he asked, sounding merely curious. The only sign he betrayed that they weren't having a normal conversation was his breath coming quicker than normal, and the slightly wild touch to his words.

"It's just the same—you and the Equalists, you just want power," she said, mind racing on how to free herself, "you don't care about—people society doesn't want, or whatever—" He was actually really heavy, and he was crushing all the air out of her besides how uncomfortable and awful this was.

He chuckled, and she felt it reverberate disconcertingly through her. "Oh, Avatar," he said. "The Equalists would have arisen with or without me; their concerns were legitimate, you child. The Triads were the greatest influence over the poorest people, not the law—that's where the Equalists truly came from, the people who were granted no power by permitted methods and had to take it for themselves, fight to be heard… They needed a leader and I became that, gave them strength—just because their leader happened to be a bender doesn't invalidate their concerns, you silly child."

"Get off me," she repeated, not particularly interested in being lectured at.

"Power is attractive, it's true," he continued, applying more pressure to her wrists until she gasped, tears springing to her eyes. He promptly let go, letting her hands free, and watched as she brought them to her chest and looked distrustfully up at him, unmoving. "But people are much more so. To these people, I will be a saviour. I do intend to help them, and I will. You could aid that. It wouldn't be a dirty task, or an awful one; you would be teaching powerless people to protect themselves. Isn't that a worthy penance for my past errors, whatever you consider those to be?" She considered spitting in his face again.

Her legs were beginning to go numb. "Just let me go home," she moaned, tossing her head to one side and then back again. "All I want is to go home and see my friends, and you're evil, I'd never help you, never."

"The world is never quite so black and white as evil and good," he said, running a hand across her face. "Would you say that Yakone was evil?" She nodded determinedly, trying to shake off his hand. She suspected that if she tried to bat it away with her now free hands, they'd simply be pinned back down again. "Then what about his sons, growing up in that shadow? Surely they would deserve your pity, for having a monster for a father." Korra faltered for a moment, not sure how to reply to that, her thoughts tangling.

"It doesn't work like that," she burst out.

"Explain to me how it does work, then," he said peaceably, calmly. "I'm curious. Am I the criminal in your nightmares, the monster underneath the bed? I helped a movement that was foundering to band together, and I think you'll have noticed that I have never bloodbended you, Avatar, not even when you've been particularly infuriating."

"You must have some plan," she said. "Some motive."

He smiled. "I always have a plan. As for my motives… is it so reprehensible to want a family?" She blinked, once, twice, not entirely sure what she'd heard, and lay truly still for a moment. "That's what it takes to shock you into silence," he said, exasperated.

"A family," she echoed, eerily flat. "You want—a family." He nodded. "Get off me! Get off me RIGHT NOW," she said, her voice rising progressively to a bellow of panic. Before he could hold her down again, she managed to punch him fully and forcefully in the face; he rocked back, nursing his jaw in shock, and she rolled up, stumbling and taking a blissful few steps of freedom away—he collided with her once more and down they went, hitting a tree on the way—she was going to be bruised and cut all over when, if, she got out of this—

She was face down in the dust, and he held her there with an iron grip, sighing. "Not here—not right here in the dirt, Avatar, really. In time. Can you fault me for wanting a family? You yourself said that you thought my father was evil; my mother was, perhaps, a sweet woman who saw what she wanted to saw, after all those years of lies and secrets. There would be no lies and secrets between us. It wouldn't be a standard relation, by any means, but it would function if you let it." Korra choked on the dust she was inhaling and began to cough explosively, almost glad; it rendered her unable to reply. He pulled her up, nearly gently, and turned her around. "Is that so unpalatable?" She shrugged, letting her contempt show in every line of her body, breathing the sharp heaviness of it. "Would you deny me the family that I lost?" he breathed, lowering his head slowly.

Korra had plenty of time to push away, to duck her head or flee, but she was frozen in shock as he came closer and closer. With one hand tilting her face up, he closed his eyes as hers remained open, paralysed, and then his lips were on hers. (It was bizarre, she thought, how distant she felt whilst the sensations were so overwhelming.) His other hand cupped the back of her head, craning her in closer until she was standing on the tips of her toes. Her arms hung, useless, by her sides. The sheer incongruity rendered her unable to act.

Do something, said a quiet, panicked voice, coming as if from far away, just as he was gently coaxing her lips open; she felt his tongue sweep into her mouth, alien and unwelcome. She moved to raise her arms to do something, do something, and he was backing off anyway, his hands trailing off her head and shoulders to cross across his chest. She stared up at him, eyes wide and feeling strange in her own skin, tingling oddly, trying to decide what to do now.

Tarrlok came crashing out of the foliage, panting, and looked wildly at the two of them standing so stiffly, so close together in the middle of a wood. "What's going on?" he asked, after a moment of surveying them and evidently coming to the conclusion that no, there was no way to make this make sense without actively inquiring. "I assumed that—something had happened."

Korra jerked away from Noatak as if burned, reeling away with one hand to her mouth. She could still feel him there, incongruously soft. A family—it was so tragic, so ridiculous that she was having a hard time getting her head around it—it couldn't be true, he couldn't be motivated by such a… simple, childlike thing, he'd just said it to confuse her, it was ridiculous.

"Something did happen," Noatak said, and she didn't like that salacious tone at all; she looked up sharply at him with a confused frown.

"Get away from me," she said quietly, and felt herself go hot all over as he looked at her. That smile was receding and his eyebrows were drawing together in displeasure, and she stepped away. "Don't come near me."

"Noatak, what did you do?"

"Oh, nothing that you wouldn't do given the chance," he said, sounding aggravated. "I've seen you looking; you can't claim to be a saint, little brother."

Tarrlok blanched uncomfortably, eyes flicking towards Korra for just a second, and then he collected himself to look determined. "I never claimed to be a saint," he said, more gently, "but what happened? What did you do?" When nobody replied, he shifted uncomfortably and looked between the two of them. "The food's getting cold. I don't think it's fair to our hosts to waste it when they have so little," he said shortly, and turned dramatically to march back the way that he had come.

"Well, then," Noatak murmured, more to himself than anything else. He reached for Korra's arm; she ducked out of his grip deftly, adrenaline still coursing through her, and dashed after Tarrlok. Anything to not be alone with him; she would take Tarrlok's company over his right now. Things had become really bad, she thought, if she was actively seeking out Tarrlok. She caught up with him in surprisingly little time—he must have slowed down after his dramatic exit—and fell into step alongside him noiselessly. He didn't acknowledge her presence besides a brief glance at her, and they walked silently.

"Whatever he did," Tarrlok began, sounding frustrated—he stopped almost instantly, clearly turning something over in his mind turbulently, rubbing at his chin almost painfully—"I know—this—I've been regretting this ever since Republic City, if you must know. I did something wrong there. And I haven't been able to put it right." She waited as he paused, sure that there was more. "But finding Noatak again was so… I haven't seen him since I was essentially a child. I thought that he was dead. Finding him again was like getting back my family, but him being Amon, of all people—a new… more tragic section in this sad story…

"I wanted to try," he said, an upset child, "because he was my brother, but I'm not sure any more whether this was right. I don't think it is. I think that… I've made a terrible mistake." And he looked at her, strangely pleading, and she looked back dully, still reeling. Every so often she could feel those hands holding her wrists and holding her down.

"Do you want a prize?" she heard herself say cuttingly, and she watched his open expression fall and close off to her.

He opened and closed his mouth. "Is that it?" he asked incredulously. "I tell you my doubts and fears, and—do you want a prize? What does that mean? Do you not care? Are you perfectly fine with staying here at Noatak's whim until you're old and grey?" He threw the questions at her angrily as if they were weapons, and she refused to let them hurt her.

"What do you want from me?" she asked back. Her voice was tiny and tired, and some of his furious energy deflated as if it had never been.

"Nothing," he said, hardened, and stomped off ahead once more.

Korra took some food and hopped up the stairs. She wasn't sure whether it was really true or not, but she liked to think that they couldn't follow her up there; she thought that they might be too heavy to. So she settled at the top of the stairs, in sight in case they wanted to check on her—she wanted no more threatening or violence or them assuming that she'd made another escape attempt—and ate slowly, mulling over things.

Noatak had seemed genuine when he'd been talking about a family. Creepy and strange, but genuine. She didn't think that that had been some kind of ploy or lie, not really. It was too bizarre a lie. As for Tarrlok, she wasn't sure if he knew about those plans. He'd seemed utterly unsure and lost, even reaching out to her about it—she regretted rebuffing him a little, seeing now with a pang that she could have banded together with him against Noatak—but she might have driven him back to his brother for a little longer.

"I'm an idiot," she moaned, leaning back and sprawling across the floor.

Did she really think that, though? No, she answered herself, no. She knew why she'd done what she had done; it was a reality now and she just had to deal with it. Today had really just established—besides already being unbearably long, it seemed an age ago that she'd left Republic City—that she needed a proper plan to get away. Also that staying was absolutely out of the question, and could not be an option. Tarrlok was still the weak link, though she'd pushed him back again, she'd have to work on softening him up—oh, ew—and avoiding Amon.

It got dark slowly and she watched the sunset, unwilling to go downstairs and join the two men but incredibly bored. She had to admit that out here, the natural landscape was beautiful. She'd been somewhat starved of that in Republic City, the lights blocking out the stars and the skies, starved of endless lands rolling out around her. For a moment, she ached with missing where she'd grown up; the harsh beauty of the sprawling ice, treacherous and dangerous and imposing. Like a shadow of the South Pole this, the whiteness inverted into a red desert, was made fantastical by the setting sun.

The sky was lovely, and she looked at it and drank it in. It cast shades and highlights over what had looked flat, revealing fissures and tiny mountains in the ground that shifted as the sun sank. Korra watched, and the massiveness of the land comforted her. She had the whole of the earth to escape them in, if she could just get away properly. The world outside went dark and finally all the stars were out, and Korra was still and at rest while her surroundings gradually went totally silent.

She leaned against the wall, and smiled faintly. It was possible to escape. It would be a ridiculous end for the Avatar to live the rest of her days in a tiny ghost Earth Kingdom town with a bunch of bandits. Now that they were around other people and planning to stay, the two of them couldn't keep her cooped up all the time, people would talk…

A bellow echoed from downstairs, and she was jerked from her sleepy thoughts. She knew that noise, she thought, brushing her hair from her face—she needed to do something with it, it had been roughed up earlier in the fight with Amon, ugh—though she hadn't heard it for a couple of days. It was Tarrlok. It sounded as if he was having a nightmare again. Her heart beating so fast that the sound filled her eyes for a moment she crawled to the very edge of the stairs, feeling around carefully, and peered down into the gloom. There was no light here, none at all, and she couldn't see anything…

Surely Noatak would do something for his brother. He wouldn't just lie there and let Tarrlok shout like that—if only because the neighbours would complain, surely… The longer that she waited, Korra felt more doubtful; she couldn't tell if it had been seconds or minutes, but those dreadful noises wouldn't stop, and they were beginning to rebound in her head. They were horrible. Making up her mind, and resolving that if he even lay a finger on her she was done waking him up from his damned nightmares; she had enough bruises already, Korra began to gingerly make her way down the stairs.

She nearly fell more than once, and she had an enormous splinter in her right palm that was hurting unbelievably badly—she stopped to fumble at it, and managed to get it out with a hiss of pain—but she made it to the bottom of the stairs without dreadful mishap. Stretching out her arms blindly, she touched wall and fumbled along until she found a door and hurtled through it. The noise was much louder down here, and she wondered how heartless Noatak was to ignore that, and then she tripped over him.

"I hate you," she mumbled, and she gave him an unkind, powerful slap to the face. He spluttered, flailing still outwards—one arm brushed her shoulder, and she was so ready to hit him back, but the blow had so little strength to it that she took pity—and choked briefly, and then he was awake. He lay still for a moment, coughed, and sat up so quickly that he nearly hit her.

"Nightmares again?" he asked, and his voice was so pompous and guardedly aloof that she nearly laughed at it.

"Guess," she said, heavy with sarcasm. She was only half concentrating on him; was Noatak even here? She thought that he would have been inhuman to sleep through this, and it seemed that he hadn't. He wasn't actually in this room, and she guessed that that meant that he wasn't in the house at all. She frowned. So he'd left. Just like that. Leaving her with only a sleeping Tarrlok as guard. He thought that little of her? "Where's—where is he?"

Tarrlok grunted, and she heard the rustling of fabric. He was shifting about, but she couldn't tell in the darkness what exactly he was doing. "If you mean Noatak, then I don't know. He didn't tell me where he was going, for your information. I fell asleep—ugh," he groaned, and there was a slap that suggested skin on skin—perhaps he'd put his head in his hands. Then there was more rustling and a hand groped at her arm; she evaded it with ease and sat further back. "Don't try and escape," he warned her. "Just because Noatak isn't here…"

"Oh, don't worry about that," she said sullenly. "I've had enough for one day, thanks."

He sighed. "So you're going to try again tomorrow?"

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to."

"What do you care?"

A pause. "Nothing." Another pause, slightly too long. "Nothing."

"You're disgusting," she said, angrily, burning with the injustice of being stuck here, stuck with him, and not daring to leave she didn't want him to make a grab for her. She almost wished he would, so she'd have a reason to beat him to a pulp; but he had his bending, and he'd made it perfectly clear that he was willing to bloodbend her before. That wasn't something she was eager to try again.

Tarrlok groaned, ever so slightly, very softly. "I know," he said. "Oh, believe me, I know… what was it Noatak said? Nothing that you wouldn't do yourself…"

"So that was true," she said quietly. This conversation, she thought, could not have happened anywhere else but in the dark where neither of them could see each other, essentially alone in the desert. The darkness made it unreal, as if it would melt away in the morning. Perhaps she would regret this conversation, she thought, but there was a frankness and an honesty to it that was refreshing after all the deception and hiddenness of their interaction.

"Yes," he said, and he practically groaned it. "I know it's repulsive—a man of my age, it's wrong—twenty years! I was twenty years old when you were born, and Noatak twists it until sometimes it's all that I feel." That noise that she guessed was his head into his hands echoed through the room again. She sat there uncomfortably, mind racing as what to say, what on earth to say— "And seeing you and Noatak there in that wood—I—I—"

"I don't want to hear this," she interrupted him, getting to her feet. With uncanny accuracy, he seized her arm and pulled her back down. The forcefulness of the motion was at utter odds with his voice, which was small and almost embarrassed.

"I can't trust you not to run away if you go out of this room," he said, "now that you know that Noatak isn't here." She spluttered, and he cut right across any protests that she might have had. "Look, I don't want to make you. You don't want to make me you make you. So… just stay here, all right? You don't have to sleep anywhere near me," he added bitterly, "and if I have a nightmare just… wake me up. You don't have to be nice about it."

"I wouldn't be anyway," she said spitefully. She could barely make out his outline, the slumped and defeated shrug he gave, before she grabbed the threadbare blanket that had been covering him and sank down onto the floor to ignore him.