Often when two lovers reunite, there's an exchange of hushed words and secreted kisses. When Amon reveals his face to Korra, she spits on it. She demands to know where Tarrlok is, where her daughter is.
Arja's "real" father—this liar, this cheater. This man she shared a bed with. He spins stories that she can't believe. He and Tarrlok are—no, it's too much a coincidence to be real. He's playing with her mind. He thinks Korra's really that gullible.
Noatak tells her how to act, how to dress; she'll dress as she pleases. He never make any advances on her.
Good. She'd rather die than allow him to touch her again.
When Amon heard that his baby brother was betrothed to the Avatar, he laughed for a good minute. His lieutenant warily inquired if he needed to get a doctor. His amusement soon dissipated when he learned that the Avatar was pregnant.
He knew that he was the father. During one of their doomed meetings, the oblivious girl told him that she hadn't ever had such relations with anyone else.
It was a cover-up. So, his little brother snatched the girl who unknowingly carries the child of her worst enemy—who happens to be her betrothed's brother.
Oh, what a wonderful sense of humor the spirits have.
He's not his old self. He's Amon. Pregnant women are unjust targets, yet he wishes it weren't so. Letting the child live is actually quite selfish. The child won't have a good life. It's already in place; its fate is already set.
After Tarrlok and his wife are imprisoned and stripped of their bending, Amon ventures to their home. The circumstances around the home are bleak, the ground gutted like the snow-dusted animals Father brought home. Any companions who can rescue her have been neutralized.
The girl's room is small. Besides the large bed, it looks like a baby's room, with a mobile dangling above her sleeping form. Arja is curled in a fetal position, vulnerable and untouched by her heritage.
He remembers the times when things were not so complicated, when two boys played in the snow. The only bloodshed occurred when there were tiny nicks, scrapes on their knuckles.
It almost reduces him to tears. He can't stand it. Amon has long forgotten how to cry, but it makes him think. Thinking that this can't last. It never does. The brief, humorous jealousy and eventual bonding the brothers underwent together, it's all gone. Obliterated.
As naive and immature as it is, he'd give anything to rebuild their family, and perhaps he can salvage some poor imitation of his former life.
It's his child. She's his child. This breathing person who has tantrums and cries and asks where her momma is. She looks so much like him, a life in the midst of death and destruction. It would've been so simple to let Korra miscarry. He could have just easily killed it and saved the child from its future.
It's not meant to be, a pleasant reunion. They're all meant to combust, to spare the world.
Amon's exposing her to horrors just by not finding the Avatar and bloodbending her so subtly that they'd think it was a natural occurrence.
He's only watched them once after the birth—right after their child, his child was born.
Tarrlok and Korra stood in place, scared she'd pass away in her sleep. Korra would press her nose to her child's belly to inhale the clean scent of powder. A happy family. Nothing he'll possess, whether it's glass or prison bars or a shroud that separates them.
His eyes soften. When the Avatar gasped and her kneeling form crumpled underneath him, her bending lost forever, it didn't fill him with the same contentment as his fantasies had before.
One of the funniest sights Amon has seen in awhile is his second-in-command reluctantly holding the girl's hand. His own wife was murdered when she was a few months along.
Amon grants his brother and the Avatar time with Arja, who can barely walk upright or speak coherently. He teaches her. His daughter asks where her "babby" is, and so Amon takes her to his brother, now given a heavily guarded home with his wife.
Arja refers to her uncle as Father and her father as Uncle. As if she won't be confused enough when the time comes.
"Good evening, citizens of Republic City. My fair people." Static for an instant.
"As you know, my name is Arja, and I've been quite a presence in these radio transmissions. In fact, I've been a strong influence in the Equalist movement. I've stood behind the Sato family as they produce new technological wonders; I've stood beside our great leader and savior: Amon. As his protege. But as all great dynasties mourn the passing of their emperors, as we mourn the passing of the fruitful seasons, this month we shall mourn the loss of a true revolutionary. Amon has passed in his sleep, and it is I who found him in his deteriorating state.
"He spoke to me—words beyond my ken, honestly." She pauses to laugh. "Words of the spirits and justice. I have been chosen by the same hand of fate as him to carry through with his work, to cleanse the newborns of any possible taint they may have. To secure our contiued freedom under an equal hand. I know his death will stay with us through time immemorial; it's impact is undeniable. But know that I will head the Equalist government now, and our people will persevere like we always have through our hardships.
"Thank you for tuning in, and may peace be with you always!" The message ends with a click, followed by a new jingle for Flameo Instant Noodles.
The living arrangement for her parents—well, her mother and Uncle Tarrlok-called-Father—is almost liberating. They are under surveillance, but they can freely roam the premises. It's a two-story house with a large gate and a winding fence. Korra often sits in the garden, planning and waiting.
She gets a guest this afternoon. Arja is stunning in black and red, dressed crisply in a man's suit. She's flanked by two chi-blockers.
"Mother," she says bubbly. She hurries by and hugs Korra, kissing her on the cheek. Korra does not return the affection.
Arja pulls aways and beams. "I gather this is still not to your liking?"
Korra peers darkly at her daughter.
"Mommy, did you hear? I'm taking his place. I get to really help out with things around here. We can expand our operations, create a utopia!"
"You won't free us?" Korra states.
"What's there to free? You have shelter, food, whatever you need." Arja stretches out her arms in emphasis. "I've been good to you. Do you doubt that I love you? Soon you'll see how wonderful the world is now."
"Not if I can't go outside. I will stop you," Korra says. "I'm the Avatar, no matter what. Give me a chance."
"Ha, when you put it that way, I don't think that's a prudent idea," Arja jokes, her smile not matching the look in her eyes.
"You don't have to be him," her mother says earnestly, reaching out to her daughter.
Arja's hands curl at her sides. "Nonbenders in every nation will be able to walk freely—"
"And how many people will you chain up on the process?" Korra snaps.
"You and Father have been succoured by good fortune," Arja replies, "but you're good people. I love you both, and one day you will see. Yes, you will see. Is Father inside? Oh, I hope he doesn't start throwing things this time around. It's rather unbecoming. He must be beside himself in grief."
Once, when Korra was dejected to the point of tears, Arja came by and gently told her to get in the bath. When Korra did so, Arja took her mother's hair and brushed it, combing the loose strands out with her gloved fingers. She dried it and braided it like Noatak did with her as a child.
In the night, Arja reminisces. Her lieutenant is getting old, and soon he'll leave her as well. There are only so many blows he can take. He became more than a subordinate over the years, held her hair back when she couldn't hold food down after Amon died.
She kicks her legs back in her office, stifles her sobs with humming. An old Water Tribe melody. It's one of the few vestiges of her heritage that Noatak showered her with when she missed her parents and it all became too much to bear.
Arja then sings weakly. A Fire Nation song for soldiers at war. When she gets to the part about tiny shells drifting in the foam, she loses all remaining coherence and weeps into her hands. Someone else's lost cries echo her pitiful noises, sounds stifled by duty and time.