Cadence Chapter Five: Motive

When Mako awoke, he was first bemused to realise that he'd fallen asleep, and then confused at the fact that one of his arms had gone numb. As he became more aware of his surroundings, enough to realise why that was so, he inhaled sharply, his breath ripping through his throat.

Somehow - he didn't know how or why - he and Korra had moved to entangle themselves with one another during the night. They had twisted so that they were facing each other on their sides; his former pro-bending teammate's head pillowed against his upper arm, explaining why it had gone numb. Their legs were entwined and his other arm was slung over her waist, as though to anchor her to him, while her hands were curled against his chest, lightly fisted in his shirt.

Mako was surprised he'd even fallen asleep. Almost a year with the Equalists had made him wary, alert to even the suggestion of danger. He often jerked awake when approached during slumber, and found it difficult to even begin to nap while in the presence of others.

But not only had he fallen asleep with Korra barely a few centimeters away, they'd also come into physical contact during the night, and his internal radar had never registered a threat. Why? Why had his carefully honed senses so blatantly dismissed Korra as a source of danger?

For a moment, he held himself completely still, ceasing to breathe, wondering why his first impulse had been to pull her even closer and close his eyes once more. He had never really liked people encroaching on his personal space so why was he so eager to prolong this contact with Korra?

He didn't dwell on the thought, but instead extricated himself from the bed as silently and unobtrusively as possible. He slowly, gently coaxed her fists open, freeing his shirt as he tried to ease his numb limb out from beneath her head. Korra sighed as his arms slipped from around her, but she didn't stir; She merely rolled over and snuggled deeper into the blankets.

Mako didn't know why, but something compelled him to pause and take her in, to imprint her on his mind like a developer with a photograph. Except he didn't know why he should want to remember dark chocolate hair against his pale sheets, or the way her spine slightly curved as her knees bent and her arms folded, as though she was trying to imitate a sleeping ring-tailed lemur curling into a ball.

Something told him it was a bad idea to have her sleeping in the same bed as him. But it had to be done. This was some sort of test. Amon had never let a test slide by without making some attempt at evaluation. Mako didn't know when it would come; maybe tomorrow, maybe months from now; but it would come.

He wasn't sure what kind of evaluation that would be, but he was fairly certain that his room was going to be subjected to impromptu checks in the weeks to come. It would be easy enough for the masked man to drum up an excuse to send lackeys into his room to spy, and if they reported that Korra was still sleeping in the window seat, suspicions would be raised.

Hence, the decision to relocate her to his bed was a precautionary measure, but certainly a necessary one. That way, if one of Amon's many lackeys paid a surprise visit, it would look like he was doing what he was meant to be doing.

He left the room to get his breakfast, feeling somewhat relieved that Korra hadn't awoken. If she had realised the position they'd somehow ended up in during the night…

Mako couldn't picture what would happen; only that it would probably be awkward and unpleasant. And he wasn't quite sure why he cared.

Mako ate in silence, sitting well away from any of the other Equalists. The Equalists often ate before the slaves did, so the majority of them became accustomed to rising before their slaves were awake. After all, if there was an hour or so in which only slaves were awake, it gave them ample time to plan and execute rebellions. This way, they were restricted to whatever time they could snatch in hidden corners and away from their masters' prying eyes.

He remembered to seize a few pieces of fruit for Korra's breakfast, seeing as she was restricted to his room and wouldn't be able to get breakfast for herself. He didn't think he could blame Amon for this order; if Korra had managed to incapacitate nearly a dozen Equalists while restrained with the collar, there was no telling the havoc she could wreak if she got most of the slaves in the mansion stirred up along with her. Mako pondered that for a moment, but remembering how Korra had cut a swathe through so many well-trained Equalists and chi-blockers as though she was mowing grass, made him vaguely uneasy, so he soon halted that train of thought. If he didn't dwell on it, he could pretend it never happened, and that the Korra sleeping in his room was exactly like the Korra he remembered.

Equalists and chi-blockers alike made way when he stalked through the halls back to his room, automatically bowing to acknowledge the presence of Amon's right-hand man even as their eyes glittered with resentment. But that was what the Equalist faction was: resentment and cruelty, with an undercurrent of power; being powerful was the only way you survived in a place like this.

Offhandedly, Mako couldn't think of anyone less suited to this environment of darkness and pain than Korra. Though there was Bolin...

They were meant for different things. Better things. Some part of him had always known that.

The fire bender heard the cursing even before he opened his door; Korra still very much very vocal in her frustration.

Upon entering the room and following the disgruntled noises, Mako found Korra in front of the bathroom mirror, her head tilted back just far enough so that she had a clear view of the collar in the glass reflection. She had the tip of one of his many daggers jammed into the tiny lock as she twisted it back and forth.

"You're trying to pick the lock," Mako stated.

"Trying being the operative word, there," Korra huffed, maneuvering the tiny weapon as carefully as she could, waiting to feel the click as the gears clicked into place, but it didn't come.

It hadn't ever come, and she'd been trying ever since she'd woken up. If she could pick the lock, she could get away. Without the collar, nothing could stop her. She doubted Mako would bother to try and stop her, and she'd be far away by the time Amon or the Lieutenant realised she was gone.

Assuming Mako didn't tell them and send them after her. But Korra knew he wouldn't, for the same reason he wouldn't try to stop her if she escaped. She had no idea why he had decided to keep her in his room but she did know that he wanted her gone as much as she did.

Mako shrugged at her answer and left her to it, not helping but not interfering either, which was, she reflected, perfectly descriptive of his usual reaction to her.

She heard him leave, undoubtedly after setting down the fruit she'd seen in his hands; because honestly, why else would Mako be carrying fruit around if not to feed her?

Korra continued in her attempts to force the lock, her mutters and curses growing more crude and obscene as all her tries proved pointless. She was concentrating so intently that the knock on the door made her jump. And seeing as she'd been pressed against the mirror, trying to determine if the lock had some sort of hidden trigger to it, Korra ended up careening straight into the mirror itself.

She swore, cradling the side of her face as her cheek and chin throbbed. She'd split her lip again.

The woman sighed in frustration, touching the tip of her tongue to her now bleeding lip as she set the dagger down. This would have been so much easier if Mako owned hairpins. People tended to scoff at such a cliché lock-pick, but in truth, bobby pins really were very useful; they were small and thin enough to fit into almost any lock, weak enough to be manipulated with a bit of effort, but strong enough to force the tumblers.

Of course, that stray thought led to a mental picture of Mako with bobby pins, which gave Korra a few idle snickers as she left the bathroom.

The knocking came again, but Korra didn't hurry to open the door. Mako wouldn't have bothered to knock, so it was safe to assume that it wasn't Mako who was asking for entrance to the room. And if it wasn't Mako, who was it?

Korra had no idea, but she wasn't about to take any chances. She took one of Mako's more ornate daggers from the weapon rack and held it behind her back in what she hoped was a casual pose before she approached the door.

But when she opened it, she found that she needn't have bothered. It was a dark-eyed female slave, with a rather pretty face, carrying a large jug of water and a small cup.

"Master Mako requested that this be brought for you," she said, her head lowered like that of a submissive deer dogs.

"Oh...right..." Korra muttered, shuffling backwards from the doorway so the woman could bring her burden into the room without catching a glimpse of the knife Korra was concealing. Something told Korra that the woman wouldn't react well.

Apparently, Mako had figured out that, along with the lack of breakfast and lunch her confinement brought, she didn't have access to proper drinking water. Yesterday, she'd drunk from the bathroom tap with her cupped hands. While she knew she could have told him about it, she hadn't wanted to. Asking him for something felt like admitting weakness and Mako was too much of a nemesis at the moment for her to feel comfortable doing that.

The dark-eyed woman set the water and cup on the dresser, next to the fruit that rested there; an orange, an apple, and a peach. She shot a quick glance at Korra and the Avatar tried to smile reassuringly, feeling terribly conscious of the blade she was concealing.

"Did you fight him?" the woman asked quietly.

"Noooo..." Korra said slowly. Did the woman really think she'd be stupid enough to attack Mako in her current state?

"So he's the kind who likes them in pain, then?"

Korra blinked stupidly for a moment, wondering what she meant. Then it hit her; her collision with the mirror had left her with a bleeding lip, and probably a livid red mark on her face that hinted at a coming bruise. The woman thought Mako had hit her.

"Uh..." Korra scrambled for something to say, feeling perversely guilty at the idea that Mako was being blamed for the injury yet knowing she couldn't tell the woman the truth.

"It's alright," the woman whispered with a comforting smile. "You don't have to talk about it."

She slipped out without another word.

Korra's guilt deepened. She felt bad about letting an obviously kind woman feel sympathy for her when nothing had actually happened to her.

She shook her head, telling herself firmly that this was the way it had to be. Everyone had to think that Mako was using her for sexual pleasure if they wanted Amon to be fooled. One loose tongue was all it would take to ruin it, and then...

Korra really didn't want to find out what would happen after that.

She set the dagger back on the rack, healed her face with a few minutes of concentration, and turned her attention to her meal. The fruit and water were set out side by side on the chest of drawers, and for a moment Korra was forcefully reminded of Pema setting out a bowl of food and a bowl of water for her the creatures that would frequent Air Temple Island.

Korra picked up the peach and bit into it with a little more gusto than was strictly necessary, irritated at the reminder that she was being kept here like some sort of pet. She had a brief mental image of Mako asking Amon if he could keep her, like a five year-old who had found a polar bear cub in the snow.

Still, Korra couldn't ignore that the man who was bringing her breakfast and ordering water to be delivered to her seemed a very different man from the one she'd seen a few months ago. But then, Mako had displayed a sort of twisted sense of honour in his reluctance to hurt her while she was collared. Knowing Mako and Bolin's mother was from a well to do Fire Nation family, she knew he would have been raised with strict doctrines about not hurting or bullying those weaker than himself.

And as much as Korra was loathed to admit it, she more than qualified for that category at the moment. With the collar off, it would be a very different story, but as it was... As it was, she had no hope of winning in a fight against Mako.

So, seeing as his own nature probably wouldn't permit him to kill her, and seeing as their interaction was on some very shaky ground, perhaps it was only natural that he reverted back to the way he was used to acting around her. It was the way he was accustomed to responding to her, and in the absence of any other guidelines, that was what he was doing.

Korra finished her breakfast while she pondered on Mako's strange behaviour, but she got no further than her original conclusions. She put it out of her mind as soon as she had finished the last of the fruit, entering the bathroom to snatch up the dagger once again and resume her attack on the lock.

Mako opened the door to his room to find Korra lounging on the window seat, one hand cradling a cup of water and the other idly tossing something that looked like a small rock up and down.

"Hey, city boy," Korra drawled.

When Mako gave her nothing but a blank look, she rolled her eyes. "What? Not responding to any of your old nicknames anymore?"

She could tell by his expression that he wasn't. All she received was silence.

"What's that?" he asked, nodding at the object she was tossing.

"The stone from the peach. See those guards watching the window? I'm trying to decide which one to throw it at."

Mako gave her one of those looks that seemed to suggest that single-celled life forms possessed more intelligence than she did. "That's pointless."

"Yeah, but it will make me feel better." Korra took aim, and let loose.

The guard tilted his head to the side and allowed the missile to whiz past him, however seeing as he'd had ample time to see the projectile coming, Korra wasn't really surprised.

"By the way, I broke three of your daggers," she told him as he set his sword down.

Mako looked mildly irritated but said nothing.

She hadn't meant to break the daggers; she'd just gotten frustrated, put a little too much force into it as she tried to manipulate the lock and the dagger had snapped in two. She'd tried again, and after another half an hour or so of pointless struggles, the same thing had happened. When she'd broken the third, Korra had finally accepted she wasn't getting anywhere.

Korra was beginning to feel that there was some sort of trigger to the lock. Perhaps it responded to the energy of the man who had put it on, perhaps it needed her bending to unlock it, either way, she had a feeling it wasn't going to be coming off her neck anytime soon.

"And I think I may have given you a reputation as a sadist," she added.

Mako's brow furrowed. A sadist? How had she given him a reputation as a sadist?

"I was a little over exuberant in my attempts to force the lock on the collar and ended up cracking my head against the mirror," Korra said; there was no way she was telling him she'd jumped in surprise. "The woman who brought the water saw it and assumed, and I quote, that you 'were the kind who liked them in pain'. So, deserved or not, most of the slaves probably now consider you a sadist."

"Deserved or not?" Mako questioned softly, wondering why she actually seemed to be considering that idea that he might be. He didn't know why it bothered him that she would think that, only that it did.

Korra snorted. "I won't venture to speculate what being a part of the Equalists has turned you into, Mako."

"The Equalists have turned me into nothing," he said harshly. "Amon hasn't changed me."

Korra gave him that same cold, strangely triumphant smile that she'd given him when she'd realised she'd cracked his ribs. "You just keep telling yourself that."

With that, she slid from the window seat and crossed to the bathroom, ready to examine the collar again after her short break to let her mind refresh.

She knew an argument for him to return to Republic City would have been a prime follow-up to that sentence, but she could see in his eyes that nothing she said would have any impact on him. At least, not now. It was better to bide her time and wait for a moment when her argument might make an impression. If she just harped on about it, he would become accustomed to it and be able to block it out. But if she waited for her moment and struck with every argument and reason she could think of, who knew what would happen?

Korra blew a stray lock of hair from her face in frustration as she stopped in front of the mirror and regarded the innocuous-looking circle of metal and leather that was the bane of her life at present. It would have been nice if she'd discovered that she couldn't pick the lock beforehand, but she hadn't really tried to before now. When she was masquerading as Koda, she had been expected to follow Mako night and day, so there had been no spare time to attempt to release herself. And though he'd tolerated her escape attempts at night, she hadn't wanted to push him by deliberately trying to free herself of the collar in his presence.

But now that Mako knew who she was, she had no doubt he would do absolutely nothing to prevent her escape attempts, however blatant.

She reflected that there was something very ironic and bitterly laughable in that, he might have stopped her when she was pretending to be someone else, but now he knew who was with him, he couldn't wait to be rid of her.

The sound of the door closing as Mako left for breakfast roused Korra from her sleep. She blearily opened her eyes, staring at the bed's canopy for a few moments, wondering if she should get up.

In the past few days, she'd tried everything she could think of on the collar. She'd tried picking the lock, she'd tried breaking the needle at the base; she'd even tried to use her Avatar-enhanced strength on it. Of course, nothing had come of the last attempt because while the collar permitted the slow release of bending used in healing, it seemed designed to block the quick release of most other bending. She didn't know how, but assumed it was a trait of whatever toxin or an effect of the electric current running through the collar.

Therefore it seemed she would have to escape with the collar on. Her best bet still seemed to be her plan to disguise herself as one of the many Equalist lackeys, but Korra wasn't completely naive of the difficulties such a plan entailed. She'd need some guarantee that dressing as an Equalist would grant her leave of the village.

She found it ironic that she'd had an easier time trying to escape from the underground base than from this village. Though to be fair, when she was in the underground base no one had actually known who she was.

The door creaked open and Korra turned in the bed, wondering if Mako had returned early. But it wasn't Mako entering the room. It was the Lieutenant.

Korra felt all her muscles tighten like coiled springs as her body was suddenly flooded with adrenaline. She was alone in a room with the Lieutenant, without a weapon immediately to hand.

This was not going to end well.

Korra swung her legs to the floor and was upright in the space of a moment, her eyes fixed on Amon's sidekick, waiting for whatever move he was going to make.

The Lieutenant gave an oily smirk at her obvious wariness. "I'm just delivering something."

He held a flask, filled with a greenish liquid and stoppered with a cork, out to her, and when she made no move to take it, he set it on the bedside table.

"A contraceptive," he explained smoothly. "I am sure you do not wish to conceive in these...unhappy circumstances."

His eyes seemed to sharpen in that instant, scanning her as though he were a biologist trying to classify a particularly fascinating specimen.

Korra said nothing, eyeing the flask.

"It is very potent, a mouthful each day will do," the man went on. "Notify me when it begins to run low."

With that, he left as abruptly as he'd entered, shutting the door behind him.

"And how am I meant to notify him, pray tell?" Korra grumbled, even though she knew the Lieutenant probably expected her to relay the news via Mako or a random slave.

She lifted the flask to the light, swirling it gently, measuring its consistency and transparency. She uncorked it and sniffed at the rim, the scent identifying it as a herb that grew prolifically in the Earth Kingdom and that it was noted to be capable of preventing pregnancy. At first glance, it seemed to be exactly what the Lieutenant had claimed it was; a contraceptive.

But something wasn't sitting right with Korra. If this liquid had been brewed from the herb she thought it had been, it should have been a yellowish colour instead of green.

Telling herself that neither Amon nor the Lieutenant wouldn't poison her so blatantly and that she probably wouldn't have many ill-effects from what amounted to a single drop, she dipped her finger into the concoction and tasted it.

It tasted of peppermint.

Korra became alarmed. She knew that the contraceptive mixture used by a lot of women in Republic City tasted rather bitter. If this tasted minty it was because the maker had deliberately added mint to it.

And the Lieutenant didn't strike Korra as the type of person who would make a mixture taste pleasant for the comfort of the patient. So, if he made it taste minty, that probably meant he was hiding something. Some discrepancy in the taste would alert her to the fact that this wasn't just a contraceptive.

It was so obvious it was rather insulting. What kind of fool did they take her for?

Korra came to the conclusion that there was some other drug in the flask. She just didn't know what. There was something tugging at her mind, a vague memory of Katara explaining herbs; one that smelled like the contraceptive but didn't look or taste like it...

Realisation slammed into her like a falling boulder just as Mako walked into the room.

"What is it?" he asked, glancing at the flask in her hand.

He seemed to ask that an awful lot lately. But then again, Korra supposed he had a good reason this time, she could only imagine the expression that was adorning her face as she stared at the innocent-looking liquid.

"The Lieutenant came in and gave it to me," she said absently.

Mako stiffened. The Lieutenant had been here with Korra? Alone? He ran his eyes over her briefly, searching for any injuries or evidence of misuse, and tried to ignore the feeling of relief that went through him when he found none.

"He said it was a contraceptive," Korra went on, sounding a little dazed as her mind whirred with possibilities and explanations. "He was lying."

"What is it?" Mako repeated, feeling a frisson of unease run along his spine. Was it poison? Had Amon re-thought his decision about Mako and charged his loyal sidekick with doing the dirty work?

"It smells like a contraceptive herb," Korra continued. "But the colour, the fact that there's mint in it to cover the taste, I think it's actually another, rather obscure herb. I guess Amon assumed I'd go by the smell and didn't know about this herb, considering it doesn't grow in Republic City."

"So what does it do?" Mako asked, irritated at her evasive replies as he strode to the weapon rack.

"If I drank this, it would increase my chances of conceiving, not lessen them."

Mako froze for a moment in the act of gathering his kali sticks as his mind processed that. Amon wanted Korra pregnant by him? Was that why he'd allowed him to keep her in his room? Mako didn't need to think hard to guess at the reason for such a desire, either. Amon was by no means blind to the sheer power a potential child of Mako and Korra's would posses. If the fire bender had a child with Korra, it would have immense bending capabilities not to mention if Korra could pass her phenomenal strength onto her children...well, Mako could certainly see why the masked man would take interest in their potential progeny.

Korra had apparently reached the same conclusion. "It seems Amon wants a herd of benders at his disposal and apparently, I'm the brood mare."

Considering the anger in her voice, Mako was surprised when she lifted the flask to her lips and took a mouthful of it. But when she walked to the bathroom and spat it out, he understood. She was making it look like they were using the contraceptive, in case the Lieutenant decided to make another impromptu visit.

At that thought, Mako frowned. He didn't like the idea that the Lieutenant had access to Korra, especially while she was collared.

He had been prepared for one of Amon's many lackeys coming into his room, but he had never expected that he would send the Lieutenant. He wouldn't have worried if it had been some random Equalist; they were too intimidated by him to ever risk crossing him, and so would leave Korra alone for fear of incurring his wrath. But the Lieutenant was different. The lieutenant was dangerous.

And something in Mako rebelled at the idea of Korra being at the man's nonexistent mercy.

Korra was rinsing her mouth to wash out every remnant of the vile liquid when Mako dropped something onto the bathroom vanity in front of her. She spat out the water and glanced down at the object; a large silver key.

"Lock the door when I leave," Mako said shortly. "Do not let anyone in until you are certain of his or her intentions."

Korra reached out for the key, weighing it in her hand, her fingers running over the cool metal. This had certainly come out of the blue. A few days ago, he was warning her not to make him lock her in, and now he was telling her to lock him out?

But it seemed Mako was already regretting his decision; he was staring at the key in her hand with a scowl deeply entrenched on his face.

Korra was about to say something, she didn't know what, but she wanted to say something, when he turned his back on her and strode out the door, shutting it behind him with a harsh snap.

Left alone, Korra stared at the key in her hand for at least a full minute before she went over to the door, inserted the key and turned it once, hearing the lock click into place.

On the other side of the door, Mako also heard the tell-tale sound of the lock clicking, and he continued down the hallway, his scowl settling deeper on his features. He had no idea why he'd waited to hear the lock being engaged, or why the sound had soothed something in him he'd never even known was tense.

All he knew was that the idea of Korra in his room, collared and vulnerable to whoever walked in the door, had made him unsettled in a way he wasn't used to. While the Lieutenant was more than capable of kicking in a locked door, Mako suspected the man wouldn't risk crossing him so blatantly.

As long as the door was locked, Korra was under a modicum of protection.

'I don't care,' he thought. 'I gave the key to her on a whim, I don't care about her, I don't care...'

Somehow, each repetition only made it seem less and less convincing.

"So when you delivered it, how did Avatar Korra seem to you?" Amon asked, brown eyes sharp and piercing despite his innocuous-sounding question.

"She was wary, but did not seem to have been harmed," the Lieutenant reported. "That in itself might not be much of a surprise; I doubt Mako's predilections run towards deliberately hurting his partner, but she doesn't have the look of a woman who was raped, either, even though she was sleeping in his bed."

Amon said nothing, gesturing for the Lieutenant to continue with his evaluation.

"I am aware that she used to have a crush on him, so it is possible he may have seduced her." The Lieutenant smirked a little, obviously disbelieving. "Although after that display when you revealed her, I would have thought nothing but brute force could have brought her to Mako's bed."

Amon turned that over in his mind for a moment. He had originally intended to simply turn the Avatar over to his interrogators, but then a far better option had presented itself.

He could use her for his own purposes; to test Mako's loyalty. For a long time, Amon had suspected that Mako was more attached to his old friends than he claimed to be. He had been willing to strike them down in their last encounter, true, but Amon paid little attention to that. The act of murder took only a moment, a moment often lost in the adrenaline of battle, and it could be, indeed, sometimes was, regretted afterwards.

But for Mako to hold the woman who had once been his friend, prisoner in his room, subjecting her to continued abuse and violation, that would certainly demonstrate that Mako had turned his back on friends of old permanently.

In addition, Amon was not blind to the potential power a child of Mako and Korra would have.

And yet, the Lieutenant's description of Korra's state was enough to trouble him. He knew she wouldn't have had consensual sex with Mako, he doubted the Ufire bender could pull off any sort of deliberate seduction, and the girl was much too loyal to her duties as the Avatar to bed a traitor this quickly on her own initiative, no matter how close they had once been.

"Perhaps she is not in his bed," Amon mused. "At least, not in the sense that we believed she would be. But why claim her otherwise? Unless our dear Mako is growing soft...?"

The Lieutenant said nothing, but his eyes flashed with malicious intent.

The Lieutenant stalked down the corridor like a leopard after a gazelle, approaching the door at the end silently, wanting his entrance to be as undetected as possible. He rested his hand on the knob and turned slowly, quietly only to be met with resistance, an immovable barrier against completing the rotation.

The door was locked.

"Who's there?" came Korra's voice from within the room, her tone tense and accusing.

A slow, cruel smile adorned the Lieutenant's face as he slid back down the corridor without a word.

Mako never locked his door; he had nothing of exorbitant value in his room, and only a fool would have tried to steal from Amon's apprentice. And yet, the very same morning he had slipped in to deliver a 'contraceptive' to the solitary Korra through an open door. The door had been locked shortly afterwards.

The Lieutenant knew that was no coincidence.

He was unable to hold in the soft chuckle that whispered from his throat. "How interesting..."