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Hg 13

"We should go." Wei told her.

"No." Korra shook her head. Her wolf tail struck her in the face with the motion. "You go ahead. I'm, I'm just going to be here a little while."

"Fine." Wei started to head out then stopped when he reached the door. "Head east when you're done. There's a safe place there. I'm sure you'll find it just fine." Korra only nodded to acknowledge it with a raised hand and he headed outside. She heard the door lock with his bending behind him.

Korra sat on the floor by a wall. She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She needed to hold something right then. She wished Asami was there. She buried her head in the fold of her arms for a moment. They were coming, the tears she hated so much. Knowing her eyes couldn't be seen by the camera a few escaped but the fight to keep them from becoming sobs still raged in her. Don't change your breathing. Don't let your shoulders bounce. When the urge passed she lifted her head. She was careful to wipe away the water from her face on her arms in a way she hoped the cameras wouldn't notice.

"Hey kid." She said. Was her voice even enough? Could he hear her? Could his spirit hear her at least. Or worse had it reincarnated somewhere else in the world. Would this new life be forced to fight in these games twelve years from now. No, don't think about those things. "You did good, you know that? I mean you weren't good enough to win, we both knew that. But you were good enough to try. Couldn't have asked for more than that right?" He didn't answer. Korra sat there in silence for a while. She felt like she was supposed to say something else. What could she say to a boy she deliberately refused to learn his name?

She knew his brother's name though. Tukun he called him. She could at least remember Tukun.

Korra left the room and headed outside, repeating the name over and over in her head. Tukun. The boy who gave her the betrothal necklace. His face was a lot like the kid's, a little softer though. She thought his eyes had a little bit of a shine to them though. Tears maybe? He was young enough he could have cried and not have been mocked for it.

Focus. She was supposed to be headed east. The sun was setting, but the stars could still lead her the right way even after the light was gone. There was even a gravel path to follow lined with straight, rectangle bushes for some reason. Was the shape of their plants something the capitalists felt the need to worry about?

Sudden music made her jump. Three of the bushes wilted as she drew the water from her leaves in her surprise. Above the sky lit up as the logo of the capitol glowed in the clouds. She saw Chee tonight. She looked beautiful again without the scowl and sharp angry eyes. The girl from Wei's district was next. Korra wondered if she knew the girl too. Had he been the one to kill her? He didn't have any trouble killing Tukun's brother when she couldn't drop her knife into him. He was the last one to be shown. Korra almost looked away before the image of the girl from ten replaced it. The song faded and the sky became dark again.

She heard a noise behind her as she left the little neighborhood. The gamemakers had come to claim Tukun's brother's body. When they left the houses went dark. Korra waited for her eyes to adjust before continuing.

"Wei!" She whispered harshly into the dark. He told her she would know where to go. Did he not realize that it was dark? How was she supposed to find anything? The urge to light a flame in her hand sprang but she fought it down. The cameras would see her in the dark she was sure of it.

"You shouldn't be so loud." She tried to turn as soon as she heard the voice. He was already behind her, one arm coiled around her torso. The other held a dagger of fire close to her throat. "How about you just be quiet for a while."

Korra tried to twist away but his grip held like fire. Was Yong really that strong? She couldn't use her arms to bend with them pinned at her sides like they were. A kick with her heel might be enough to free her, but could she be fast enough afterward to keep from being killed by his dagger? It was a gamble she probably wouldn't win.

"You're better at this than I thought you'd be." He said. Korra could almost hear his smile.

"Let me go and you'll see how good I am." Korra hissed.

"We're going to go over here instead." He pulled her backwards. Korra would not walk with him. She let her body fall limp and her heels drag into the gravel walkway. Her captor grunted as he tightened her grip but did not slow down by any means. He pulled her through one of the bushes and Korra was glad at the way her body left dents in the leaves and branches. Maybe someone would see it later.

A ceiling blocked out the sky. Some kind of cavern? No, the entrance was too perfect and narrow and square. She didn't feel the slick, damp stone of a cave either. It was flat and straight like a metal floor. It stung a bit when he dropped her body and she fell heavily on her butt. She ignored the sting and leapt to her feet.

A blaze of fire lit the tiny pile of wood in the center of the room. There were a few supply packs against the wall, a container of drinking water leaning against them. Korra fought to ignor them even though the idea of whatever food might be inside them made her stomach hurt.

In front of her stood the Dragon of Republic City. He didn't even defend against her. One hand rested on his hip like he was waiting for her to continue some conversation they were having. The other hand held a flame but it was small. She noticed he was wearing a red scarf. Had he been wearing it before?

"Mako?" Why was that the only thing she managed to say? She had a thousand other questions.

"Why so hostile?" He asked, "I thought we had an alliance?"

"A what?"

"Don't you remember? First day of training?"

"I said I'd think about it."

"Ok, well, if you don't want to." He raised his hands in fists close to his face. It wasn't a stance Korra recognized but she doubted it was anything submissive. Little flames danced on his knuckles.

"That's not what I meant." Korra waved for him to stop. When he did she continued, "But I didn't know we had an alliance. You stopped talking to me."

"Did you want the other careers to know we were working together?"

"Well, no." Korra sighed, "But it would have been nice for me to know." How many hours had she put into being worried about what the dragon would do when she faced him in battle again? How many times had she thought about how fast he was or how strong? And now all of that, useless. Useless unless he turned against her.

"Either way it works out." Mako shrugged. Korra settled beside the fire just as he did on the other side of it. The floor here was metal but someone had gone through a lot of trouble to fill the area by the fire with sand. It was a little more comfortable than solid metal, yes, but it kept getting into Korra's boots and being generally irritating. Still it felt nice to be beside a real fire again. She felt herself longing to cook something over it like she had the day before and realized she hadn't eaten since she ran from the careers.

"Have you been here this whole time?" Korra finally picked a question to ask.

"Wei helped cut this place out of the labyrinth walls. Brought in the sand too. He's not much of a sandbender actually, but he makes it work."

"He works with you too?"

"He works with both of us now." Mako nodded, "He's one of the good guys."

"He almost got me killed." Korra grumbled, some good guy he was. But then again he did help her with Tukun's brother. "How many 'friends' of yours should I be worried about?"

"Just him." Mako shook his head. "The rest of them would have been a waste of time. Are you tired?"

Korra shook her head. The image of Chee's bleeding body was still hauntingly fresh in her mind. She wasn't about to fall asleep in front of someone she didn't fully trust. "I slept earlier. Do you have any food though?"

Mako rummaged in a bag and brought out a bar of lumpy chocolate. "Not too fast." He advised as half the bar disappeared into her mouth. Any other day she would have complained. The chocolate was too dark, the nuts weren't salted enough. Right now though it was the best kind she ever had. The other half was gone in the next bite.

"I guess what they say is true," Mako said leaning back against the wall, "Water tribe really do have the manners of polar bear dogs."

"At least I have enough manners to talk during meals."

"I'm not quiet usually. I'm just paying attention."

"To what?"

"Well for one, you eating like a polar bear dog." Korra tossed handful of sand at him.

"Watch it. Polar bear dogs can be pretty nasty when they want to be.

"Whatever you say," Mako sighed brushing some of the sand from his hair and scarf. It made Korra all sorts of happy to see him brushing some out of his mouth too, but Mako didn't say anything or complain about it to her. She wished he did. "I'm going to sleep for a while. There's a place for you too over there if you get tired." He motioned to a spot where the sand was smooth and there were no big chunks or clumps of rocks. Korra found it easier to lay on than the floor of the cornucopia.

She didn't want to close her eyes. Mako had to still be awake. He had closed those amber eyes of his and stopped moving for a while but that didn't mean anything. Maybe she should keep watch at the door. The sand wasn't comfortable anyway. It was like sleeping in hard snow, but that doesn't make sense. She still missed the pelts. How long would it be before she stopped missing pelts?

She felt a sharp pain in her side before she realized that she had fallen asleep. It had to be Mako making his move. She sprang away from the touch practically throwing herself against the wall. "Get away from me!" She cried as she did.

"A little jumpy this morning aren't we?" Mako smiled. In his hands he wasn't holding a knife, but a normal stick.

"Don't do that."

"It's time to go. Get something to eat so we can move."

"Why? Can't we just stay here? This place seems safe enough. We can wait for the others to pick themselves off."

"Yong's holed up in the cornucopia firing at anything that comes close. Who knows what happened to Xie but it sounds like she's trying to get at his supplies. Wei's getting the other girl hiding in the city. That leaves both tributes from eight and seven to us." Korra remembered those broad shoulders from seven.

"What makes you think we'll find them?"

"You ran into the boy from four didn't you?" Mako shrugged, "The game makers have a way of bringing people together if they don't do it on their own."

"So where do we look?" Korra asked not wanting to linger on the subject of Tukun's brother.

"The edge of the city isn't far from here. From there there's a forest that's bound to have plenty of places to hide. There's probably going to be some kind of body of water out there too."

"Like a river maybe?" Korra said excitedly. She could defend herself much easier there.

"Maybe," Mako said like he was talking to a child "Somewhere in the forest. Did you think the arena was nothing but abandoned city terrain?" Korra didn't manage to answer before he finished, "What fun would that be?"

"Lets just go." Korra pushed to her feet and brushed herself off. Mako pulled one of the packs over his shoulders and tightened it. When Korra reached for one Mako told her to leave it.

"Better for you not to be weighed down." He told her. Mako did give her a water skin to wear. He filled it with some of the drinking water and passed it to her. Korra slung it by her hip and smiled. Did she look like Katara all those years ago?

Mako took the lead, heading the way Korra had been going the night before. Korra looked back and saw the entrance to their cavern. It was nestled in the very corner of one of the walls partially covered by the surrounding bushes. It wasn't so far out of the way that it couldn't be found, but someone wouldn't likely stumble on it on accident.

The moon and the dragon walked for more than an hour in complete silence. Their footsteps on gravel was louder than any other sound they made. Korra tried to be quiet with him. This was, after all, a hunt and what more did hunts require than silence. A few exasperated sighs managed to escape her every now and then.

When the sun reached the top of the sky the ground very suddenly became grass. On both sides of them the walls turned sharply away to encase the city. An open stretch of grass disappeared into the forest Mako had mentioned earlier.

Mako was the first to start into it. Korra followed much more hesitantly. Of course they were headed into a forest. What did she know of that kind of terrain? Nothing. Nothing except for the brief moments in the sparing chamber. Well, if Mako was looking for a repeat of that then she would have to make sure he didn't have the chance.