Sorry that it took so long to publish this chapter! Another one is currently in the works! Disclaimer: I don't own LOK or any associated characters. (Alas, alas...)
Chapter Seven
It's Tenzin who finds her the next morning, sitting on a rock beside the rock garden. An Order of the White Lotus guard is raking the sand slowly, obviously lost in his task. He looks so happy, Korra thinks.
She feels lost, hollow. Korra barely glances up when she hears Tenzin approaching—she knows that it's him. Bolin or Mako would have said something, would have called out, 'Korra! Hi, Korra!'.
"We need to talk, Korra."
Shit.
Korra presses her lips together, swallows hard, tries to will away the twinge of nervousness in the bottom of her stomach.
"Sure, Tenzin." She feels empty. Why doesn't she sound empty?
"I'll be honest with you, Korra," Tenzin places a hand on her shoulder, sits down beside her. "I'm worried about you."
Korra tries to scoff and ask him why—why on earth should he worry about her, the Avatar? But she can't seem to form an acceptable scoff at the moment anyways.
"You're staying out all night, coming home before sunrise. Something's going on—I can see it in your eyes. It's not like you, Korra."
She tries to hold back the tears, but she can't. Korra feels a quick, scalding flash of shame.
"It's nothing, Tenzin." She wipes her eyes hastily, pretending to scratch her nose.
"There are cuts on your hands," Tenzin says suddenly. "Were you in a fight?"
"No!" Korra stands. "No, I was...I was at the gym, training. It's really none of your business, anyways."
She turns, daring him to follow her, to tell her off, and then stalks away, headed for the other side of the island.
You messed up, Tahno. You messed up real, real bad. You failed.
Tahno can't keep that damn plaintive voice out of his head, no matter how hard he tries and how much he drowns it in sake and rice wine.
He enters the teahouse with the voice in tow, unrelenting. God, he hates himself right now. Korra wasn't lying—she'd been truthful, honest, shared her emotions with him, and Tahno had gone and made a fool of himself.
He'd used her.
Tahno feels disgusted with himself; Korra was right, so painfully right...he'd fucked her, he'd taken her innocence and he'd taken it for granted.
He sits down at a low table, kneeling, staring into the whorls of dark wood. A sudden shadow looms above him, and for one ridiculous moment Tahno thinks that it is Korra, and his heart leaps into his throat, and then—
"Hello, Tahno."
"Ming?"
"Who else would it be?" The former Wolfbat drops to his knees, an awkward, heavy gesture. The ex-earthbender's grace seems to have fled his body, left it strangely...empty, maybe? Hollow.
Tahno knows the feeling.
"What are you...doing here?" Suddenly, everything seems weird and clunky and awkward, because Tahno knows that Ming has shared this experience, this nightmare of being held captive by Amon, of having your bending zapped from your body.
"Drinking tea—what the hell else would I be doing?" Ming is all sharp words now; he's always been a little brusque, Tahno reminds himself...at least that's not changed much.
"I don't know."
There is silence. Former teammates, brought to their knees by the Equalists. Tahno beings to feel very uneasy.
"How've you been?" Ming looks older, sadder. "With..."
"Yeah. Right. Fine." Tahno folds his hands, unfolds them. "I've been fine, Ming."
"Good." Ming says hollowly. "That's good, Tahno."
They sit through another few awkward moments of silence before Ming gets up and, making a frankly shitty excuse, walks away into the teahouses' gloom. Tahno sits alone and drinks tea and feels guilty and stupid and arrogant for a while. He leaves well before noon, eager to dodge patrons coming in for the lunchtime rush. No use hanging around; if Ming, a former teammate, frequents this place, loads of other people from Tahno's past might.
He departs through the back exit and finds Ming standing in the alleyway, pissing against a brick wall. Out in the open, in the broad white daylight, like a common drunk.
"Ming," Tahno says, "What the hell are you doing?"
"The fuck does it look like I'm doing?" Ming fumbles his pants back together, turns to Tahno. There is a strange, sudden fire in his green-brown eyes.
"I hate him, you know. For what he did to us."
No one needs to mention a name.
"I'm going to find him, Tahno," Ming vows, his voice low and dangerous. Raspy. "I'm going to find him and kill him. I'll bring this whole damn Equalist party to its knees."
"Good luck." Why does Tahno feel...watched? Hunted. He feels hunted. Like someone might be lurking in the shadows of that brick building nearby, ready to leap forward with electric bullwhips in hand, striking the two men down...
"I won't need it." Ming gives Tahno a cold, lingering look before swaggering from the alleyway. Tahno knows that he's expected to join Ming, to rally for the cause. Hell, he's Amon's victim, too—he should be spreading the word like wildfire, trying to find easy rebels to join the fight.
He can't get Korra of his mind. Tahno feels a pull, an unrelenting need to go to her, to apologize, to make things right.
As afternoon closes around the city, he makes his way to Yue Bay.
The water is cool. Korra slides beneath the surface, glancing upwards as green-blue waves close above her head, sealing out the sky and sun.
It's like drowning.
She keeps the air bubble around her, sits cross-legged within it, stirring herself forward with twitches of her arms. Yes, she's trying to get to shore...as slowly as possible.
In the end, it takes her ten minutes to reach the shoreline. Korra dries herself, wrings out her damp hair and finds a warm afternoon has enveloped the city.
She wanders a little—down along the bayside, eyes always moving, unable to shake off the tension thrumming within her bones—and stops cold when she sees Tahno headed her way.
No. Shit—no, what the hell? What's he doing here?
Korra wants to run; her muscles tense. But does she want to run away, or into Tahno's arms?
Oh, spirits. They're too close now, too close to make a run for it, and so Korra faces him and looks him in the eyes, staring him down.
"Tahno."
"Korra."
Silence.
"I—"
"Shut up, pretty-boy," Korra says sharply, and kisses him.
As she's kissing him, Korra realizes what must be done. The realization hits her like a wall of water, a slamming wave, rock-hard.
She pulls away first.
"We need to stop, Tahno."
"What?"
"You know what." Fixing him with a stern look, trying to convey her sorrow, anger, disappointment. Want. Need.
"No." Tahno says, and then again, louder. "No, Korra."
"It was never meant to be," Korra folds her arms. Yes, she's aware of how stuffy and cliche that sounds, how pitifully weak an excuse. "You and I...this can't happen between us."
"Why not?" Tahno asks, fervently, grabbing her shoulders. His gaze is hard, intense. "Why not? Because you're the Avatar? Because I'm a non-bender now? Because we were rivals? Is that it?"
"I can't do this," She admits, feeling the guilt and regret—is it regret?—rising in her throat. "Not now. I have a war to fight, Tahno. We all have a war to fight. Like it or not, we're soldiers in the same battle, okay? There is no rivalry anymore—there can't be. And there can't be...this, either."
"This? You started this, Korra. You...you consented to this. You wanted this as badly as I did."
"It stops now." Korra tries not to choke on the words. Spirits, this is a mistake. But it's the right mistake. "Today, Tahno. I'm sorry."
He stares at her for a moment, a long, hard stare. There is a flat quality to Tahno's eyes, something breakable that she's crashed so haplessly into. They're both breakable. One is better at concealing this, and it isn't Tahno.
"I changed for you, Korra."
And then he's gone. Korra watches Tahno walk away, slowly, and she thinks suddenly, violently, of the feeling of being pressed against Tahno, skin against skin, the feeling of being so close, head spinning, like having an out-of-body experience, like reaching some kind of crazed, dizzy-with-heat nirvana.
I've made a huge mistake.
So...another chapter! Sorry that it took so long! Also, if anyone catches the TV show that the last line references, I will love you forever.