When she pulled herself out of the water and onto the arena's shore, her friends were waiting. Mako and Bolin were still in their pro-bending uniforms.

'So, what happened to the match?' Korra asked as she shook herself dry.

Bolin's face fell. 'We, uh, kind of got disqualified because you left…'

'Oh.' She scuffed her feet and looked away in guilt.

'Eh, no worries,' Bolin said lightly. She could hear disappointment in his voice. 'There's always next year.'

'Yeah, next year,' she agreed half-heartedly.

In the peace and calm of her room Korra was suddenly jolted wide awake. Naga's thunderous growls filled the air, so low and menacing that she could feel the wooden floorboards trembling. She stumbled from bed and ripped back the curtains, allowing moonlight to flood the room.

Everything seemed in place.

Baffled, she stuck her head out the window. There was no movement in the courtyard below, save for the twirling air gates that creaked slowly in the wind. A few spindly trees in the garden swayed to the breeze. Her eyes darted back to Naga snarling in an unbroken stream. Korra patted her reassuringly, then with a deep breath wrenched open the door and slunk into the dark corridor, her senses keened for any disturbances.

A lamp flickered to life. She jumped, her fists balling in defence before she realised it was Tenzin.

'Korra! I heard your polar-bear dog – is everything alright?'

'I don't know,' she said. 'Naga woke me up but I can't find anything wrong with –'

'We're under attack!'

Both of them jumped and pelted for the front door where the sentry's voice sounded. Air Acolytes rushed into the hallway in alarm, adding to the confusion. The single lamp did not give enough light; Korra crashed through furniture in her rush. A whirlwind of fury, she finally erupted outside and skidded to a halt next to the White Lotus sentinels, flames kindling in her palms. Equalists – forty or so of them, faceless masks and tinted goggles glinting flatly in the moonlight – stared back at her.

She raised her fist.

'Wait, wait! We come in peace!' Almost as one, they pulled off their masks. Korra was startled to see such young faces. There was a lean, hungry look to them that offset the danger they represented. Still, Korra did not lower her arm.

'You said it yourself,' one of them pleaded, spreading his hands. 'You said we didn't have to fight anymore. You said we could start a new life here…'

Korra's eyes widened in wonder.

The moon cast enough light for Noatak's eyes to carve out the details of his prison. He lay on his back, counting the bolts welded into the metal plated ceiling out of sheer boredom. At one hundred and seventy, he paused. He liked that number. It was the number of fish his family had caught on a real hunting trip, a year before he and his brother discovered they were waterbenders. He never forgot.

Footsteps echoed along the hallway outside the door to his cell. He sat up slowly and reached out with his bloodbending to sense the identity of the intruder. The springs in his narrow cot creaked in protest as he shifted.

It was certainly no guard outside the door, turning the handle. The cowards they were, they feared to trespass upon his realm, instead choosing to deliver his meals and any other requests through an automated lever system. He sensed someone young – young and confident…the Avatar.

'What brings you here, at this hour?' he asked as she slipped into the room.

'It worked!' she said with child-like euphoria. 'Those Equalists – people – you told me about. They listened to me.'

Noatak inclined his head in surprise; he had had low expectations of her success. Still, it did not mean the war was over and that she treated it as such betrayed her incredible naivety. He waited for silence to settle, until it stretched so thin that the scurrying of spider-rats could be heard through the pipes in the wall.

'Aren't you going to say something?' she finally demanded.

'Your excitement is disproportionate.' He sat up taller on the cot and felt her draw back in caution. 'How many Equalists defected tonight? Ten? Twenty?'

'Forty.'

'Forty. And how many have joined the revolution so far? Do you really think that the defection of forty will make a difference in the war? People die in their hundreds every day.'

'Then what are you saying needs to be done?'

He shrugged with supreme indifference. 'You're the Avatar. That's your decision.'

'And what about you?'

'I'm the villain, remember?'

She fell silent. He pounced.

'Do you consider yourself a hero, Avatar?'

The faintest glimmer of moonlight reflected in her eyes and she stirred. 'What? No – no –'

'So you don't think you're a hero? You don't think you're the city's saviour?'

'No – I am! I mean –'

'But who, exactly, have you saved? The benders? They only make up half the population. What about the rest?' He paused and waited for effect before continuing, 'tell me, Avatar, what is your strategy in this war? Are you going to keep fighting? Because if you want to win, you will have to consider the matter from…an Equalist point of view.'

'What are you talking about?'

'Don't utilise bending.'

'Seriously? Look, just because you hate bending doesn't mean I do.'

Noatak did not hate bending. Far from it. He merely pitied those who could not control their own powers. Many a bender – the Avatar included – simply did not realise the sheer destructive power they wielded. Far better that he protect them from themselves before anyone got hurt…the memory of the Avatar attempting to take his bending seeped into his mind. That fear, that terror, that despair. That was what every bender felt at the moment before their loss. He had experienced it for himself…

'Okay, whatever.' The Avatar spread her arms briefly in dismissal, then turned and left. Alarm pierced him; she could not be allowed to leave. She was his only opportunity for escape. If the Avatar left now, spirits knew how long it would be before she returned and he was not going to stay in this metal cage forever.

'I meant, you should not resort to bending when you fight.' Despite the agitated hammering of his pulse his voice was dismissive and neutral. Low, confident. Let her think he did not depend on her.

The Avatar paused, one hand on the handle. 'How can I fight without bending?'

'My chi blockers seemed to do fine.'

'Yeah, but they're chi blockers. I'm not one of them.'

He gave a dry chuckle. 'There's nothing stopping you from learning it.'

Her hands fell limply from the door handle and she turned to face him once again. 'You think I need it?'

The urge to roll his eyes was overwhelming. Never had he met anyone who hesitated at the opportunity to learn chi blocking – then again, he had only non-benders to compare against. 'It is certainly more useful than that silly sport you play.'

'There's nothing wrong with pro-bending,' she snapped. 'Besides, I've already quit.'

'You have?' He had only watched the Avatar play once; not that he had a choice that time, on the night of the finals when he hid underneath the arena, lying in wait for the Wolfbats to blunder into his trap. The Avatar had fought those arrogant young fools with unrestrained fury, and for one second that night he almost feared she would defeat them. He had never seen anything more reckless nor spirited, and that she had now quit seemed such a strange decision. 'Why?'

'I got bored. It just wasn't fun anymore.'

Noatak listened closely. He observed the subtle droop of her shoulders, the downcast eyes, the faintly distorted voice. There had to be more than boredom. Something prevented her from playing on the team – public pressure, probably. But surely, if her duties prevented her from playing, she would be more inclined towards frustration, and not this disappointment. She stared down at the floor without focus. Her lips pouted a little. He had seen this kind of demeanour before – on himself, decades ago, of his own reflection mirrored in a pool of blood – the face of goodbye.

And he understood.

'It's that firebender, isn't it? You fear growing too close to him again during training.'

She glanced up at him sharply. 'No.'

He shrugged. He knew she was lying. Judging by her age and secluded upbringing, he guessed this was the first time she had given herself to another man, only to be scorned.

'You can't have everything in life,' he said.

'Stop talking in circles. You don't even know what it's like.'

'And why wouldn't I?' he challenged.

'But - you're you. I mean, did you ever tell anyone that you're – you're a bloodbender…?'

You're – you're a bloodbender?

Noatak inhaled sharply. Unbidden memories of his adolescent years – memories he had all but forgotten to shield himself from pain, reared to surface. You're…you're a bloodbender? Those words, those words! The exact same ones that had once torn his life apart all those years ago. His past washed over with terrible clarity, resurrected from the graves of memory from which he never hoped to revisit. Flashbacks blurred into reality; the screams, the terror, the rage, and blood slowly dripping from prison walls just like this one...

'Get out!' he snarled, more to the shadows of his past than to the Avatar.

She cringed but did not budge.

'I said get out,' he repeated venomously. 'Get out now.' He half-rose from his position.

The Avatar shot away like a rabbit flushed, fumbling with the door handle before finally shutting it with a resounding clang, leaving Noatak alone in the darkness, suddenly lucid with the realisation that he had destroyed his one chance of escape.