"I'm so sorry for Korra", Asami told Tuaq and his assistant when she closed the door of the CEO's office with her bodyguard standing on the outside.
"Don't be", Tuaq answered with a smile and placed a cup of tea in front of her chair on the big table, "I guess stuff like that is why you love her in the first place." Asami could not believe what she was hearing, so she just looked at him with a blank face. The CEO explained it: "You know, no one would ever callthe Miss Sato pudgy." With a very low voice he added: "Even though everyone saw you." Thankfully, she had not heard him.
What she heard, though, was his assistant adding: "I don't think anyone in their right mind would ever call any woman pudgy."
All they got from the only woman present was a frown, that soon got replaced with a loving smile. "Yeah, you're right, that is why I love that dork", she admitted while she seated herself and started reading the papers they had laid out for her, "so let's talk business."
Korra was standing in front of an empty classroom and was thinking about what she should do once her students arrived. Asami had talked in her behalf to the personnel management, and there were now messengers running around the factory site telling all the waterbenders to come to this room in an hour.
She first had to evaluate how good they could bend, and how high their potential was. Sadly, she had no idea how to do either of these two. One thing she knew was: she would probably need water, so she took the bucket with the blackboard eraser to the nearest bathroom and filled it up. Back in the classroom she decided she would use the time to clean up the board really nice.
When that was done, she checked the supplies - the walls in the back where lined with bookshelves. The books themselves covered a wide variety of topics, but most were about physics, math, information technology or bending. Then she checked what was inside the cupboard next to the shelves; there were papers, pens and pencils and other office supplies.
With a sigh she looked at the clock and realized there were still 50 minutes left. She had heard people talk about how time went slower when in a classroom, but she had thought they were exaggerating. At least until now. For some seconds she toyed with the idea of stepping outside the room just to see if the time would flow faster.
Finally she walked in front of the room and flopped down to the ground, crossed her legs and started mediating. This morning, she had exercised with Tara and her dad again, but when it came to meditating she was too caught up in the fact that she could not bend, while even her four year old daughter was able to, and thus was not able to concentrate much.
Now she did not think she would fare better, but she had the time to try it out.
"Ah-vatar Korra, what a sight for sore eyes", someone said, and she opened her eyes to muster the man who had just entered the room.
She had to blink her surprise away three or four times before she felt ready to answer: "Tahno?"
"The one and only", the waterbender told her with a leering grin.
His demeanor had not changed much from the way it was all this time back. And his hair was still long and greasy and his eyes had still black circles, while his skin was white as snow.
The Avatar got to her feet and leaned against the teacher's desk, when she questioned: "What are you doing here? Don't tell my you work here."
"But I do", he answered, and for a moment there his smile wavered, "I spent all my money trying to get my bending back... until you healed my for free."
Korra could still remember the time she gave half of Republic City their bending back (at least it felt that way). Tahno was special in the way that he was not only thankful for healing her, but mostly for doing it without charging money. It was just now that she realized why - because evidently he would not have been able to buy his bending back.
"So how are you doing", the Avatar questioned in a desperate attempt to make small talk.
He grinned and now entered the room, leaning against the table to her side: "Oh, not bad. And my ego just got a really big boost, y'know?"
She did not want to, but she humored him: "Why's that?"
"You're the only girl to ever shoot me down", he told her, and even though Korra could normally feel when someone was lying, he sounded honest, "and now I finally know why. You're into girls."
The Avatar felt a smirk come up when she retorted: "Yeah, thanks for that, by the way. I was normal until I saw your face."
"Really? Then you should be on your knees thanking me, because you could definitely do much worse than Asami Sato", Tahno said in a suggestive manner, which went straight over Korra's head.
She just nodded and smiled when she thought of her girlfriend, and there was nothing she could do about it.
"So what are we doing here", Tahno asked and took a look around, flicking his hair, "all they said was for all of us waterbenders to come here and wait for the Ah-vatar's instructions. So instruct me." Korra sighed at that and shoved herself up from the table.
"I'm not sure myself, yet", she confessed honestly, "I have to find a way to assess your strength and potential." His laughter made her turn to him with a confusion.
"Someone got hit in her pretty face", he all but purred, "can't you remember your probending days?"
Korra shook her head: "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Then I guess the Fire Rats had not a lot of candidates for the position of the waterbender", he said with a smirk.
She corrected absentmindedly: "Fire Ferrets!"
He walked to the blackboard and put the bucket of water on the teacher's desk. "Waterbending is about being able to simulate the tide", he explained, bending the water to flow in a sideways eight on his right side.
"So you'll give everyone a bunch of water and let them do this exercise for five minutes", he told her while moving back and forth and still having the time to make bedroom eyes at her, "the amount of water they can hold is their current strength. Then you'll train them for a day or a week, and let them do it again. Then you'll have their potential."
Tahno put the water back in the bucket and went to Korra's side. "Good idea", she told him, and looked into the bucket, "but we'll need way more water than that."
He laughed at that when he spat: "Love your optimism, Ah-vatar. But you'll not find a skilled waterbender here."
Korra furrowed her eyes at this and crossed her arms in front of her chest defensively. For some reason, his words sounded like an insult to her. The man just smirked and threw his hair over his shoulder, before he explained: "In case you haven't notice, but the Water Tribes aren't exactly welcomed in Republic City. So there is no one in the entire company who was hired because he was a waterbender - just some lucky guys who were hired despite it."
Since he was talking about her girlfriend's company, she wanted to debunk the theory - but after opening her mouth nothing came out. She had no leverage for objection. "Then why would they even have a list of waterbenders", she questioned after a long while.
Tahno chuckled: "Because we are a liability."
Korra's mood was bad when her pupils finally arrived. On a wimp she decided to let each of the seven people talk about what they did in the company. Tahno had been right. Four of them were cleaners, one a janitor and two (including Tahno) worked hard shifts on the assembly line. But what shocked her even more was that all of them were white. In fact, the only two people she knew to be dark skinned like her where Tuaq and his assistant, and they had been in the company from the very beginning.
Still mad at the world she explained what she wanted to do with them, and her former probending colleague showed the exercise. He was right with his judgement, though - neither of them was trained in the bending arts and only one of the cleaners was able to bend the entire bucket of water; and only because she confessed to using waterbending to mop the floors sometimes (which evidently was against the rules).
When she dismissed the class for lunch she suddenly found the silver lining: She could make these persons' lives so much better. When Asami had explained to the personnel management what they wanted from the waterbenders, she had used the word "promotion", and seeing her students' background she assumed it was a rather big one. She just had to teach them well and make them suitable to work on the Satomulators.
She scribbled some of her ideas onto a piece of paper and did not even react to the knock on the door.
"Care to join me for lunch", Asami questioned with a smile, which soon faltered when Korra did not react at all.
She walked over so she was able to look over her girlfriend's shoulder and finally got the response: "Yeah, sure, in a moment." Of course, the Avatar had misspelled some of the symbols, because she was not able to write and talk at the same time, so she crossed them out and started again.
"You're really getting into this", Asami mumbled, more to herself, because she did not want to distract Korra even more.
In one swift motion the Avatar stood up from her seat, cupped Asami's face with her two hands and pressed a big kiss on her lips. Pulling her towards the exit, she explained: "What can I say? I love helping people."
"With that and your handwriting, you would have made a fine physician as well."