Time for a new chapter! Thanks for all the amazing reviews, especially to everyone who reviews on anon! I wish I could reply to you guys, 'cause some of you have really valid points.
Anyway, thank you! As a reward, have some Amorra/Noarra interaction! After all, that's what we're here for. ;]
Korra followed behind Kya as they entered the healing facility, a large, spacious building on the outskirts of the city, meant to distance those healing from the hustle and bustle. Korra had to admit that the outskirts were far more peaceful, feeling more like her humble Southern home than the crowded city of ice. The result was... comforting, despite her anxiety.
"If you so desire, you may observe him before you interact," Kya said, weaving around the hardworking healers. "It will give you a chance to prepare yourself. We have not told him of your identity, or that you will be present."
"And if the sight of me makes him snap?" Korra asked, gulping silently.
"Our healers are master waterbenders, and the patient is weak. In combination with your formidable skill, I cannot imagine that you would be in danger. Even so, the patient is extremely docile. I wouldn't worry."
Korra dutifully attempted to keep her breathing even as she came up to the window of parchment-thin ice. She knew that it was far stronger than it looked, but the thought did nothing for her nerves. Steadying herself, she peered through, taking in the sight of several healers fussing over a man, his bare torso covered with gruesome scars, even as the healers tended to them with glowing hands. The man's head was ducked, uneven and visibly singed hair shielding his face from view.
Despite the freezing temperature, the man didn't so much as shiver. Korra was reluctantly impressed, even when his shoulders tensed from what must have been the stinging pain of healing. Forcing flesh to knit back together so rapidly was not a pleasant experience until it was over, despite the stereotype of the kind, all-comforting healer. Korra knew from experience that healing injuries could be just as painful as sustaining them, and that, to be a healer, one had to have near-perfect control of their waterbending. Just a little too much force could damage the body irreparably.
As though the man had suddenly sensed foreign eyes on him, his head turned slowly toward the window. Korra gasped in horror—Amon's faux wounds were nothing compared to these, which discolored a majority of his face and had left painful, blistering burns. Less like the theatrical horror of Amon's painted scars, and more like the melting disfigurement of Fire Lord Zuko's mark of honor and bravery, the man's body looked equally parts charred and scalded, discolored from his face to his shoulders and torso. His hands, however, were by far the worst, still bearing scorch marks and swollen so badly that Korra winced at the sight.
The eyes that met Korra's were almost the exact color of ice, not the frighteningly strange mirage of colors that she remembered from Amon. Even so, Korra reasoned, color lenses existed. Asami had once confided in her that she used them to emphasize the natural color of her irises.
The man's eyes, though the color of winter, were far from cold. A little humiliated, maybe, but curious. Not menacing or harsh like she had expected from a man who could have been Amon.
Despite her earlier discomfort, Korra was suddenly filled with a strange sense of pity. No matter who this man was, did anyone deserve to suffer such pain?
"You said I could talk to him?" Korra asked, removing her hand from the window. She hadn't even realized that her palm was splayed across the ice. Turning to Kya, she glared to dispel the contemplative look the Chief was giving her.
"Yes, of course," Kya answered finally. "Let me speak with the healers, then you may talk to him."
Kya slipped into the room by ducking under a pelt, appearing shortly through the window. Korra watched as the woman greeted the wounded man, receiving a polite nod of the head in response. Kya then made a swift but thorough check of his body using waterbending. Korra couldn't hear the words the Chief said quietly to the patient, nor could she hear his response if he had deigned to give her one, but the man turned in surprise after a time. He winced at the action, but his eyes were intense on Kya before they shifted to take in Korra.
The anxiety returned with a vengeance.
Kya waved for Korra to enter, so, with a deep breath to steel herself, Korra (for once) did as she was told.
She entered with her chin high and her gaze steady, even when she wanted to recoil in horror. His wounds only looked worse as she got closer, but when she met his eyes, they showed no trace of pain. Korra wasn't sure what to say for a while, the words dying on the tip of her tongue. Luckily, the man took that responsibility away from her.
"Chief Kya says that you hope to identify me?" His voice was hoarse with disuse, cracking with every few syllables. It was obvious that the man hadn't spoken much since he arrived.
"Yes," Korra said in a sigh of relief, simply that she didn't have to start the conversation. "Yes, I hope to figure out who you are."
"You seem young," he rasped, choking on the freezing air and descending into a coughing fit. Korra stood by helplessly as the healers tended to his lungs. The man was panting by the time he had recovered enough to continue. "...to be an acquaintance of mine. Do you think yourself next of kin?" The man's gaze sharpened as he looked Korra up and down, his damaged lips pursing with something in between disgust and severity. "I sincerely hope nothing... more."
Korra gaped as her brain processed before her face flooded with ashamed and embarrassed color, reeling back from the man and his implications. "No!" she snapped angrily, her heart thundering away with rage and something like humiliation. "How dare—no! You are sick!"
"I simply thought it best to clarify," he replied, his pinched expression betraying his disapproval at the very idea. Then they were in agreement. For something. "Your expression outside made it seem... plausible."
"There is nothing plausible about you and me," Korra snapped, crossing her arms over her chest, clenching her fingers into the thick fabric of her parka. If she didn't know that he had amnesia, Korra would strike him down for the implication that she would want anything to do with him. "Nothing. You and I—we're not friends. We're barely acquaintances."
"And yet..." The man trailed off into silence, not finishing his sentence, but he didn't have to. Korra's reactions gave her away without the need of his pointed words. She wouldn't be here if she wasn't the one who knew him best.
That was, if she actually knew him at all.
"I am here," Korra clarified, teeth bared. "Because I may or may not know you. Looking at you, I can't tell for sure. If you are the man I once... knew, then it will be difficult to tell. You look nothing like him." The nasty edge to her voice made the man's eyes narrow.
"Arrogant, impudent whelp," the man snapped, his annoyed tone surprising the healers, who shared shocked looks. "Can you not simply tell me who I am? If you knew me—"
"It's not that simple," the Avatar retorted, her hands shifting to rest on her hips in a rather superior pose. "You can't remember, you look different; it's more than just your scars, Amon, whether they're real this time or not!"
Blue eyes widened and then narrowed. "Amon?"
Korra stared at him for a few long seconds before she realized her slip, turning away from the man and moving toward the door. She stopped herself before she could leave, uncertainty anchoring her to her roots.
"Is he, then?" Kya asked.
Korra had almost forgotten she was there.
"I don't know," Korra answered truthfully, running a hand through her tousled bangs. "Like I said, he looks completely different. Even then, I only ever saw him once, and not clearly." She turned to face the Chief, using every bit of her stubbornness to avoid looking at the man. "Are you sure you can't do anything else to heal his mind?"
Kya shook her head. "For now, the rest is up to him."
"Then, that's my answer," she replied. "I can't tell you with certainty, and I don't want to condemn a man who might be innocent."
"What exactly do you think I did?" The man demanded, looking between Korra and Kya. "Who do you think I am? This man called Amon—what exactly did he do?"
"What didn't he do?" Korra replied under her breath, finally looking back to the patient. "Look, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I can't help you until you help yourself. Try to remember something, because that's what's going to help you. Not me. Not anyone else."
The man stared for a long time in silence, long enough to make Korra fidget under the unwavering weight of his icy eyes. "This Amon... he hurt you?"
Korra closed her eyes, turning her face away. She counted to ten, then counted again in an attempt to calm down. This whole situation shouldn't be so trying on her patience, but it was. "Amon hurt a lot of people. Innocent people. He was a ruthless man and a fraud."
"Then it's no wonder you must hate me. Were I in your position, I would hate me, too." There was a moment of silence. "I could not tell you honestly that I don't already hate myself."
Korra barely noticed as the healers shuffled out to give them space, leaving the man sitting on the block of ice covered by pelts and Korra standing hesitantly near the observation window. "What do you mean?"
The man turned his head away, but not before Korra saw a wince of pain cross his features. "My body and mind have turned against me. Whoever I was before, I am but a shell, now. I am not even a man, for a man has his history, his family and his home. I'm something less." He hissed through his teeth when his hands clenched instinctively, causing him great pain as his burns stretched and cracked. "You cannot imagine waking up and knowing not where you are or who you are. To find that there is a body beside you, that, try as you might, you cannot remember. You don't know if you killed him or if he was already dead. You know nothing about the world that you have lived in for your whole life—everything about you is gone, but for your flesh and bones. Sometimes, not even that."
Korra frowned, about to speak up when he cut her off.
"No one but the healers will speak to me. Even the Chief steps lightly around me, but I have no idea of the reason why. She told me that you might be able to help me, and then you say you can't even offer your assistance. What kind of monster must I have been, that the only person who spoke to me without hostility was a child who couldn't have known any better?"
His eyes dared her to say differently, but Korra once again found herself without words.
"Who are you, truly?" The man asked, shoulders slumping in quiet defeat. His anger must have sapped what little energy he had to begin with. "Why are you here?"
"I..."
"If you cannot tell me even that, at least tell me what I may call you."
She stopped, hesitated, and finally relented. "Korra," the Avatar sighed. "My name is Korra."
"Korra," he repeated softly, his voice without a trace of recognition. "A pleasure truly." His tone suggested it was anything but. "I would offer my name in return, but seeing as I don't have one..."
Korra stared at the ground before she made a swift decision, taking one reluctant step forward after another until she stood only several paces away. "Noatak. It might not be you, but if it isn't... then there's no one left in the world to claim the name. You're Noatak."
He frowned, a perfect picture of disgruntled confusion. "I thought you said Amon—"
"Amon is a dead man," Korra interjected firmly. "Don't think about that anymore. Your name is Noatak."
Korra turned away, heading for the door—it couldn't have been long since she entered, but she was already exhausted. However, the voice from behind her made Korra pause.
"So, that's it? You hand me a name that might not be mine at all and go on your merry way?"
"Who said anything about that?" Korra asked in return, glancing over her shoulder just in time to catch the fade of his confused expression. "I'm tired. Yes, I'm going home for the night, but this won't be the last you see of me. Despite my better judgement, I won't leave you here to rot away. I'll find a way to help you remember."
"Funny," Noatak whispered. "I was under the impression that rotting away was exactly what I was doing."
It would have been easy for Korra to pretend she hadn't heard. Maybe she should have pretended she didn't. Instead, she found herself reassuring him with a simple, "Not on my watch, tough guy."
She was smart enough to leave after that. It was only luck that spared her the sight of a tiny, soft quirk of lips.