It's years before Amon attacks. Their daughter—Arja—is sixteen.
Korra never really spent much time with people of her own sex, but she finds moments with her daughter to be enthralling. Arja is a ball of curiosity. Korra remembers fondly of the time they went to the Southern Water Tribe and Arja's eyes were consistently round and shimmering intensely.
That wasn't the first time Arja met her grandparents. Korra sent the seventh draft of The Letter that informed her parents of Arja's existence. Later in the month, they appeared right at her doorstep.
Arja explores, and it's not as if she has a restricted hold on her actions. Korra and Tarrlok are lax in smothering her, given their experiences of being shadowed over. She's surrounded by friends. Tenzin's family, Mako and Bolin. Asami, who now runs Future Industries in her father's shameful absence. Even with the Equalists, Korra insists to Tarrlok that walls are just a false form of security. If Amon set his mind to it, especially when he has big robots, these thin walls aren't anything.
They thought the threat was over.
During their last dinner together, Arja head hangs. It's strange how their daughter is so prone to periods of unspeakable sadness. Arja doesn't come to them for assistance, doesn't ask for a short reprieve. She just sobs with a burden more than words. Korra pats her shoulder. It's something she'll never understand.
There are those days when Tarrlok brushes the stray lint off of his jacket, strolls into the streets and smirks into the cameras thrust in front of his path.
This isn't one of those days. This is a day when he wants to die.
A lone Equalist guard watches them, father and daughter. It's a crude interrogation cell with rusty chairs and a rough wooden table. The lighting is poor.
She's beautiful, demure in her clean, simple dress. Her hair is in a single braid, running down one shoulder.
A curtain of hair hangs in his face. Never has he felt so alone. Not even when Noatak abandoned him.
That feeling when his bending was taken away—ha! He once prayed that Noatak would return and never leave again. How is it that, with their pending union, Noatak has made him more isolated? The spirits have answered all of his wishes accordingly.
Arja states mechanically, her eyes empty like a doll's, "I told him how many guards were posted in the house. And where."
"Why?" he croaks. Part of him hopes that it is a failed attempt at subterfuge, that she inherited her mother's patience and planning skills. No disrespect meant to Korra (where is she?), but it took awhile for her to think less with her gut and more with her mind. He hopes that Arja plans to overthrow Amon somehow. She can fend for herself.
She kneads the skirt of her dress with her fingers and bites her lip. "I-I've grown up with friends who've been through so much. Don't you get it? Forced to be used in the streets, forced to live without their parents. We're—we're lucky." Her voice rises. "How is it fair that we watch them suffer and do nothing? We don't even listen!"
"How is it fair to intimidate the innocent ones? And do you think bombing the streets hasn't created any nonbender casualties, that the bombs are repelled by nice thoughts and your delusions?"
She snarls. He's mocking her! "You passed a law that condemned people for something they can't help! Like it's any big strain on your part!" How dare she? Does she have any idea how much of a toll the battle against Amon has had on him?
No, no. She lives in that purely abstract world where only ideas matter. She's not even Amon or an Equalist; she doesn't believe in violence, of striking when forced into a corner. Arja just thinks everyone will live in peace and never hurt each other again if bending is systematically eliminated year after year.
"I revoked it when your mother freed the protesters in the streets."
There is fresh pain in her eyes, as if she's about to cry. He's ashamed that she's named after his mother.
"But see, justice shouldn't be settled on the whims of the powerful. It should be distributed equally."
"Look at you. I thought I'd taught you to think for yourself." It dawns on him, and he visibly shudders. "You're him. I tried to escape, but everything's caught up with me."
She blinks in confusion at his rambling. "He hasn't taken away my bending yet. I'm sorry, Daddy."
"Don't," he says tersely.
He needs to die, and her fervent eyes, her voice, it's all in his way. He needs to kill her heart, make her hate him. Then he can die peacefully. Without taking away her "daddy."
Tarrlok sneers. "I suppose this is where you two ride into the sunset?"
When his meaning hits her, she recoils and shoots him a hateful glare. "He's not bedding me. Mom told me, he said—no." She peers at him earnestly, her forehead knotted in deep lines. "I can't tell you. I am not a silly child!"
"The way he took away my bending—what has he done with Korra," Tarrlok asks, his voice dim and gruff, "or do you care?"
"Did you know that I wasn't your daughter?"
"What has he said?" What could Amon of all people possibly know about that? He and Korra discussed it sparingly. They agreed that they would tell Arja when she was an adult, when they felt that she'd be less emotionally fragile, when her identity had been sorted out. It's not an easy subject, to tell her that he's not her father and he doesn't know who is.
Then Tarrlok laughs bitterly. "I suppose it doesn't matter. I haven't lost a daughter in this whole ordeal."
Tonight, he'll take the sheets off of his bed, make use of the crude hook beside the commode where he's supposed to hang his clothes.
He won't hear the lies, the excuses. If Amon—if Noatak wants a brotherly reunion, Tarrlok will ensure that, just for once, his head is up high while his brother is at his feet.
Arja always wanted to fly. Seeing Tenzin's children—now grown—dance around in the sky, well, it was amazing.
She still can't believe that her mother slept with Amon, even unknowingly. She couldn't bring herself to tell her father about her mother's suicide. Korra hadn't cried, hadn't been frantic. She smiled and kissed her daughter's forehead, whispered an apology.
It was such an easy thing. Her family and friends needed her, but Korra truly couldn't do anything without her bending. It's warped, how her identity as a good person and a dedicated mother wasn't enough to save her, but that is the burden of the Avatar. The new Avatar would rejuvenate the cycle.
Korra's usefulness was over. This was her final stand, her victory. She wouldn't ever again look into the eyes of this man she'd slept with, who chewed away at her sanity. Laughed and threw her inadequacy back into her face. Now she's laughing. Amon's lieutenant found her mother, and Arja refused to hear any of his condolences, refused to hear Amon's silver tongue try to twist this into something of no importance, though her death meant he had no reminder of his own greatness.
He won't kill the benders, Arja tells herself. It's wrong. She doesn't want death. What Arja has done isn't meant to be a betrayal. Through her jewelled, stained window of blessings and privilege, she was ignorant. Now she's free, and she doesn't want it to mean that Tarrlok is imprisoned. Perhaps he'll see reason—one day.
Her father is dead. The one who changed her diapers, the one who let her cry on his shoulder.
She's supposed to be incensed, indignant; she's supposed to want to burn the city to ashes. But she only feels empty.
(What am I supposed to do? Who am I supposed to go to?)
She tastes the tears and snot on her lips. She hugs herself, hunched against the doorframe of her chambers, absolutely determined not to crumble.
(I only have him now. I only have him.)
Arja has everything she needs to destroy Amon: the truth. He's a liar; his scars are only internal. She can't. In his heart, all he wants is to end the tyranny of people so much like Yakone. Just stopping the "bad benders" isn't enough because the innocent people still have the potential of corruption, and they are still blinded by complacency. Like she had been before she'd seen, before he'd made her see.
A placid girl, now emerging from her cocoon. Despite her parents' leniency, society kept her from the knowing. Arja bends down and retches. She refuses to be sheltered anymore.
There's hypocrisy in her words, especially since both she and Amon are benders. Arja wonders how he can be a bloodbender. How he can stand himself. Yet he'll teach her. Teach her how to heal others of that burden. How convenient it is. He tells her of Tarrlok's past, and she wonders, she wonders.
She's already disgusted with herself (no matter the continuous mental arguments in her favor), and she'll do anything to have a purpose. The ghosts of her parents, her true parents, hang on her shoulders like chains.
Arja watches as the bending elitists fall. There's no jubilation. Only vigilance.
When they are alone in his quarters, father and daughter (never never never), his expression doesn't change, and his fake scar is not present. He's lost his brother, his only connection to his humanity. His brother. Her uncle. Amon and Tarrlok-the last piece falls into place, and the realization sends her reeling.
(What am I supposed to do?)
Arja feels the wetness on his cheeks as she brushes it away gently with her knuckles.