HOLY FRICK ON A STICK I FINISHED THE CHAPTER ok here it is, in all its unedited, hastily finished glory
sorry i had to graduate college first but here it is, thanks for your patience! this chapter is... a mess, the pacing is a lot quicker than the other chapters and the style is all over the place; but i'm proud of this mess. it's a pretty good mess and a lot of important things happened. enjoy
I. ESCALATION
What are you smiling about?
Nothing, Dad.
She relives it in the morning, and the morning after, and the morning after that, too - Korra sits next to Amon, smiling to herself, relaxed like a blow to the head as the Lieutenant drones on and on about recruits and the mecha tanks are almost complete and the preparations for the arena require fine-tuning if you'd like to look at the plans, sir. Amon nods and Korra doesn't listen, she doesn't care… she can barely keep from easy and carefree laughter during bending practice, has to stay cold even though Mako's every sideways glance and small, relaxed smile burns across her as fireworks, bursts of color and sound and heat that fizzle out, leaving only darkness until the next one.
He likes her.
Mako likes her enough to smile at her when Noatak is there, and to kiss her once when he isn't, and Korra can't do anything except take each thing and hide them until late at night when she lies awake, using her fingers to unravel the sore knot of heat between her hips, wondering, wondering, wondering - ?
And he likes her, Mako likes her; she can believe this, she can try…
Lunch in their cell: after bending practice, with food stolen from the Sato kitchen and Asami there too, holding out bowls to Mako and Bolin piled full of garlic beef and soft white rice, streaked with dark green basil leaves and shiny red bell peppers. Bolin picks out the chilies gleaming with oil, long orange-black teeth, and feeds them to Pabu as Mako, with his mouth full, tells Korra about a street stall by the probending arena, with amazing pentapod dumplings with green onions and pickled ginger, she should try them some time…
"Yeah, and then we can go to a probending match!" Korra says, plucking a slice of bell pepper from his empty bowl with two deft fingers, and he stares at her with a blank expression. It lasts half a second.
"Sure," Mako says, rising from his seat on the edge of the bed to wash his bowl in the cell's sink, and it's not until much, much later that Korra realizes it was the last thing he said.
That night, Asami corners her as she takes a drink from her canteen after chi-blocking practice, both of them aching and tired from a class that went more wrong than it did right: everyone fumbling the forms, everyone missing their marks, and Korra yelling herself hoarse for them to do it again, they're all useless!
"Korra, are you alright? Is there something you want to talk about?" Asami says, wiping her face with a hand towel. Korra leans against the yellowed basement wall and slides to the floor, heels kicked out, as the rest of her students slip out through the door into the underground with deferential nods of their heads.
"No," Korra mutters, slapping her own towel over her shoulder and folding her arms over her knees, tracing the lines of the tatami mats across the room and back. Her lungs feel hollow.
"You're not alright, or you don't want to talk?"
Korra rolls her eyes sideways. Both. Neither. Whatever. She glances up at Asami, standing over her with a hand on her hip, looking taller than usual under the basement's low spackled ceiling. Asami, who is not an Equalist, and who goes to probending matches and probably doesn't have a closet full of armor she's outgrown.
"Tell me about your first kiss," Korra says, lifting her head, and Asami's eyebrows go up in curious surprise.
"Alright," she says slowly, sitting on the floor in front of Korra and crossing her legs, "I was fifteen. He was a guy from the Academy named Tomou. We liked the same books and he took swordsmanship lessons from the Piandao School and on our third date we went to the promenade and rode the Ferris wheel… it was really cold at the top, so he put his arm around my shoulders and then we kissed and that was… well, that was it."
"That's nice," Korra says, because it is. She can't think of anything else to say.
Asami sighs, her hands clasped in her lap.
"Is this about Mako - "
"I don't want to talk about it," Korra says, jumping to her feet, and in her haste she knocks over the open canteen and spills water across the floor. It pools over the tatami mat, darkening the rice straw, seeping between the ridges. She lifts her hand to bend the water back but it doesn't matter, the mat is ruined; and Korra drops her forehead into her palm as Asami studies her with tight eyes. Her first kiss was with a boy her father tried to murder, a boy she's not allowed to have, a boy only alive because he's useful. And when he isn't?
Korra goes home and lies awake all night long: and when he isn't? Then what?
"The benders asked us a question, a question written in the way this city is built, the way this city lives: how much are we willing to endure suffering? How much are we willing to endure fear?"
Amon takes the crowbar in both hands, jams it into the crate, and - CRACK - splinters it open with a forceful shove, tossing the crowbar aside with a triumphant gesture. The metallic clang of the crowbar hitting the floor echoes throughout the factory, ringing against the vaulted walls, and the Equalists, gathered around him in a wide circle, all lean forward a fraction in silent expectation.
"This, brothers and sisters, is our answer."
He picks up a glove from the nest of straw, shining and clinking, an insect of supple leather and brass parts, and pulls it over his hand, holding it up for the crowd to see. The glove's palm hisses and sizzles, spitting pale blue sparks into the air, and there is murmuring among the Equalists. Korra stands next to him, arms crossed, taking up room with a wide-legged stance. She doesn't have to do anything except look imposing.
"A small demonstration is in order," Amon says, in a voice tinged with casual malice, and the circle of Equalists parts as the Lieutenant breaks through the crowd, dragging a hooded man by the ropes around his wrists. The Lieutenant shoves him to his knees in front of Amon and Korra's gut twists, her breath falling out even as she makes her face stony; she's not supposed to care - the Lieutenant yanks the hood off the man's head, and in the quiet, his haggard, terrified panting through the gag is the loudest sound they hear. He's young, his eyes darting around the crowd of Equalists, hair falling damp across his face, and Amon looms over him, lifting his chin up with two gloved fingers. The man blinks and tries not to meet his gaze but Amon leans in, the glove spitting sparks.
"This young man," he announces, "this bender, fancied himself clever, and got caught attempting to steal blueprints in a pathetic attempt to play the saboteur - " Amon backhands him with his fist, eliciting a muffled cry of pain as the man's head jerks to the side and drops, hanging between his shoulders.
"And he got caught, as you… can see. He had a question of his own, you see; how could he undermine the revolution? What could he do to stop us, now, on the eve of our declaration? I have the answer to that, as well…"
Amon's voice lingers as he lets go of the young man, whose shoulders are trembling, face covered in a sheen of sweat; and Amon steps back and scans the crowd, the gloved hand relaxed at his side.
"Ah - yes, there you are. Hiroshi, this at the highest power, is it not?"
Several Equalists step aside to reveal Hiroshi in the crowd, one hand in his pocket, looking clean and combed as always. He nods to Amon.
"Yes it is, sir, at full power."
"Good," Amon says cheerfully. He turns back to the man and pauses, his frame suspended on the edge of motion, waiting, waiting, waiting -
Korra grits her teeth, dropping her gaze into the crate, focusing on the way the light spills across the brass parts, gold-white, the soft bends in the leather and the green glass circles - don't look, don't listen, be here but not here -
Amon slams his hand into the young man's collarbone, drawing a muffled, high-pitched scream as the shock tears through him, splinters of bright blue-whiteness bursting from the spot where Amon holds the glove - a scream that lasts too long and then lasts even longer and finally Amon lets go and the man keels over, huddled onto the floor, twitching and shivering.
The Equalists roar and shout as Amon paces the line, holding out the glove so they can all see it, and Korra stares at the man on the floor. His jacket, filthy and blackened, has a scorch mark where the shock hit him, his hands tremble against the ground, and he's still conscious, whimpering into the gag - Korra steps forward, drops to one knee, and presses her hand to the side of his neck, because there's a chi point there and if you hit it just right - he looks at her in terror, flinching as she touches him, but she says nothing as his eyes roll back into his head and his body is, at last, still. For now. He'll have to wake up again soon.
"Tenchu," Amon says, breaking Korra out of her thoughts, and she looks up to see him offering her the crowbar. "Don't touch him. Open the next crate."
She does, with her booted foot on the edge of the crate, and she feels the twist deep in her shoulder as she heaves down on the crowbar with all her force, the wood cracking and snapping apart. More gloves. She and Amon start to hand them out, passing the gloves into the willing hands of the Equalists, who chatter excitedly and flex their fingers into the leather as the Lieutenant fits the hood over the man's head again and drags him away.
"Can I talk to you afterwards? Just come upstairs," someone says in a low tone, and Korra tears herself away from watching the Lieutenant and realizes that the next Equalist in line is Asami. She can tell by the eyes behind the green goggles and the unreadable posture, as undisturbed and smooth as a sheet of untouched paper.
"Yeah, of course," she says, pressing the glove into Asami's hands, and Asami steals away without a single word more.
Korra finds her later in the Sato mansion garage, sitting on the floor with her legs spread, a large square of pale blue linen before her. It's a childish pose, especially with the slouch in Asami's shoulders and the pout on her mouth as she frowns at the glove, using a pair of tweezers to unhook a wire from the wristband.
The rest of the glove is lined up in neat orderly rows on the cloth, wires and bolts and casings, and the body of it dangles from Asami's hand like the limp, stripped body of a small creature, skeletal and lifeless.
"Hey," Korra says, kneeling on the floor next to her, taking off the Tenchu mask, and Asami glances at her, carefully twisting her hand so that the wire slides out of the glove and curls around the tweezers. She could be de-veining a shrimp. Asami sets the coil of wire, a little copper bird's nest, onto the cloth next to its fellows and exhales in frustration.
"How come you don't have a glove?" she says, narrowing her eyes, and Korra splays her fingers, waggling them at Asami.
"My dad and I both don't have them," she says, "it makes us look more powerful. Makes an impression and stuff."
Asami takes this with a twitch of her eyebrows and casts her gaze over the glove parts, the thing in her hand, which has long since stopped sparking.
"I think I figured out how it works," she says, "there's a battery pack in the wrist guard that wires to the electrodes in the palm, but you only get a current when you apply pressure and connect the wires…"
She stops, absorbed in its form, and tosses the glove onto the cloth, scattering the parts with muffled clinks.
"Did you know Amon was going to electrocute him - the spy?"
Korra doesn't want to answer her. The long silence that follows is answer enough, and Asami looks as ill as she feels.
"Oh," she says, almost voiceless.
She's pale, her lips pressed together and without color, and each breath she takes seems exaggerated with the rise of her chest, deep and full and quick. Her foot swings back and forth, almost uncontrollably, and when Korra reaches out to steady her, the twitch shifts to her knee.
"Korra, you're protecting Mako and Bolin, right?" she says, in an oddly high voice, "you're keeping them safe?"
"As safe as I can," Korra says, "as much I can help it."
"Can you - can you keep me safe too?"
Korra starts as a feeling of apprehension, tight and uncomfortably hot, creeps into her.
"There's nothing to be afraid of," she says, and Asami shakes her head, as cagey and alert as a deer in a forest, listening for the snap of branches underfoot. Her face darkens with dread.
"Just - Korra, I need to - " her breathing turns shallow and the shaking in her leg skitters and jerks across her and Asami looks around the room, scattered, trying to focus on things that aren't there, drawing her legs in close to her body in an awkward, broken huddle. Origami, unfolded halfway and left to wilt.
She jumps when Korra rests her hand on her knee and stares right through Korra, tears glistening on her cheeks.
"I don't want the glove," she says, in a strangled voice, "I don't want the glove. Why did he make me do this? I don't want it."
He. Hiroshi. Korra's heart sinks, down, down, down, into some unnamed depths, dragging her down with it, and she bundles up the cloth with the glove and all its parts and pushes it away, sending it sliding under the wheel of the nearest Satomobile.
"I don't want the glove, Korra. I don't want it. I don't want the glove - "
"It's gone, Asami, I took it away - "
"I don't - "
It has nothing to do with the glove and so Korra scoots over and wraps her arms around Asami, who shudders into her, panting hoarsely, limp and tense all at once. Why? What is Asami afraid of? It's not the right time to ask so Korra just holds her - Asami flutters like a broken bird, knocked from the sky, but by what -
The door bursts open and Asami startles into Korra, her eyes draining like water. Korra grips her tightly and frowns, scrabbling for the Tenchu mask with her free hand.
"Asami, are you in he - oh," Hiroshi says, standing in the doorway, and Korra feels a surge of hatred for him, all too familiar, a disgust that rises through her in a nauseating swell. His fault. It's all his fault.
"Is she doing this again?" he says in a loud voice, and Asami's expression shifts into only sharp lines and stone-hard rage, a fury that could cut diamonds - Korra grabs her by the shoulders and makes her sit, doesn't let her get up from her spot on the floor.
"Hiroshi," Korra says casually, drawling over his first name as she re-affixes the mask to her face and stands up, "inform the Lieutenant that Asami Sato is being re-assigned from her current unit."
Hiroshi scowls at her, turning red under his finely-combed mustache and gold-rimmed glasses.
"Excuse me?" he blusters, but Korra clears her throat, one fist on her hip, drawing herself up to her full height and squaring her shoulders. He can't fight her. He's a fool, a soft, insolent fool, making fancy toys and watching as they cut people, beat them, burn them - like a child who plucks the wings from moths, squatting on his heels as the moth skitters in circles across the ground.
"You are not excused," Korra growls, "and she's not going to be an Equalist. Not if she doesn't want to, and not if I have anything to say about it."
Hiroshi opens his mouth and shuts it, speechless with anger, and Korra narrows her eyes.
"Leave. You have no right to do what you're doing. She's not a thing, she's your daughter. Leave before I make you leave!" she snarls, taking a step forward, clenching her fists, and Hiroshi huffs once. And with a lingering, furious glance at Asami, he turns on his heel and storms off.
The door slams shut behind him and echoes through the garage, empty and resounding.
Korra relaxes, the tension washing from her, and she turns around, one hand on her knee, the other on Asami's shoulder.
"Are you okay?" she says, and Asami nods.
"He's not what I'm wo - I'm fine now, thanks," Asami whispers, color rushing to her cheeks, and Korra pats her on the head. Her friend, her best friend. She needs to be safe.
"I want you to stay with Mako and Bolin tonight, can you do that?" Korra says, unhooking the keys from her belt. "I don't want you to be alone."
Asami nods again, her long, slender fingers closing around the keys, and Korra sighs in relief. There is light in Asami's eyes again, returning slowly but surely, and it warms her into her bones.
They go down to the cells almost immediately, Asami stopping to tie the glove parts up in the cloth and carry them with her; and Bolin is the first one to make her smile, lifting Pabu to her face for a lick and a nibble on the nose. Korra, leaning against the wall with Mako, nudges him in the side until he looks at her.
"Thanks," she murmurs, and he shrugs.
"She's your friend," he says, threading his fingers into hers. And he squeezes her hand, just once, and with a swift tuck of his head kisses her on the check. Just once.
It's too cold to go swimming, the sky is too empty, the sea hisses across the sand with a harsh insistence; only the horizon holds it back from overwhelming the shore and rising to drown the rest of the wind-swept dunes.
But they're going to go swimming anyway, Korra and Noatak, and she mutters under her breath. The motorbikes are parked on the cliff, thick black ink smears against the grey-white sky, and the wind tears through Korra with a howling whistle as she stands on the shore with Noatak, fingers stiff with cold as she undoes her jacket and drops it on the sand. The beach is an hour south of the city, hidden from the coastal road by the bluffs, pocked with tufts of sea grass and tumbleweeds. Even from the highest bluff, the landscape is deserted - only rough, pale grassland and the flat blue-grey sea, wrinkling on itself.
Waterbending. How long has she wanted this? How long has she wanted to grip the feeling of water in her hands, feel it pulse through her stronger and more familiar than the beat of her own blood, and use it? Toy with rivers like ribbons, slice the air with daggers of ice, answer the flow and current of her bending, her ancient, endless soul? Since before the rally, at least, all those months ago, and it seems… less childish, now; more like an obligation than a wish. She has to learn it.
And now what, Korra wonders, stepping out of her thick winter pants, her bare feet scoured by the cold, coarse sand. Next to her, Noatak tugs his shirt off, his hair blown forward by the wind, ignoring the chill on his broad back and dense muscles.
He looks at her, completely at ease in the crisp winter air, and tilts his head towards the waves.
"Get in," Noatak says, and Korra takes a deep breath, flexing her shoulders up and puffing her cheeks. It's too damn cold and too damn early for this.
"Okay, here I go," she mutters, and readies herself on the sand, bouncing her weight from one foot to the other. The ocean looks freezing. It's six in the morning. She could be on her way to bending practice, where fire is warm and Mako is warmer.
"Go," he says, giving her a firm push between the shoulder blades (his hand falls on her as a stone, hard and heavy). "Dive. It's easier that way."
She tsks at him and frowns at the sea, building up her nerve with each breath, and - sprints, pounds down the sand and splashes into the waves, breaking the dark blue-green water into sprays of white. It's colder than she thought it would be, burning through her, and her skin crawls with goose pimples as Korra trudges through the water at waist-height, arms out, teeth chattering. A wave rises a few yards in front of her and she waits for the swell to sharpen, tilt and curl forward, before tucking her head and diving in, her senses full with the dark roar of rushing seawater, salty and stinging.
Korra breaks the surface on the other side of the wave, treading easily, to see Noatak wading into the water, kicking up broad droplet wings with each step.
"Now get out," he shouts, and Korra groans in exasperation as she hauls herself out of the waves, shaking water from her hair to meet him in the shallows where he stands, swaying slightly in the push-and-pull of the tide.
"This water's almost as cold as you are," she snaps, and Noatak makes a face so Korra ducks, smirking as he throws a sheet of water at her.
"Don't sass me, girl," he says, and braces his hands on his hips, shoulders rolled back. "Show me your waterbending - I know you practice bending on the roof, don't give me that look."
"How did - never mind, " Korra sighs, with an odd relief that he only brought it up now, and without punishing her for it - she raises her hands, palms-down, over the water.
"Waterbending is about redirecting strength. Water breaks the things that resist it, and carries the things that do not… Don't fight or force it. Flow with it," Noatak says, and Korra knows that, she knows that much, or feels it at least… and she lets it come to her…
She turns her cupped hands in a circle and a sphere of water rolls out of the oncoming surf, wobbling slightly, clear and glassy; and Korra lifts it to eye-level, blurring Noatak from her view.
"How's this, Dad?" she says, and he waves it off. Passable. She lets it fall back into the sea and blows a drop of water from her lips, sharp with salt. The wave rolls in high, crashing into her hips, and she takes a few steps forward as her weight shifts.
"I said don't fight it!" Noatak barks, and Korra grits her teeth at him.
"Okay, I won't," she mutters, wondering if he wants her to just fall over and drown instead, and lifts another water sphere from the sea. She bites her lip and tries to think… a water whip. She's seen them before, and the form seems easy, arms bent like so and leaning back on one leg - the other one forward and then you just - shove it - Korra whips out with her arm and the sphere collapses in a shower of droplets. She looks at Noatak.
"The water whip is not a firebending form, you idiot," he says. "Do it again. Correctly."
Korra does it again, with a forceful jerk of her hand - she sends the sphere of water shooting through the air and it pops open as it hits the water in front of him.
"Incompetent," Noatak says, sloshing towards her, and Korra moves away, caught in a familiar, weary panic. Her skin feels hotter than it should; the water is so cold it burns her. Her teeth chatter with staccato clicks and she wants nothing more than to leave, fall into bed, and sleep for a week.
"I'm trying," she says, "it's not my fault if you never tea - "
She stops as Noatak towers over her, close enough for her to see the streaks of grey and white in his irises. She doesn't want to be here. The wind slices over the water, howling through her hair, and where her skin isn't wet it's tight with a freezing dryness. She wants to go home.
"You're not trying, you're failing. What did I say about waterbending?"
Korra stares at him, trying not to blink, and hugs her elbows.
"Are you dense? What did I say?"
She bites hard on her tongue. What did she do wrong? The form was right, it was perfectly fine, each motion was exactly as it should have been, but …
"'Don't fight it. Flow with it,'" Korra says in a dull tone, and Noatak beckons for her to try again.
She tries. She fails.
Noatak calls it off by mid-afternoon. They build a fire on the beach, out of driftwood and dried brush, and Korra sits with her arms wrapped around her knees, her legs drawn in, warm in a thick woolen blanket. The fire hisses and snaps, and a log breaks in two with an easy crunch, bright red with heat. She curls her fingers around the edge of the blanket and pulls it to her cheeks, keeping a steady gaze on the fire as Noatak returns from the top of the bluff with one of the motorcycle saddlebags, dropping it onto the sand next to her.
He kneels on the sand and opens the bag, casting glances at her as he pulls out balls of sticky rice wrapped in paper-thin slices of beef. He wants her to feel bad so she ignores him, doesn't let her face slacken from its stiff, stony composure.
This was an old game; how long could they make the silence last until one of them broke it, whoever was more desperate to hear the other's voice. Korra bites her tongue, hard. She has no intention of losing. The horizon is a knife-edge between the sky and the sea.
Noatak crosses his legs and starts eating without a single word, his hair windswept and coarse with dried sea salt. He scowls at Korra as she reaches out to take one of the rice balls, brushing a blade of grass from his thick sweater with a studiously dismissive gesture.
She's on her second rice ball when he loses, clapping his hands clean and setting them firmly on his knees.
"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" Noatak says, and Korra goes tch as the fire pops and spits a spark into the cold grey air.
"Not for me," she says with a snort, "but maybe for you - "
She stops as his face darkens. She knows better than that.
"I'll do better next time," Korra mumbles after a long pause, her tongue thick with words: this always happens what did we expect why do you have to push so hard I can't think with you around Dad why do you have to be like this why do we have to do this every time. Every time. A day full of water whips that twisted and fell, wild like kites on cut strings; water walls cracked with seaweed, waves she drew around her and threw off like robes of grey glass, Korra do it again yes Dad but I don't know what I'm doing wrong just do it again –
"Yes, you will," Noatak says, with a flat note of finality, and Korra grinds her teeth together as her throat fills with a dull hotness. She doesn't have the voice to tell him anything else he wants to hear.
Several minutes elapse, and a few more, and then Noatak gets up and walks off down the beach, each footstep kicking up a little burst of sand. Korra sighs as he leaves: finally, she can be angry alone.
She watches the flames shift from white to yellow to red, fluttering soundlessly, little petals of fire growing from the coals and logs. The fire is bright and lively, snapping with energy, and she blinks as the heat spreads over her face. Korra leans forward, steadying herself with a fist in the sand, and reaches out, fingers splayed, still staring into the fire. It's so warm and beautiful, like it fell from the sun and landed on the beach; and she can feel it pulsing, beating, a quiet thud-thud from somewhere outside her senses, she sinks her hand into the heart of the fire with a swift, graceful motion, her fingers unburned, a pleasant white warmth flowing through her -
"That's quite a skill. Who taught you that?" Noatak says quietly, and she jerks away from him as he crouches beside her on the sand. When did he come back? She feels her chest tighten.
"Mako told me - I didn't - sorry, I won't do it again," she breathes, withdrawing her hand; "bending's not a toy…"
Noatak doesn't react to this offering so Korra waits, unable to take her eyes off his, less than a foot away. There's an odd flash of color in them, moonlight on ice.
"You haven't smiled like that in a long time," Noatak says, and even with the waves crashing against the shore she can hear him, every word soft and calm. Noatak strokes her cheek once with the backs of his fingers, a quick, light gesture. She closes her eyes at his cool touch on her skin, finds herself unable to recoil or relax, suspended between relief and fear and confusion all at once.
She opens them again to see Noatak retrieving his cigarettes from the pocket of the saddlebags and leaving to resume his walk down the shore without a single word, leaving her by the fire.
Korra collapses onto the sand, drawing the blanket around her again, pulling it up and tucking her nose under the fabric. Even with the fire she feels cold.
II. ESCAPE/Anahata
Korra wakes up in the middle of the night with a start and a short gasp of breath. She rubs her hand across her face and stares at the ceiling, a stone of worry still heavy in her chest, deep-set and hard. She'd had a weird dream, flying on an sky bison across a huge empty continent, the wind talking to her as the rivers and hills rolled away under her, soundless, and someone's hand on her shoulder, someone she'd known forever but never met. They were calm and swift and weightless, part of the sky, freer and looser than the movement of sunlight on water, and then falling, her body falling faster than her soul.
"Hey, Aang," she murmurs, "someday we're gonna have to talk for real."
She sits up, blankets falling, shuddering at the sudden breach of cold into the soft shell of warmth she'd slept in. There are shallow grey shadows on the walls from the night outside and Korra can see snow falling at odd angles, needle-streaks of white. She finds her stuffed polar-bear in the pile of blankets and hugs it to herself, fiddling with its ears, tapping its glassy eyes and nose, its felt pink tongue, wondering about Naga. What was the point of a spirit animal if it lived alone in a cage? Avatar Aang rode on his sky bison, she knew that much, and Korra smiles at the thought of riding Naga, a huge furry mount, she'd smell like dog afterwards… could people even ride polar bear dogs? Was that a thing people did? She'd never heard of it. She'd never heard of a lot of things.
Korra sets the polar-bear dog back onto the bed and pats it on the head. It doesn't react, as expected, and she tweaks her mouth and frowns in resigned disappointment.
"Grr, bark, woof," Korra says, and leaves the polar-bear dog to slip into the hallway towards her father's room. She just has to check - she has the strange, tense feeling she is alone in the apartment; there had been footsteps and creaking floorboards somewhere outside her dream, and her heart is still loud and startled from the sudden jolt of waking.
She slides her hand along Noatak's bedroom door as it opens, fingertips hissing on the pale wood, and peers inside. The bed is empty.
Korra stands there a full minute, thinking. He should have been angry with her on the beach when he caught her firebending. He should have been very angry with her -
It's normal for him to keep odd hours, totally normal, Korra repeats it to herself as she yanks her armor and uniform from its hook and dumps it on the living room floor. She starts pulling it on and strapping herself in, clumsy and one-handed, as she dials headquarters, telephone pressed between her cheek and her shoulder. Her hair, loose and unbrushed, swings in front of her eyes and her mouth, and she splutters it out of the way as a voice picks up the call.
"Tako's Take-Out, 24 hours, 24 flavors, can we take your order?" says the voice, chirpy and sing-song, and Korra rolls her eyes as she hops on one foot, pulling her pants to her waist.
"The password is 'five-flavor lotus dumplings with a side of garlic noodles,' this is Tenchu, now put my father on the line," Korra says. Add a double order of stupid, she thinks, shrugging into her coat and almost dropping the telephone. The delicate hands of the clock on the radio point to half past three.
"He's not here," said the voice, after a short pause, all cheer dropped, and Korra huffs into the receiver.
"Where is he? I need to talk to him," Korra snaps, and pinches the bridge of her nose in frustration.
"I believe he's at the Sato compound factory, but he relayed instructions that he was not to be disturbed, even for you. I can send a messa - "
Korra slams the telephone back onto the cradle and fumes, her fist still tight around the receiver. When did she start trusting him? There was no reason to trust him. Her father never told her anything, never told her what he was really thinking, never, never, never, you could never trust a man who lived inside a mask, you could never trust his words or his hands, his warnings, his promises, never at all, not even once…
Korra lifts her foot and kicks the end table over, sending it to the floor with a loud thump, the telephone sliding off with a shrill clang.
"Shit!" she yells, with an angry jerk of her shoulders, and drops her face into her hands.
Korra doesn't bother taking her motorcycle to the Sato garage. She leaves it at the top of the drive and makes her way through the dusting of snow to Hiroshi's workshop, shouldering the door open and throwing the lever on the underground elevator. The elevator is waiting at the top, ready for her, and she pauses in the light-reddened mouth of the tunnel, staring into its deep black throat.
She vaults over the platform railing and half walks, half slides down the tracks to the bottom of the elevator shaft. It's quieter this way, no one will notice she's here… and Korra jumps down each flight of stairs in the stairwell, landing cat-footed and quiet.
Halfway down she stops and looks to the top of the stairwell: a noise. The door opening. A silhouette on the opposite wall, cast in a soft red shaft of light.
Korra immediately crouches on the landing and tightens her mask, pressing herself to the metal banisters, ducking as far as she can into a shadow. Her blood is pounding with a steady, resilient beat, and she feels a dry chill creep up her skin, goosebumps on her neck. She can fight them, whoever they are -
The door closes again and the silhouette disappears. Korra breathes once, counting the seconds of her exhalation, maybe they left - her foot shoots out from under her. She clings to the banister, struggling to hold herself up as the person calls out to her.
"Korra? Is that you?" says Asami, in a careful stage-whisper, and Korra lets go and sits on the landing with a painful thud.
"Yeah, it's me, what are you doing here?" she says, getting to her feet, rubbing the nascent bruise on her hip. Asami takes the stairs two at a time, dressed in her Equalist uniform with her hair pulled back and her face clean of make-up.
"I saw you come up the drive," Asami says, after a quick hug, "so I came down to see you…"
She wrings her Equalist facemask in her hands, and the shadows on her face shift as she leans from one foot to the other.
"You look exhausted," Korra whispers. "Go back to sleep. "
Asami looks stricken.
"I can't sleep," she says, "and you haven't said what you're doing down here, either."
Checking on Mako and Bolin, something's wrong, I can feel it - Korra sighs. She didn't want to be right, she just wanted to make sure, and if something was wrong and Asami got dragged into it, if she got hurt… In the darkness Korra can just barely make the shape of an electrified glove, strapped to Asami's waist by her belt. A glove she knows how to use, with skills she learned from Korra.
"I thought you didn't like that thing," Korra says, pointing towards the glove, and Asami shrugs.
"I'm going to protect myself," she says, more determined than sullen, and Korra nods.
"Fine, come with me," Korra says, clumping down the staircase, and Asami pulls her facemask over her head and follows.
They creep across the dark warehouse into the prison hallway and as soon as they step inside there's a rustling, a shifting, a human movement. The boys are here, they're awake, and Korra almost laughs in relief. She runs to the cell door and skids to a stop, clutching the bars, leaning forward, smiling -
"Where's my brother, you jerks - Korra!"
Bolin drops his fists, relaxes his squared legs, but Korra notices with a growing dread that he's unkempt and tense, roughed up around the face, a long smear of half-dried blood under his nose.
Mako is not there. The cell is a mess, the chair overturned and the table leg splintered, with black scorch marks across the walls. Korra yanks her mask off and opens the door as Bolin scoops Pabu out from under the bed and onto his shoulder, never taking his eyes off her.
"Bo, what happened?" Korra says. "Where's Mako? Why are you hurt?!"
Bolin's normal cheery humor is gone, replaced with a grim, stony look, set in his jaw and his eyes. And for a fleeting second, all Korra can think about is how boyish he used to look, how much younger and lighter. Now he stands like a stone pillar, all firm lines and immovable stance.
"They took him - your dad, I mean - he and some other guy woke us up and dragged Mako out of here, didn't even say why - Korra, what are they doing to my big brother?" he says gripping her shoulders hard with both hands, and Korra just gapes at him. She didn't want to find Bolin alone in the cell, hurt and angry, without Mako - his brother, his only brother, he'd be alone without Mako and the worst thing, the hardest, the most inhuman thing is being alone, she hates it -
"I - I don't know, I don't know where he is, I don't know," she stutters, as a fire catches in her blood, a bright hot rage - how dare her father, how dare he, he promised - "but I'm gonna go get him! Asami, get Bolin out of here. I don't care where, just go!"
Korra takes a step back, and another. She wants to apologize to Bolin but chokes on a half-formed phrase, turns on her heel, and runs.
In the middle of the warehouse she skids to a stop, panting from her sprint, and looks around, her sense of purpose vague. Where would Amon have taken Mako? And to do what? He's mad at her, Korra realizes now, after all of his warnings to not get attached… he didn't hate the boys because they were benders. He hated them because she liked them.
And she liked Mako, she really liked Mako - Korra picks up a quick stride, checking all the doors into the storage hallways off the warehouse, listening for any sound or sign that Amon had been there. The first hallway is empty, and the second one, and the third one, all quiet, all deserted, all dark, and Korra grinds her teeth in frustration with each one. She fumbles for the next door and presses the bar, hearing the mechanical clicks as the handle depresses, and opens it just enough to see a light at the end of the hallway, pale and yellow and flickering.
And the Lieutenant standing guard in front of another door, hands clasped behind his back, the electrified Kali sticks buzzing and hissing. Near his foot, a dusty glass lamp with a small flame casts light, floating in a pool of oil.
Korra lets the door fall shut behind her. It echoes down the hallway, loud and hollow, and the Lieutenant looks up from his post. He unsheathes his Kali sticks and scowls into the darkness, where Korra waits, as quiet as possible, hidden in the shadows.
He takes a tentative step towards Korra, squinting in the dim light. Korra holds her breath, barely daring to blink. A shadow turned solid, moving through the light, the electricity of the Kali sticks glowing as sharp snaps and cracks in the reflection of his green goggles and on his hateful, brutal face. She wants him gone.
Korra lifts her hand and waves it - snatching an invisible moth out of the air - the lamp goes out, the Lieutenant spins around, and Korra runs forward. He turns again at her footsteps - she slams her fist into his jaw, relishing the crunch of her knuckles into his bones, and slices the side of her palm into his neck, thumb and forefinger together.
The Lieutenant crumples onto her with his head lolling and Korra catches him in her arms with her teeth bared in disgust, dropping him to the floor with more gentleness than he really deserves. There is a small strip of light coming from the door he was guarding and the faint sound of a voice, one voice, a voice familiar in its richness and and slick note of disdain. Korra's stomach churns and an ache of adrenaline races through her muscles, every nerve straining to move, to act, to do something now.
But she has to be smart about this and come up like a plan, like he would, so Korra leans up against the side of the door and listens, her breath hanging from her parted lips.
A fist hitting flesh. A coarse, pained oof!, and an uneven tattoo of shoes against the floor, someone stumbling, struggling to stand up. A bodily thud. Korra hisses through her teeth, seething, a searing hotness under her skin as she hears Amon's voice:
"Look at me. Look at me, boy."
A pause.
"You've taken something very dear from me," Amon says, followed by another hit and a grunt of pain from Mako, and Korra could snap her father's bones with her bare hands.
"You have become nothing more than a distraction, leading her from her purpose, begging her to protect you. Ignorant scum that you are, you fail to realize she is not here for you. She is mine."
But I am here for him, Korra thinks fiercely, but fighting her father head-on is the epitome of stupidity, with all she knows about his skills and his bloodbending. The Lieutenant lies unconscious on the floor and Korra drops to one knee beside him, feeling for his pulse with one hand on his neck and placing the other over her heart. She breathes deep, keeping still in the darkness, until her pulse matches the Lieutenant's.
She gingerly detaches his gloves from his hands and the Kali sticks from his grip, trying not to listen to her father's voice. Korra puts the gloves on and holds the Kali sticks out, giving them an experimental wave, cutting the air with a soft whuff-whuff. They fizzle with electricity and Korra smiles to herself, already tasting blood.
Korra lifts her gloved hand and knocks twice.
A body slides to the floor on the other side of the door and Amon calls out: "What is it, Lieutenant?"
She doesn't respond, keeping her heart rate as steady as possible, knowing that he was feeling for a second presence with his bloodbending.
"Lieutenant."
His boots clack against the floor and Korra tightens her grip on the Kali sticks as they approach, sounding one by one through her consciousness, she needs to be quick and decisive, strike with power at the first chance -
"I believe I told you, Lieute - " Amon starts, as he opens the door, and Korra jams the Kali sticks with as much strength as she can muster into his neck and chest, holding them there as the electricity crackles over him in bright blue needles, hearing him yell in pain - making her own father hurt, this man is her father, but she has to do it because what her father is doing is wrong -
Korra sidesteps as Amon drops to his knees and falls to the floor, his body twitching, and then slams the heel of her boot into the small of his back. She doesn't need him to wake up any time soon. He can stay there until she's gone.
Abruptly she claps her hands over her mouth and nose, all the blood draining from her face as she studies her father's prone figure on the floor. She did this. Korra's breath quickens, a nausea thick with self-loathing welling up in her throat. She attacked her own father. There is no coming back from this, none at all.
"Korra… " Mako gasps, limp and slumped against the wall, hands tied behind him, and she remembers why she's here. He looks worse than Bolin. His mouth is stained with blood, his cheek dark and shiny with bruises, and he flinches with a hiss of pain when her fingertip grazes his jaw.
"Shhh, shhh. Mako, it's okay," Korra says gently, taking his face in her hands, and he lifts his head to her as she kisses him. His lips shiver against hers, wet and warm, slippery with the taste of copper. Korra can feel his chest rising and falling under her so she touches her forehead to his and holds him until they both come back.
"I'm going to get you out of here," Korra whispers into his mouth. Mako nods with his eyes closed, tries to stand, and can't, his leg stiff and his body unbalanced. Korra lifts him to his feet and burns through the rope around his wrists.
"You can lean on me," she says, and Mako wordlessly gathers her in a hug, his face buried between her neck and her shoulder, heaving a long, shuddering sigh that rolls hot across her collarbone.
"Korra, I'm… you… " he murmurs, and she slips out of his arms, smiling.
"You don't have to say anything," she says, and Mako closes his hand around hers.
Korra doesn't look down as she steps over Amon, still unconscious. Mako stares with narrow eyes, turning his head over his shoulder to look as Korra guides him down the hallway, leaving the Lieutenant and her father on the floor.
"You did that," he says, in a quiet voice, and her guilt strains on her. Yes, she did.
They cross onto the warehouse floor, both of them turning in unison when they hear Bolin's voice.
"Mako!" he cries out, running to them from the far end of the warehouse, and Mako's hand doesn't leaves Korra's as he embraces Bolin. Asami catches up just as quick, pressing her hand to her mouth in wide-eyed shock when she sees Mako.
"We couldn't leave yet," she says to Korra, "we had to know if you found him."
"Yeah, I did, but…"
Korra stops. Amon will wake up soon. They have to get out of here. They aren't safe. She has to keep her friends safe. Promises won't protect them from Amon.
"You all need to get out of here. Right now. Leave Republic City and don't come back," she says, throwing Mako's hand from her own and stepping away. Mako, Asami, and Bolin look at each other and then at her. She wishes they wouldn't, that they would just leave already; the longer they stand there in silence, the more she wants to hold onto them.
"Why're you still standing here? Go!" she says, voice rising to a shout, "my dad just beat you up because he's mad at me! What do you think he'll do if he finds you again? Just leave already!"
"Where should we go? Ba Sing Se? The Fire Nation?" Bolin asks.
"I shouldn't know where you guys go, it's better that way," she says, dragging her hands down her face; she wants to shove them away from her, howl them out of the warehouse and away from the factory. If only she didn't like them. It would be so much easier.
"I know where to go," Asami cuts in, "don't worry about it. We'll be safe."
"Good," Korra says, "now just… "
Her voice breaks and she wipes her eyes with her sleeve. Her exhaustion weighs down on her, burying her in an old weariness.
"Korra?" Mako says, his palm on her cheek as she avoids his gaze. "Do you want to come with us? You don't have to be here. You can leave if you want."
She shakes her head. His touch burns as though she is all raw skin. All she wants to do is forget him.
"I can't - I can't leave," she mumbles, "I can't leave my dad. He's my only family. I can't just… leave him, where would I go? And he'd try to find me, I know he would. Mako, I can't just - !"
"You should come with us," Bolin says brightly, but Asami shushes him and he wilts.
"If you want to stay, I trust you," Asami says. "You know how to take care of yourself."
Korra nods miserably, lips pressed tightly together. She can't just go, it's impossible, and a thousand ideas spiral through her all at once, colliding and circling into each other. Leaving and never coming back, never seeing him again. Leaving and being chased, never stopping, always fleeing. Leaving and being caught and having to come back. It's better to stay and wait, to just respond to him, float on the current of his emotions, allow him to carry her along with his will. She knows how to deal with it.
"I'm staying," she says, and Asami wraps her arms around her.
"Please be safe, Korra," Asami murmurs, and Bolin catches Korra too as Asami lets go.
"You're one-of-a-kind," he says sadly, and Korra smiles, giving Pabu a final scratch on the nose. Pabu chitters at her with questioning eyes and she laughs, patting him on the head.
And now Mako, her Mako, standing with his arms at his sides, his eyes bright with a feeling she knows in her blood and in her heart. He likes her even after everything, or maybe despite it; she doesn't know but she doesn't care. His smile makes her happy. His affection and his patience, his rare flashes of humor and joy, brighter than the fire he makes. Mako just makes her happy.
"You have to know we're not abandoning you," Mako says, and he unwinds his red scarf from around his neck, draping it around hers, hands lingering as he smoothens the folds and arranges it with careful grace.
"This was my dad's scarf," he says, fingering the frayed ends, "I feel… it makes me feel safe. Most of the time."
He drops his gaze, slightly abashed, and Korra takes his hand one more time, staring at their joined fingers, hers brown and sturdy, hardened by years of fighting, his pale and clean and calloused with old burns.
"It was nice kn - "
He stops her words with another kiss and she throws her arms around his neck, reaching up so she can pour herself into him, as much as she can. He has to remember her. Their lips move together and she deepens the kiss. She wants to feel him with her whole being, all of him, as much as she can bear it; being with him has been like having a star blazing in a bottle.
"We'll see each other again. I think - I think it's meant to happen," he says, with a half-hearted, sheepish laugh, "bye, Korra."
"Bye," Korra says, stroking the scarf. And they leave, Bolin supporting Mako on his shoulders, Asami with her glove sparking on her hand. What a bitter word. What a bitter world.
Korra lies flat on the floor of the warehouse, staring at the ceiling, too tired to move or go home. Alone again. She welcomes the feeling back, taking it into herself, resignation splitting her open. Everything exposed and bleeding, lungs slowing and freezing in the wintery air, heart beating off the dust as the loneliness seeps in like oil, miring her to her oldest and best friends: her dreams, colorful, soundless images waving in her mind like prayer flags on strings.
They're gone. They're gone and that's good and she's happy, so happy they're gone, they won't get hurt anymore… Korra tries to find sadness, with its usual dull ache, or anger with all its spines because she's alone again all alone no one here but the stupid dreams again but there's nothing but relief.
She doesn't react when Amon and the Lieutenant find her on the floor. She doesn't say a single word as the Lieutenant pins her arms to her sides and Amon slaps her, hard, the back of his hand like a thunderclap on her face, twice, three times. She doesn't resist as they march her into the prison hallway and throw her into an empty cell, Amon telling her things, awful things, she's worthless to him, absolutely useless. The only word she says is no, when he snatches at the scarf, a knife of a word stabbed into his rage. This is hers now.
They leave her to her thoughts, Amon bluntly refusing the Lieutenant's offer of help as his back makes him stumble in pain. She sits on the bed, knees drawn to her chin, rubbing the scarf's worn weave between her fingers.
"Do you regret it?"
Korra lifts her eyes to Aang, his face glowing with an odd light, compassionate and sympathetic. His presence feels like springtime.
"No. I don't care what happens to me," she says. "I just don't want to see them get hurt anymore."
"You seem very detached," Aang says, a nonexistent wind fluttering his orange and yellow robes, the blue tattoo on his forehead colored with the sky. There are clouds moving in his eyes, billowing, white and pure.
"Yeah," she says, with a casual lift of her shoulders. She doesn't care. But his words ring clear, a brass bell tapped with a hammer of memory, and she straightens up.
"That's what airbending is," Korra says, and Aang smiles at her, a beautiful smile. He places his hand over her heart and a river of stars flows between them, galaxies and comets, a rush of cosmic light that thrills her in a void of grief.
"There's a lot of love in you," he says, and Korra laughs because she can. The laughter comes easily.
"I guess," she says, breathless. "Aang… how come I can't airbend?"
"You can," Aang says. "You just never knew how."
"Oh," Korra says, "duh."
Now Aang laughs, joyful and youthful; his laughter stays as he leaves, vanishing as streaks of light in her dark cell. And there it is: blooming like a lotus in season, each petal unfurling, perfumed and lush with ripeness and love, opening to her at last. She is at peace. For now.
comments and reviews or whatever appreciated
i'm going traveling for six weeks so i'll update in august thnx for the love bye now