A/N: once again, thank you all so much for reviews, follows, and favorites! it encourages me to do my best :D and i'm glad y'all are enjoying it. i'm enjoying writing it, for sure. anywho, here's your update!
I. Surprises
Korra spreads her hands flat on the wood, gripping the edge of the table with her thumbs, eyes narrowed at Bolin and Mako. They are clear across the restaurant, in a booth under a Water Tribe flag, ruffled and loose, full of scruffy, second-hand street charm. They didn't see her walk in, engrossed as they are in their bowls of noodles; she sidles into a seat and tugs her gloves off with her teeth. She's annoyed with them, almost angry - why did they have to be found so easily? Didn't they know they had to run? She makes a moue at the menu, sliding quickly down the words, barely reading.
She glances over the top of the menu at Bolin, who doesn't look all the worse for wear after being held captive for two days; he's slurping up seaweed noodles with unbridled enthusiasm, jabbing and drawing in the air with his chopsticks, talking with his mouth full. There's a fire ferret curled on his shoulders and he reaches back to set it on the table, offer it a tidbit… Mako says something and Bolin laughs easily, closing his eyes and letting his mirth roll and tumble from his mouth, head tilted back. You have a nice smile,he said, and she smiles now.
But Mako… she swings her attention to Mako, sleeplessly serious, eyes bright and narrow, amber shards of glass. She puts her chin on her knuckles and glares at him, daring him to turn around, to look at her. Explain himself. Firebending is like death, what the fuck…? His movements are drier than Bolin's, and more precise; if he broke he would crunch. Mako is too young to be withering, stuck in some red, flame-treed autumn, but then Bolin says something to him, with a cheeky grin and knowing look, and Mako's face floods with a lush, fresh happiness. There is a ripple of relief in its wake.
She sees it now: when Mako softens, he looks like Bolin, somewhere around the eyes and in the quirk of his lips. Something sounds clearly, a single strum of some chord deep inside her. They're brothers, family. They fought for each other.
Amon is waiting outside. She empties, everything lurching downwards; only her heartbeat clambers up and it clings to her throat. Alright, the plan. She has a plan. Time to do something with it.
"Honey, Mako and Bolin are not on the menu," someone says, and Korra starts. The waitress has one eyebrow cocked over a charmless smirk, hand on her hip, and she taps the menu with two fingers. Korra grins sheepishly and shrugs.
"Oh! Um, I wasn't… I didn't - can I just get a glass of water, for now?" she says, and the waitress rolls her eyes and makes to leave, but Korra stops her, grabbing her elbow.
"Actually, do you have a pen and a piece of paper?"
The waitress hands her the pen and a scrap of paper and Korra frowns over it, thinking… All she has to do is scare them out the back. The pen waits an inch over the paper as she sorts through ideas that fly by like automobiles on the breezeway, and finally one screeches to a halt and she scribbles it out, bolding it over twice.
Korra folds it, yanks the scarf off her neck, and hands both to the waitress.
"Can you give this to Mako? Oh, but don't tell him it's from me, it's a surprise," she says cheerfully, impulsively adding a wink, and she feels the nervous creep of sweat down her back. There are so many ways this could go wrong.
"That's Mako's scarf, he loves that thing," the waitress says, framing Korra with a look that reeks of distrust, and Korra smiles as radiantly as possible.
"Yeah, he left it with me last night on accident," she says, and the waitress hums a skeptical, unamused note, hmmph. She stares down her nose at Korra, who forces the smile wide open, because she is innocent and charming and cute and it's truethat Mako left it with her last night, she's not lying…
"Well, it's about time that boy got himself a lady friend, anyway," says the waitress in an undertone, as she takes the scarf and the note, and Korra traps a conspiratorial giggle in its place with a finger to her lips, don't tell him.
The waitress leaves and Korra scowls, sticking her tongue out at the woman's retreating back. She's not some dumb fling for Pretty Boy over there, excuse you; she's a motherfucking revolutionary.
She slouches back in the booth, rubbing the soft leather of her driving gloves between her fingers, waiting. Narook's is busy, packed full of hungry Republic city residents; the chatter and smell of hot savory foods swirls around her, tempering her nerves. Out of the bustle someone laughs loudly and there is a clatter-clack of glasses clinking together, heavy bowls rasping woodenly as they're pushed across tables, the tick of chopsticks, a woman tossing her head with a flash of red-stained lips.
Korra puts a hand to her side, feeling for the sore spot where her ribs broke, and finds the hard edge of the Tenchu mask through the cloth of her jacket. She pulls it out and holds it under the table, turning it over, and over again; no one else has to hide themselves behind the sleek, impenetrable face of an idea. They're normal people, all of them. Korra stares at them, stares through them, and she realizes she's alone, burned out like a single point of darkness in a sky full of stars. The loneliness comes to her with untroubled ease, sighs around her, flits up her awareness with light sparrow wings. She would fly off with it, if she could; be someone else for a change, maybe…
The waitress finally passes by the brothers' table, dropping the scarf in front of Mako, catching him in the middle of an open-handed gesture. His expression stiffens. Bolin claps a hand to his mouth, a jerk of muscle in his throat as he gulps. Mako hesitantly takes the scarf, turning it over like he's disturbed something wild and snarling. His eyes are wide and disbelieving. Korra sinks low in her seat, watching with grim satisfaction as Bolin's earlier good cheer washes off, leaving only a slightly ill color. Mako unfolds the note.
He looks absolutely bewildered.
Bolin plucks the note from his hand and reads it, flips it over, finds nothing on the back, and they stare at it, dumbfounded - Korra feels an irrepressible urge to laugh and she presses the back of her hand to her mouth, slightly stunned. She wasn't thatobtuse, was she? The plan had to work. She let them know she was here, and she told them exactly what she was going to do, and now they had fair warning -
Mako slaps the note to the table and jerks his head around, scanning the restaurant; Korra dives below the table and counts, to whatever, skipping numbers, her heart pumping crazily - she peeks over the table, nose rubbing against the wood, and then sits up straight, casually, brushing dust off her shoulder…
Bolin is leaving the table, fire ferret perched daintily on his shoulders; he locks eyes with Mako for a brief second and then strolls casually past the kitchen service counter, disappearing into the back. Korra allows herself a single exhilarated laugh, all of her tension slackening for a brief moment, and she pulls it tight again for Mako, who hasn't left the table yet.
He winds the scarf loosely around his neck, stroking it absently, and holds the note out again, brows bunched up, mouth crooked sideways - and he breaks like slate as dread hits him, grey and fractured. He throws yuans onto the wood, clambers out of the booth, and runs after Bolin, caught in a furious panic, slamming past the waitress.
Korra stands up, slowly, and follows him. They did better than expected, leaving separately… She winds through the restaurant; brushing past tables on light, steady feet, leaning around waiters with trays piled high. Her mask is tucked up her sleeve, fingers curled around the edge, and when she passes by their table, Korra takes the note and rips it into pieces as she goes, scattering them to the floor.
She slips through the service door, past the kitchen, down a short, cluttered storage hallway, holding a tight-lipped smile. The sounds of the kitchen fade away and she straps her mask on in one fluid movement. Tenchu rises in her, primal and animalistic, alert and warm with bloodlust and hatred but Korra forces it out, as much as she can. Tenchu only needs to show up, not to act…
She stops in the door to the alley, her shadow cast large and solid across the ground, and waits - it's quiet, very quiet. She collects herself, listening, gathering all her senses to her; and then fire snaps across the air, a flaming dart, illuminating the Amon mask - there is a brutal crackand a long cry of pain through clenched teeth, and she follows the sound to where Mako is standing with one broken hand curled to his torso, grimacing and braced with hopeless bravery. Bolin is kneeling some ways away, hands tied with bolas; face pained and on the verge of tears. The fire ferret is cowering by his foot, fur standing on edge. The alleyway is full of shallow darkness, crossed with swaths of light from windows high above them.
"Tenchu, so glad you could join us. I'm just about finished," Amon drawls, through his glacial feline smirk; and he steps forward on graceful feet, soft as a shadow, dancing around Mako, whipping his fists up Mako's sides, each one bodily making their mark. Mako's stance loosens and goes limp even as he still stands; all of his tensed-up power and strength stripped down and weakened with each blow. Amon takes his arm and dips low, kicking out; the kick catches Mako's leg and he topples to the ground, his good hand trapped by Amon's hold. It takes all of three seconds.
Mako scrabbles for purchase with his feet, kicking up bits of gravel and dust, still trying to fight; there is a brief moment where he doesn't move at all and then a curling lick of fire sprays from his mouth. Amon barely reacts and cuts it off with a hit to the neck, eyes flickering with the fire, with hate. Korra never forgets how powerful he is, but it still, alwaysstuns her -
"Stop! Mako, stop, please," Bolin pleads, his voice cracking over a high pitch, and they all look at him. He shakes his head at his brother, the motion trailing off, and Mako stops clawing at Amon with his broken hand. He raises it over his head with a torturously calm expression, chest heaving.
"If you would be so kind as to assist," Amon says, looking over his shoulder at Korra, and she goes to him. They tie Mako's hands together and Amon hauls him to his feet by the knot, giving him a strong shove in Bolin's direction, and Mako staggers over and sinks to his knees in front of his brother.
"It would've been worse for you," Bolin mumbles, and Mako says nothing but loops his arms around Bolin, hugging him into the curve of his neck.
"Touching," Amon says, standing over them, and Mako's glare would set things ablaze.
Amon looks at Korra and motions to them.
"Your plan was perfect," he says, and she thinks - not yet; "all that is left is to do what - "
" - needs to be done," she finishes swiftly, "I know."
Her heart is racing as she walks over to them. Did they understand her note at all? Did they get it? Oh spirits, she'd been too cryptic, way too cryptic… Did they understand? Because she needed them to understand, so badly, to just go with it, to trust her - Mako drops his head onto Bolin's shoulder, staring down into some long and distant memory, some other alleyway.
Korra glances at her father. He is motionless, waiting, watching.
"Alright, Mr. Fancy Lightning," and Korra cracks her knuckles, standing behind Mako, "You go first."
She fits her hand to the back of his neck, but he remains pressed to Bolin, stiff and resistant as she tries to tilt his head back -
"You can't stop this from happening," she says, "when are you going to get the message?"
His eyes widen almost imperceptibly and suddenly he is passive under her hand, cheeks hollowed from the tense clamp of his jaw. He looks up at her, and there is a spark of something underneath the fear, like a distant crack of lightning behind a storm cloud: understanding. And then, thundering after it, as Korra raises her hand, trust-
I'M GOING TO FAKE IT
He got it.
Korra hits him in the center of the forehead, his skin warm and slick with sweat to the touch, her thumb planted firmly over the Third Eye, fingers splayed down the side of his face - he shudders and there is a long, long, long pause, a thousand years of doubt between seven seconds of silence behind her mask of calm and purpose - she doesn't search, doesn't cut, doesn't beat him down with the frantic drumming of her own heart - she just holds him there -
She lets go, takes a step back; and he goes limp over Bolin with a soft moan. Perfect.
"Your turn," Korra says to Bolin, lifting aside Mako's arms; Bolin squeaks, an incomprehensible whimper of despair, as Mako keels over sideways, hitting the asphalt, the whites of his eyes like flakes off a candle burning low. Bolin reaches for Mako but Korra pulls on his collar, sitting him upright, and he gasps when her hand hits his neck, high-pitched and breathless; she sees movement, careful, pale movement - Mako's fingers on Bolin's knee, and his slack open mouth shifts, ever so slightly… play along.
Bolin screws his eyes shut, lips curled back over his teeth; and Korra does it again - absolutely nothing. She lifts her hands and he slouches over himself, panting; a drop of sweat rolls off his chin and lands noiselessly plit! on his pants. She sighs, and Amon's slow nod of approval is dim and weak from her airless spot at the bottom of her vast, rolling ocean of relief. It's done. She almost laughs, wiping her hands on her jacket, the clammy sweat and dirt of her lie.
Amon moves to her; holds her by the shoulders. Good work. She smiles as he taps her affectionately on the cheek, a light glancing touch of pride, cool and soft on her flushed skin. Her happiness loops in from his fingertips and spools through her, and she fills like a sail, billowing in a heady wind of joy. Her soul flutters in his wake as he brushes by her and she's done: her plan is finished, he is happy with her.
Amon lays Mako flat with a solid kick of his heel to the shoulder, drawing a helpless oomphfrom him; Mako opens his hands in a gesture of supplication, his fingers curled weakly around an offering of surrender. The part of his broken hand not covered by the glove is puffy and red, nothing that can't be fixed with some quick healing or a splint. He is lined with exhaustion, creased and indefinite like a paper folded over too many times. Korra wants to get a real answer from him, soon. They would go into the prisoner cells and she knows she'll find a way to sneak down to them, make them teach her bending… it was all part of her plan…
Amon bends on one knee and pulls a Water Tribe hunting knife from the sheath in his boot, slender and honed, and Mako makes a sharp, abrupt grunt of surprise as Amon jerks his head back with a palm to the jaw, exposing his neck, and the knife flashes in his fist -
"No, stop!" Korra yells, lunging forward, and the tip of the knife stops short, a fraction of an inch off Mako's skin. It drops slightly, just barely grazing his neck, and he sucks in a huge hiss of air, his back canted onto the asphalt, eyes closed. Amon looks at her, dull light sliding off the brushed planes of the mask, fist clenched tightly around the hilt.
"Stop what?" Amon says, as though there were no knife in his hand, less than an inch and a single motion away from blood pooling across the pavement, Mako choking to death on the flow of his own waning life. He couldn't kill them, she needed them! She needed them alive!
"Don't kill them!" she says, and Amon leans upright, arm draped over his thigh.
"And what else would we do with them? This is all that's left to be done," he says, waving the knife at Mako and Bolin; and the tip drops, poised over Mako.
"That's a big knife, that's a really big knife, oh spirits, that's a big knife…" Bolin mumbles in a breathless sing-song; he can't keep his eyes off it.
"Bolin," Mako says, fingertips fumbling along the flat of the knife, trying to push it away, "Bolin, listen to me, don't look, just close your eyes - "
"I thought we were just gonna take them prisoner," Korra says, plaintively, and she is sick with a lurching horror - even if she didn't need them, this was murder -
"That is nothing but inconvenient," Amon says, with an restless patience, "and rest assured, no one is going to miss them. They're dregs."
He's talking to her like a child, like he's explaining the rules of some game; it's a game to him! They're playthings! He would kill them like animals, for convenience! They couldn't die for her foolishness. She couldn't let them die -
"I don't want them to die for my mistake!" she shouts, the words rising crisp and determined, leaves snapping on the wind.
"You should have thought about that last night," Amon says shortly.
And he swings the knife.
But the knife stops short again, in Amon's straining fist, and his eyes snap to her and now, nowhe is angry - she looks at her own outstretched hand, full of the warm, pulsing feel of bloodbending - what is she doing, why can't she just let this go? Tenchu would be fine with this but Korra's never felt so sure of anything in her life -
"What do you think you're doing?!" he growls, but she holds tighter, sinks her grip deeper into the throbbing flow of his blood. They're not going to die, not while she - she is drawing her line at this callous murder, right now -
"No, I won't let you," she breathes, hardly believing it herself, her own conviction, her own lack of hesitation on this - but she knows, she knows like it's the single iron nail hammered into the frame of her existence - she must protect life. He breaks her hold with an amused, irritated snort.
"You insolent child," he says, "I've had enough."
And the knife flies through the air one more time but something breaks in her -
"NO! I said NO!"
It folds out of the air, out of the world itself - a white glow, unbraiding and uncoiling into veins that twist and wind - a great glowing web of threads, of smoky strings that crisscross around her and through her - they cling to her, to her infinite fury, to the immense star of purpose burning and flaring hotly in her breast. The threads of chi kiss to her fingertips and she just has to open and all the songs and voices of the world will come to her, sing under her hands. Pluck the strings and send great, serene roars of sound and fury raging across the earth - she is divine - she is waking up -
The Amon mask is pale and flat in the glow. It breaks the balance of sound, jarring dissonantly, calls to her anger, consumes her with uncontrollable, righteous violence. All the bright, glowing lines of chi shrink away from it, its discordance - how much blood can she wring from its splinters? and all she needs is a single thought and all will respond to her voice and Korra!
Her rage caves in - drains into the dark hole punched through the tapestry of chi lines, the hole left by the sudden disappearance of the mask - "Korra!"
They whip off her fingertips and each detachment leaves a cold, blistering burn of confusion - Korra is a girl, just a girl - she's adrift in some great cosmic dream, she clings to her name, wooden and solid -
"Korra! Korra, come back!" yells a voice from somewhere close, so close; hot on her ear and pressing around her, someone is holding her - and Korra comes back hard, very hard, landing in herself from a height far above the sky. All her senses slam back, the delirious rush of power gone. Her mind spins and turns in all directions and she reels but Noatak is holding her, his arms wrapped around her so tightly it hurts - and she can feel his heart thudding wildly, straight through her.
She slumps in his embrace, she feels as sturdy and definite as smoke. He curves a hand to her face, steadies her lolling head; his narrow gaze knifes into her, cutting her, looking for something - and his mask is off. It's completely off and his smooth and unscarred face is shining and etched with fear.
"Dad…?"
He is bloodless and pale. Korra has never seen him like this before, so… so shaken. He holds her out with a relieved sigh and she has no idea what's going on. It's all wafting apart, like ink in water…
"What just happened?" she says, and her own voice sounds alien to her, hoarse and colorless. Noatak quietly sits her on a crate and, with a hesitant movement, fixes her mask, nudging it back into place.
"Dad, what just happened?" she says again, loud and frantic, and he doesn't look at her, just… through her. The Amon mask is several yards away, like it was thrown aside in a panic, and Mako and Bolin are huddled against the wall like they could sink through it if they tried hard enough. Mako is crouched over Bolin, their hands up to shield their faces, and she can just see their expressions, scared and flinched.
She gasps. The alleyway is torn apart, the pavement broken open; jagged teeth of asphalt bared over dark, gaping fissures, and huge, blackened scorch marks snarling across the bricks and plaster. There are crates and barrels and things piled up in craggy, uneven slopes, as though blown away; and part of the wall is cracked and dented inwards, like some enormous round thing smashed into it. And all the twisting slashes of dust and ash and cracks in the pavement converge and knot around a single, untouched spot, the spot where she had been standing, yelling at her father not to kill anyone - and thenwhat happened?
"Did I do that?" she asks, and she already knows but the answer terrifies her, and her father has not stopped staring at her, but he won't say anything, why won't he say anything?
"Tell me what happened!" Korra shouts, and finally he breaks off and bows his head, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"I need to go contact the Lieutenant. Do not move until I return," he says in a low, wearied voice, and without looking he clenches his other hand at Mako and Bolin, who promptly collapse, limp against the wall, eyes rolling back as they faint. Noatak picks up his mask from off the ground and turns it over, looking into its empty eyes. He glances at Korra, his mouth tight and closed over some unspoken, distant thoughts. And he stuffs the mask into his jacket, trotting down the alleyway without a word.
Korra curls over her knees, lacing her fingers on the back of her neck. She feels a storm gathering, on the strength of a wind drawn from a dream thousands of years old; and she is the eye of it, struck blind and alone, always alone, in the dark…
II. Truths
She waits.
The single bare bulb swings over the empty kitchen, straining and harsh; the window is open and she can feel the night slouch in, sanding its cool, rough fingers down her skin, muttering dark grey shadows under its breath. Korra folds her arms and rests her head on the table, and she waits. She feels the gaze of the Tenchu mask on her, from where it sits on the table; half an eyeless painted skull, taunting her.
Her plan is in shambles, the pieces scattered and kicked into unreachable places. She has no idea where Mako and Bolin are. The Lieutenant came with one of the Equalist trucks and loaded them into the back, fitting her with a look of supreme annoyance; she had stayed on her crate and closed her eyes against the staccato of his anger as he argued with Amon - what exactly is going on, I don't want to clean up after your disaster of a daughter anymore, this is ridiculous - and Amon's honeyed baritone, rich and flowing like oil - this is all part of the revolution, Lieutenant, all part of the plan -
At least they're alive, she thinks, or she hopes; he didn't speak to her until sending her home with a single phrase and she rode through the city in a daze, unattached to her own self, a cold shadow trailing behind a warm body.
Her fingers are foreign to her, long and calloused; the fine wrinkles and soft creases spell something she can't read, can't understand, can't speak aloud. It drifts just out the reach of her voice.
She hears the metallic crunch of keys turning in a lock and sits up, stuffing all her expectations away, chewing on her tongue as Noatak comes into the kitchen. He wordlessly drops into the chair across from her and leans back, arms crossed, head tilted.
"I had a few words with your friends," he says, and slides the hunting knife across the table. It skitters to a stop, wobbling slightly, the tip of the blade flecked red-brown.
"The older one - the firebender - didn't talk until I tried the earthbender... such brotherly devotion is admirable. Stupid, but admirable."
What does he want her to say? Why is he telling her this? It just makes her sick. Whose blood is that?
"I didn't know you were so opposed to taking bending that you'd lie to me, so blatantly... I'm disappointed. But I've also come to understand that now is the proper time to tell you the truth, and maybe I should have done it long ago."
His eyes are empty, empty shallows of clouded water, pools of a still, lifeless sea. Just empty and full of nothing.
Korra waits - her answer is coming, her revelation; at last... she can feel it, it's about to break...
"You are the Avatar."
He says it but it doesn't really mean anything. The words vanish into the air like sand onto a beach. She laughs, because it's ridiculous, but the laughter doesn't fill his glassy, empty eyes.
"That's... that's really not funny, Dad..." she says, wiping her face with her palm, streaking dampness from her eyes, "okay. Tell me, for real this time."
"You're the Avatar."
Korra chokes on her laughter and shakes her head at him, biting on her grin... but he's not...
"Bullshit," she says, and he merely quirks his eyebrows and she stops smiling and everything drops out, everything she understands just leaves, spills out, rushes away and she is hollow, there is nothing she knows inside of her. Nothing but the great silver sea of his gaze.
"You're..." she begins, but he's not lying, not with a sigh like that, a thin huff of air as his iron grey expression collapses. And Korra knows he's not, because she is the Avatar and it makes such perfect, flawless sense... This is his hard, sun-forged obsidian truth that cuts and bleeds her soul out, and he waited so long to draw it - and she stands up, fists thudding onto the table -
"Sit down. I'm not done," he says.
"Oh, I think you are," she snarls, suddenly furious, but it's different from before, it hurts so much more - the Avatar - it twists all her nerves and she wants to strike him, she wants to shatter and wrench apart and tear through him and find the answers, all of them and why doesn't he ever tell her anything?
"You are going to sit down and listen!" Noatak thunders, rage coursing through him, through his patience; and almost immediately he settles back into glassy calm. Korra sits down, slowly, and clasps her hands in front of her.
"Yes, Dad. Tell me," she says, and her mouth is cotton-dry on hot bitterness.
Noatak is quiet for a very long time, and she just smiles at him, a faithful, obedient daughter, lips curved in plastic niceness. He can't surprise her anymore, he can't - anything he says now will be dull and pale compared to the sharp stab of being the Avatar.
"You are the firebender who killed your mother," he says, "it was an accident. You lost control. But... it was you."
The chair clatters to the floor.
Korra staggers to the basin, throws up, throws up all the sticky, bittersweet bile, she would turn herself inside out and throw out all of that too. She doesn't want it, she doesn't want anything she has ever been or ever felt; and she hugs herself, doubles over, and retches again and again until the only thing left is - the only thing bending brings is suffering and Korra is the Avatar and the Avatar is bending and it's her fault, bending is suffering…
Noatak pulls her away from the basin and she flails at him, catching his wrist, forcing his fingers onto her forehead - she's crying, babbling nonsense, she can't stand it, she can't stand anything-
"Take it," she yells, "take the bending away. Now. I don't want it! I don't want it anymore!"
"No, Korra - "
"TAKE IT AWAY! DO IT!" Korra shouts, and it's the only thing that makes any sense right now, and when he won't she hits him in the chest, pounding on him with boneless, helpless desperation - he won't take it, why won't he take it? Why won't he take it away?!
And Noatak just holds his hands out, away from her, until she loses herself entirely and collapses, sobbing into him, sobbing because she doesn't know what else to do and there is nothing left to do but cry because it's her fault, it's all her fault Mom is dead and he's miserable and she... and he murmurs something that she doesn't quite hear and holds her as she hiccups and chokes on her guilt, her shame, she's the Avatar...
a/n: really though it can only get happier from here on out, right? ugh korra i'm sorry about this AU. reviews + constructive criticism are greatly appreciated! (you know what would make my day? if my review count broke 40. nudge nudge wink wink.) random writing updates and story notes are published over at pulpofiction dot tumblr dot com.