i told you i would update in august and lookie here it actually happened, thank you for all the reviews and comments and faves and follows and everything!
ok some business:
a) this chapter is really fucking long
b) noatak will be explained. he will be explained. this chapter is actually very important with respect to explaining noatak, the way he exists both as noatak AND amon, and the way that there are conflicting motivations within the entire person that is both noatak and amon. in canon, noatak is nothing if not characterized as having massive amounts of cognitive dissonance - a bender who firmly believes bending is evil, but it's okay if he does it, because it's to get rid of evil benders, but he hates himself for it, etc. etc. etc. - and so on; I am working off of that characterization and adapting it to the peculiarities of this plot.
to quote from a review: "and then there is the biggest question of what his intentions for the Avatar are"
and to respond with a quote from the man himself: tonight, you will get your answer
I. MEDITATIONS
No one comes for her.
There is only a predatory silence that slinks around her, like a big cat that paces around on soft paws, and Korra waits for the claws to come out. The lights stay on. She feels time slipping away from her, all sense of it lost; she's not sure if it's been three hours or three days since she first spoke to Aang. Korra measures the cell with footsteps, from wall to wall to wall, hands behind her back and turning precise corners on her heel. The silence continues to prowl and she wonders if Mako and Bolin felt the same unending restlessness, deathly tired and wide awake, nervous and at ease, with an energy that pushes out from within and compacts her all at once.
No one comes for her and Korra knows Amon wants to wear her down, so that when he does come back she'll beg to go home. She smashes the thought. That's what he wants her to do.
But she doesn't know what she should do, so Korra steps into the middle of the cell and sits on the floor, cross-legged, her right hand curled into her left, her thumbs and forefingers linked together. She takes a deep breath and holds it in her chest, feeling it cold and full, and exhales, the breath flowing out steady and slow. Again. One more time.
Korra opens her eyes. Aang is sitting across from her, his hands on his knees, staff across his lap. The cell fills with brightness, coming off him in tendrils of pale smoky light. Her heart jumps – it's still odd.
"Hi, Aang," she says. Even before he says anything Korra knows he'll understand. It's in his face, round and broad and sunny with good humor.
"Hello, Korra. How are you?"
"I'm hungry," Korra says, "but that doesn't matter right now. I – I don't – do you think – ok, I called you to - "
Aang gives her a look. She stops. It's a good look, one that lightens her, and she doesn't even finish her defensive line of stuttering.
"I'll stay until you tell me to go," he says, and Korra smiles, closing her eyes again. She's never really been alone, has she… he's always been with her. She just didn't know.
She whiles away the hours trying to clear her mind, letting things come and go, driftwood thoughts beached and pulled out again by the gentle tide of her subconscious. Mako and his scarf, warm around her neck. Food, banquets of food; spicy beef noodles piled high in a bowl, dumplings plump with steamed vegetables and crunchy sweet-sour pork – her stomach growls and Aang chuckles to himself – Asami, who left so easily, without hesitation. How did she do it? And her father, always, a consistent beat in the rhythm of her meditation.
"Meditating is hard," Korra says with a frown, when the image of Amon unconscious on the floor sticks until her stomach turns with uneasy guilt. She wonders what she broke when she struck him down.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Aang says, and she shakes her head. They go back to meditating; Aang with an expression of peace. Korra studies him, the lines of blue on his forehead, his long lashes and gracefully overlapped hands, the comfortable straightness of his posture. He carries himself with the suggestion of calm more than anything else, as though hurricanes were brewing under the surface of his skin, contained and controlled, ready to break with a single movement of his hand.
The weightlessness of meditation collapses under the mundane here of Korra's thoughts, like an itch, and she rubs Mako's scarf between her fingers. Korra pulls it to her nose, smelling the traces of ash and his smoky scent. She smiles into the fabric because he's not here, he's safe somewhere else, away from her and Amon.
"You seem happy," Aang comments lightly. Korra drops the scarf and grins.
"Yeah, my friends are gone," she says. Aang raises a single eyebrow.
"You'd rather be alone again than have your friends close by?"
"It's better this way. They're not in danger anymore… well, not as much danger."
Korra gets lost for a moment, remembering Asami as she panicked on the floor of the Sato garage, her demeanor cracked like glass with fear, and Mako - every single one of his touches, careful and fleeting, as if checking to see if she was real. Not a hallucination, not a dream.
"Being selfless will make your sacrifices painless," Aang says. Korra meets his eyes, the silvery grey of an overcast sky and shining like freshly minted coins. She exhales, feeling her collarbone drop with her lungs. Her breath turns the air in the cell, suddenly full of wind and breeze, carrying an unborn storm.
"I know."
Korra is on her fourth set of push-ups, shoulders and elbows squared, toes bent onto the floor with her shirt and scarf and upper armor stripped off. The repetitive movement, holding her form through the ache and burn in her muscles, is easier than meditation. Drops of sweat roll down her face, off her chin, and break open on the dark stone floors. She doesn't have to focus on anything except breathing, even as her wrists start to fill with hot splinters of pain.
He's been there since the third set of push-ups, wordless and stiff, standing several feet away from the cell bars. Amon is waiting for her to stop and look up, or say something, or even acknowledge his presence, but Korra didn't even bother to look up when he arrived. She just kept going. He can wait.
"Korra," he says finally, in a flat voice, and Korra lifts herself from the floor and drops again, a precise, perfect push-up.
"Korra, you're finished. Stop or I'll stop you myself," Amon says. Korra works out another five push-ups.
"Do it, then," she growls, without looking at him, and Amon huffs, a sibilant hiss of breath through the mask's mouth. He balances the tray of food on one hand (this was the hardest part to ignore) and pulls his keys out from his uniform, the metal jangling in his fingers as he unlocks the cell door. He could've done it a while ago and she doesn't know why he didn't, why he just stood there, saying nothing. Korra still has seventeen push-ups left in the set so she takes her time as Amon sets the tray of food on the bed and sits down, hands on his knees, a dark mass out the corner of her eye.
"You are impossible," he mutters, as she stands up, re-dresses herself and cleans her face in the basin, washing away the flush of heat with cupped hands full of cold water. As Korra turns around she feels a crisp bolt of anger.
"And you're a liar," she snaps, "you promised. You promised me."
He freezes, his hands hardening around his knees, knuckles whitening with tension.
The silence stretches, thins, and finally breaks on the weight of her mood.
"What did you expect me to do? I find you hurting someone I care about and you want me to just… accept it? Let it happen?! You promised me you wouldn't hurt them! I can't believe I trusted you. You're a liar – !"
"That's enough," he spits, rising to his feet, and Korra stays motionless as he advances on her. Amon stares at her, his eyes sharp and bright behind the mask, and lifts his hand – she readies herself with gritted teeth, he can slap her if he wants, it won't matter because she's still angry – and cards his hand through her wolf-tail, his fingers snagging on the tangles.
"Your hair is a mess. Sit down," he says, motioning towards the chair. Korra remains standing. Amon heaves a sigh that rolls from the bottom of his chest, up to his shoulders, and from the mask in one long weary movement.
"Korra, will you please sit down?"
"Why?"
"To brush your hair," Amon says briskly. Korra rubs a sneer from her face and kicks the chair away from the wall with a swift yank of her foot around the chair leg. She takes a seat and crosses her arms as Amon searches in the inner pockets of his uniform, pulling out an ivory folding comb. He turns to the basin and runs the water over the comb, shaking droplets of water from the creamy white teeth.
"We're going to have a discussion that is quite overdue," Amon says, and Korra snorts. Her head jerks back slightly as he removes the hair-bands, holding them out over her shoulder. She slips them onto her wrist as he begins to work the knots in her hair with his fingers and the comb.
"You can save your breath," she says acidly, "I already know what you're going to say. 'When are you going to do as you're told, Korra, when are you going to do what you have to do - '"
There's a small sharp tug of pain as he yanks the comb through a stubborn knot.
"On the contrary," Amon says. "You took me by surprise with your little stunt. Do you understand what you've done? In allowing the two young benders, who have seen my face and my bending, to escape? And the disappearance of the Sato girl, as well? This revolution might end before it ever begins, because of your actions."
Korra tries to find the place in her heart where she cares, and can't. So what? No revolution meant no Amon, or Tenchu. Only Noatak and Korra. They could be done with the whole stupid thing. Be normal, like a real family, without the specter of war sitting at the dinner table every night, poisoning the air between them with its foul breath. He could be happy. They both could.
She holds her tongue on this wild, impulsive hope. Amon's comb strokes through her hair grow swifter and smoother.
"Are you gonna tell me it was a moment of weakness? Because it sure didn't feel that way," Korra mutters. If he trotted out any of his normal litany of invectives they would blow away like dust. Detachment. Korra flexes her hands in her lap. There are winds inside them, gales and tempests and mistrals, a weightless, fragile power.
His response to her jab is to laugh.
"My dear girl," Amon says, stepping around the chair and leaning in, his hand hovering towards her cheek but settling for her shoulder, "what you did was nothing short of admirable. You defied me, your own father, to defend that boy, because you cared about his worthless hide. I was angry, yes; but on reflection I am impressed… not everyone has the spine to do such a thing."
"What?" Korra blurts in surprise, and Amon takes a bowl of soft white rice from the tray on the bed and offers it to her.
"I did precisely the same thing when I was several years younger than you are now," he says. "To my own father. Eat."
Korra gapes at him. She must've hit him harder than she thought.
"My father was a harsh man, with harsher ideas. They were of no consequence to me, but were… rather difficult for your uncle. He was weaker than I was, and the day Tarrlok tried to challenge our father was the day I struck the man down and left the North Pole.
"Eat your meal, it's already cold," Amon adds.
Korra's mouth hangs slack. He told her this carefully, very carefully, measuring each word out for its weight, almost practiced in its vagueness and efficiency, but it was enough. She always figured it was something like this - her grandfather, a harsh man with harsher ideas. It was enough to sketch an idea of him, the man who taught Tarrlok and Noatak how to bend; her uncle, who bloodbent her to her knees out of sheer rage, and her father, who built a war around a simple, immovable mantra:bending is suffering.
They both turn on the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. Korra scrambles for the Tenchu mask, putting it on as the Lieutenant trots into view and nods curtly to Amon. His gaze darts to Korra and she scowls at him.
"My apologies for the interruption," the Lieutenant says, in a tone rich with sarcasm, "but we've finished with the charges. They will detonate on your command."
"Excellent," Amon says, and looks down at Korra. "The benders are gone, and with them the location of this compound. I will not risk a raid by the police. You're coming wi - will you come with me?"
Korra shrugs.
"Fine," she says, standing up, "wherever you want. I have nothing better to do."
"Your company is such a pleasure," the Lieutenant growls, and Amon waves him off, curling his other arm around Korra's shoulder. Her stomach clenches, hollow and dry.
"Can I get something warm to eat?" Korra says in a low voice, "I'm starving."
Amon squeezes her to him, a light, barely-felt gesture. It feels almost like reassurance.
"Lieutenant, give the order to detonate as soon as we reach Sato's mansion. I leave it in your hands," Amon says, steering Korra through the cell door and past the Lieutenant. The Lieutenant raises his eyebrows at them.
"Sir? You're not going to oversee the detonation?"
"No, Lieutenant," Amon says, "we're going to dinner."
It's the we that Korra picks up on as they march down the hallway, a pronoun Amon laces with his usual tart possessiveness. But there's also a strange, unfamiliar flavor: desperation.
The sun is setting in the valley, coloring the sky with velvety pinks and yellows, trimming the clouds in gold light, and the Sato mansion is lifeless without Asami. Korra showers in her bathroom, hearing dull, concussive thuds through the stream of hot water as the charges detonate deep inside the mountain, and experiences the unsettling displacement of using someone else's things. Like a fraud or a thief, a phantom lurking through the life Asami left behind. A ghost-Korra, using Asami's half-full shampoo bottles, her sand-colored hand cloths, a bar of soap that smells of ginger and honey.
Even Asami's bedroom makes her anxious. Did Asami plan to leave all along? Did she know she was going to go on the run? Korra towels through her wet hair, trying to find gaps in the disarray of clothing and discarded make-up, as though there would be signs that Asami took something with her - a jacket, maybe, or a pair of shoes, a blush pallet. Maybe Asami felt detachment too.
Amon is waiting for her in Hiroshi's office, so Korra puts away her thoughts of where Asami might be. Asami chose to leave, and she knew where to go. That's good enough. Korra opens Asami's walk-in closet after piling her armor and clothing, filthy with three days of non-stop use, into a carpetbag she finds under the bed, and plucks helplessly at the few things that look like they might fit. A navy pea coat with white trim, black pants. Korra squirms her feet into a pair of buttery-soft leather boots, scrunching her face with effort (Asami was so damn tall. How did she get these tiny feet?). Lastly, the red scarf, looped in a loose knot around her neck and stuffed down the front of the coat.
Korra goes to Hiroshi's spacious, luxurious office with the carpetbag on her arm, an unnatural quiet permeating throughout the mansion, past the flashes of evening light dimming off the brass surfaces. She affixes her mask before opening the door, almost forgetting. Amon is sitting comfortably in an armchair, legs crossed; a clearly agitated Hiroshi is standing, his normally slick hair deflated and falling across his forehead. His expression sharpens as she walks in. Korra drops the carpetbag and braces her hands on her cocked hips, smirking. The last time they spoke was when she told him off in the Sato garage, a memory she recollects with smug satisfaction.
"You," Hiroshi starts, dark red and spitting with rage, "you - where is Asami?! Where did she go?!"
Do not antagonize Hiroshi, Amon had ordered. So what.
"I have no idea," Korra says shortly. "And maybe you should wonder why instead ofwhere."
"How dare you? This is all your fault! Where is she?!" he shouts. Korra snorts. She can sense Amon watching, his gaze flicking between Korra and Hiroshi, studying them.
"Maybe if you cared about her, she'd still be here. But I think the best you can hope for is a letter, addressed to fuck you, " Korra says, and Hiroshi is momentarily stunned. There is a slight movement from Amon, a hitch in his chest and a short huff of air.
"You bitch," Hiroshi says, and lunges towards Korra - he takes one step, hands outstretched into a pair of claws; she narrows her eyes to size him up - Amon rises from his seat and steps between them with one fluid motion.
"I am afraid, Hiroshi, that you cannot blame my daughter for your own inadequacies," he says softly. "From the start, you mishandled your child in this affair."
"Amon, I won't stand for this!"
"You will," Amon says, fisting the front of Hiroshi's suit in one hand and half shoving, half lifting him towards the armchair. Hiroshi falls into the armchair, disheveled and aghast, round wire-rimmed glasses slipping down his nose. Korra's breath stops, the way it always does when Amon is done with talk, her heart pounding. Her father brims with confidence and power, so at ease in his use of violence…
Amon stares Hiroshi down, arms and shoulders tensed like a prizefighter's before a brawl, daring him to make a move. Hiroshi thinks better and settles into the chair, flatting the wrinkles in his suit with a prim tug.
"Muzzle your dog," he grouses, and Amon claps his hand around Hiroshi's jaw, pushing back as Hiroshi flinches, flushed and shiny with sweat. Amon holds him there, arm outstretched, tilting his weight forward on one foot. He lets go with a dismissive gesture, the imprint of his hand defined in bloodless skin on Hiroshi's face. Korra turns her gaze towards the window, watching the light slip into the mountains, swallowing the sour taste of displeasure. She didn't ask him to defend her.
"Be quiet, Sato," Amon says, after a long pause, as though to say anything more would be a waste of breath.
Hiroshi takes his glasses off with a trembling hand and cleans them on his shirt, not looking at either of them. Amon turns on his heel without another word, holding the door for Korra.
They walk through the mansion, past all its empty rooms, down the elegant wooden staircase fanning open onto the foyer, onto the front steps. The valley spreads before them, blue-purple in dusk and low clouds.
At the top of the steps Amon pauses, causing Korra to wheel around, wondering what now; but he just swings his head from side to side, checking for other people. No one else is there so he sticks his thumb under the chin of the mask and tilts it up to the crown of his head, revealing his painted, wax-scarred face.
"Dad, are you sure you should be doing that here…?"
Noatak puts his hands on her shoulders, palms curving over the rounded bones and muscle, and looks her in the face. Korra keeps her head down but glances up, under her brows, to meet his gaze.
"The Sato girl left her father," Noatak says. A statement of fact, neutral in tone.
"Yeah," Korra says, in an equally flat voice.
"You chose to stay."
"Yeah."
Don't make me regret it, she wants to add, but something changes in his face. A shift of color in his eyes, or the cast of his skin in the cool blue air. She can't name it. It might just be the light finally fading out, with the sun buried deep in the western cloudbanks, and it disappears just as quickly as it came.
He grips her shoulder and trots down the steps, pulling his mask into place and swinging his leg over his motorcycle. Korra pulls in a breath between her parted lips, still at the top of the steps, lost in thought until he calls her name with mild impatience. He left his father.
Colonial is a small, narrow bar tucked into a smaller, narrower alley, a shoebox of a restaurant stuffed between a potter's and a butcher shop. The buildings lean in over the street, haphazard and irregular in their geometry, the lines of their windows and balconies and exposed pipes staunchly at war with right angles. And overhead, there are lines of clothing strung between the dark apartments, beckoning the warmth of spring.
At the bar, Noatak nurses a slender ceramic bottle of hot rice wine, his face freshly washed from one of the Equalist bunkers hidden around the city. His ash-brown cheeks are flushed with the brightness of strong liquor. Korra sits on his left, her barstool turned towards him, feeling too gloomy in comparison to the life bustling around them. Not even a bowl of her favorite hand-pulled noodles floating in chili-stained broth is enough to brighten her mood.
"You look good in blue," Noatak says, fingering the lapel of Asami's coat with two fingers and patting it down. Korra breaks her chopsticks apart with a precise snap and scrapes the splinters off under the countertop.
"It's Asami's coat," she says, shifting in her seat so that their shoulders align. She stirs up the soup until the oil breaks and pools across the broth in loose crimson tendrils. Noatak fills his ceramic cup with rice wine again and downs it, a backwards snap of his head. He slams it back onto the countertop and stares aimlessly down the bar, wolfish with his shoulders hunched up and his head low, gaze roving for a target.
The bar is crowded with all kinds of people: two elderly Water Tribe men in the booth behind them, swapping stories, a family of seven (Korra is impressed by the number -seven people, almost fantasy), the parents doing their best to both feed and entertain their lively blue brood, and to Noatak's right a loose gathering of college-age urbanites, the type of people who probably spend their afternoons smoking hash and talking about ancient Fire Nation poetry in lofty, casual tones.
Noatak tries again.
"Are the noodles good?"
"Same as always," Korra mutters, feeding them into her mouth with a steady hand, pulling the long soft strings smoothly from the broth. Noatak frowns and scratches the back of his ear. His expression crumples.
"Korra - "
"I chose to stay, Dad, not to forgive you," she snaps, "there's a difference. Just - just don't, okay? Don't."
Korra doesn't look at him and keeps eating. Each mouthful tastes like too much, like she'll never be able to swallow it, a sticky mass of dough and weak flavor. She lays the chopsticks across the bowl and lets her hands fall into her lap. Even her food betrays her.
Noatak slowly drinks another cup of rice wine. Korra looks at him, then at the bottle, and at him again but he moves the bottle further down the bar and out of her reach before she can even move. Noatak never drinks.
He opens his mouth to talk again but they both hear something - their senses trip on the word, they startle together: Equalist.
Noatak brings his hand to his chin, thumb curling over his mouth, listening as he frowns at his empty cup, rolling it between the fingers of his other hand. Korra engrosses herself in the probending posters on the wall behind the bar. They have practiced this.
" - I'm not saying the Equalists are doing it right, but they're also the only ones who are actually - "
"They're not doing it right. They're not - "
" - Who are actually doing something to fix Republic City - "
"'Doing something' as in terrorism, they're doing terrorism - "
Korra reaches for Noatak's forearm, no don't not here not now, but it's too late. He turns around and fixes on the two young women sitting next to him: a slender, yellow-eyed, bird-faced girl with a crimped bob, and a broad-shouldered girl with high cheekbones and a bright green coat.
The sudden pressure of his full and obvious attention, though wordless, makes them stop their conversation, their voices dying with awkward surprise.
"I think you might be misunderstanding something vital about Equalism," Noatak says, and Korra covers her forehead with a splayed hand, rubbing her temples. Maybe she can excuse herself and wait in the restroom until he's done, and so he can't shanghai her into proselytizing with him.
"What's that?" says the yellow-eyed girl, the one who said terrorism, and Noatak slips into his element like a tiger-otter into water.
"A system built on violence can only be brought down with violence," he says, and the cheekbones girl nods emphatically.
"But don't you think that - " starts Yellow Eyes.
"Are you benders or nonbenders?" Noatak interrupts mildly, and their voices overlap, a syllable out of unison: "Non - nonbender."
"I see," Noatak says, with the satisfied purr of a feline predator, and Korra's heart starts to sink.
"I'm just tired of the way benders step on us," Cheekbones says, with the enthusiasm of someone who's found a new and willing audience, "a few days ago some triad thugs beat up my brother with earthbending, and he had no way to fight back. He had to see a healer afterwards. So I think - I think Amon is right about benders."
She says this in a firm voice and Korra finds herself awash in the cold pride flooding from her father.
"Bending has caused a lot of problems," Noatak says. A vague statement they can articulate on their own; he's at his machine, pulling levers of rhetoric and language, turning the gears of persuasion.
"Yeah, they have, but I still don't think that a violent revolution is going to solveanything," Yellow Eyes says loudly, and Noatak waves his hand in dismissal.
"Benders don't listen to nonbenders," he says, "we've seen that with the Council. They don't respond to complaints. They're corrupt. The police force is incompetent at best. Listen, the problem with Republic City is - "
Korra spins her barstool away from them, sighing and tracing the lines and colors of the probending posters. A bright red poster tessellated with yellow shapes catches her eye and she rises in her seat, hoping, maybe…? But it's not a Fire Ferrets poster. Just some other team. And she reminds herself, again, that it's a good thing Mako and Bolin are gone.
"Korra, what is your father doing?"
For the second time, Korra jumps in her seat. She stares in suspicion at the person who appeared out of thin air in the empty spot next to her.
"Am I the only one who can see you?" she says, and Aang grins. He leans across the bar countertop and pulls a grotesque face at the hoary-haired bartender, pulling an eyelid down with one finger. The bartender doesn't react, but continues cleaning glasses. So she is.
"So, tell me. What is your father doing?" Aang asks. Korra looks at Noatak over her shoulder, where he is still deep in conversation with the two women.
"He's just talking to them about Equalism," she says, and Aang shakes his head.
"No, Korra. What is he doing?"
- the only response that will work is fighting them, being on equal terms with them -
A dull knot lodges in her chest. She knows exactly what he's doing, what he will have done; drafted two more people into Equalism, set them down a path of secret meetings in underground bookstores and chi-block training in the sewers, becoming soldiers…
"He's trying to start a war," she murmurs, and Aang clasps his hands together on the countertop, looking at her intently.
"And what are you doing?"
Korra lowers her head, stares at her hands, doesn't look him in the eye.
"Nothing," she mumbles. Aang nods in understanding.
"But I think… I have to do something," she says, narrowing her eyes; "I felt this way before, when he was trying to - when he tried to kill Mako and Bolin in the alley. People are going to get hurt and he doesn't care, as long as he gets what he wants. And even though he says the Avatar is something to be afraid of… "
Korra glances at Noatak again, still deep in conversation. He gestures his hands fluidly through the air, weaving invisible threads.
"I don't think I have to be that way. I can protect people," she says, "and I can protect them from him."
She slips off the chair as Aang disappears, folding into empty space like he was never there, leaving just enough of his presence to warm her with a rich, fiery sense of purpose.
"Will you come to a meeting? I think you'd find it very informative… "
The yellow-eyed young woman is holding a small postcard in her hands, one Korra recognizes as the postcard with an Equalist meeting location written in riddle on the back. Noatak always carries them with him, in the off chance that he finds himself in a situation where he can hand them out. The woman chews her bottom lip, her foot jostling against the bar stool with erratic rhythm as she studies the card. Noatak leans forward, speaking in a voice that is pleasant and suggestive and insistent all at once.
Korra moves to stand between Noatak and the two women. All three fall silent.
"She doesn't want to go to a meeting. Lay off," Korra says, and Noatak straightens up in abrupt anger.
"She should decide that for herself," he says in a soft voice, and Korra locks eyes with the yellow-eyed woman.
"Do you want to go to a meeting? The Equalists are trying to start a war. I know that 'cause I am one," she says. The yellow-eyed woman stiffens in alarm.
"I - I don't know - he's making some really good points - "
"Yes or no?"
The yellow-eyed woman screws her face up in hesitation, her chest rising, and sighs.
"No," she says, with relieved honesty. Korra plucks the card from her fingers.
"Have a nice night. We're going home."
She strides out of the bar without a backwards glance into the alleyway, where flakes of snow are glinting with streetlight in the thin night air. Korra's boots hit the ground at a rigid pace, her heart drumming in her throat, suddenly nauseous in the aftermath of an impulse she shouldn't have acted on. He will not be happy with this, not at all, it was the right thing to do but also stupid -
Korra stumbles as Noatak grabs her upper arm in his vise-like grip, hard enough to bruise. He drags her into another, smaller alleyway, not even wide enough for two people and dark with blue shadows. There is some sort of rough ceiling over them, an overhead passage between the two buildings, and her stomach clenches. Tunnels unnerve her.
Noatak turns her around forcefully to face him and Korra snarls.
"Let go of me," she shouts, "don't fucking touch me! "
She twists and drops out of his grasp, stumbling further into the alley, her nails digging into her palms. Noatak takes a step forward and Korra steels herself - he is entirely dark, a silhouette framed in the white light of the alley behind him.
"Korra," he says, "no, Korra - I …"
"You're selfish. You don't care about anyone except yourself," Korra spits. "You don't even think about anyone except yourself - "
"I know," Noatak blurts hoarsely, "I know what I am!"
He lunges and catches Korra again, this time by her wrists, and brings her hands up to her neck as he restrains her. She can smell the bitter taste of alcohol on his breath, an acidic whiff of air, and Korra lifts her head back, trying to draw away. Noatak's grip is steady, his expression wild and frantic, something that strikes her in the gut with a sharp fear.
"But you have to stay," Noatak says, with all the blind force of someone trying to move a mountain.
"I have to stay," Korra repeats, in plain disbelief; the phrase is bitter on her tongue.
"You have to," he says. It's a plea, not an order: he's begging.
Silence.
What did Noatak think about, those three nights she spent in the cell, when she slept not just ten feet away in their home but on the other side of a swiftly widening sea? Loneliness, the shame of living unloved, the fear of how little you know about another soul, another heart; even when they wake and rise with yours. These are all nightmares she's familiar with. So what did her father dream of when she was gone? Did he dream at all, Korra wonders.
"Dad," she says, and he releases her, stepping away.
She reaches out her hand to his face, like he has done to her so many times before; a gesture of peace to calm a skittish animal. He closes his eyes as he eases to her touch, and now Korra understand what she broke when she turned on him.
"Of course," Korra murmurs. She fixes him up, leans on tiptoe to press her lips to his cheek, smiles as she drops back onto her heels, crunching the frozen gravel underfoot. Lies to him. She's had enough.
II. THE ARENA/Vishuddha
"Good morning, citizens of Republic City. This is Amon. I hope you all enjoyed last night's probending match, because… it will be the last. It's time for this city to stop worshipping bending athletes as if they were heroes. I am calling on the Council to shut down the bending arena, and cancel the finals… or else: there will be severe consequences."
Amon is on the radio at ten o'clock the next morning. Short, quick, and to the point, delivered in smooth shimmering tones, like spilled oil. By three o'clock, the Council responds as expected. The Equalists proceed with the plan, the zeppelin in place: an airborne shark, waiting for the city's blood to rise, idling in circles behind the mountains. The team of plainclothes 'spectators' has gloves and entrance tickets. The speedboats in the harbor are ready.
By five-fifteen, Korra is putting the finishing touches on Noatak's scar, daubing the colored powders and theater waxes on his face with confident strokes of her fingertips, and at five-thirty she finishes dressing and closes the door to her bedroom with a click. Dusk is fading fast and with a strange persistence, all Korra can think about for the next half-hour is how she didn't make her bed.
Amon and Korra reach the harbor docks by traveling through the tunnel system, out of sight from the city streets above them, and find the private Sato docks. The Lieutenant is there, waiting for them, with their three other teammates. They drag the tarp off a sleek maroon speedboat and board, the boat rocking with sloppy chops of water.
By six-fifteen, the speedboat is under the probending arena promenade, lashed to one of the support pilings. Sneaking in is simple - through the maintenance hallways tucked between the walls, up to the highest parts of the arena, and out onto the glass rooftop, where they scale the railings to just over the giant white spherical lamp hanging right over the main platform. The arena is empty of people, even police officers, and their silent descent by rope through the lamp's maintenance hatch and into the still, cool sphere of air goes unnoticed.
The championship match starts at eight so the team hides and waits inside the platform crawlspace, hidden in the spaces between the machinery and water pipes. Korra is unable to resist dropping her hood and peering through the wooden sidings to watch the audience swarm in, the arena filling with murmurs of excitement and the salty, greasy smell of cheap spectator food. Amon tucks his fingers into her collar and yanks, jerking her back into the ribcage of wood and iron.
Korra bites her tongue, pressing it between her teeth until her focus whittles down to the thick crescent of pain. Amon's plan is going well so far. Her plan - her plan is different. Play along with what he wants her to do, storm the platform, take out the winning team with bending, and introduce him; let him believe she's with him in cause and spirit, and then when all's said and done…
The Lieutenant whispers to Amon that Lin Bei Fong, Tarrlok, and the Equalist taskforce are here, grim-faced metal- and waterbending officers stationed in pairs around the arena. Korra grins in relief.
The championship match starts with a blaze of combative energy - fireworks, trumpets, wild cheering - and they listen to the thuds and fiery cracks of bending happening above them, the platform shuddering as the Wolfbats pummel the Boar-Q-Pines under the bloodthirsty roar of the crowd. There is a thrilled, sympathetic ooohhhfrom the crowd as someone is hit particularly hard and tumbles off the platform with a yell that cuts off when they slam into the pool. The Lieutenant's mouth twists in disdain in the half-darkness.
The Boar-Q-Pines hold on until just halfway through third round, when even the Lieutenant winces at the sound of water cracking through the air, whip-sharp into a body - and then a hard burst of fire, a painful, solid thunk - all three Boar-Q-Pines drop into the pool like bricks. A knock-out win. Korra and the Lieutenant get to their feet at the bright, joyous sound of the victory bell.
The Lieutenant opens the crawlspace hatch and drops onto the lower platform, Kali sticks sizzling with energy.
"Ready?" Amon says. There are shouts coming from all around them - a man's hoarse cry, screams of horror. The plainclothes Equalist are moving forward with the plan.
"Always," Korra says. Amon throws the lever on the round central platform, lowering it into the crawlspace. Korra steps onto the platform, widens her stance, lowers her head and clasps her hands behind her back - Amon pulls the lever again and she goes up -
The yellow arena light hits her eyes, making her blink, and Korra cages herself one last time in the Tenchu mask. She is only Tenchu, one last time. This is the last act of violence she commits in his name.
Everything else will be hers.
The Wolfbats are staring around the arena in wide-eyed shock, turning on their feet as pops of blue light flare up all around the grandstands - they see Korra and the waterbender's breath visibly catches. Tahno, that's his name. She lopes forward with a self-possessed swing of her arms, feeling predacious.
"What's going on here, ref?" Tahno shouts to the referee, lifting his hands and taking a step back, and the referee yells that he doesn't know.
"Alright, you want a piece of the Wolfbats?" Tahno says, shrugging even as he calls the water to him with a quick gesture, "here it comes, little girl!"
"Bring it on, pretty boy," she roars. A heady rush of adrenaline slams into her as Tahno sends a curved blade of water slicing towards her. She turns rapidly on her heels, hands outstretched, bending the water right back, freezing it - only half instinct - the spears of ice skim past Tahno, soar through the air, and shatter on the wall of the pool.
The arena falls dead with a hush.
Korra laughs out loud as she adopts a fighting stance. It echoes through the arena, clanging against the glass and concrete, the high-pitched brassiness of a siren. She motions for Tahno to try again. He has lost all affectation of bravado, leaving just sheer, unadulterated surprise.
"Let's go," she says, and the Wolfbat firebender, Shaozu, yells wildly and uppercuts a bolt of fire towards her - good, fire, she can handle fire - Korra sweeps her arms and draws in a breath. The fire blossoms, billows around her. She charges forward through the flames - leaps onto Shaozu, grabs his hands, and hurls him into the railings. She's on him again in a second, pile-driving her shoulder into his torso, a battering ram powered by unreserved brute force. Shaozu falls like a stone.
Something hits her in the side, a dull pain that sends her reeling but still upright. Mako's scarf, wrapped around her waist under the armor, does its job. Korra lifts a forearm to her face as the earthbender Ming sends another earth disc thudding into her - Korra bares her teeth in a snarl and pushes her fists out. Half a dozen discs rise from floor and hurtle towards Ming, all of them breaking on their target - Korra flies across the platform and wrestles him to the floor in one move, knee on his back, twisting his arm up and behind him.
"She's the Avatar!" someone shouts from the audience, and Korra looks up, fuming full of a vicious, triumphant rage - only Tahno's left, the waterbender -
Korra lets go of Ming and stands up, slowly turning around. She wipes her mouth with her wrist, throwing it down at her side, her chest heaving, and Tahno sneers at her. Still brave. He bends a thick, upright wave of water that hisses and roars as it rolls across the platform. She leaps away, landing on one foot and springing to the side, firebending at him as she does.
He pivots around the darts of fire and rolls into a crouch, his waterbending at a pause - Korra ends it: lifts her foot and kicks, an arrowhead of air that bowls him into the railings. She strikes him with another rush of wind, a sword forged from the remnants of hurricanes - the wind pins him to the railings. Korra smirks because she's won, even before the final blow - a roundhouse kick to the chest, a solid muscled thwap. She beat them all. Tahno drops to all fours, gasping for breath, and Korra lifts her hand to catch the microphone thrown to her by the plainclothes Equalist on the referee platform.
Korra snakes the cable out of her way with a flick of her wrist as she walks back towards the center of the platform. No one in the arena has made a sound. She gathers her breath, eyes wandering around the audience, drawing constellations between the expressions on their shining faces… Awe. Dismay. Apprehension, like she's thrown an explosive into the air, something that has yet to fall…
Korra drops her hood and tears the Tenchu mask off, tossing it aside. No more need for it. It skitters face-up along the platform floor.
"Good evening, citizens of Republic City… I am your Avatar," she says. Her voice is clear and steady as it rings through the air - someone stands out from the audience, she doesn't know why; a young woman her own age, her face colorless with terror. Korra realizes with a bottomless sinking that in the woman's eyes, the Avatar is a terrorist… Her resolve to see this through starts to waver.
"But despite being the Avatar… "
A being wholly outside mere mortality and human consequences
"I've chosen not to be complicit anymore in the suffering that bending brings…"
the power to burn the world on a whim and drown what is left
"And instead use my bending to serve my father in his quest to end it - "
the most powerful being the world has ever known
Korra stops.
This is where he wants her to be.
Not her, but the Avatar - the Avatar, the most formidable bender in the world, to sing his hymn of war, to serve him, to perform for him, to be controlled and owned by him - he didn't tell her because he didn't want her to know just how much she means…
Korra is vaguely aware that she's shaking. She wheels around, the cable whipping around her, and shouts into the microphone: "But he'll tell you about the revolution himself! Allow me to introduce my father, Amon!"
Her fist, clamped around the cable, trembles rigidly, and she's almost frantic with rage, seething, every nerve in her body wound tight with furious energy.
The center platform rises from below and with it her stark, blinding awareness of thetruth: This is her purpose. This is what he wants her to be - a weapon Amon can wield against the spirit and soul of benders, compliant in his hands, the Avatar who turned against the world in the name of saving it.
Amon steps off the platform and approaches her - his hand curling slightly at his side, inflexibly, seizing something immaterial - Korra's gasp sticks in her throat as her blood slows in her veins, her limbs deadening with cold, her head spinning with an unbearable lightness -
She falls onto one bended knee in front of him, burdened with the freezing heaviness of her own muscles, choking on nothing as her vision tunnels on his boots, each slowed, confident step. Amon bends down to take the microphone from her grasp and lift her gaze with his other hand, along the side of her face. To the spectators it looks like affection, an intimate moment between father and daughter. To Korra it is manipulation, mind and body, his thumb sliding across her cheek in a caress even as he presses his fingertips to the back of her neck and chi-blocks her. She almost spasms with revulsion. Forcing her to kneel in deference.
"Wh - ?" she says, her bones quivering against the hold, and even with his mask on she knows he's smiling.
"Precautions," he says, so that only she can hear.
"Thank you, my dear, for your hard work… You make me very proud," Amon says into the microphone, and straightens up, turning from her to bask in the attention of the crowd. "Now, benders of Republic City - the consequences."
Korra can't even speak. She just watches, locked inside her own fury, the bloodbending hold still freezing her in place as the Equalists present each of the defeated, panicking Wolfbats to Amon. It's over in seconds, Tahno pleading the entire while, the Equalists kicking him into the pool. The audience is still wordless, their attention riveted on the platform, but Korra senses it, like a charge in the air, a fine heat on her skin: they're not looking at Amon. They're looking at her.
"So once again, the Wolfbats are your probending champions. It seems fitting that you celebrate three bullies who cheated their way to victory. Because every day, you threaten and abuse your fellow non-bending citizens…"
Amon jabs his finger into the air, accusing the audience, his voice rich and sultry and seductive with power, enthralled with his own words. Korra's mouth is dry, every strained suck of air skating over her parted lips, her chest already sore with just the effort of breathing. The police officers have all been taken out, but the effect of the glove only lasts so long; she can only hope they wake up soon.
"… If any of you stand in my way, you will meet the same fate," Amon is growling, pacing a wide half-circle around the platform, and his eyes fall on Korra as his tongue clips the 't' in 'fate'. A chill even colder than the bloodbending crawls up her spine and she wants to scream. The way he looks at her burns, a ray of light that cuts through the air between them. Everyone can see it, feel it: he's above even the Avatar…
Korra tries to snap out of the hold, and can't; she tries again and again, and then again, and searches inside herself for something, anything, that will break the bonds of his bloodbending - how - how dare he - Korra's skin turns itself inside out with unmitigated disgust, a splintered betrayal lodged into every inch of her being - she wants to hurt him - she is wrath, made human.
"… And once that goal is achieved, we will equalize the rest of the world. The revolution has begun!"
Amon thrusts his fist into the air as the glass dome shatters overhead. The zeppelin looms over the arena and the ropes drop in straight, unwavering lines to the platform. Amon throws the microphone aside with a shrill squeal of feedback and finally releases the hold, the bloodbending flooding out from Korra's body with a dizzying wave of warmth.
She slumps and takes in huge gulps of air, more like retching than actual breathing, and Amon hooks his arm under her shoulder, dragging her with him onto the circular foothold fanning out at the end of the rope.
The rope jerks and they ascend towards the zeppelin through a rushing column of wind, her gut churning with a squelch of vertigo - underneath them, the explosives planted in the probending platform detonate with a sound-dense shudder of fire and smoke.
Korra clutches the rope and leans out as far as she can, eyes watering with the smoke - if she lets go she'll fall onto the platform, but if she jumps out far enough she'll land in the water -
"Stay on the rope, you stupid girl," Amon orders, bunching the front of her uniform in his fist and reeling her back in, and Korra looks at him as though for the first time -
A metal cord hisses through the air and wraps itself around the foothold of the nearest Equalist, who clings to the rope and shouts into the wind - "It's Bei Fong! She recovered!"
They all look down to see a small grey figure, her metal armor glinting with streaks of light, rising faster on her cords than the zeppelin can pull them up. The golden-glassed arena shrinks below their feet against the blackness of the ocean and the harbor winds lash over them, buffeting them with cold sea air.
Bei Fong soars weightlessly to just over the Equalist's head, the cords slackening around her as she coils them back into her wrist guards with bending - her pantherine green eyes narrow as she falls in a feline leap onto the Equalist, knocking him off the foothold, sending him plummeting onto the glass dome twenty yards beneath them. She is so close Korra can see the two earth-pink scars on her face.
Bei Fong wraps her forearm around the rope, meeting Korra's gaze across empty space, the sky and ocean vast and hollow around them and the city skyline torn and glimmering like burning black paper. The Equalist zeppelin crew did their job: the police zeppelins are falling, plowing into the sea, plumes of fire and smoke streaming from the jagged holes in their hulls; police boats with their bows slanting out of the water, crumpled and sinking.
"Come and get her," Amon calls out, holding the back of Korra's belt, his voice above the wind - this is her chance, her resolve hardening into action, if she doesn't leave now she will never leave -
Bei Fong snaps a metal cord through the air to their rope, just missing it. It slices back to her with at a searing metallic whine and she grimaces, ignorant to what Korra knows: Amon is subtly bloodbending her.
An Equalist jumps out of the hatch, zipping down the rope towards Bei Fong. Korra is running out of time -
They are almost at the zeppelin and she grips the front of her father's uniform, the rope between them, closing the distance so that he can hear exactly what she has to say.
"I never should've stayed," she says, fixing on the white mask. "I thought I could make it better, or different. But I can't. You'll never change. You will never be a better man."
For a single moment, it's like he knows exactly what she means, like she read every word off his bones and his flesh and his memories, his eyes wide behind the mask.
"What are you - " he says, but it's too late -
"Chief Bei Fong!" Korra roars, and Bei Fong's attention snaps to her.
Korra lets go, balancing for a second on the edge of the foothold - she pushes off and backflips, a strong, graceful curve through the air, and starts to fall, feet first, towards the wreckage of the arena below them - one hand outstretched towards Bei Fong above her, her senses overwhelmed with the relentless howl of the wind, falling, falling, falling, all feeling cresting to the top of her head - falls past the hole in the roof, the serrated jaws of a massive, starving animal - she grunts ungh as a metal cord slings itself around her waist several times, slowing her descent - Bei Fong is diving towards her headfirst, a metallic hawk locked on her prey.
Bei Fong sends another cord through the glass roof and snaps Korra's cord like a whip - it unwinds from around her waist and she smashes onto a walkway with an unforgiving, bruising thud. She tumbles uncontrollably across the floor on clumsy momentum and comes to a stop, facedown.
Korra lies there panting, sore and stunned, breathless with victory. She did it. She left him. She's free.
A thunderous storm of metal and sound envelops her and she groans as she lifts herself on one forearm, pushing up with the other hand, staggering to her feet. Korra is surrounded: at least a dozen metalbending cops stand in a ring around her, their hands raised, ready to attack. Bei Fong drops into the middle of the circle, her armor clinking as she lands on her toes, low to the ground and possessed with a cool fury.
"Hah," is all Korra manages to say, as Tarrlok and the Equalist Task Force run to them, surrounding her as well. She looks up to see the tail end of the zeppelin slide out of sight. With it, her father.
Korra stares at the officers, still collecting her breath, euphoric with success. In response they bristle, their stances taut.
"Don't make us do this the hard way, girl - " Bei Fong begins. Korra cuts her off, lifting her open hands, palms slanted skyward.
"I surrender."
There you have it.
some more business:
a) you will find out what happened to korra's real parents
b) in the very
c) next
d) chapter
and! if you have a pressing question about the plot and Things That Seem Under-Explained (I tend to go for subtle and overshoot the mark, I'm learning) send a private message.
anywho, thnx for reading, leave a review if you feel like it, my outline says two more chapters left so I better get started bye