"You're so good to me, Korra," Tahno muttered. "I don't deserve it."
Korra stroked his hair gently, gently scratching her fingers back and forth across his neck. She liked how he shuddered at the contact.
"Yes, you do. I admit, you were a first class jerk-bender when we first met. But you've changed a lot. Now you're almost tolerable."
Tahno slumped against her, looking depressed.
"I know I was a jerk. And I know that I've been better lately. I just wish that it hadn't come at such a price."
Korra sighed and held him at arm's length, studying his face. She remembered how broken he had seemed, that night on the bridge, and in the days following. And she realized that he was still broken, he was nothing without his bending no matter how much anyone attempted to convince him otherwise. She understood what it was like, to feel the water under your control, to feel how it flowed through everything. To manipulate that water, to feel it in your veins. And she couldn't imagine what it would feel like to have that taken away.
"I wish there was a way to give your bending back, Tahno."
He just shook his head.
"It's gone, Korra. I can feel it. It's never coming back."
She didn't know what to say, couldn't imagine what it must be like to have your bending gone. Taken. Ripped from you. So she held Tahno a little tighter, gently stroking his hair.
When she glanced at the clock, it was nearly ten. Tenzin would be furious if she returned to Air Temple Island now. She slid off the counter, wanting to head for the door, but Tahno stopped her.
"Please…will you sleep with me tonight?"
She froze. Kissing Tahno was one thing…sleeping with him was another. Was he always so forwards?
"Umm…"
He pulled her closer, holding her flush against him.
"I didn't mean like that."
Korra stayed with him that night, the first she'd ever spent with a boy. He didn't attempt to instigate anything, simply held her in his arms while the moon shifted across the walls. In the morning, Korra slipped away from Tahno's arms and stood beside his bed.
"I'm sorry, Tahno," she whispered, pressing a light kiss to his forehead. "I'm sorry."
She left without saying goodbye.
In the days following Amon's death and the collapse of the Equalist regime, Korra found herself wandering near Tahno's apartment. She had been busy returning bending to Republic City's most notable council members and law enforcement officials, those who needed it most. But she hadn't forgotten about her old pro-bending rival.
Korra headed for Tahno's apartment with a light heart. She could only imagine how overjoyed he would be when she gave him back his bending. Waterbending had been everything to the man…and now he could return to his old self (although Korra was sure that she would miss the sweet, sensitive Tahno she had gotten to know recently).
But when she knocked on the door, it was locked. No one was home. One of Tahno's neighbors was coming out of his apartment, carrying a bowl of noodles.
"Do you know where Tahno went?" She asked. His eyes shifted from her to the door and his frowned.
"You didn't hear? He jumped off a bridge a few weeks ago…they found his body in the bay a couple days later. If you ask me, he was never the same after he lost his bending. Poor kid."
And the man walked away, shaking his head. Korra sank to the floor, her mouth hanging open. She felt as though her heart was slowly withering, the breath being sucked from her lungs. Tears filled her eyes, and she allowed them to fall without shame.
"Oh, Tahno," she whispered. From the grimy window at the end of the hall, she could see the blue sparkle of the bay. There was a kind of poetry about his death: from water he had come, and to the water he had returned.
That actually broke my heart to write. D: Poor Tahno! Tell me what you think!