Reunion Pt. 2
Some time later they had returned to the retirement home. Night had come and Lin had returned with fresh meat. Suyin's sons and a few other retirement home residents prepared the meal in the kitchen. The rest circled around a table in the living room.
It was odd having electricity for once. The retirement home ran on rationed gas allowing them to power most of the lights in the house and cook on the stove.
Lin was probing Asami's brilliant mind and Asami was amidst explaining logistics of wiring several explosives to the walls of Ba Sing Se, "Well, you don't want to make a large hole because doing so would probably result in the inner city being overrun.
Korra found herself sucking her lips. Why did Asami's propensity for cars and making things go boom turn her on? She hadn't felt that kind of attraction in so long she'd almost forgot what it felt like. Asami continued, "The good news is all those bombing has left the wall reasonably weakened and susceptible to even small bombs."
Korra felt eyes on her. Looking up she found her father looking between herself and Asami. She blushed as if he were telepathic.
"No." Suyin countered Lin who had led Asami down that line of reasoning, "We know Amon. If there is a hole in the wall he'll first defend the wall before he even tries to protect his civilians. Nothing matters to him more than keeping that wall. If that wall comes down he'll lose everything and he knows it."
"Maybe our concern shouldn't be with protecting people who follow a man that kidnaps children." Lin argued.
Now Kya spoke, "Bombs are catastrophic and needlessly violent. There are thousands of people within those walls. Children. The are only there to survive. If someone offers you a safe place where you and your family can live happily it's easy to turn a blind eye when your leader starts kidnapping people."
And just like that pandemonium broke out among them.
Korra looked around at the room a moment she glanced across the table. Her father had gotten into it with Suyin, then to Asami who was explaining to Kya that "Yes, explosions can in fact be small when calculated accordingly."
Korra closed her eyes before taking a deep breath and shouting, "Alright! Enough!"
Everyone got quiet as Korra lurched to her feet. She cast a look at Toph who had been the only silent party during the debate. Now she was smirking knowingly, "Neither of these plans are acceptable." She looked pointedly at Lin, "While I do like seeing things go boom we can't honestly consider a plan that involves potentially hundreds of people being chewed on."
"Exactly." Kya nodded. Korra turned a glare to her.
"But we do need bombs. If we're taking on Amon we need to bring everything we've got." Korra took a breath, "Besides. This is all about creating a distraction long enough to get in and get our people and get out, right?" A few heads nodded, "Well then you're looking at your distraction." A new rumble of voices began as they all asked questions.
"What do you mean?" Tonraq asked.
"I'm directly responsible for the death of one of Amon's highest ranking officials, Pema. If we want a distraction why not say we want to make a trade? Me for my crew."
"Korra," Asami's face filled with concern and when she said the girl's name Korra noticed her hand moved to touch her, but stopped when Korra looked at it as if it might kill her. Asami dropped her hand back at her side and swallowed, "That's insane."
"We're not making that trade or even pretending to make that trade." Tonraq firmly asserted.
"Tonraq's right," Lin agreed, "Amon would never hand over Kai."
"He doesn't need to take the deal he just has to consider it long enough for a strike team to get in the walls and find our people. Besides there's no other way we can get in and not cost people their lives."
"This battle is going to cost lives one way or the other," Toph suddenly spoke from the corner. The group all looked over at the woman who was peeling an orange with a knife and had her feet propped on a table. The old woman pursed her lips as she cut away an orange peel, "You'd all be fools to think it wouldn't. Which is why you need to ask yourselves are you really willing to go on a suicide mission for the sake of five kids? Not only that, but doing so will endanger this compound. After you take them, then what? Run and hide under a rock praying Amon and his thousand strong army don't find you?" The grumpy grandmother devoured a slice of her orange.
Everyone was quiet no doubt asking themselves if it was worth the potential fall out.
Tonraq spoke next, "This isn't just about five kids. Don't forget that. Amon took Opal. Why? Because he needs people to finish rebuilding that wall. Amon knows what Katara has been saying would happen all along: the second rings wall is too burdened. It sustained too much damage in those early days of bombing. That's why the entire lower ring was lost. He's patched and patched but he has to rebuild that wall before winter if he wants to survive."
"And he's using slave labor to do it," Kya added.
Suyin nodded, "We could ignore him taking bandits – they are after all murders and rapists. But the fact that he took Opal tells us he's become desperate. He's abandoned old principles."
Lin nodded, "He's no longer gunning for the outlaws; he's gunning for the innocent."
"We aren't strong enough to take him on. He's got thousands of men in his army and they're all well trained," said Asami, "But maybe we can find a way to not take him on directly."
Suyin turned to Korra, "You really think turning you over will create enough of a distraction for us to get inside?"
Korra nodded, "We get our people out there's nothing to stop us from taking the city. But if we take the city with our people inside, Amon will use them as leverage."
"So what are we doing?" Tonraq asked, "Are we saving the innocent lives, or taking Amon down?"
Korra looked around at the few familiar faces. Lin, Su, her father, even Toph. Finally she looked at Asami and found the other girl had been staring at her the whole time. Korra spoke, "Both. We're saving my friends and we're taking the city."
"Hey." Korra turned around on the balcony to find Asami. This was the first time Korra saw Asami in full on make-up and it made her that much more devastatingly beautiful. Korra must have been blushing something awful because Asami nervously took a few steps back, "I was hanging out with a few of the disabled elderly and they thought it would be fun to do makeovers. I might have gotten carried away."
Korra nodded, feeling her heart swoon, she grabbed the balcony's wood to steady herself, "No. Really. You look... great."
Asami approached her, "I brought you some tea."
Korra didn't look at the girl; if she did she'd never get rid of the attraction that had settled just below her stomach, "You're so sweet." She took the cup Asami offered without bothering eye contact.
"We're leaving tomorrow. Ba Sing Se is a three day trip." Korra sipped the tea and tried to be nonchalant, "Are you coming?"
Asami was silent for a moment, "Do you not want me to?"
"No!" Korra exclaimed turning to Asami. She looked hurt, "No, I mean 'yes.' I mean, 'yes I want you to come.' It's just-," Dammit. Why had she chosen this moment to look at Asami? Now she was stumbling to find her words and all she could think about was how great Asami looked. And how great Asami was. How smart. How graceful. How pretty. And without thinking she'd begun to push Asami's bangs from her face – and Wow! was her hair soft, and thick, and flowing. And why was her hand now touching the underside of Asami's jaw? And why did that send shivers down her spine and make her own pulse begin to quicken in her veins.
"Good." Asami took a step away from Korra. A step that might as well have put her on the moon because the moment she took that step a faceless name came to mind:
Iroh.
Then, as if breaking Korra's heart was some kind of pass-time sport Asami was talking about the faceless wonder, "You know when I agreed to marry Iroh I thought, 'He's brave and passionate'," Asami crossed legs and rest her weight on the guard rail of the balcony, "I said, 'Yes' because I thought, 'I'm never going to find anyone as kind and handsome as him. I'm never going to find someone who makes me laugh harder or smile wider'."
Asami smiled and shook her head; looking at Korra from the corner of her eye she said five words that made Korra's self-bashing fade away. Five words that erased any shame she might have felt about loving Asami. Asami formed them with such unmistakable ache, "And then I met you."
Korra watched her fall into meaningful silence, her eyes drifted down to Asami's lips, to her body where her jeans clung to every curve, where her shirt hung on her graceful limbs, how her back arched back just slightly and her shoulders pushed away confidently. She loved all of these things about Asami's body. She could easily list all the things she loved about looking at Asami, but she couldn't list the things she simply loved about Asami. There were too many. Every word Asami spoke became another reason Korra loved her. Every breath she drew took Korra's breath away.
That was new to Korra in a way that she couldn't understand.
Korra's mouth opened and closed as she tried to find what she wanted to say. And just as she went to say them asami cut her short.
"I'm not over Iroh," Asami continued and now she forced a smile. "Not yet. I loved him, Korra. I wanted to marry him. I'm not sure if I settled for him or if I truly adored him, but… I just want you to know I," Asami ran her fingers over the wooden balcony, "I want you to know you're the most amazing person I ever met." The words sounded familiar. They were five days old but fresh to Korra's mind. Asami turned a glorious smile on her. She quoted Korra directly then, "You're clever. And elegant. And Brilliant. And sexy in the dorkiest way imaginable." But her next words weren't a quote. They were the words that gave Korra life, "And that's why it's so damned hard for me to resist kissing you."
BA SING SE
Bolin could feel his brother breathing beside him and he even wanted to whisper to him a few questions that were nagging at the back of his mind.
Together they sat in a pitch black room with a putrid smell overwhelming their senses. No one said anything.
Suddenly a door was flung aside. Bolin shielded his eyes with his shackled hands as light flood in. For the first time in days Bolin could see his surroundings: a long opening with a bucket in the corner for relieving themselves and a low ceiling. Everything was made of jagged stone and rock. Across from them not even one foot away were women. They sat quietly as well, their bodies ravaged with hunger.
"Right row! Rise!" Shouted a guard at the end of the room. Everyone on his row rose obediently. They were shackled to one another by a long chain link making it difficult to resist the natural pull of everyone following the guard's command.
A small commotion began behind him.
"Holy shit," said a prisoner, "Is he dead?"
"Yeah. He was starving before he even got here." Responded a prisoner with bandit tattoos covering every inch of his body, "Don't worry I snapped his neck so he won't turn." Now Bolin knew what that putrid smell had been. It had been the smell of the man attracting flies. The smell of writhing maggots.
Shuddering he looked away before he saw something he couldn't un-see.
That's when he noticed a wiry framed woman. Her short hair matted to her head and her body caked in dirt. The clothes she wore were torn and her head hung low.
Sweat and dirt didn't matter. Her hair and clothes were irrelevant. Because the instant he saw her something in Bolin began to stir. A familiar emotion of adoration flooded his chest, "Opal…" he whispered before his chest became enchanted and inflated with hope, "Opal!" He bellowed. She didn't respond to her name though. She just lay there slump against the wall. unmoving.
Both Mako and Kai followed his line of sight to the starving young woman.
Bolin began tugging on the chains that wrapped his wrists and feet.
He'd have given anything to run into the arms of the girl he loved. Realizing how useless it was he stopped.
Bolin could count her ribs. He could see every hill of her sunken cheeks. They'd starved her just like they'd starved them for the past five days.
But it was Opal and she was alive. She was alive. The thought was something he wanted to sing. The girl of his day and night dreams was alive. She'd been sitting not even ten feet from him all along.
"Move! Now!"
They were forced forward and out the door.
The sun was blinding and Bolin could see where they were now. They were atop the walls of Ba Sing Se. He'd always wanted to visit the city where his father was born, but now he wished he was anywhere else.
The thirty men all marched across the top of the second wall. Looking down he saw the open mouths and unhinged jaws of the undead. Hundreds of them clustered to one part of the wall loudly inhaling ragged breaths like a cloud of white noise.
They were marched a small ways from the cluster before being instructed to stop.
Kai looked at Bolin, "What are they doing?" He asked. Both Mako and Bolin looked at each other. Bolin felt dread swelling in his stomach.
"How many?" One guard asked a bearded man with a clipboard. The slightly chubby man with bits of graying hair inspected the sheets, took a look over the side then looked at the men on the wall.
"We need to relieve a lot of pressure there. I think five to start." He responded.
Bolin looked at Mako eyebrows buttoned together, asking the question.
"Five!" Shouted the guard. Three guards stepped forward to the first of the thirty standing in a row. One undid the lock connecting him to the others while the other two watched him closely.
"Wait! Five of what?" Asked the prisoner confusion written all over his face. His eyes looked around in terror, "Five of what?" The guard forced him along a few steps down the wall. Mako looked down at the undead then back up. Something registered on his face.
"No." he said in disbelief then looked to the man with brown hair and blue eyes who now plead the bearded man to tell him what was happening, "Five of what?" He kept asking, "Five of what?"
"No." Mako said again under his breath. Bolin looked at his brother about to ask if he would mind letting him in on what the secret was.
But before he could get the words out the guard shoved the prisoner over the side of the wall. The structure had been build with a wall surrounding the sides, knowing this the guard had been forced to hit the man with extreme force to send him overboard. His body cartwheeled head over heels and he screamed as he went plummeting down. When his body hit the earth, it did so with an anti-climatic Thunk. The man's blood ejected from the top of his skull and he crunched into a mangled mess below.
One or two undead looked over at the man's body then continued pawing for those atop the wall.
"Damn." The man with the beard said, "We might need to do more than five."
The guard nodded and begun removing the shackles from around the second man's feet.
The second man still hadn't registered his own disbelief and his mouth still hung ajar. It wasn't until his feet were undone that he realized that he was the next in this game of Humpty Dumpty. Unlike the prior man this man bore tattoos up and down his body.
This man was a bandit.
The bandit clenched his jaw and glared at the guards. He moved silently with the guard up to the edge, keeping a tough expression.
"Bandits don't beg for mercy," Kai chanted a revered mantra of bandits.
Bolin chose that moment to start shaking uncontrollablely. What was he witnessing?
"Oof!" The bandit was pushed over the side of the wall. He plummeted, and Bolin couldn't bring himself to watch.
A few moments passed before the anti-climatic sound of -
Thunk.
Then a pause of silence before another sound reached beyond Bolin's averted eyes. The sound of undead feasting on the fresh body. A dozen undead began to refocus. They moved from their cluster to the new meat and began to feast.
"Good." The bearded man began recording data on his clipboard, "Twelve more should do it."
"No." Mako whispered.
Bolin looked up then, he looked over at his big brother and past him. He counted heads quickly.
Mako was head number twelve.
He closed his eyes and preyed they would only need eleven.
They were told to move along. A few yards later another man was taken from the line of men atop the wall. He plead, threatened and bartered, but none of this prevented him from being thrown over the side.
Thunk.
"Don't worry, Bo," his always protective big brother said calmly, "It'll be okay."
"No it won't," Bolin called him on the lie.
A few more yards and another man was sent screaming to his grave. His head smashed against the wall on his way down and he hit the ground closer to the wall than the others.
Thunk.
"When Korra comes," Mako began, "She'll break you guys out. Make sure you get Opal. She doesn't look too good."
"We will," Kai promised.
Thunk.
"There's a weapons armory, I saw it on my way in. It's got everything; guns, knives, I even saw some bows and arrows. It's on the far east side of the wall. If your backs are against the wall and you need weapons, it's your best bet."
Thunk.
"Shut it!" Commanded a guard. Mako leaned back from where he'd begun mostly addressing Kai. He eyed his brother.
Bolin couldn't take this. He had barely been able to stand losing Opal. Now there was a chance he could get her back. But he was going to lose his brother.
Thunk.
He didn't know if he could handle that. They shuffled onward across the top of the wall. He had to say it; he knew he needed to because it would be the last time. But each time he went to all he could hear was a woman's voice. Maybe his mother's. Maybe an hallucination. But a woman was dying and she was saying to her beloved child, "It's okay. mommy loves you, Bo." And Bolin couldn't bring himself to say those three words.
Thunk.
Doing so would make this final. He looked at his brother. His black hair and good looks. His serious face and long limbs. They'd survived together for so long. They'd survived their parents' death when they were children. They'd survived foster care going from one abusive home to the next. They'd survived being in a gang together and the wrath of an angry drug lord. They'd survived two years in a goddamned apocalypse together. And to end it all atop this towering wall… it just seemed meaningless. It seemed wrong.
Thunk.
"Mako." Bolin hesitated.
"I know." His brother clenched his fists as the man beside him was removed from chains. The next victim began praying. And when he was taken aside that's when he began sobbing.
"I love you." Bolin said even though his brother had already said he knew so.
Thunk.
Mako allowed his hand to find his little brother's, "I love you too. You'll get through this, bro. Just wait for Korra. She'll come back. She always does."
A guard came to remove Mako's shackles and as he did Mako flashed a witty smile to his brother. Suddenly he was back on the steps of his new foster family with their social worker. Mako's arm was in a cast from when her'd stepped between a belligerent drunk and Bolin. Suddenly he could hear the social worker ringing the doorbell of the new hell she'd be leaving them with. His eight year old brother flashed a smile, "Take a breath, Bo. Everything's gonna work out just fine."
The guard undid the shackles around Mako's feet and moved him aside. Mako looked over to his brother and said quietly as if it were only the two if them on the wall, "Take a breath, Bo." He then looked forward, resigning to his fate with more dignity than any of the men preceding him, "Everything is gonna be just fine."
But Mako was lying. Just like he had been on that doorstep all those years ago. Fine isn't going hungry when your foster parents decide not to feed you. Fine isn't watching your brother fall to his death. mako stepped forward, set his jaw and waited for the push. he waited for the Thunk. Bolin looked away, he couldn't see... didn't want to see...
"Wait!" Kai exclaimed. The guard ignored him, "There's a dead prisoner! Take him! He's already dead!"
Mako's eyes widened with realization and though Kai had made the cry out of desperation, Mako was able to quickly asses the logic.
The guard made a motion to push him over the side but Mako darted to the ground, slipping his back up against the slightly raised wall. He extended his chained hands to the now angered guard.
"It's in your interest," Mako argued looking not at the guard who snapped out a baton to bash his skull in, but at the bearded man in charge, "The longer he's dead the less he's worth to the undead - they like fresh meat. It's a waste of the effort it took you to get him here if you let him rot." His words had spilled out so fast he wasn't sure if the bearded man had understood them. Slightly winded Mako waited hoping the words would register.
The bearded man took in the pure desperation in Mako's eyes. Slowly his eyes shifted to the prisoner's behind him. One after the other in search for this supposed dead prisoner.
Sure enough there he was. His corpse had been dragged out by the prisoners. His wrists broken from his own weight tugging on them as he'd been dragged along.
The bearded man's cold eyes calculated for a moment before he relented and nodded.
The guard re-did the locks on Mako's chains then moved towards the dead prisoner.
Bolin let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
Mako had always been forced to be the strong one. It was how they'd survived even before the undead. Now it seemed all of that pressure he'd carried had bubbled over. He broke and his eyes became glassy as he drew in a sharp breath to withhold his sobbing.
When they were returned to the dingy dungeon they'd been taken from his brother fell against the wall, all of it crashing down on him for the first time and he allowed the tears to flow. Bolin knew Mako wasn't crying because he'd almost died.
He was crying because it had all meant so little.
Because he'd been surviving for as long as Bolin could remember. He'd survived the horrors of foster care. He'd survived running away with his brother at fourteen and twelve. He'd survived going to the juvenile detention enter for four years. He'd survived the first and second winter of the undead apocalypse and battled his way through swarms of undead. And all of that struggle and suffering had been worth what to the universe?
Being flung from a wall.
So Mako cried like he hadn't been allowed to do all these years surviving.
Regardless, worse than the possibility of death was its certainty and Bolin knew that if Korra didn't show up soon, Mako would be the first to die.