The words were out before he'd made any conscious decision to say them, but being the stubborn man that he was, Tahno refused to take them back once they were in the open. She whipped around to scowl at his words, her eyes sparking with the old Korra again.
"What's stupid?" she demanded. He scowled right back at her.
"You want to forget everything just so that you don't have to remember the street rat," he said with cold amusement. "That's stupid. If it was me, I'd want to get my memories back as soon as possible so that I could tell him to shove it up his ass and have the words actually mean something."
She blinked, and her fierce expression faltered slightly.
"You can get as pissed as you want with him now," Tahno continued. "But as long as you don't have your memories, Mako can pin it all on that fact and say that once you remember him, everything will be back to normal. That means you won't ever get a break from him, Korra, because he'll keep trying."
She pressed her lips into a thin line and looked away, further down the alley.
"Plus, you've got better memories jumbled in that stupid head of yours too, you know," he pointed out, flicking her ear. "Like when I offered you some private lessons."
His voice dropped lower to that same sultry whisper that he'd used that night in Narook's, just before she set that damned polarbear dog on him. Unlike that night, he noticed that goosebumps erupted down her arms. Oh? Perhaps the great and powerful Uh-vatar wasn't as immune to his charms as she pretended?
"You did that?" she wondered.
"I did that," he confirmed, leaning over with a smirk. "And I beat you in the Probending ring, too."
"Only because you cheated."
Tahno pulled up short, and Korra looked around, seemingly surprised herself.
"You remember that?" he said in disbelief.
"Well...it just kinda came out…" she said, frowning at the ground. Then she looked back at me. "But yeah, I do remember you cheating. And I remember kicking your butt in sudden death."
"Tch." I pulled away, recalling that bitter defeat. "It was a fluke."
"Whatever, Pretty Boy."
My lips twitched. Ah, her pet name for me. How sweet that she still remembered that.
"Well," he said, rising to his feet and dusting off his pants. "This has been cute, but frankly it's filthy and boring here. Let's continue our romantic walk through the streets of this lovebirds' paradise."
Korra raised her eyebrows at him and eyed the hand he offered her as if it was a third one that he had just grown on the spot (Like he needed an extra). Still looking dubious, she placed her fingers in his and allowed him to pull her to her feet. Still a little off balance from her dizzy spell, she stumbled and fell forward against his chest again like she had that morning, her free hand trapped between them when she tried and failed to catch herself. A startled noise escaped Tahno, who had caught her reflexively and was now holding Korra in his arms without knowing exactly how she had gotten there. He moved his long-fingered hands to her shoulders and attempted to carefully push her away, but her fingers caught the front of his shirt and held her in place.
"Seriously?" he protested, tugging on her wolf tail.
"Sorry," she murmured blearily. "Just a minute...Tired…"
Tahno groaned but let her be, looking around in case any prying eyes saw the curious display and mistook it for anything other than a fainting spell. However, they were alone in the alley. Quite alone.
Even as he made the observation, he felt an uncomfortable heat rise behind his ears. This was the wrong position to be in with the Avatar should anybody walk by and notice them. He shouldn't be letting this girl lean into him like that, her nose tucked into the hollow of his throat and her hand curled loosely in his shirt. But she just looked so pitiful, so helpless, how was he supposed to push her away? He'd never been able to deny a cute face before, and clearly that much of him hadn't changed.
With a sigh he cautiously rested his chin on the crown of her head and set his hands on her lower back, her body heat blazing like a furnace through the thin material of her borrowed top. It was uncommon for a Waterbender to have such a high body temperature, but he supposed that since she was the Avatar, it was just the Firebender in her manifesting. The hand that hadn't been trapped between them dangled uselessly at her side, pinned there by his arms. Her hair smelled like his shampoo.
"...Korra?" he said after a moment.
"Yeah?" he answered quietly.
"I'm not helping you because I'm hardwired to."
"Then why?" Her tone was dubious, stating quite plainly that she didn't believe him in the slightest. He blamed Mako for her state of mistrust.
"No idea," he said honestly.
"If you don't know, doesn't that make it automatic?" she wondered.
"Please," he scoffed. "Impulsive, maybe, but not automatic."
"Impulsive…" she mused.
"You remember what that word means, right?" he checked.
"Idiot, of course I do," she said immediately, firing up somewhat. "Setting Naga on you that night was impulsive."
He chuckled. "Perfect example, Uh-vatar," Tahno congratulated.
Instead of appearing pleased, Korra just heaved a sigh.
"What am I supposed to do?" she said under her breath.
"Do?"
"About my memories. About Mako and that guy Tenzin you mentioned and all those other people I forgot," she elaborated, sounding pained. "What if I forgot something really important? What if I never get all my memories back? What am I supposed to do then?"
Tahno smirked and reached up to flick her ear. "Make new ones," he suggested. "That's the best thing about memories. You can always make more."
"But-"
"I always figured thinking about the past was for losers," Tahno continued, raising his voice over hers. "The people that think too far ahead are stupid, too. It's the people that live in the present that have the most fun."
"How poetic of you," said Korra wryly, and he heard the traces of a smile in her voice, causing his to grow wider.
Tahno tried to guide her away again, satisfied that she was alright, and this time she went without complaint or resistance. She might have still looked a little pale, but her eyes were bright and lively once more, assuring him that she was fine to move on. He offered her his arm, and after giving it the same suspicious look she had given his hand earlier, Korra gingerly placed her palm on his elbow. He then proceeded to yank her in close to his side, pinning her hand between his torso and arm so that she was trapped there. She started to protest, then broke off in a laugh.
For the rest of the day, something shifted tangibly in the air around the pair of them, walking down the streets and looking through the stalls one by one for nothing in particular. Some tension that they hadn't realized had been present had lifted from their shoulders and left them lighter and freer.
If anybody had told Tahno two years ago that he would be walking down the streets of Republic City with the Avatar, laughing and completely at ease, he would have called them crazy. If anybody had told him after that night in Narook's that he would one day actually enjoy the Avatar's company, he would have written them off as a bad comedian and destroyed them through the tabloids that were so fond of him and his band of merry Wolfbats. Even as he talked to her, he couldn't believe that he was actually doing it, not hating the time she spent at his shoulder and occasionally touching his elbow when she felt a little dizzy. What the hell was wrong with him that he was so comfortable around Korra, that loser Fireferret with an attitude way bigger than her small if muscular body could afford?
Korra likewise wasn't quite sure how this turn of events had come about. Yes, her memories were murky in places, but she remembered most of her interactions with Tahno (at least, she thought she did. It was difficult to pinpoint what you forgot) and she remembered that they were hardly best friends. At best they were tolerant acquaintances, and that had only come about after Tahno had lost his bending, the source of all that irritating arrogance that he wore like a second skin. But in spite of that, they were walking side by side and being not only cordial but friendly. She didn't need a perfect memory to know that it was strange, but she didn't particularly mind it. He was actually kind of fun now that his pride had cooled off a little. It probably helped that they were no longer Probending rivals.
After a couple of hours well-filled by dirty humor from Tahno that Korra mostly did not understand, the two found themselves at the park where they'd encountered each other the previous night. The ground was soft and damp, and it squelched under their feet as they walked toward the turtleduck pond that had been reinhabited between that night and the present evening. The birds were floating over the surface of the swollen pond, avoiding the half-submerged brambles that had been drowned in the storm and gulping down bugs and bread crumbs as fast as they came. A couple of little kids were playing near the pond and the taller one bent a little pebble toward one of the turtleducks; it took off with an indignant noise, joined by a couple others as it proceeded to beat its wings around the head of its attacker. The kid cried and took of running, but his partner was laughing too hard to follow.
"Someone's having fun," Korra noted with a smirk.
Tahno glanced down at her, arms behind his head again. She looked quite composed, much calmer than last night, and a thousand times more so than when she returned to Republic City after she'd lost her bending. Tahno would remember that day for the rest of his life as the day that the Avatar had come to save him.
Tahno was sitting alone in Narook's, the raucous atmosphere that usually accompanied him long absent. It had been replaced by an air of cold solemnity, the byproduct of losing everything that had made him who he was and everyone that had hung around with him. It was hard to accept, even if he'd always known it, that the people around him were only there to share a bit of his fame, his glory, his money. He hadn't really minded it. In fact, he had reveled in the attention, but that was because he never would have imagined that he would lose the draw he held for those people.
Nobody had joined him at a table in weeks. Or was it months? It didn't matter. Every day was the same when he had to live it like those sad little non-benders out there.
That was when the door to the restaurant was flung open so violently that it crashed into the wall and sent dust flying from the point of impact. When Tahno looked up with a certain half-baked curiosity, he wasn't all that surprised to see the Avatar standing in the blasted doorway. It was, after all, her favorite way to enter a room. He was startled to see that she looked quite harried; her hair was windswept and falling out of its wolf tails, her clothes were disheveled, and the pelt she wore around her waist was twisted so that the tie was sitting over her left hip. Her electric blue eyes were feverish as they scanned the restaurant, and when they locked on him, he was surprised again to see her approach.
"Well, if it isn't the Uh-vatar," he greeted in a bored voice, pushing his noodles around in their bowl with his chopsticks. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Tahno," she started excitedly. "While I was in the South Pole-"
"Not chasing Amon," he interjected. She gave him a small glare.
"Amon's escape ship exploded, Tahno," she informed him. "He's dead. They found his body and Tarrlok's the same night that he got away."
He waved an airy hand at her in acknowledgement.
"While I was in the South Pole," she started again. "I figured out how to do something."
"And I care because?" he wondered idly. She raised an eyebrow at him.
"Because I'll bet you want your bending back."
He stiffened and glowered at her.
"That isn't funny, little girl," he growled.
"It wasn't supposed to be," she retorted. "I can give you back your bending."
He looked up at her, clearly not believing her at all. She read his obvious reservation and shrugged, folding her arms and turning away.
"Alright, fine, whatever," she said nonchalantly. "If your bending really wasn't that important to you, I'll just lea-"
His hand was on her elbow without him realizing how it had gotten there. She turned back toward him, grinning smugly.
"You...Can you really do that?" he wondered. "Not even the best healers in the city could do it."
"The best healers in the city aren't the Avatar," she informed him. Then her slender fingers wrapped around his and she pulled him up to his feet, nearly knocking over the table as she began towing him out of the building with a hollered "I'll take care of it!" to Narook, who wasn't thrilled about the apparent dine-and-ditch.
Narook's was right by the sea, and that was where she led him. The moment their feet hit sand, Korra released his hand and whipped around to face him.
"On your knees, Pretty Boy," she told him imperiously, but her eyes were glowing with excitement. He raised an eyebrow at her.
"If I had a dime for every time I heard that," he chuckled, but did as she told him.
"You'd have a dime," she replied, probably not understanding the joke.
When he was on his knees with his hands hanging limply at his sides, Korra stepped close to him, resting a palm against his chest and her thumb against his forehead. She closed her eyes, and a brilliant blue-white light leaked from under her lids even before they opened again. From the points where she touched him, waves of warmth began to pulse through him like waves crashing against the shore. Every time he heard water hit the sandy beach, another pulse of heat went through him. He could feel himself becoming lighter, could feel the locks that bound his bending fracture and scatter like they were made of fragile glass, and he knew. He knew that Korra hadn't been lying or messing with him. She had been telling the truth. With one final pulse, his awareness of the water around him rushed back with enough force to make him tremble, and he understood that there was not a more honest person in existence than Korra, who had found the answer to his problems and rushed to find him and deliver it.
"Told you," she said complacently as he knelt there, staring at her in shock.
Slowly, his silver gaze traveled to his hands, and then the sand beneath him, following the grainy earth all the way to the cold blue-gray waters frothing against it. Korra laughed and held out a hand.
"Haven't you been waiting long enough?" she asked him, smirking. "Go for it. I'll give you the first shot."
"-hungry?"
Tahno blinked. Korra was looking up at him, her expression wry.
"What?" he said. "I wasn't paying attention.
"Yeah, obviously," she snorted. "I asked if you were hungry."
He considered her question, then shrugged.
"You asking me on a dinner date, Uh-vatar?" he teased.
"Dream on, Pretty Boy."
