Rules

"It's just another lie, it's just another calculation."

Part Two

Korra carefully affixed the hood over her head after replacing the boulder that obscured the entrance to the underground network she had come to call home. It was unwise to go out in the daytime, particularly for her, but the team was running low on food, and she'd desperately felt as though she needed some air. Tenzin had been reluctant to let her go, but after some clever disguising—Pema had painted a remarkably realistic scar over her left cheek and Gommu had produced a shoulder-length, black-haired wig from who knew where—Korra had convinced him that it would be all right.

She let herself enjoy the day as she roamed through the forest to the city streets. It had been some time since she'd seen daylight for more than a few seconds. Still, although the weather was nice, she noticed that the streets, while still bustling with people, were different. People rarely stopped to speak to each other and no one looked anywhere but straight ahead, and as a result, the streets were eerily quiet, even with all the activity.

Korra frowned as she approached a market stall. Is this what Amon's movement has done to the city? How could anyone think this is better than before? Everybody looks scared out of their minds!

She looked over the goods offered, scanning for items that wouldn't perish too quickly. She didn't have much time; Tenzin had given her an hour to come back before he sent out a search party. Dumping several items into her basket, she took them up to the counter and moved to pay for them without making any eye contact with the stall vendor. Thankfully, this seemed to be the trend nowadays, so her behavior didn't come off as suspicious.

Korra muttered a "thank you" and turned to leave when the vendor's hand shot out to grab her wrist.

"What do you think you're playing at here?" the vendor growled.

"E-excuse me?" Korra said, turning to look at him, and she felt herself panic. Not now, not now...

"Are you trying to joke with me? This isn't nearly enough for how much you bought!" the vendor shouted, outraged. People passing by turned to stare.

Korra looked down at the handful of yuans she had left on the table. It was all the cash that Tenzin had given her—there was no way it wasn't enough—

Now is not the time to argue, she told herself. She needed to diffuse the situation before she drew too much attention. "I-I'm sorry," Korra said, trying to avert his gaze and hurriedly setting down the bag of groceries to pull some of them out. "I'll just put some back—"

"I don't want them back," the vendor roared, and he shoved the bag to the ground, sending the food flying into the street. "I want the money!"

Korra gritted her teeth as her temper flared. "I don't have the money—"

The vendor raised a fist, and Korra clenched her own, torn between trying to defend herself and exposing her identity...

"Excuse me," she heard suddenly, as someone shoved her aside.

Korra felt her panic dissipate into confusion as she looked over to see what had just happened. A boy with jet black hair and amber eyes who looked to be her age stood where she just had a second prior, staring up at the vendor with one hand on his hip and the other holding out a paper bag.

"Boy," the vendor growled, his fist still raised. "Don't mess with me right now. I'm in the middle of something."

"Yeah? Well, I'm busy, too. I'm in a bit of a hurry here."

The vendor narrowed his eyes. "Do you not see that I'm in the middle of another transaction?"

The boy looked over at Korra and then at the food in the street, and he raised one unimpressed eyebrow. "If it's that important to you, I'll pay for it."

Korra stood glued to her spot, speechless. What was happening?

"You what?" the vendor said.

"I'll pay for hers, too. Like I said, I'm in a hurry, so could you quit staring and ring me up?"

The vendor sneered at him, but he snatched the bag from the boy and rang it up. "That'll be two hundred yuans."

The boy balked. "What? That's outrageous!"

"Insurance, boy."

The boy glared up at the vendor, and then he slapped some money down on the counter. "No."

And with that, he snatched up the bag, grabbed Korra's hand, and ran from the stall.

Korra's eyes widened as she felt her legs move to keep up with him. "Hey, what are you doing?" she shouted at him.

"If you want that guy to kill you, be my guest and stick around," the boy shouted back.

Korra looked behind them, and sure enough, the vendor was chasing them down, shouting profanities at them as he pushed people out of the way and brandished a knife in his hand.

Korra gulped and ran faster to keep up, holding one hand to her hair to make sure her wig didn't go flying off. Now would most certainly be the worst time to get caught.

The two of them ran until her legs burned, all the way out to the outskirts of town. Korra vaguely registered that she was dangerously far from her encampment now, but she would worry about that later. They had reached the industrial complex of the town by the sea, where scarcely anyone was. The vendor was nowhere to be seen.

They leaned against the railing of the sidewalk, catching their breaths. After the stitch in Korra's side faded some, she held out her hand.

"Thank you," she panted.

The boy shook it. "I'd say it wasn't a problem, but... It was kind of a problem."

Korra glared. "Well, look, I didn't ask you to help me—what, do you have a hero complex or something?"

The boy held up his hands. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding." He let out a few more heaving breaths before he shook his head and slid down to the ground, leaning his back against the railing. "Geez. Learn to take a joke. It's fine, you're welcome."

Korra stared at him for a moment, her lips pursed, before she gave a resigned sigh and sat down beside him. She cringed at the thought of having to go back empty-handed.

"Dumpling?" the boy said, and he took one out of the paper bag and held it out for her.

"Oh, uh—yeah, thanks," Korra said in surprise, taking it from him.

"I got these for my brother, but after all the trouble I just went through, I feel kind of entitled to eat them," he said with his mouth full. "I'm Mako, by the way."

"Nice to meet you. I'm K—" Korra caught herself. "Kana."

"You aren't from around here, are you?"

Korra turned her head to the side quickly, remembering only then that her eyes were still the vivid blue of the Southern Water Tribe. She would have to be careful. "What makes you say that?"

"You paid about half of what the normal food price is here. Things have changed. Times have gotten hard—prices around the city are way higher than they were before." Mako said. "And you went to the stingiest, most violent vendor in Republic City. Two hundred yuans, what a joke. I paid him as much as it should have cost to cover you and me, and he still came after us with a knife."

Korra frowned. "Well, why did you try to buy food from him, if you knew that he was so stingy?"

Mako shrugged. "It looked like you needed some help."

"Thank you," Korra said with a slight incline of her head. As she picked apart her dumpling and ate it, she couldn't decide whether Mako was crazy or just a nice person. He seemed sane enough—but his kind act was made all the stranger by its contrast with the tight-lipped, suffocated environment of the city streets. Speaking of which...

"So... Earlier, you mentioned that times have gotten hard? What exactly does that mean?"

Mako raised a brow. "You really aren't from around here, huh? We're in the middle of a war."

"A war?" Korra tried to feign surprise.

Mako nodded. "I'm surprised you haven't heard about it. Between Equalists and benders. Amon's power is on the rise, and the Avatar is on the run. But... I guess, since it's not over yet, people are a little freaked out."

"What about you?" Korra asked tentatively.

"What about me?"

"Are you..." Are you an Equalist, too? "Are you freaked out?"

Mako kept his vision trained ahead of him, but he shook his head. "Not really. I grew up on the streets—things have always been a little hard for Bolin and me. So none of this is really new."

"Bolin?"

"My little brother."

"Ah." Korra was silent for a while, taking all of that in. If they were on the streets, and he only mentioned his brother, something must have happened to his parents. He couldn't have been more than a couple of years older than she was. She couldn't imagine the hardship he must have endured. "Well... I am sorry."

Mako shrugged. "That's how life is."

Korra looked over at him. She couldn't keep from asking. "And are you... Are you an Equalist now?"

Mako finally looked back at her, golden eyes suddenly a little bit wider. Was that surprise in his expression? Was he...?

Korra stared back, stomach churning. For some reason—even when she had no ties to this boy—she didn't want it to be true.

"No."

"No?"

Mako shook his head. "No, I'm not."

"Well, then, are you a bender?"

"No."

Korra frowned, perplexed. "Then, what are you?"

Mako sighed in exasperation. "Is it all that black-and-white to you? I have to be one or the other? I'm not anything." He reached up absentmindedly to touch the red scarf around his neck. "I'm just trying to survive."

Korra felt a rush of shame—her lack of a filter had gotten her in trouble yet again. "I'm sorry. Sometimes, I don't think before I speak."

"Yeah, well, there could be worse things about you," Mako said, and the corner of his mouth lifted a little.

"Uh... Thanks, I think," Korra said, and then she couldn't help but smile. "You're not very good with words, either, are you?"

"Hey, I'm not the one who—" Mako stopped himself, and then he chuckled. "I guess I'm not. Bo is always getting on to me for that, too."

"So, where's your brother now? It sounds like you two are really close."

Mako looked at the half-empty bag of dumplings, and Korra could have sworn she saw his expression darken for a moment. "He's...at work." He looked up to see Korra staring at him quizzically, and he quickly rearranged his expression. "Sorry. It's a dangerous job. I don't like him doing it is all."

"Have you tried to talk him into doing anything else?"

"It's kind of complicated. It's a job he's had for a long time, so it's not like he can walk away and quit that easily. And I work there, too, so it'd be even harder for him. He wouldn't want to leave without me."

Korra frowned. Whatever Mako was describing sounded stressful; it almost sounded like he was in trouble. The more she spoke to him, the more she came to understand how lucky she was, even now, to have her makeshift family waiting and worrying for her. She almost wanted to reach out to him and help him, too—after all, she was the Avatar, wasn't that her job?

"Well, that's enough about me," Mako said. "What about you?"

"Ah... What about me?" Korra said, remembering frantically that she was not supposed to be herself. She hadn't thought she'd need a backstory for a simple hour-long outing.

Oh, man. It's been way over an hour, hasn't it? Tenzin's going to kill me!

"Actually," Korra said, standing up and dusting herself off, "I think I need to go. My, uh—my parents are waiting for me to...to come home with groceries, and I need to go back to the market—"

"Oh, okay," Mako said. He frowned but he stood up as well and held out a hand. "It was nice to meet you, Kana."

Korra shook it absentmindedly, already trying to figure out the fastest way to get home in her head. "Yeah, you, too..." She met his eyes then, and something about them made her pause. Although everything else about him said that he was fine and very good at being independent, something about the way he held her gaze said the opposite. Korra remembered how lonely she'd been in her first few days in Republic City. Maybe he could use a friend. She couldn't promise to see him again, but... "Look, maybe... If you're ever around, I..."

"THERE THEY ARE!"

Korra and Mako swung their heads around to look at the source of the voice, and much to Korra's dismay, she saw that the stall vendor had found them—and he had company. Several large men were behind him; they looked similar to the thugs Korra had encountered when she'd first arrived in the city, but she knew that they were not benders. Amon had disbanded most of the bending gangs with the promise of peace and social justice months ago.

"YOU DIRTY LITTLE THIEVES!" the vendor roared, and he came at them with surprising speed.

"RUN!" Korra shouted, and she took off with Mako behind her, frantically looking around for a means of escape. She looked behind them, and she knew there was no way they'd be able to outrun all these men. Attacking them could make things even messier, and if Mako didn't know how to fight, it would be difficult to protect him while also fighting them off. But all that lay before her was flat land and grey factories—there was nowhere to go.

Unless...

She looked over to the sea beside them, and cringed at what knew she would have to do before she looked at Mako, who was now running beside her. "We've got nowhere to go except into the water!"

Mako balked. "Are you crazy?"

"There's no way we're going to escape them, but I can help us if we can get into the water!" Korra shouted. "Please, trust me!"

Mako held her gaze for a moment, set his mouth firmly, and nodded. "Okay."

Shutting her eyes, she grabbed Mako's hand and hopped the railing as she drew up a column of water. They plunged in feetfirst and fell deep into the bay, and Korra bended the column around them into a bubble of air. As rapidly as she could, she propelled them towards the shore of Aang Memorial Island, and in minutes, they had managed to pull their way ashore. Korra could only pray that no Equalist guards had seen them; she had no time to fight them. This whole situation was only becoming messier and messier, and she needed desperately to get home before Tenzin blew their cover to come out and look for her.

They lay on the shore gasping for air in silence for several moments, and when Mako finally sat up and looked over at Korra, his chest still heaving, she knew what was coming. She'd lost the wig and her scar in the water, and he had just seen her waterbend...

"You're the Avatar," he managed to gasp out, his voice awed.

Part Three Preview:

"I'm a complete and total stranger. I could have been feeding you lies all along." Mako's face was blank, his angular features perfectly calm even as more and more ludicrous words spilled out of his mouth. "You lied to me about who you were… What if I'm not telling you the truth about who I am, either?"

Korra was speechless. Somehow, the alarm that rushed through her was more intense than any night she'd snuck out to fight the Equalists.

"You could kill me right here, you know," Mako continued, leaning in closer to her. His voice had an eerily hard edge to it; Korra felt herself back up. "No one would ever know. Your secret would die with me."

Thank you all for the sweet reviews and subscriptions! You really have made me feel so happy to have written this story ;_; Part three should be up sometime tomorrow, as it's already written. Thanks again, and please leave me a review! I'd love you forever!

Love,

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