A/N: AAAH thank you for the reviews and the favorites and the follows and ajdkfh just thank you :D here's your update. this is the longest chapter, outstripping the others by about 3,000 words, and my favorite one so far. chock-full of noatak. enjoy it!

I. DREAMS

Can I sleep with you, Korra says, because she doesn't want to be alone with herself. And Noatak lets her curl up in his bed, tears streaming onto the pillow, and he wordlessly goes to fetch the great stuffed polar-bear dog that was bigger than her when he first bought it. And then he strokes her hair until she dreams, dreams wildly, hot firework dreams that explode and fizzle out in the darkness over her head. Korra dreams of her mother, the few things she remembers - a lullaby, and sometimes a laugh; a blanket, slender brown hands and blue eyes that ache with familiarity because they're her own, they're hers.

And then - and then Korra dreams again, but it's not a normal dream, it's the other kind of dream… someone else's dreams, the person with the blue sky tattooed on their hands. She knows because even asleep, she feels love towards the man with the scar flaring over his eye, a colonnade rising behind him, red and gold and vivid against a distant jagged rim of mountains. She doesn't know him but she does, she has seen him at his worst and at his best… and in bronze, oddly enough. He is tall and proud and wears conviction like he wears his gold and black robes, naturally and confidently; and he looks at her, or the other her, like a friend. And he is talking about his father. Or her father? There is something about the way he struggles through the phrase 'my father' - he clenches his mouth around the phrase, traps and controls it as it prowls from his voice. My father - and he talks about the way he set himself free, from - from anger.

And Korra wants to ask him how its done, but Tenchu is there, Tenchu who laughs and laughs and laughs at her, with the sun behind her eyes bright and unblinking, and they bore into her soul relentlessly until they burn her awake.

The midnight hour is grey and motionless and Noatak is asleep next to her, his hand still in her hair. His fingers slip through the strands, snag on a loose knot, and drop free when she lifts her head. In sleep all of his hard edges slacken, like an oak becoming a willow: the rigid stentorian charisma fades into self-assured grace, and his muscles roll with easy strength under each movement. He's still fully clothed, lying on his side on top of the covers, hair fanned across the mattress; only his face is still stern and rough, deep in thought even in his dreams. But the cut of his mouth is relaxed.

Korra wonders what he was like before she was born, or before Mom died; all she really knows is that Equalism is just as old as she is and that he ran away from home when he was fourteen. There's an uncle somewhere he doesn't talk about, a master's degree in political theory from Republic City University in his desk, a desolate wasteland of silence when she asks about grandparents. And she wonders - how did Mom fall in love with him? Did they hold hands when they walked down the promenade by the harbor? Did they dance in the Central City plaza, on the cobblestones and street jazz? Did she watch over his shoulder as he wrote his dissertations and speeches, admiring the fine lines of his handwriting and the shift of bone in his fingers, and did they speak their own language, did they speak fleeting looks and stolen kisses and sly smiles he carried for her, only for her, bouquets of flowers only she could see, brimming with the color and perfume of love? How did they love each other? Quietly? Passionately? With quiet words and glancing touches?

Korra draws her knees up, leans onto them and sighs. It was a traditional Water Tribe burial, apparently; her body on a boat and then released on the sea, with prayers and blessings painted in white from bow to stern. She has seen the boats before, on the harbor; stoic men and women on the docks setting them adrift, sending their grief away with calm, full-body motions, like they were underwater. The boats drift out onto the open ocean and the waterbenders always leave before they vanish behind the curve of the horizon, blue boat on blue seas under blue skies. They trust the ocean with their dead.

Did her mother care that her daughter was the Avatar? Did she have her own mask? Did she stand on a stage with a microphone and hold an audience captive with an unchained voice, weaving them all into her tapestry of oppression and equality; did she want to be free? Two young revolutionaries and their daughter. Two young parents and their Avatar.

They were too poor for photographs, Noatak told Korra once, and besides, he sees her everyday, when he looks at Korra. He fell in love again, didn't he… but not with another woman, someone to keep him warm at night and thaw what had frozen. He fell in love with the revolution.

The window is open and the street below is quiet. Korra feels the crisp bite of cold air on her neck and she lies back down, huddling into the blankets, moving his hand so that his arm lies heavily across her waist. She likes the weight. It's comforting. But in the morning, she thinks - in the morning she will make him tell her things. Somehow.

And as she slips back into sleep, hoping not to dream anymore, he moves from her waist and his hand finds hers, warm and dry. He uncurls her fingers and holds tight and her thoughts flutter awake, for a soft sigh of a moment, to realize that he is awake too.

She follows the sound of his voice and running water to wakefulness. He is singing in the kitchen. It's mid-morning and Korra turns over, blinking the sleep from her body, with the warm twinge of sadness that comes from falling asleep together and waking up alone. Last night's anger returns to her. Noatak never told her anything. He kept quiet for fourteen long years, letting her self-loathing entrench itself, roots squirming deep and wide into her body –

"Okay, why?!" Korra says, flinging herself into the kitchen chair and crossing her arms, interrupting the second verse of Summer Rain in Ba Sing Se.

"Good morning," he says firmly, placing a steaming bowl of congee, pocked with red dates and browned with rock sugar, in front of her, and her scowl flickers as a staggering, twisting hunger hits her. And there is a mug of oolong tea, just the way she likes it - but she will not be deflected by food.

"Why didn't you tell me before? How come I had to find out by… by freaking out?!" she says, loudly. She follows him with her eyes as he turns back to the stove, twisting the knobs; the petals of blue flame under the pot wither and disappear.

He braces himself on the stove, hands spread out, the tenseness in his back straining the cloth of his long-sleeved shirt. Korra understands now why silence whittles away on patience, why the distance between words fills with rage the longer it grows; she won't be ignored.

"Dad! Why - didn't - you - "

"I was afraid," he says quietly.

Korra licks the taste of unfinished words from her lips as he ladles congee into his bowl and leans against the countertop. His gaze flicks to her and then back to his food, and the silence billows in the clear morning air.

"That," he says, "is why I didn't tell you. The Avatar - the most powerful being the world has ever known! Tch."

He snorts and taps his spoon forcefully against the rim of the bowl, punctuating with a metallic ding.

"I wanted to wait until you were ready. I wanted to wait until you could understand, well and truly understand, your potential, your abilities, your great and unchallenged power - the power to burn the world on a whim and drown what is left. Bury it or scatter it all to dust because it pleases you. Pluck life like fruit from a vine and squeeze it in your hands so that it bursts and bleeds - but that means nothing to the Avatar. A being wholly outside mere mortality and human consequences. And that - that was to be your destiny," Noatak says.

His voice soars, furious and bitter, and a cold, shaking chill skitters through Korra. She sees herself on high, high over the city, calling waves of fire to howl down from the mountains and consume, swallow whole - and fear steals into her. She can dothat. The pressure of her hands comes to her, suddenly; gripped tightly as they are around her arms, and she's afraid to open them.

They look at each other. Noatak nods at her bowl of congee.

"When you were three, after - " he stops, and starts again - "afterwards, you refused to eat anything I made. Not a single bite. Not sea prunes or congee or noodles, not five-flavor soup or moon cakes. Nothing. It was… endlessly frustrating."

He smiles, a wearied line drawn between the past and the present, and begins to eat. Korra can't help it, but she has to know; and the question swells on her tongue until it pops open past her lips.

"Were you… mad at me?"

Noatak lets the question age and ripen, testing its weight; she can see him fiddling with it in his mind. He knows the questions she's really asking.

"No, Korra," he says heavily, answering them all.

And Korra nods, uncrosses her arms, takes a spoonful of the congee and eats. No pools through her like a rising tide, washing over her need to rebuff him.

They finish the rest of their breakfast in relative peace and she is draining the last of her tea when he takes her bowl, plunks it into the basin and leans both hands onto the table, wearing a rare look of guess-what enthusiasm. She raises her eyebrows.

"What?" she says, bringing the empty mug down with a clunk.

"I'm taking you to the zoo," he says, and grins at her baffled face.

What the fuck.

He doesn't tell her why and finally she decides to go along with it; she'd rather humor his enthusiasm than any other mood. The Republic City metro is always empty mid-morning, people scattered across the wooden benches like a child's forgotten marbles. Sometimes it goes underground, the lights scuffing the tunnels as they close over the metro-cars. And sometimes it breaks into the sunlight, the tiled rooftops and their squat brick chimneys slipping by in arrhythmia to the steady, deep clicks of the wheels trundling on the tracks. Noatak sits, taking up space with wide legs and one arm across the back of the seat bench. Korra stands, both hands on one dangling hold, cheek pressed into her upraised arm. The metal hold is chafing on her fingers but she can look at the city better this way, gleaming windows and colorful clotheslines and winding streets, pretty things strewn across the landscape. And - when the wall of skyscrapers breaks - in the distance, the statue of the Avatar.

The Avatar's city. Hers, apparently; but bending is impurity, bending is suffering… Bending, the cause of every war and every conflict in history. She steals a look at her father. He notices and smiles, but her resentment is not yet beginning to stale. Bending is evil and you are the Avatar. The way he talked about the Avatar hypnotized her with images of terrifying, seductive destruction. Her trepidation collects, like beads of rain, running down a leaf.

The metro passes through and stops in Central City Station and as it pulls away, gathering speed, Korra sees a figure in bronze over the rooftops. Her heart skips - it's the scarred man from her dream, lifting a flame in an open hand, cast in sunlit bronze and morning shadows. She looks over her shoulder as it begins to shrink, smaller between each gap in the rooftops, and Noatak turns his head too.

"Fire Lord Zuko," he drawls, turning back to her, thumbing his nose in an offhand gesture; "useless old fool."

Korra purses her lips and stares at his feet, the dulled black engineer boots. He should've told her sooner. Where are Mako and Bolin? This is all their fault. She wants it to be their fault. There was blood on that knife and it was all because of her.

The zoo is a block away from the metro station and they stand under the gateway, tickets in hand, shoulder to shoulder. Korra scowls, sticking out her bottom lip. He still hasn't explained what they're doing at the damn zoo. It's almost as empty as the metro, with scattered clumps of rowdy primary students and the hassled teachers trying to shush them; and tourists from out-of-city, conspicuously foreign by their traditional clothing and the occasional slip from relaxed attitudes into wariness: don't you know there are terrorists in Republic City?

"Are you gonna tell me what we're doing here? Is this a new training exercise or something?" Korra asks, shoving her hands into her pockets and slouching; whatever it is, she refuses to enjoy it.

"No. Every Avatar has a spirit animal, and I'd like you to find yours," he says.

She starts and glowers at him, her surprise narrowing into suspicion.

"I don't want to," Korra says. She doesn't want to be more Avatar than she already is. It feels bad already.

Noatak laughs under his breath and pushes her, one hand on the small of her back; and when she stumbles two steps forward and just stands there he plucks a zoo map from a nearby box and holds it out.

"Just do it," he says, and she sighs, taking the map.

"So do I have some kind of special Avatar spirit-animal sensing power? How will I know?" Korra asks, unfolding it; the zoo is an oval divided into four regions, one for each nation. He shrugs and tosses a nonchalant hand.

So her Equalist anti-bending revolutionary of a father wants her to find the special magical Avatar spirit animal. That makes tons of sense. Korra scans the map and studies the list of animals in each region… the Air Nomad animals are out of the question because she's never been able to airbend, she has no idea why… she casts a skeptical eye over the Earth Kingdom region. Things that like dirt. Nothing looks particularly inspiring. And then there's the Fire Nation, everything there is fangy and rabid or it's the turtle-duck petting zoo; and last the Water Tribe animals but she can't imagine any of them happy, trapped here in the city, with its sweaty muggy summers and ashy winter snowfalls.

"Okay, I choose the saber-tooth moose lion," she says, re-folding the map and slapping it onto Noatak's chest.

"Korra - " Noatak says, his voice dropping into warning tones, and he cuts himself off with a huff.

"Korra, it would make me very happy if you would do this. Please."

And now he's earnest and warm and Korra feels her soul sigh with deep weariness. But she relents.

"Fine," she says, "but I don't think… I don't need the map."

And he tilts his head back curiously, taking a small step away. She closes her eyes and stands stock-still, letting the noise of the zoo overwhelm the rest of her senses; the squawks, the belligerent yelps, the low mournful keening. There is a dry shriek from close by and she winces away from it and thinks - spirit animal. Find the Avatar's spirit animal. She can sense him, waiting next to her, the tenseness of his patience.

… and Korra sinks beneath the sound; it closes over her completely, like… water. She has water in her blood, in her eyes. She can feel the call of water, more than any other element, in her bones - even now, as greasy streams in the gutters, sweat on a stranger's brow, the sweet juices of a ripened fruit. She can read her name written in the currents of rivers and in the curve of waves rolling across the open sea, like water calls to her, reaches for her, shimmers with the cool, flowing desire to - to embraceher. And now she knows why it calls to her …

It could only be a Water Tribe animal.

"Water Tribe," Korra says confidently, and he hums in approval.

They meander idly through the Water Tribe region, drifting from exhibit to enclosure, reading the plaques, and she almost forgets herself, wandering around the zoo with her father. It's too normal for them, too mundane; they haven't done anything like this since he tied the mask to her for the first time, when she was twelve. It eclipsed her. He knotted the ribbon ties behind her head and the mask set like the sun on her face, on her childhood, on Korra. The eve of Tenchu.

Noatak buys dango rolled in sesame seeds from a dilapidated cart tended by a stringy old vendor and they eat them slowly, savoring the sweet crunch. Korra spears the last one with her toothpick and pops it into her mouth as he stays a few moments by the wolves, watching them sleep, draped over each other with half-open jaws and lolling tongues. She can feel that it's not the wolf, but she waits because something shifts as he stands there; like his shadow changes somehow. His tight lines are suddenly slack and his grey eyes soften into beach glass.

"Not the wolf?" Noatak asks hopefully, turning to her, one hand on a bar of the enclosure, and she shakes her head.

"I was more inspired by the penguin seals," Korra says, and he laughs, eyes sharpening again, and they wander off.

Just past the wolves there is a large enclosure with a moat curled around it, and a tall cast-iron fence casting weak striped shadows across the pavement. Korra walks up to it, wrapping her hands around the bars, watching a leaf stuck to the surface of the stagnant brown water; whatever animal is in there is hidden in the concrete hut, away from the sun. Noatak stands next to her and puts his hand through the bars, waving it slightly. The leaf twitches and begins to drift, the scummy stains on the water breaking apart.

"Did you just - ?"

"Yes," he says, as though it doesn't mean anything, but she never sees him bend for pleasure. He tucks his hands behind his back and reads the plaque soldered to the bars, framed in a dull bronze.

"Southern Polar Bear Dog - oh, like your stuffed dog... This large and intimidating predator is rarely seen but lives in Water Tribe tales as Ikkumaaluk Nanuk, the Great Bear, and its legendary reputation for fierceness is well-deserved… it's a female, named Naga. You can barely see her, there."

He peers through the bars. Korra stands on tip-toe and cranes her neck, trying to see inside the hut, where there is a vague, still white mass curled up against the wall.

"Hey, polar bear dog, you wanna come out?" she calls, and the white mass doesn't move. She feels kind of ridiculous. At least the buffalo yak took grass when she offered it.

Her feet go flat again and she rests her forehead on the bars. Dumb polar bear dog.

"You know, polar bear dog, it would really help if you could just come out for a few seconds so I could see you," she mutters under her breath, "I already don't know what I'm doing. Like, at all."

The white mass rolls over apathetically and she sees the gleam of a shiny black eye, a flicker of a star in the dull dusty shadows of the hut. Naga rises to her massive, shaggy feet and stretches, leaning back on her haunches; making a long keening whine that wavers between high and low. And then she pads out of the hut to the edge of the enclosure and smacks her jaws at Korra, sleepily, from across the moat, as though to say, what do you want?

"I wanna talk to you," Korra breathes, and she lets go of the bars.

"Dad? Help me out?" she says, taking a several wide steps back, and then a few more, until there is a long, empty stretch of pavement between her and the enclosure. Noatak looks at her questioningly and then he swings his head around and drops to one knee, holding out his locked-together hands.

Korra sprints towards him. He lifts as she leaps forward, vaulting her over the enclosure gate. She somersaults into the moat, landing with a heavy splash, and her ribs twinge sharply on the impact. She treads through the water to the steep enclosure slope, scrabbling up, dripping wet. Noatak rises quickly and posts himself, casually; watching for zookeepers or the overly curious. He takes a slim silver tobacco case out of his pocket, embossed with red, and deftly rolls a cigarette. She recognizes it as a gift from the Lieutenant and the wolves draw Noatak's gaze again, a thin thread of smoke uncurling lazily from the tip of the cigarette as it ashes.

Naga the polar bear dog is regarding her with immense suspicion, and Korra holds out her open hands, palms up, inching a few careful steps closer.

"Hey, I just want to know if you're… the Avatar's spirit animal," Korra says, hesitantly; Naga is big and towering and her creamy fur can't hide the slabs of muscle on her shoulders, her back, her flanks. A legendary reputation for fierceness. She snorts wet air through her furry lips and sniffs Korra's outstretched hand, her damp nose twitching; and then Korra's breath hitches as Naga goes tchap tchap with her jaws, revealing sleek, yellow fangs and a gaping pink mouth, mottled with black.

Korra freezes as Naga sniffs Korra's head, her nose snuffling into her hair, her ear; and it's kind of ticklish and Korra tries not to giggle, afraid that Naga will startle and bite or chomp or worse. And then Naga licks the side of her face with a rough, moist tongue the size of a dictionary and Korra laughs because she's covered with polar bear dog spit and the white tail is whuffing back and forth with a simple happiness. And the legendary fierce predator settles to her haunches, looking at Korra with big, dark eyes like she is a bridge across the moat over the fence and out of this tedious enclosure and all the way back to the South Pole where there is space and snow and freedom. And Korra knows, like she knows her own name - Naga is her spirit animal.

Korra reaches out, tentatively, and rubs Naga's snout, the soft downy fur; the polar bear dog tilts her head into Korra's touch with a happy whine. Korra wonders if Naga is lonely in the zoo, or if she misses the poles; if the seal penguin dropped into the enclosure every day tastes different from the seal penguin in the wild, if Korra is the first human being to rub her nose or scratch behind her ears or give it all up and bury their head in Naga's fur, hugging her, inhaling the musty, musky smell.

"I wish I could get you out of here," Korra says, the fur riffling under her breath, and Naga whines again, a mournful rumble deep in her throat. Me too. And it fills Korra with a cold sadness. She is afraid.

They get kicked out of the zoo and so they stand in the empty metro station platform, waiting. Noatak's cigarette long smoked off, her wet clothes still sucked to her body. And he takes the moment to teach her - how to sling the water away, how to feel for it and fan her fingers across her body and then twist, gently but firmly.

Korra bends the water away, a glassy clear ribbon unfurling from the fabric and dropping to the ground. She crosses her arms. And then she hides her face in his chest.

"Dad," she mumbles, "I wanted them to teach me bending. The benders, I mean. Mako and Bolin. That's why I didn't take their bending."

"I know," he says, hands resting lightly on her arms, just under her shoulders.

"And I really wanted to learn bending. I really, really did."

"I know that, too."

Her confusion is welling up hot and fast in her throat and she feels tight around the eyes.

"But then you told me about Mom and I'm sorry and now I don't really want to bend anymore, like at all - "

Noatak pushes her away, gripping her tightly, and he is a thunderhead, the way he swells and fills the slowly wintering air. She sniffs and there are warm, wet blots in her vision; she blinks and they cling to her eyelashes.

"You must," he says, "or you will never master your powers. I see the necessity of that now."

"But - "

"But nothing," he says, cupping her face in both hands; "you are the Avatar. People of our kind - benders - we have misused our powers. We have lost touch with what we were given and so disturbed the balance of the world; tilted it in favor of cruelty and oppression. We are instruments of petty violence, nothing more. Benders have escaped justice for far too long… but you - you, Korra; you can bring it to this city, with your powers. This is my hope for you. And, Avatar…"

Noatak locks with her, holding her gaze with an iron will, and there on the metro station platform, surrounded by a city brimming with life and color, she knows nothing but his voice. This is what they must feel like, the people, the crowds, when the storm breaks on stage -

"…you can redeem yourself."

II. DECISIONS/muladhara

There are very few times when Korra likes being Tenchu; almost all of them are chi-blocking class. Teaching quells her, settles the ground under her feet - showing someone how to block a firebender using nothing but the strength of their own fist and the willpower to stand up for themselves, showing them how to take their safety, their dignity, their self-determination back - she likes teaching class. She could've left it a while ago, left it to a lower rank, but it was way better than sitting in a dim room with blueprints and specs while her father drafted strategy and the Lieutenant rolled his eyes at all her comments. And Korra loved the looks on her students' faces, especially the first-timers, when she walked in, hands on her hips, in a black shirt and Equalist pants and her mask: I'm Tenchu, and I'm gonna teach you how to chi-block. She always made a point of literally flooring the skeptical ones, just a 'demonstration…'

And, in the week since the zoo, she had been pronounced Public Enemy Number Two, which her class thought hilarious. Korra wasn't so sure. Now she was Avatar Korra, First-Rank Equalist Tenchu Public Enemy Number Two. Too many names.

The bookstore cellar is spacious and brightly-lit and a bit drafty; with a hole high up on the wall letting winter come in from the street. Her students, paired off and sparring, all look as tired as she feels, but at least they're lively and excited over the thrill of late-night chi-blocking classes. Most likely, none of them had been woken up every night for the past week at some random midnight hour, pulled out of bed and forced to do pushups until Noatak said 'stop.' Twice on Tuesday and three times on Thursday and on Friday night he woke her up so many times that she just slept on the floor in between sets, fuck it. Do not lie to me ever again. Yes, Dad.

She strolls around the room, fixing stances, demonstrating punches, and stops to correct Daoming, a petite, shrewd university student; what she lacked in size she made up in sheer eagerness.

"Okay, watch me, and watch how I follow through with my heel. You can't hesitate, you have to just take it all the way - " she nods at Kinalik, a muscled leathery dockworker, and he mimics a bending form - she taps him lightly on a block point right under the ribs and looks at Daoming.

"I think I got it, Tenchu, let me try…"

Daoming takes up her stance and lances out enthusiastically with her fist, hitting the same block point with a loud slap. Kinalik staggers backwards and laughs, clutching his side.

"Spirits, woman," he gasps, "I'm not a bender, you don't have to beat me up."

Daoming grins and sticks her tongue out. She was the best of this particular class, and Korra had seen a bright spark of zeal behind her confident, dimpled smile. It would be sad when she had to graduate her to a higher rank, hide it all under an ugly brown cowl.

"Save it for some bender jerk," Korra says, and leaves Daoming making a smug non-apology to Kinalik. She moves to Shien, makes him trace chi meridians down his partner's front; he's the oldest one in the class and had quietly and shyly shown up only two weeks before, clutching an Equalist pamphlet.

"No, no, this is the fire meridian, and that's the water meridian," she says, drawing the lines in the air, and Shien fixes his glasses thoughtfully.

"And the earth meridian is here, right?" he asks softly, using two fingers to bolden the meridian. He was having trouble with an earthbender, she knew that much….

"Yeah, so if you target block points on the earth meridian, you can block earthbending much better…"

She trails off as the door to the cellar opens and a masked Equalist comes running towards her, a letter in hand.

"Tenchu!" she shouts, giving her a curt salute; "urgent telegrams from Amon!"

Korra rips it out of her grip before she finishes her sentence and unfolds it -

TARRLOK TASK FORCE RAID ON UNDISCLOSED CAMP IMMINENT STOP IF ATTACKED DO NOT ENGAGE TARRLOK STOP DARK MOON STOP DO NOT DO ANYTHING STUPID STOP

And she opens the other one: IF ARRESTED I WILL COME FOR YOU STOP

Of all the condescending things to say - !

The telegrams crumple together in her fist and her heartbeat doubles and crescendos in her breast. She can't panic in front of the class. Tenchu never panics. Does the Avatar panic? She puts her fingers into her mouth and whistles; everyone freezes, limbs askew in unfinished motion.

"Everyone, listen up. We might get raided by Councilman Tarrlok's task force sometime soon," Korra announces, "this isn't a drill. I want everyone to have a pair of gas canisters, you all know how to throw 'em; and to wear your handkerchiefs. The people in the hallway should be enough to hold them off, if they come, but if you don't want to risk getting arrested, this is your cue to leave."

She looks around at all of them, her voice ringing loudly in the silent cellar, the door swinging shut with a squeak as the masked Equalist runs off to resume her post. Daoming yanks her black and red Equalist handkerchief out of a back pocket and ties it around her face, covering her mouth and nose.

"I knew what I was getting into when I showed up," she says calmly, "I'm staying. Bring it on, Tarrlok. I didn't vote for that loser anyway."

Kinalik nods to himself and takes out his handkerchief too, and they resume their sparring with gritted teeth and animated grunts of exertion. The rest of the class follows suit and Korra exhales a long breath, feeling slightly proud underneath the squirming, bubbling sense of panic. They all had their reasons to be here…

She un-crumples the telegrams and reads them again, twice. So Tarrlok's a 'dark moon' - code for bloodbender, and he didn't need the full moon, at that… How did her father know that? Shit. And she wasn't to do anything stupid.

She wasn't going to get arrested. She was still pressed, still sore about the rally and everything after it. Korra's not going to give her father the satisfaction of having his expectations of failure met. Ugh.

Korra makes a face, chewing on her tongue, and she goes to her satchel, finds her knife, straps the sheath to her thigh. Just in case… and she starts walking a loop around the students again - if they got lucky, one of the other training camps would get raided, and she wouldn't have to make any difficult decisions -

A massive wave of water bursts from the hole in the wall, roaring with energy. It freezes with a splintery crack and before she knows it, three of her students are trapped in ice. Three armored officers follow it down, leaping forward and slamming students into the walls with dense bricks of earth - Kinalik manages to toss his gas canisters but a fourth armored officer stops their release with a clump of ice, and takes him down with a blunt punch of water to the face.

Korra leaps forward and punches the officer in the nose, following with a kick straight into the water chakra, the fleshy plane of muscle right under the navel - the officer flies backwards, doubled over, and sprawls out cold on the floor. Korra leaves him and as a metal cord whips around her wrist she grabs it and yanks and the metalbender at the other end stumbles into her reach - she slams her elbow into the soft spot between neck and shoulder and he drops like a rock, ha - Korra feels her anger sparking, catching, rising - an officer freezes Shien in ice and there is more than enough fuel to burn her rage and she launches herself, sinking both fists into his gut, not even bothering to block, and she kicks his legs out from under him - her remaining students are rallying, Daoming aiming a flawless hit to an officer's neck and shaking her hand as he slumps -

"Out the door! Go!" she yells, and Daoming and the other students sprint for the door - she's the only one left standing in the cellar, surrounded by benders, she counts five incapacitated students - and there's a firm, hard tug around her ankles and she slaps into the tiled floor, soaking wet.

"I'll take care of her, you go after the rest," says an oiled voice, and the officers take off. Korra rolls onto her back, looking for the waterbender, and it's Tarrlok.

Fuck.

Korra scrabbles to her feet, bracing herself, breathing hard through her nose. He's smiling eagerly… If his bloodbending's what she thinks it is, the only strategy is to take him by surprise… She could maybe - no. She couldn't risk it, she isn't ready…

"Looks like I got my front-page headline," Tarrlok smirks, and Korra barely dodges his lance of ice and ducks forward under a second stab. One of her students stirs in the massive wall of ice and there are shouts from the tunnel, the sound of earthen thuds, spurts of fire, the twangy hiss of metal. She has to protect her students. They have to get out - this is unjust and unfair and they just wanted a fighting chance, to defend themselves -

She leaps and somersaults over a waterwhip, almost there - she darts under his outstretched arm and punches him in the side, landing three solid hits before he pivots and smacks her down with his arm - this isn't going well - She tumbles to the floor and stands up again, panting; Tarrlok pulls through the air with his unblocked arm and a slab of ice slams into her back and she stumbles forward, winded - out of the corner of her eye she sees Kinalik move and Tarrlok whips around and kicks water into his face, freezing around it -

No. Not her students.

Korra charges and jumps, rolls off her heel, bent knee out - it's clumsy but the hard part of the bone sinks straight into Tarrlok, right over his water chakra, and the water on Kinalik unfreezes as Tarrlok grunts and doubles over in pain. He drops to his knees and she backhands him across the face with her fist.

"Don't touch my students!" she yells, and his mouth is bleeding but he laughs, he laughs at her -

"You missed," he snarls, and uppercuts her in the jaw with a fist of water, brutal and efficient; she staggers and reels, lights popping in front of her eyes - this isn't going well at all - and then he is on her, fisting her shirt collar in both hands, lifting her like a doll, her toes barely scuffing the floor. And his face is so familiar, the way his expression twists with sleek, controlled rage, the ice and steel in his irises, the angry hiss of breath from between his clenched teeth…

"You're just a girl," Tarrlok says, almost mystified; "a child!"

He drops her and she lands and falls backwards, her elbow cracking loudly into the tiles, pain needling up her arm.

"I suggest you surrender," he says, waving his hands, and a huge column of water shrinks with an icy crackle into a spear of ice, hovering and angled into her chest. Korra crosses her eyes at the point, its edges catching light as it turns, barely a foot away. A film of sweat creeps between her mask and her skin, hot and clammy. Shit. Shit. Catch him by surprise. She was going to get arrested if she didn't do anything and her resentment would not stand for that - She needs to buy time, to think.

"You surrender," she spits; she can feel the presence of the water, hardened and crystalline, water changes so quickly…

"Surrender or I will use this," Tarrlok says, viciously, but he's faltering. She's just a child, right?

"You don't have the nerve, you coward," she says, as her options crumble away in her mind like dry sand - catch him by surprise, catch him by surprise, don't do anything stupid she knows what she has to do but she doesn't want to, she's afraid, what if she hurts another innocent person - why didn't he tell her earlier, she's untrained and unskilled and about to be skewered -

Tarrlok's eyes widen with rage and the spear of ice collapses with a splash all over her.

"What do you know about cowardice!" he snarls, and his hands twist and she seizes as her veins flood with a sharp, piercing iciness that writhes into her muscles and she cries out as he wrenches her into a kneeling position and there is a moist cracking squelch shit shit shit her heart beats an unnatural beat as her blood flows against her and her insides are crumpling, breaking with blistering cold pain.

He lets her go and she falls onto all fours, gasping for breath, her vision swimming. A strong heat clears away the bloodbending in her limbs. What did she know about cowardice? She almost laughs. She's too scared of herself to be scared of him, she can catch him by surprise, she's strong enough to do this on her own, if only she can prove it -

"You're under arrest," he says, from high above her, and she hears the click of handcuffs and he thinks he's won but she's had enough of this -

And something unknots deep in her spine and suddenly she can feel the vibrations of chi under her palms, the relentless hum of old, unbreakable threads, the earth will bend to her will if she is unafraid and so her mind clears of fear - this is the beginning of justice and she can redeem herself -

The floor buckles like cloth under her hands as she digs in and pulls. A sheet of earth tears out from under Tarrlok's feet and there is a massive shrill crunch as the tiles shatter, breaking wide and far across the floor. He stumbles backwards, nothing but shock in his expression, and Korra rises. She stomps her foot, firmly, immovably; the ground ripples forth, a rolling wave of chi and rock, and it bursts up under Tarrlok. He slams into the wall with a heavy metallic thud and slides in a feeble sprawl to the torn floor.

Korra is there before he can move and this time she doesn't miss - she sinks her foot into his sacrum, forcing a unrestrained yelp of pain from him, and his hands clench but he's blocked, well and truly blocked. No more bloodbending.

"How did you - "

"Shut up," she says, unsheathing her knife, pressing it to his neck; "hands on your head."

He does it, glaring at her; she doesn't care. She reaches out and fumbles for the handcuffs on his belt, cuffs him; it's a little awkward to do it with one hand, holding the knife in the other.

"What's under that mask?" Tarrlok says, "what kind of face are you hiding?"

He's trying to bait her and she snorts.

"That's my secret. Just like your little talent," she says scathingly, and as she locks the cuffs with a click, the officers walk in, hauling several of her students and a few masked Equalists before them in handcuffs and metal cords. In a flash Korra pulls Tarrlok away from the wall and stands behind him, keeping the knife keenly against his neck, pulling his head back with a fist bunched around his ponytails.

"Officers, melt that ice," she orders, as the officers stop dead, casting awed looks at Korra, at Tarrlok handcuffed in front of her.

"Don't do it - do as she says," Tarrlok chokes, as she presses harder; and the wall of ice melts away, her students washing loose in the flood of water and coughing as they gasp and clutch at the air.

"Uncuff everyone and cuff yourselves. Now," Korra says, and when they don't she twitches the knife and throws a flash of light across the room, so they can see it clearly.

The officers take the cuffs off all her students and Equalists and wordlessly cuff themselves, their faces hard and angry. Korra sees Daoming rub her wrists, her dark hair in disarray, a purple bruise blooming over her eye; and she grins.

"Class, why don't you demonstrate what you've learned today?"

"With pleasure," Daoming says, and she hits the nearest officer in the ribs, following through on her foot, a perfect block.

Korra keeps the knife on Tarrlok until all the officers are knocked cold and securely bound. All her students are long gone, Shien and Kinalik and the others who'd been trapped in the ice fully revived and helped out. The masked Equalist who brought her the telegram stays, waiting for orders; Korra sheathes her knife with satisfaction and Tarrlok rubs his neck, the cuffs clinking. His glare fits her like old clothing, familiar and worn, and all the threads are knitting together in her mind… The unknown uncle, dark moon bloodbending. No wonder Dad never talks about his brother. She chuckles under her breath.

"Telegraph my father. Tell him we were raided unsuccessfully, no casualties, no arrests. I have Councilman Tarrlok and his officers subdued and await orders," Korra says to the Equalist, and she nods.

"Also, tell him I picked flowers for Tarrlok, please? Thanks."

The newest code between them: she used bending. The Equalist runs off and she's alone with Tarrlok again. Her kick to the water chakra is still sticking. She must've hit him pretty hard.

"So it's true, then? Amon is your father?" Tarrlok asks, after several minutes of silence; he doesn't seem to know what to do with himself.

"Uh-huh," Korra says. His chit-chat doesn't interest her.

Tarrlok sits back on his heels, his hands in his lap. There is a drying drip of blood from the cut on his mouth, dark red on his brown skin.

"What kind of man raises his earthbender child to be an anti-bending terrorist?" he muses, and she jerks her head towards him, feeling the bitter swell of offense.

"I'm not a terrorist," she snaps, "And what does it matter that I'm young? The last Avatar was only twelve when he defeated the Fire Lord."

Tarrlok laughs humorlessly and she ignores it but she doesn't like it at all, she wants him to shut up; she hopes Amon's answer comes quickly and it says GAG HIM.

"But you're not the Avatar, now; are you?"

She purses her lips, her closed mouth flooding with words of denial, but the Equalist comes running back and hands Korra another telegram, her panting muffled through her cowl.

"It came almost immediately…"

EN ROUTE TO TAKE OFFICERS AND TARRLOK STOP SEND FLOWERS TO COUNCIL STOP

She nods to the Equalist, dismissing her. And then Korra laughs out loud and Tarrlok narrows his eyes, suspicious and curious.

"He doesn't say whether he wants you dead or not. Anyway, here's your front-page headline…"

She holds the telegram out so he can see it and then sets it on fire, feeling a glorious rush of warmth in her fingertips, it feels so good to be unafraid, to feel her heart beat in tandem with the fire. It flutters to the floor between them, shedding black flakes of paper, the edges glowing red. Equalist colors. It curls up on itself with a gasp of fire and ashes, leaving only a dusty scorch mark, and she fans her fingers: the water responds like an old friend, coiling silvery clear around the charred black ashes and washing them away.

"But you're an Equalist! You're Tenchu!" he shouts, horrified.

"Deal with it," she says, and whips into his neck with the hard side of her palm. He slumps forward, unconscious, and she smirks.

"Nice to meet you, Uncle Tarrlok," she mutters, and stretches her shoulders, rolls her sore muscles. The days ahead sprawl before her, bright and clear like drops of morning dew full of sun… And in each one, she is the Avatar. The word shines brilliant and hot and righteous in her mind, a burning star on her tongue. She would set them on fire with it.

A/N: wow tarrlok good job man shiny gold star for you for trying to arrest an angry, resentful avatar with daddy issues yeah NOPE

alright, next chapter brings back Mako and Bolin, and Asami. as usual, check my tumblr pulpofiction for story updates and other LoK tomfoolery, and leave me a review to let me know what you think! thank you!

ETA: I posted this chapter in really late 2012, I think? This author's note comes from the future (2015) because I feel compelled to explain something that went unexplained – Noatak only meant to keep the Avatar a secret for as long as he could hide the truth from Korra herself; but now that she knows what she is, he figures he can start using that to his advantage by scaring the Council (and everyone else) with the idea that the Avatar is on the side of the Equalists. you know, when you write your first longfic ever, shit falls through the cracks. Thanks kids