Tahno saunters towards her – although it's half-heartedly done. The corner of his lips attempt to pull themselves, forming a shadow of the smirk that once used to sit there cockily. Even his eyes and hair, at one time so pristine and flamboyant and Tahno, are only sad imitations of the week before. He backs her into a wall and she lets him, she's scared, an emotion she rarely feels. It's not a fight she fears – she knows she can take him – but it's the look in his eyes, the effort he's putting into all these movements, these acts. This is not Tahno.
Broken. That's what he is, she realizes. His hair replaced by sinister curves, the lines of his lips moved by madness, anger and sadness at the core of his soul. All he appears to be to her is a puppet whose strings are too lose, too gone, stumbling over what used to be familiar movements. Coal smudged around his eyes, she can see him advance towards her, his long fingers stroking her face and pinning her to the wall.
"Well, well, well, Uh-vatar."
Broken.
"Tahno."
An earthquake shakes within him.
She wants to cry. She sees his eyes come to, actually grasp reality and all that he's acting out is a huge lie, that this is just who he used to be, that this life for him is gone. She sees him realize it and bury the sorrow and it hurts her more than she ever thought it would.
But he quells his tears as he sees one escape her brilliant, blue, beautiful eyes. Instead, Tahno forces his body to move, begs it to, and puts his efforts into nibbling on the shell of her ear. He feels her shake beneath him, but whether it's from tears or pleasure he'll never know.
"Why are you pretending?"
Because Tahno knows it hurts Korra to see him broken down. He knows she shakes with anger at night when she sees him mourn over the life he once had. So, if he must pretend, he will. For her.