Tarrlok hardly interacts with Korra's monster of a pet. It dwells in the corner of their ostentatious garden, pulling up colorful bushes and digging holes in the earth (just to spite him). Korra laughs it off as he silently fumes, as Naga bowls into his home, her fur mud-soaked and caked in dirt.
Korra bathes Naga diligently, scrubbing the brown back into white with buckets of water splattering onto the tiles, disgusting remnants of the ground clumped at the edges of the tub. His wife has not yet learned the virtues of rinsing out the tub after it is dirtied. Also, she has apparently not gotten around to house-breaking her pet.
She nuzzles the polar bear-dog's furry cheek with her nose, and he finds it amazing that he's in this situation. The Avatar's a wild one, yet patient enough to be the first person to tame a polar-bear dog. She laughs as it licks her face, drool pooling on its chin. The beast trots after her, allows Korra to ride her like a carriage-no, like the ostrich-horses they used to breed domestically decades ago (they are now only widely bred in extremely rural and impoverished areas, particularly in the Earth Kingdom).
They are companions. Friends, even.
Once, Tarrlok confides to Korra that he fears for their child's safety around Naga. She calls him a wimp, stifles her annoyance. So, he really thinks she's good enough to make Naga love her, but not quite talented enough to teach Naga that eating babies is morally questionable.
Korra tells him that the only way Naga can hurt the baby is if one of them sets her on the floor and the polar bear-dog accidentally steps on her. Or if they dress her up as a fish. She's trying to make a joke, but she can tell he's not amused by the firm line of his mouth. Still, she knows a beast of such an enormous size will only frighten a baby. Her expression softens. It's just so like Tarrlok to expect the worst of people; animals are no different.
He wraps his daughter in furs, always making sure that her head is secured on his palm. She has a full head of brown hair, and she'll grow up in the spotlight like a plant by a windowsill. He holds her close, wishing he can hide her away from the tumult, the talks of the "final step" of the revolution, the fact that there are guards posted around his house.
Tarrlok always hesitates when he needs to place her in the crib. He stands, just stands as if frozen. Blood thunders in his ears. Korra dotes on her and speaks garbled nonsense to the child, and he knows that he'll probably need to be the one to administer discipline. But he truly can't. In his childhood, there were the words and blows, and soon the rightful punishments and the excessive cruelties blurred together. The only acceptance he garnered was from his mother, but she was never in the foreground.
Cradling the baby girl, he rationalizes insistently, as he has for over twenty years, that he isn't his father or mother (or his brother). He may not know constant affection and reason from his past, but he's seen them. After all, he doesn't neglect or mistreat Korra as Yakone did to his mother; he shouldn't make excuses for his shortcomings.
The child yanks on the ponytail slung down his front with her chubby hands. Tarrlok will never hit his daughter, won't threaten her to craft lies for the bruises around her eyes and the violent flinching whenever he raises his hand. He isn't weak like Yakone. All of his life, he'd been taught that he was weak.
Yakone. Noatak. They agreed that his emotional frailty was a flaw. Yet, with all of their stoic proclamations, they died withered, and he stands. They hurt those who wouldn't or couldn't fight back. They manipulated Tarrlok because of his compassion. Yet it only rendered them empty, unable to be happy. Noatak receded into this world of thicky, foggy water and ice.
Tarrlok isn't weak for avoiding his father's path; he's not weak for refusing to follow Noatak to his death. Yes, he's lied and cheated, pitted people against each other for his own gain, but those days are done. A storm in the past.
"C'mon, Naga won't bite," Korra says with one corner of her mouth lifted, "and even if she does-"
The autumn air is cool on his skin. "If she does?"
"-I'm a pretty okay healer."
"Okay?" Tarrlok says tentatively.
The skin under her eyes crinkles as she laughs. "Better than okay! Katara taught me everything that I know." His eyes darken at the mention of that name, thinking of a quaint house soon forgotten by time. A shelter harboring an old crone, a broken shell of a woman. Korra only warns him not to dare make a joke about her knowledge, though it's not like she can punch him or something.
Naga regards him with pensive black eyes, tilting her head and emitting a low whine. It acts as a question, and it makes his outstretched arm seize. It's almost a thing of emotions. It's not supposed to be so cognizant.
It's not supposed to be a she. Animals-they're food. Prey. Sacks of blood and bones.
Once, he dragged an otter-beaver home. His mother had been at the market. His father had been outside of their hut, holding a machete. Tarrlok never questioned why they couldn't have a pet ever again. This was before Noatak and he discovered that they could bloodbend. He cried on his brother's shoulder, sniffing pitifully in the secure confines of night. Noatak assured him that it was just an animal, that it didn't matter.
Naga can't speak, yet she reaches him. Tarrlok pats her head, the coarse fur calm under his quickened pulse.
When he goes inside, Korra following closely behind, Tarrlok sits on the plush couch in a living room far too large for one man. Korra notices the hollowness in his eyes and asks if he'd like to spar, have a short waterbending match. She always has a bounce in her steps. When he declines curtly, she settles beside him, rests her head on his leg.
"I'm sorry," Tarrlok tells her. Turning to where she's on her back, Korra wordlessly pulls on one of his ponytails.