Disclaimer: I do hereby disclaim all rights and responsibilities for the characters in this collection. Kudos to Bryke, indeed.
Pairing(s): Tahno/Korra, Mako/Korra, one-sided Bolin/Korra
Genre: Romance/Friendship/Drama
Word Count: 5,702
Rating: PG-13/T
Summary: The life and love of running, autumn, and high school cross-country. — Tahno/Korra, Mako/Korra. AU.
Author's Notes: 10/29/12. I just have to say that it's nice to finally be able to write a little bit about what I've seen in my travels... and to have it fit so nicely with Korra's background is such a plus. Also, if you're one of those affected by Hurricane Sandy, I hope you stay dry and safe and warm!
Oh, yeah... this is not longer a two-shot. It will probably be around four or five parts. BIG SURPRISE? Not.
Musical Inspiration: "The Time to Sleep" by Marble Sounds. (Thank you, NewFoundGloryFan, for the request!) Also, "Stray Italian Greyhound" by Vienna Teng. It was recommended listening for another gorgeous piece done by cupid-painted-blind so, really, there was no hope for me.
Beta'd by the ever-diligent ebonyquill. She has literally been proofreading overtime today!
2
Her body was like lead.
She couldn't ever remember being this sore and heavy before, not even after the three-day trek over the Perito Moreno glacier along Argentina's border. Korra stumbled down the stairs, clutching the wooden railing hanging against the wall like a novice skater in an ice-rink, emitting quiet gasps and groans in turn. A moment later, Ikki bounded around the top of the stairs and—a fraction of a second later—bounced in, out, and around Korra's feet, shooting rapid-fire questions about everything from the band plastered over her shirt to—
"Korra, good morning, Korra! Korra, why are you walking so funny? Korra? Korra didn't you listen to daddy's instructions last night? You didn't stretch, did you? Did you, Korra? Now you're muscles are going to seize up and paralyze so you can't walk and we'll have to push you around in a shopping cart everywhere and then you'll die."
"WAFFLES!" bellowed Meelo, who catapulted himself into Korra's left leg at the unfortunate end of an attempted slide down the railing. Korra's mouth contorted, and a silent cry of pain twisted itself across her face as Meelo extracted himself from her calf and somersaulted over the final two steps, all before taking off toward the kitchen like a chemically-enhanced Nerf bullet.
Jinora quietly walked down the opposite side of the staircase with her eyes glued to worn pages of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, giving Korra plenty of berth so the young woman could ease her pain in relative peace. Korra crumpled onto the steps, eyeing the final five or so risers with uneasy eyes. Slowly, gingerly, she eased herself down onto the step below, carefully using all four limbs to move painful inch-by-painful inch. After three tedious long minutes, Korra had finally made it to the bottom and, allowing herself a moment of rest as she stuck herself to the floor, she released a sigh of relief.
Only to hear the familiar sound of a throat clearing from above.
"Oh," she chuckled nervously, looking up. "Morning, Tenzin."
For a moment, he only started down at her, all at once curious and exasperated. Then: "This is not... typical, even for novice runners. Given your level of endurance, you should not be in this much pain after only running just over three miles."
"Well, those, uh... hills will get 'cha, you know," Korra offered a lopsided smile, valiantly trying to right herself into a standing position.
"Indeed," Tenzin deeply intoned, making no motion to lend her a hand. "And may I ask at what time last night you completed the stretching routine I outlined for you on the fridge?"
Korra knew it was futile to play dumb... but she tried it anyway. "Oh... is that where they were?"
"Korra."
Her mouth clicked shut.
"Did you do the stretches at all?"
"Well—"
"No, she didn't, daddy!" came a distant voice from the kitchen and Korra's shoulders tensed. "That's why Korra's legs are going to fall off and she's going to have to move to Jupiter!"
"Korra," Tenzin began again, with very serious eyes. "These practices are in place to keep you safe. In order to train hard, you need to remember the basics. If you keep skipping out on the simplest of procedures, you're going to get hurt."
She was about to argue, for she had plenty of experience in taking care of herself and there were plenty of excuses in her arsenal—for example, had he ever climbed South America's Cerro Torre? She thought not. She was about to remind him of just how little she needed his advice... but then she took a closer look at the concern in his eyes; this was Uncle Tenzin, after all.
And somehow, over the years of wading through the wilderness, it seemed she'd almost forgotten that.
"All right, fine," she mumbled, puffing out an irritated breath of air. "But I still refuse to do the yoga." She pointed a finger for emphasis.
Tenzin smiled then—not a real smile, of course, because it was Tenzin, so it ended up just being a gentle lift of the corners of his mouth—and offered his hand toward her accusatory one. "Maybe one day you'll change your mind, but until then, this will have to do."
Korra really wanted her face to stay strong and impassive as he hoisted her up, but mixed with the almost-forgotten pain and the jolting impressiveness of Tenzin's continued old-man-strength, she ended up hissing like a skittish cat instead.
"You'll rest today and we will do the stretches that I recommended. Together. But first," Tenzin turned away, heading back toward the delicious smelling concoctions readying over Aunt Pema's griddle. "Breakfast."
Korra lingered for a moment at the bottom of the stairs, caught by the utter simplicity and domesticity of the moment. A family, a house, a home; Korra had always had these things, though they'd occasionally looked a little different. She missed her mom and dad and Naga with every beat of her homesick heart, but this was home, too. Or, at least, it was becoming one. She felt like she could have been in a movie. One where everything felt warm.
"Korra!" Jinora called from the kitchen table on the other side of the wall. "If you don't claim your food in the next five seconds, there won't be any left to eat!"
"We won't be able to hold Meelo off for much longer!"
Frowning forcefully, Korra took quick steps toward the kitchen, cursing muscle fatigue all the way. "Whatever happened to treating the guests?" she groaned loudly, nearly falling flat as her right knee stiffened up.
"You're not a guest," Meelo shouted from the other room. "You're family!"
Korra paused, right foot caught mid-step over the carpet, letting the words sink in.
And then she firmly planted the foot into the ground and burst around the corner to claim her waffles.
As she fought off Meelo with a fork for a blueberry waffle with extra syrup, it occurred to her that this week was probably going to be rough; she did have pretty awesome endurance and near-miraculous recovery time due to some extraordinary self-healing genetic history, but her extended run from the day before had taken an extra toll on her body. She was willing to bet that she was going to be paying for it it all week at practice.
In the end, Korra lost the bigger half of the waffle piece that she and Meelo were supposed to split, but it turned out that she didn't really mind, after all.
She was too busy thinking about the other meet coming up this Saturday.
And where she planned to be after it.
"What kind of game are you playing?"
It was free period, and Korra was supposed to be at a study session for her emergency SAT testing date, but instead Mako had pulled her aside in the hallway during the latest break and dragged her into one of the corners of the library... so here she was, backed into a bookshelf and she staring up into Mako's angry face.
"Uh... is this a trick question? I didn't think we call them games or matches or anything like that—"
"No, I mean with Bolin. You've got him all in a tizzy and I know you're only using him to get back at me."
"What?" Korra hissed, trying to be conscientious of the fact that they were in a library. A distant part of her mind quickly registered the half-dozen teen sitcoms she'd seen in the ski lodges, the ones in which the stern librarian punished young ones arguing a little too loudly off in the corner; she'd privately vowed right then and there to never become that cliché. Still, she vaguely wondered how intentional Mako had been in bringing her here... now.
"What are you talking about?"
"You know exactly what I'm talking about," Mako quietly seethed. "Agreeing to go out with him then canceling last minute. You're messing with him because of—" he blushed "—because of what happened with us last Wednesday."
At first, Korra was certain that she hadn't heard right. No one in their right mind could possibly believe something that convoluted... but after a few moments of watching the blush spread wider across his cheeks, and after feeling the heat grow stronger in her own, Korra's embarrassment and confusion gave way to pulsing anger. "I am not!" she hissed furiously, leaning forward. "We're just having fun together!"
"You are so leading him on!"
"We're just friends! And what do you care, anyway?" she tacked on, suspiciously.
"I'm looking out for my little brother," he defended irritably, but something about his stance screamed shifty to Korra. And he was stillblushing! "I don't want to see his heart get broken," he nearly spat, and that's when it hit her.
He wasn't just feeling protective, Korra realized—he was jealous! Her female intuition whirred rapidly through her blood and soon her inner-Amazon was screaming at her to pounce at the golden opportunity presented by his rather tenuous half-truth. Somehow, she reigned it all in.
Korra fumed for a full three seconds, but... torn between calling him out on his duplicity—which would make her feel a whole hell of a lot better, but probably put her in an awkward position on the team—and simply storming away, which was weak but probably the less explosive option of the two, the tension holding Korra's spine upright snapped. She sagged with the weight of her sigh, suddenly tired beyond belief; her muscles were still sore, but her heart truly felt the brunt of it.
"Where did you get the idea that I'd even be in a position to break his heart?" she muttered angrily, turning her eyes to a stack of nondescript books off to the side. Her arms were crossed now, but that did little to lessen the heaviness at her chest.
In a world so full of technology and civilization and stupid, wonderful conveniences like central heating, Korra still had to wonder: why had life been so much simpler when survival was a question of hunting seasons and climate weather patterns and finding a decent spot to pitch a tent?
"Are you serious?" he demanded, breaking her near-trance. "Agreeing to go out on a date doesn't equate to potential heartbreaker for you? Where have you been living all your life? Under a rock? Mars?"
Her eyes snapped to his so quickly and with such fire that he actually shifted back.
"Try a hut at the end of the world," she corrected severely, and he could almost feel the burn of her glare. Her voice was quiet.
Mako blinked, now completely thrown for a loop. "Uh... what?"
But Korra was already making her way back down the aisle.
"Tierra del Fuego," Korra threw over her shoulder, chin held high. "Read a map."
"Whoah, wait a minute," Mako rushed to cut her off, trapping them both at a standstill in the middle of the back-corner aisle, but even now that he'd stopped her, he still didn't know what else to say. "Look, this isn't... I wasn't trying to..."
She watched him flounder, partially feeling bad for expecting him to know something that she'd been trying to cover up since she got to this strange new place, but mostly feeling furious; for all the importance these people put on social cues, they still managed to be so ignorant. Why couldn't people just say what they meant? Why didn't people just recognize what it was that they wanted instead of making excuses? She wasn't ashamed of where she grew up...
So why didn't she feel proud?
Korra waited.
"Look," Mako started again, more gently this time. "I'm just really worried about Bolin, okay? He... he really likes you. Really likes you. You're all he's been able to talk about for the last couple weeks and this weekend really hit him hard. It didn't even matter that he'd done so well in the race because you weren't around to celebrate it with him." Sincerity. Admission. Entreaty. "I'm not a perfect brother and I'll never pretend to be, but... it was really hard for me, too, to see him like that, and to not know how to help him. He's never really acted this way over a girl before and... I just don't want to see him get hurt."
She wasn't sure if it was in his words or his eyes, but something about the moment hit just a little too close to home for Korra, and she looked away, biting her lip to hold it all together.
Thrown by the abrupt shift in the dynamic, Mako looked down at Korra with confusion and alarm. Now that he'd said his piece and had calmed a little of the restless energy he'd worked up when he had steered her through the halls, he took a moment to really examine her. It was almost startling, how much smaller she looked here among the towers of books than she did on the track or on the course—big smiles and sharp words, always—and this lost look of dejection over her face called to a deep-seated and well-honed urge to protect. He opened his mouth to say something, maybe to tell her to forget all about it, maybe to apologize or—
"And neither do I," Korra said quietly, laughing softly, irrationally, from stress and confusion. "But I still don't understand... What are you asking me to do?"
Mako looked stricken for a moment, gazing down at his teammate with some inner-turmoil. Whatever, Korra thought. She'd had enough of boys who didn't just come out and tell her what they wanted.
Only she really hadn't, Korra privately admitted as she looked up at him, waiting for his answer; she really hadn't, and that bothered her.
"Just... don't get his hopes up, you know?"
"I wasn't trying to—"
"I know," he cut in quickly. "I know, I get it now, I'm... I'm sorry. I overreacted a bit. I'm just very protective of him."
"I can see that," Korra noted quietly.
"It's just that ever since... ever since our parents died, I've—"
"You don't owe me an explanation," Korra muttered hastily, furious with her nosy self for being so rudely curious and embarrassed that she still knew so little about social tact... not to mention afraid that they were about to have a compromising conversation in the middle of some semi-private book stacks. Yeah, he might have misplaced his anger, and yeah, she was still sore about it, but she didn't want him to feel obligated about sharing something very private just to appease her.
"But I kind of do," Mako insisted, running his long fingers through his messy hair. "I mean, even if I don't know you very well, I know you're not the kind of person who would do something like that. I don't mean to be so overbearing and—"
"Tell you what," she interrupted quietly, placing a hand on his arm. "Why don't we skip the apologies and personal histories for now and save them for a better time?"
Mako paused, and Korra could have sworn she saw something like hope pass through his eyes.
"Like when?"
"Like... on a run," Korra shrugged, but felt the space between them suddenly grow wired. She felt her fingers burn and dropped her hand back to her side. "You know, at practice or something."
"Right," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "That's, uh... that's fair, I guess."
"All right," Korra nodded pointedly after a beat. "So... now that free period is almost over, is there anything else you need to get off your chest?"
"Sorry about that," Mako grinned sheepishly. Korra's stomach promptly flipped, worse than that one time she'd accidentally dropped twenty feet over a mountain's ledge in Chile because her belaying got sloppy. "And if there's anything else to say? Well... Just... just let him down easy, okay?"
"Like you did for me?"
Mako's grimace was pretty gruesome. She noticed, but she was also simultaneously trying to figure out a way to pull her own tongue out.
"Sorry," she muttered immediately. "That wasn't fair." Mako was speechless and Korra was mortified, so she did the only sensible thing she could think of in that moment, which was to readjust the strap of her backpack over her shoulder and start making for the main lobby. Again. "Never mind. I'll remember what you said, okay? I'll see you at practice."
"I am sorry about that, you know," he said clearly, stopping her in her tracks, though this time he stayed in place. "I mean... if things were different... or if Asami—I mean—"
Intrigued, Korra twisted just slightly, turning back to face him. "So... you do like me?"
Mako looked like he'd been caught red-handed and, in a way, Korra supposed he had been. "I don't know," he blurted out, looking anywhere but at her. It didn't matter anyway, because she was already approaching him. "Things are complicated," he went on. "I've been feeling really confused and—"
Korra was overcome with the sudden urge to kiss him, to just lean in and take what she wanted. But this wasn't rock-climbing. This didn't even feel anything like cliff-diving or trekking up a glacier; high school felt more like darting and tip-toeing through a field of landmines without a map.
So she stayed back.
"I'm sorry. I've been trying to stop that."
"Stop what?" he asked, perplexed.
"Making people feel uncomfortable by being so blunt," Korra shrugged, feeling displaced. "I know it can't be very easy for people to be around me."
Mako actually chuckled in response. "On the contrary," he said warmly, grudgingly, a little sadly. "It's all too easy to be around you."
The comment took her by surprise, and now she was the one left speechless... but it was a shared moment of warm silence, and in the end they both found themselves smiling.
"Hey," he said, brighter than before. "I've noticed that after we all leave practice, you tend to stick around while you wait for your ride. You need a lift home or something? Bolin and I could drop you off."
Even with the knowledge that it was Asami'scar that did the lifting, Korra was tempted. But she had to refuse. She might not have been getting any special treatment, but she didn't want people to have any reason to assume that her progress was cheapened by connections. For a girl who'd always been regarded as unique or special, ability being chalked up to anything but herself was the last thing that she wanted to happen to her here. Regardless of whether or not she had ever wanted it before, she'd always managed to get some sort of special treatment, simply due to the nature of her lifestyle and the spirit of roughing the wilderness with the Chief tundra expert of the south pole:
Her father.
"Sorry," she muttered sincerely. "My ride is already spoken for... but thanks."
Mako shrugged, perhaps just a little too casually to be nonchalant, just in time for the bell to ring. He nodded his head toward the lobby and Korra followed him out into the busy hallway. They walked down a few more halls together, chatting about practice and balance drills and speed work, and when they parted it was with relative peace, small smiles, and warm waves.
But neither really felt all that satisfied.
That night at practice, Korra was polite, but distant. Friendly, but focused. Herself, but also not.
Tenzin wondered at the change, but made note of it to discuss at a later time. Bolin seemed confused, but mostly unperturbed, and was content to run by her side in casual, companionable chatter. Asami even complimented her dedication, openly observing how quickly she was improving with the balance routines. Mako said nothing, but occasionally she would look up and catch him glancing at her, and they would nod slightly at one another, as if they shared some unique understanding.
Asami offered her a ride home, which she graciously declined; Mako was more talkative than before, though still oddly restrained; Bolin was just as bright as ever, but he never did suggest any alternative dinner plans.
And so the the week went by.
The second Saturday she went to the park, he was there, waiting for her.
He was already running, deep in the zone, fiercely concentrated on the path, without an iPod anywhere in sight, but she could tell what he was up to: he was running around the inner clearing in relatively plain sight... which was not where he preferred to be, she knew.
She snuck around through a path that she knew would cut him off, using every strategy she'd ever learned from hunting to keep her feet light and her stance low. When he was right upon her, she leapt from the thickets and unleashed a growl fearsome enough to make Naga proud.
"You lunatic!" Tahno accused hotly, once he had regained some semblance of regular breathing. His hair was a mess, his eyes were wide, and his pale skin had nearly gone stark white in the face of Korra's rampage, but Korra was still doubled-over on the ground, laughing too ferociously to fully notice. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he demanded, brushing off the leaves from his shirt. He was covered now, no thanks to his mighty, undignified fall.
"What did you think I was?" she cackled, trying to sit up. Her abs immediately protested, but she had to see his face. "A puma?"
"It doesn't matter what I thought you were! What matters is that you are crazy."
"Oh, come on, lighten up," she admonished, though secretly she wondered if perhaps she'd gone a little too far. He must have been at least a little embarrassed (it wasn't a very dignified shriek that he'd let out, after all) and he'd looked relatively peaceful, she had to admit, what with his smooth features and calm eyes. Now she almost regretted winding him up, putting a twist back into his sneer and some heat back into that cold, focused blue.
Almost.
"Is this what people do for fun where you're from?" he literally spat, trying to get out some dirt that had been kicked up into his mouth. "Stalk around shrubs and run into people who don't know any better?"
"Isn't that what you do?" Korra asked after a moment of consideration, with just a hint of genuine challenge. "I just moved here. I'm not the one who made up this crazy sport."
Tahno had been preoccupied with rubbing a spot of mud out of his white t-shirt, but now his eyes were positively glued to hers. Korra nearly pulled back at the sheer intensity etched into his face, suddenly very aware that they were only a foot or so from one another, still sitting on the path in the dirt and the moss. He released his grip on the shirt, dropped his elbows onto his thighs, and leaned toward her.
"If you don't want to be a part of it, then why bother participating?"
Korra was taken aback by the genuine curiosity that she heard in his tone; so human, so inquisitive, not outright disrespectful, but just a question, plain and simple. "I never said I didn't want to run."
"I never said you didn't," he clarified calmly, surprising Korra further. "But cross-country isn't just about running."
For reasons that she didn't fully understand, Korra suddenly felt very young and small. She'd learned from experience—one too many confrontations on the ice caps, and the 'rents will ship you off to school, you know—that she had the tendency to lash out when cornered. So this time she simply looked on at Tahno, wondering at what he saw, and shrugged.
He kept on looking at her, for so long that Korra was almost tempted to growl again, just to release herself from the quiet, curious scrutiny, but then he looked away, and she found herself wishing that he hadn't.
"I'm sorry if I scared you," she mumbled teasingly, but there was true apology beneath the words. She smiled at him, trying to bring him back into the picture, and her heart warmed when he spared her another glance.
"Oh, yeah, I'm peeing my pants over here."
His smooth sarcasm made her smile. "If it makes you feel any better, I have a husky lab back home who gets me all the time," she offered.
"A what?" he asked.
"A labrador husky," she repeated more clearly.
Tahno looked baffled. "What a terrible mix."
"She's not a mix," Korra quickly defended, feeling irritated on Naga's behalf, though probably a little more than the situation warranted. "She's a spitz, a purebred from a line of sled dogs originating all the way from Canada. Okay, well, I guess it's not a very known breed from around these parts, but she's a smart dog. Made strong for dogsleds. Anyway, she's got quite the growl in her."
Tahno was looking at her again, but this time it looked like he was torn between laughing outright and bolting the hell away.
Man, she was on a roll today.
"You are one crazy chick," he noted quite seriously.
Well, it's not like you're the picture of sanity either, mist—
"You've got one minute to get a head start."
She glanced up, only to be met with dark, hungry eyes. His smirk spread evenly across his narrow features and he craned his neck to the side to stretch.
"What?" she breathed, instinctively scooting back an inch.
"I'm a vengeful kind of guy," he drawled, absently brushing off a dry clod of dirt from his knee. "And I know these woods better than you, so I suggest you get moving."
"Are you... are you saying you're going to try to hunt me back?" she asked incredulously.
"Fifty seconds."
A dazzling smile, fast and feral, lit up her whole face. "You may be fast," she warned. "And you may have some advantage with the terrain, but I bet you're crap at tracking."
"Again," Tahno gestured, handmade gun of forefinger and thumb. "Crazy. And forty seconds."
"Bring it on, pretty boy," she stood, and then she was off.
Back in his pile of dirt, Tahno looked on at the long expanse of trees, knowing that somewhere within was a wild girl with bright eyes and muddy shoes, and wondered what the hell he was doing.
She dove in and out through the trees, winding herself through branches both bare and alive with color. Korra wondered how his race had gone that morning, but wasn't sure if she wanted to have to ask. Just as she was considering some stealthier ways of going about acquiring that information—maybe she could look it up online or read it in the newspaper or something—it occurred to her that she was acting according to the same creepy behavior that she had accused him of the week before.
Whatever. It wasn't the same.
Ironically, it turned out that he actually wasn't half-bad at tracking. Korra let out a scoff of disbelief as he ran into her neck of the woods, and paused well within earshot. Perhaps him finding her trail could just be a combination of luck and common sense.
Or maybe he had some sort of secret microchip sensor-device threaded into his ridiculous hair.
"Shit," she heard him mutter from below, and Korra smiled.
Either way, he may have found her tracks, but he wasn't going to be able to climb all the way up into this tree to get her.
"Well, look who it is!" she called down and Tahno looked up, startled. "Took you long enough."
"What the hell, new girl?" She could hear his irritation loud and clear. "Not a cheater, my ass. What do you call this?"
"Resourcefulness," she chirped. "Survival rule number one is that if you can't outrun your predator, you climb a tree."
Tahno's face cracked a smug grin from below. "Does that mean that you're finally admitting to me being a faster runner than you?"
"Will it mean that you'll congratulate me on my win from last week?"
"Technically, after this morning I now deserve two."
Damn. First place again? Seriously? She'd only pushed herself up to eleventh place on the team today. Yeah, she'd gotten twenty-third overall, but there were so few runners today due to the size of the private meet, so it wasn't as meaningful. And besides, if it wasn't Varsity, then it didn't count.
"Try again later," she called. "I'm still playing survivor up here."
"And what happens if the predator can climb?"
Korra smiled down at him. "Then I guess I'm screwed."
Dark, sable brows rose, then scrunched. He crossed his arms, looking at the trunk of the tree with serious consideration. Oh, crap. Was he really going to try it?
"What are you doing?" he called up, sounding far more alarmed than she'd ever heard him sound before.
"Meeting you halfway," she called down, nimbly lowering herself branch by branch with practiced ease. The trees were densely covered with bright yellow leaves, stars crisping with auburn around the edges, and they swayed with movement as she brushed past them. "If you're going to be reckless enough to try to come up, I might as well make it easier on you so you don't freak out."
"I'm not chicken," he denied immediately, haughtily.
Korra smirked widely. "Could have fooled me," she laughed, peering down at him from over her shoulder. She released one hand's grip from the sturdy tree knot and twisted her body open to the range of trees, facing him fully. "What's the hold up?"
"What the hell are you doing? Are you trying to get injured?"
"Relax, man," she dismissed. "I've climbed much higher heights than this." She was only ten or so feet off the ground when she found a comfortable nook to slide into, a wide and hefty branch strong enough for two.
"This is ridiculous, you know."
"Just climb the tree, pretty boy."
"What's in it for me?"
"Nothing," Korra shrugged, smiling easily. "Absolutely nothing." Except maybe some company, but something inside her told her that maybe it wasn't the best idea to say that out loud.
He muttered something unintelligible under his breath, then made a grab for one of the larger tree knots. "The wolverine wasn't meant for trees, you know."
"Actually, although not considered arboreal by nature, the wolverine can adequately climb when necessary."
"Great, are you the freaking National Geographic channel now, too?"
"I could be Animal Planet, if you prefer."
"Just shut up and tell me which frickin' tree knots you used."
It was a challenge, but seven and a half minutes later, Korra was scooting out farther onto the branch to make way for a slightly-scraped and more-than-a-little-ruffled Tahno. When he finally lowered himself into position in the crook of the branch's elbow, he sent her the most fearsome glare.
Which she completely missed, hanging from her knees, as she was.
"You are asking for trouble."
"What?" Korra teased, feeling the blood starting to rush to her head. "Afraid you'll break something?"
"I'm not the one hanging upside down like a freaking ape."
With a laugh she swung herself upright, taking care with the bark against her skin. "It's refreshing to know you care, pretty boy," she teased.
"Well, that's where you're wrong," he countered, but only with minor irritation. "You taking a nasty fall and spraining something means that I'd have to carry you all the way back across town, which would be a huge setback to my training schedule."
"Is that so?" she demanded, leaning closer to him, enjoying the way his fingers unconsciously curled more tightly into the bark of the tree. "I didn't realize that this tree-climbing was part of the plan." Tahno scoffed, glanced down at the drop below, eyes carefully shifting back and forth.
"I don't think it's ever been about a plan with you."
Korra had meant so say some witticism in return, but something about his voice had caught hold of her attention, and whatever it was that she'd been about to say was suddenly eluding her. "At least this could be described as strength training or something," he remarked.
"Sitting on a branch?" she asked, confused.
"No," he smirked. "Finally catching the stupid new girl who's led me on a wild goose chase."
"You let yourself be led," she countered.
"Yeah, well, you let yourself be chased, and now you're caught."
She laughed then, young and bright and free. "Well, that's where you're wrong," she smiled at him and sat back on her perch, looking him straight in the eye from where she sat . She was suspended on the tree's limb only a few feet away, surrounded by yellows and oranges and reds. "And it doesn't matter how fast or how good you are."
"How so?" he asked, lips curving upward.
"Simple," Korra shrugged. "Because you'll only catch me if I let you."
"And what if I'm willing to catch you, even at the risk of falling?"
Korra smirked.
"Then we're both screwed."
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"So... are we going to go on a real run now, or what?"
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