"Good. Now try it at speed."
Korra braced herself and took up the stance she needed, feet planted wide and arms held in a square earthbending form, ready to lash out without losing her solid position.
When the signal came – that is to say, when Lin flung the much-abused chunk of iron at her – Korra cocked back, then twisted and flung out one fist, punching the metal dead-on. She felt her power grabbing onto the flickers of earth in it, and she pushed, her concentration tight and focused, bending it to her will. Just like it had in slower drills, the material deformed around her fist, forming a sort of impromptu gauntlet that she carried forward into an incorporeal opponent without losing a bit of force. Had the punch landed, it would have been devastating.
She froze, eyes wide, and looked at her metal-covered forearm. She'd done it! Throwing her hands up in the air, she stomped the ground excitedly, even doing a bit of a hip-wiggling dance in celebration.
"I did it! I'm the first metalbending Avatar! I'm SO good! Woo!"
"Hate to break up your party," Lin's dry voice broke in, "But iron is both the first and easiest metal the police force works with. You've still got a ways to go."
"Oh," Korra deflated for a moment, then shook her head, rapidly working herself back up into a victorious tizzy. She made a fist with her metal-covered hand, banging it onto her bare hand as white teeth once again split her brown face.
"Well then let's get started! I'm an iron master now, so it's time for the good stuff, right? Right?"
"No." Her voice still as dry as ever, Lin turned to walk back into her house, Korra pausing before trailing along like a single, sad little turtleduckling.
"Oh."
"It's time," the police chief intoned, sounding slightly amused for the first time, "for lunch."
Predictably, the Avatar's stomach rumbled loudly and, blushing, the younger girl followed her teacher into the house.
"You know," Korra started suddenly, between bites of food, "You really are good-looking."
Lin frowned at her, too polite to respond with her mouth full, and started to shake her head.
"No seriously. I meant what I said the other day. I've been thinking about how to say it, you know? Like, most of the things that I think of first aren't your looks, they're just how awesome you are. You're an amazing fighter, and you're smart and brave and I wish I could be as cool as you! But you also-"
"Korra, stop it."
Lin had finally finished her mouthful, silently cursing the toughness of the meat, and had promptly cut off her young student.
"But-"
"But nothing! I am your teacher and you are my student, and this is not an appropriate topic of discussion."
Korra met Lin's glare with one of her own, refusing to back down. After several moments of deadlocked silence, when Lin was beginning to think she might win this battle after all, the Avatar finally spoke up.
"You have a nice body."
"KORRA!"
"What?" Korra stood up, nearly knocking over the low table they shared, "It's true. No matter what else you think about yourself, you can't deny that you put in the work, the blood, sweat, and tears that made your body! You're strong! You're healthy. And I think-" she hitched up for a second, unable to voice her next thought as easily.
"Korra, stop," snapped Lin, irritated that once again, the Avatar was standing there, yelling at her, saying these ridiculous things that made her feel as if she were being mocked, "Just stop it! If you persist with this foolishness, I will withdraw as your teacher."
That was enough to stop Korra dead in her tracks. She dropped back to the floor with a thump, her legs bent into an inelegant W below her.
"W-withdraw? As in stop being my teacher?"
Lin simply nodded, her eyes on her half-finished meal as she made much ado about choosing the exact piece of meat that would find its way into her mouth next.
"But…but I'm still learning, and you're the best-" Lin's cold look silenced the water tribe girl, and for a moment they were both quiet, Lin slowly eating and Korra staring at the center of the table with a bleak look on her face.
Finally, the older woman broke the silence.
"It's an inappropriate topic between student and teacher," she said at last, her voice level and emotionless, "And I can't condone it. I can't force you to give it up, so if necessary I will remove myself from the situation. Walking away is clearly insufficient, so logic dictates that I resign as your instructor instead."
Korra scowled – the cadence of Lin's voice made it sound like she was reciting something. Probably some kind of police officer's training manual or something. It infuriated her.
"Fine," she ground out, pushing her plates away and rising to leave, "Then with your permission, Instructor Bei Fong, I will be outside practicing this morning's forms."
Lin waited, silent and refusing to look at her student, until she both heard and felt Korra at work outside. The girl was recklessly bending iron and stone in ways that had nothing to do with the forms she'd learned, and likely making a mess of the place. The metalbender sighed then, her head hanging and her hands coming up to cover her face.
"What do I do with her?"
"Korra what?" The outrage in Tenzin's voice was clear, as were the words as his volume rose dramatically, "What did you-"
"The next word out of your mouth," Lin interrupted coolly, "Had better not be 'do', because I didn't do anything to her, and you of all people should know that."
The man sighed and removed his hands from the table, tucking them inside his voluminous sleeves once again.
"I'm sorry Lin," he said after a moment, "I do know that, I simply reacted without thinking. I suppose the more appropriate question is 'what do you plan to do?'"
"That's the problem," she sighed, unusually fidgety, "I don't know what to do. I told her that if she didn't stop, I'd resign as her teacher. That just made her angry, and obviously we're not going to make any progress with her bending that way."
"Yes," he replied slowly, stroking his beard absently as he thought, "I've noticed that her meditation and airbending have both been suffering these last few days. She's terrible at separating her emotions from her bending…you'd think the White Lotus would have taught her that."
"Yes, well." Lin was clearly unamused.
"I don't know what to tell you, my friend. I don't think resigning as her teacher will help anything, and if there's one thing I've learned since her arrival, it's that telling a teenager what to do is the most effective possible way to achieve the exact opposite of that."
"Things were so much easier when she resented me for arresting her."
"That they were," Tenzin sighed again, looking out of the open window, "That they were."
"So…?" Lin's voice was uncharacteristically hesitant, and Tenzin heaved yet another long-suffering sigh, looking back at his oldest friend one more time.
"I'll talk to her."
"Korra?"
There was no reply. With a nervous glance around – he would never be able to explain his nervousness with being in the women's dormitory – Tenzin knocked on the door.
"Korra! I know you're there, Lin said you never showed up to training today."
Silence. As it dragged on, the older man gave serious consideration to the idea of simply opening the door and barging in – as much as the idea bothered him. He'd almost worked himself up to grasping the doorknob when Korra's voice finally rang out.
"I quit! Go away!"
"You can't just quit! You made the commitment; you have to carry it through. And please open the door, I don't enjoy having a conversation from the hallway."
More silence, and then a soft click as the latch was lifted. The door slid open just wide enough for Korra's face to peek through. She looked ruffled, tired, and strangely at peace – no tear tracks, no scowl, no apparent problem. In the back of Tenzin's mind, a red flag went up.
"I can quit anything except being the Avatar, and I quit metalbending. Chief Bei Fong was going to resign as my teacher anyway. Anything else?"
"Korra," he started once more, then paused, "Look, Lin told me what happened, and you can't quit just because-"
"She told you?" And there, at last, was the anger he'd been expecting from the volatile young woman, her voice rising, "Why would she do that?"
"She wanted my advice," came the reply, the airbender carefully settling his wise-old-man cloak around his shoulders, "She asked me what she should do, and she asked me to talk to you. Lin doesn't want to stop being your teacher, you know, but she can't encourage an inappropriate attachment."
"Well it's none of your business," snapped the girl, "And anyway I told you I quit. So it's not a problem anymore. I'm not a problem anymore."
She slammed the door in his face.
"Now go away," she yelled through the door. Then, as he turned to leave she added, "I'll see you at meditation tomorrow!"
Tenzin was honestly surprised the following morning, when Korra did indeed appear on time for meditation – and was even wearing her proper airbender clothing, although it suited her not at all. That red flag was back.
As the day wore on, the flag got bigger and brighter, until finally the man was ready to snap – and for no reason that he could adequately explain. Korra hadn't fallen asleep or even complained during meditation, she hadn't once yelled or thrown fire during her usually unhappy encounters with the spinning gates – she'd even made it through a couple of times. Overall, she'd been quiet, obedient, and a pleasure to work with. And it was, frankly, scaring him.
As they gave their final bows, master to pupil, he finally dared to say something.
"Korra…are you alright?"
"I'm fine, Master Tenzin," came the quiet reply, "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go to the baths and then into the city for a while."
"Yes of course," he replied almost automatically, then opened his mouth to say something else…but she was already turning away, and he had no idea what he'd planned to say anyway.
Korra returned to the island late that evening, practically vibrating with excitement – for a prissy rich girl, Asami sure could come through when she needed to! The Avatar ate a quick, cold supper standing up in the kitchen, and then dashed off to her room to unwrap the bundle she'd carried over from the city.
A set of the cables used by the Republic City Police lay gleaming before her, brand new and freshly oiled, practically begging to be used. Not that Korra could, of course. The old cables, maybe – they were almost pure steel, and she'd had some success with that metal in her solitary training. These cables, though, were made with periodic ceramic links, redesigned to protect the benders who used them from electricity. They were notoriously difficult to use with any grace; the differences between the ceramic and metal made it awkward for even skilled benders to grasp both simultaneously. There were only a few sets like this employed around the city so far.
"Just you wait," the Avatar muttered as she laid hands on the cables, easily latching onto the more obvious ceramic, then losing her mental grip as her attention turned to seeking the minute traces of earth in the metal.
"Don't you fight me…I'm going to bend you, and then I'll be a master metalbender and nobody can tell me I'm just a student and it's just an 'inappropriate attachment'."
She fell asleep that way, the cables still stubbornly coiled inside their holder, and she dreamed of flinging them this way and that, of grabbing Lin up and holding her still for once.
"No more running," she mumbled in her sleep, "I like you, so deal with it!"