II
Exhaustion

When he awoke the next morning, Korra sat beside a freshly roasting batch of seaweed, water still dripping from her hair. She stood and moved her arms, releasing the water from her body, leaving her dry. He became acutely aware that his own robes were drenched in sweat and caked with grime, no doubt kicked up by her tunnelling. If only he had the energy to drag himself to the pool to bathe... But a quick stretch of his limbs showed that his strength had barely improved from the day before.

She returned as he was examining his hands, trying to rub off the dirt.

"I can dunk you in the pool and then dry you off again," she offered.

He dropped his hands. "I will not allow my body to be further tainted by your bending." His skin itched with sweat, and he bit his lip to keep from scratching it. No weakness.

"I don't need bending to get you to the pool. Come on. You still have blood caked all over your arm." She reached out a hand. The itch had spread across his body, and he relented, holding out his good hand to clasp hers. It was small, soft and startlingly strong. She hoisted him onto her back and began to trudge deeper into the cave, moving him as if he weighed no more than a child. His head lolled against her upper back and, even through the mask, he could taste her scent: earthy, musky, sweet. A wave of dizziness washed over him and he hoped it was just from his wounded body protesting the jarring motions.

The tunnel took a sharp twist to the right and angled down, and they came to the edge of a small pool in the rocks. The walls dropped straight down, no bottom in sight, though he could see fronds of seaweed lining their depths.

She tilted her head to make eye contact with him. "It'd be a lot easier if I bent the water so that-"

"No," he said. "No bending."

"By the spirits, you're stubborn." She jumped into the water, pulling him in with her. The shock of the cold water jolted through him, and his wounded arm spasmed. For an instant, they clung together, wet and slippery, and his thoughts had just started to take a dangerous turn when she spoke:

"Can you swim?"

"Yes."

"Good." She let go of his arms and pushed away from him, and he missed the warmth of her back immediately. While he scrubbed himself clean as best as he could without removing his robes – a completely inefficient goal – Korra jack-knifed and dove deep, her body gyrating through the water like a dolphin. Then she spun and shot up in the air, sailed toward the cavern roof, then pitched back into the water. He held up a hand to block the spray. Was she enjoying herself? He had heard that the water tribes were oddly enamoured with water, but this was more childlike and adoring than he had anticipated, especially given the gravity of their situation.

She floated on her back, sculling the water with her hands. "This is surreal. Bathing with my enemy."

Amon dunked his head under the water, loosening the mask just a crack as he resurfaced to let the water drain. He had barely readjusted it when a stream of water hit his forehead. Korra laughed, her hands poised in front of her, ready to squirt at him again. All he could do was stare, flabbergasted by her demeanour.

"You can take off the mask," she said. "I'm not exactly in a position to run to the authorities with a description of your face."

"I am not so short-sighted. We will return to freedom soon enough."

She cocked her head and smiled. "Sounds like you have confidence in my bending abilities, Amon. That's so sweet."

Her sarcasm did not go unnoticed. In brighter days, he would have enjoyed being teased, eagerly whipping back a retort. His humour had died the day his plans of revolution had begun.

Instead, he scrabbled for the edge and tried to pull himself out, and was humiliated to realize that he didn't even have the strength for that. She launched herself onto the land and held out a hand, grasping his, and hoisted him out. Water trailed down every crevice of his body, and he considered letting her pull the water off of him so he could be comfortable.

"I've been thinking about it, though," she said, her face suddenly sombre. "We've been down here for what, a day and a half? Two? The earth hasn't reverberated once."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that your men aren't trying to dig us out."

He kept his eyes cool, and curled his hands into fists so they would not betray a tremble. "And what of your men? I would have thought the earthbenders would come for their Avatar."

"I told you, I didn't break our agreement. No one knows I'm here." Her voice grew quiet and she looked away. He now saw her rambunctious behaviour in the pool for what it was: the desperation of a woman trying to ignore her depressing reality. The ground threatened to pitch beneath him.

"Then your work must continue if we are to survive," he said, frustrated that bending was, once again, saving his life.

"I suppose so." She glanced down at the pool of water gathering beneath him from his wet clothes. "You want me to dry you off?"

"Do not use your bending on me."

"Right, right. Only use it to free you from this cave. Got it." She sounded impatient, as if he were being stubborn. Perhaps he was.

She carried him back to the camp and dropped him - a bit more roughly than was necessary, he thought - on the ground.

"You sit there and contemplate how beneficial bending has been to your life in the past couple days," she said. "I'm going back to work."

.*.*.*.

The next several hours dragged, made all the more miserable by his damp robes and hair. He spent some time considering strategies and speeches in his mind, but his usual motivation had waned. He would have spent more time studying Korra for tactical purposes, but she had pushed so deep into her self-made tunnel, clouds of dust floating around her, that this plan was futile. After drifting in and out of sleep and eating a few meals of seaweed – he was already so sick of seaweed – he realized that she had been working for hours straight without a break. Should he try to convince her to rest? She was his only way out of this prison, after all, and she was no good to him dead.

His decision was made for him a short while later. The rhythmic yells began to fade to grunts, and the pace began to slow. Suddenly, it stopped.

He waited for her to return.

And waited.

Then the light faded, and the tunnel was swallowed by blackness.

"Avatar?" he called.

No response. He reached into his robes for his tinder box, pulling out flint and steel. Tearing at the border of his undercoat, he wrapped a strip of cloth around a rock and set it alight. It would not last long, but it at least cast some light on the cavern so that he could find his way to the tunnel. Then he grabbed the water flask and tucked it in his robes.

He tried to stand, but fell to all fours – all threes, really, because he could not put weight on his wounded arm. Fine, then: he would crawl. Frustrated, he dragged himself along the jagged ground and into Korra's tunnel. If she had died of exhaustion, he was finished. Stupid woman, stubbornly pressing on this hard. He tried not to admit to himself that tenacity to a fault was a trait he admired.

Her body lay at the deepest end of the tunnel; he had just enough time to see her before the light from the chamber behind him flickered and died. He grunted, sweat trickling down his face behind the mask, pulling himself toward her. The world was spinning, and he cursed his weak body again and again.

At last, feeling his way forward, he reached her. Her skin was hot and surprisingly dry, but there was still a pulse, though weak. He slumped against the cave wall, barely sitting upright, and hoisted her against him. Her head lolled against his collarbone, and he could feel her jagged breaths against his neck.

"Avatar." He clapped her cheek. "Avatar, awaken." When there was no response, he tried again: "Korra."

"Amon?" A small cough. "Don't...hurt me..." The words were barely a croak, yet they shook him to his core. I am the monster.

"You need to drink." Navigating blindly, he held up the flask. She reached for it, her hand closing feebly over his and she drew it to her lips. He tilted too far; she coughed, but then they coordinated their movements better, and she drained half the flask before he pulled it away. Too much, and she would only cough it back up.

"What happened?" he demanded.

"I pushed too hard." Her voice was paper-thin. "I'm too tired to bend. I can't...I can't bend."

"You'll need to rest here. I don't have the strength to bring you back to camp," he said, too exhausted to care about tilting the power balance in his favour.

She curled against him, her head nestling under his chin. With discomfort, he realized that her ear was right over his heart, which had started to race. How could it not? Avatar or no, she was a warm, soft, curvy woman in his lap.

"Do you like me now that I'm a non-bender, Amon?" she asked drowsily, her voice foggy, as if half in a dream. His breath caught in his throat.

Stop. He dropped his arms away from her, trying to decrease the intimacy of the situation, but that was nearly impossible with her head on his chest and her breasts pressed against his side. The scent of her sweat filled his nose and mouth, sweet pheromones that made his pulse rush even faster.

Though every fibre of his body screamed at him to stay entwined with her, he delicately pushed her away. With a moan of protest, she curled up beside him instead. He turned his back to her, curling onto his side, protecting himself from her warmth and weight and scent.

This time, when she began to shiver, the desire to gather her in his arms and keep her warm was so overwhelming that his hands curled into fists until his nails dug into his palms.

.*.*.*.

That night, it was she who plagued his dreams, her naked form glistening in the pool, as graceful and nimble as a sea spirit as she spun and twisted in the water. A glance back at him, a scandalized flush colouring her cheeks, but then a beckoning finger and a sly smile: Do you like me now, Amon?