Hi… Here's me once again procrastinating and then cram-writing most of a fic in the late hours of the final day of the month. Only this time, I missed it, despite semi-accidentally pulling a literal all-nighter to get this finished. (Thank God for the long weekend.) And then I have only a few days before my self-imposed due date for my April fic, which is April 4th (aka this Thursday). Wish me luck!
This is just a bit of crack that randomly hit me one Sunday afternoon. The new Netflix series has gotten me into an AtLA/LoK headspace for the past month or so, and between searching for a good time-travel fic and falling in love with the Pro-Bending Brothers all over again, this monstrosity was born.
Timeline-wise, this takes place 4 years before Book 1, so Mako and Bolin are 14 and 12, and still living on the streets.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own 'Legend of Korra' nor any of its characters.
ADDITIONAL DISCLAIMER: I wrote the majority of this on pure inspiration, no sleep, and caffeine in the form of Pepsi. This might be evident in my writing. Apologies in advance.
WORD COUNT: 4,540
Something is different. That is the first thing Naga notices when she wakes up.
First she notices the different smell. The green things that her Korra-human calls 'Spirit Wilds' always smelled strange to her, but she got used to it. They now smell like home. Not the cold-home full of ice and snow and clean ocean air. Not the island-home that also smells of seawater, but with funny spices the Tenzin-human calls 'incense'. No, they smell like the home with the smoke and the rolling human-carriers and the many different people and the many, many different foods. But now that Spirit-plant smell is gone, but she can still smell all the other things from the city-home.
The next Is the sounds. They all sound like the noisy rolling human-carriers and the people of the city-home, but she remembers falling asleep on the island-home.
She opens her eyes and looks around. Yes, this is the city-home. She is in one of the small walking-places where the rolling human-carriers don't go, where it all smells like human scent-markings and the food that humans don't want to eat for some strange reason.
Speaking of food, Naga's stomach rumbles. She's hungry. She gets up, stretches, and looks around. None of her people are nearby. She can't see or hear or smell any of them. Naga decides to go look for some food, first, and then find her humans.
She finds one of the big earth-not-earth boxes of unwanted food very quickly, noses it open, and is delighted to find meat inside!
She's eating happily when a nearby door opens, and a human comes out and screams. Naga looks up – screams mean danger; where is the danger?! But the human swings a ground-cleaning stick at her, and Naga jumps away and runs into the place with the rolling human-carriers.
More humans scream, and yell, so she keeps running, weaving through the rolling human-carriers and looking for somewhere safe and quiet.
One rolling human-carrier chases her, and it has the humans with the earth-but-not-earth all over their bodies, and she doesn't like them, especially when they throw their "cables", as the Lin-human calls them, at her. (The Lin-human wears the earth-but-not-earth on her, too, but Naga likes her and only her, now that she's stopped popping Naga's balls when Naga tries to play fetch with her.) She runs and dodges and jumps over the human-habitats to get away.
She finds herself in another walking-place with no rolling human-carriers, and then she catches wind of some familiar smells. One smells of smoke and storms, the other of dirt and fire-mountains. The storm-smell and the fire-mountain smell are weaker, but it's them! Naga knows those smells very well!
She turns and runs to find them, and soon she finds them, in one of the walking-places. They're sitting on the ground, and the Mako-human is giving something to the Bolin-human. It smells like meat and bread, and Naga is hungry, but so happy to see them! She's found her friends and food!
Naga jumps down to them, barking happily. But then she gets a surprise. The Mako-human looks up and sees her, but he doesn't hold his hands up like he does when she's about to jump on him to greet him. Instead, he yells and dives out of the way, so she just misses him.
Is he playing? The Mako-human doesn't usually play with her like the wind-human-puppies do! He always throws her ball whenever she wants to play fetch, but he never joins the run-chase-catch games!
But his smell isn't right, she realises as she turns around to face the boys near the opening of the walking-place. (Hey, she's a big polar bear-dog, so she needs a lot of space to turn around when she's running!) He doesn't smell happy. In fact, the smoke-smell just got stronger-
There's a ball of fire flying at her face. Naga ducks. She used to play catch-the-fire with her Korra-human, many years ago, back when they lived in the cold-home, but one day her Korra-human made the fire too hot, and Naga burned her tongue. Her Korra-human gave her lots of her favourite tiger-seal meat and cuddles and "I'm sorry"s, but they never played the catch-the-fire game again.
This fire is too hot, too. And so is the fire that the Mako-human keeps throwing at her. He pulls the Bolin-human behind him and yells "Run, Bo!" And there's a pitch to his voice that Naga knows and doesn't like to hear from her celebration of humans.
It's fear.
The Mako-human – and the Bolin-human – are afraid.
They're afraid of her.
They are afraid and smaller than she ever saw them, and she doesn't understand why.
Naga stops. She moves to dodge two more fireballs, but she doesn't come closer. She doesn't understand. Humans throwing fire at her are bad, but this is the Mako-human; she knows he isn't bad. She knows her Korra-human's old mate (Naga doesn't understand why humans sometimes change mates, but she's happy this one stayed in their life, and the new one, the Asami-human, is wonderful, too) isn't bad, that he gives the best scratchies and pets out of all the humans besides her Korra-human, and that the first day he met Naga, he helped and protected her Korra-human, so Naga has to protect him.
He stops throwing fire at her, but the fear-smell is still strong, from both him and the Bolin-human. Their way out of the walking-place is blocked by a big wall, one made from the earth-not-earth that the Bolin-human can't bend. Naga can hear both their hearts pumping too fast, and she can hear the rumble of their stomachs like they're hungry, especially the Mako-human. She sees him sway while he's standing, and she knows he needs food soon. The Bolin-human is a little better, but Naga thinks he should eat, too.
The meat-thing is close to her paw; she nudges it and sees it's one of those little food-carriers made from trees, with the hot meat that the Bolin-human loves so much. Naga is hungry, but the Mako-human looks like he's going to fall over, so Naga takes the food-carrier in her mouth and, with a toss of her head, throws it to the boy. Then she lies down and watches. She hopes it's enough.
"Here, Bo." Mako holds the bag of dumplings out to his brother. "I got you lunch."
Two and a half dumplings – he counted – are hardly enough to be considered lunch, but it's the best he can do. He got it when he spotted some rich-looking boys his age sitting on a bench and talking loudly at the girls passing by, their half-eaten bags of food left on the bench behind him. When two of them (creeps, he decided) stood up to get closer to a particularly pretty girl (who clearly wanted nothing to do with them), Mako made his move, quietly slipping by behind their friends' backs and snagging the bag. To his disappointment, it was more than half-finished, barely enough for one person. And when he meets Bolin in the alley they agreed upon, he finds that his brother has turned up sad and empty-handed.
So, despite the hollow pain in his stomach and the way his head is starting to throb and spin, he smiles and lies to his baby brother. "I ate my half already. The rest are all yours."
Bolin looks at him suspiciously – he's not the six-year-old who used to fall for it hook, line, and sinker, anymore – but reaches out for the bag.
The heavy thudding of footfalls is all the warning Mako has, but it's just barely enough for him to throw himself out of the way of the massive shape that's approaching him at breakneck speed. The huge, white blur rushes between him and Bolin, and as it charges several feet down the alley before skidding and turning around, he feels a rush of terror. This thing is gigantic, and looks like one of those polar bear-dogs he saw in a book once, back when he still went to school like a normal kid with parents and a home. They're powerful, and dangerous, and now one is blocking the only exit from the alley and running at him and Bolin.
Bolin. Mako has to protect his brother. He starts throwing fireballs at the charging beast. "Run, Bo!"
Only there's nowhere to run to. The buildings surrounding them are all made of metal, and Bolin can only bend normal earth. They have nowhere to go; they're going to die. After six years of doing everything he can to protect his little brother, Mako and Bolin are going to die under the jaws of a fierce predator that shouldn't be anywhere near Republic City (not that that matters now). But Mako will never go down without a fight. He keeps throwing fireballs, even though the effort is making his head spin even more.
And then the animal stops. Even when he keeps throwing fire, it only moves to avoid getting hit, but it stops charging at them. Mako stops, but he can feel the exhaustion and lack of food and sleep getting to him. The alley blurs in front of him, and he blinks. He can't pass out now, definitely not now.
A sudden thud near his feet startles him. Mako squints at the polar bear-dog, which has now settled down onto its belly, but it still blocking the exit and staring at him. Its briefly darts down to the ground and then back up to him. Mako chances a glance down and sees the bag of dumplings next to his left foot.
Did the dog just throw his food to him?
The polar bear-dog whines at him, staring expectantly.
Slowly, not taking his eyes off the animal again, Mako picks up the bag.
The dog's tail thumps happily against the asphalt.
Mako reaches backwards, to pass the bag to his brother.
The tail stops, and the polar bear-dog whines again, this time with a grumble that, if it came from a human, would almost sound disapproving. It's accompanied by a short bark that somehow conveys the same impression.
"I think he wants you to have it, Mako," Bolin suggests hesitantly, "Come on; I know you didn't eat today."
Bo's making it a lot harder to take care of him when he calls Mako out on stuff like this.
"I'm fine, Bo."
"No, you're not! Just eat the fucking dumplings, already!"
Mako knows it's pointless to ask where his baby brother heard language like that; he tries not to swear in front of Bolin, but the other street kids and the Triad men have no such reservations.
Between his brother's urgings, the polar bear-dog's pointed stare, and the piercing pain of his own hunger, Mako has no other option but to give in to what they're all telling him. He can't protect Bolin if he dies of starvation. So, he reaches into a bag, pulls out the half-eaten dumpling, and takes a bite.
It tastes wonderful.
It makes him nauseous. The kind old lady who runs one of the market stalls once told him that fried foods is not good for a stomach that's shrunken from starvation, unable to handle the heavy food. But it's all he has on hand, so he takes his time, chews, and swallows, fighting the simultaneous, conflicting urges to throw the food up and scarf it all down as quickly as he can.
Mako makes it through that dumpling and one of the untouched ones, but his stomach roils as he holds up the last one. That one, he hands to his brother. "I'm gonna be sick if I eat anymore," he insists.
Bolin frowns, but he eats it, anyway. Then his little brother smiles at the polar bear-dog. "Well, whatever that is, at least he's good for something! Can we keep it?"
Mako scowls. "Of course not! That thing probably eats half its weight in meat a day. That is, if it doesn't eat us!"
"He won't eat us! Look at him!"
The polar bear-dog is still staring at him, its mouth now hanging open and its tongue hanging out, looking for all the world like an oversized, harmless puppy.
Mako knows better than to judge by innocent-looking appearances, of course. "We can't keep it, Bo," he growls.
"Aw, come on! Pleeease?" Before Mako can catch him, Bolin slips around him (damn, he's off his game) and actually approaches the polar bear-dog. "Hi! It's okay, I'm not gonna hurt you!"
"Bolin, get away from it!" Mako summons another ball of flame, but it's weak. He's so tired…
But Bolin doesn't listen. He reaches out and starts petting the enormous beast on its massive head. This causes the dog to lick his face once and then roll over, exposing its underbelly. "Aw, such a good boy!" Bolin coos. Then he pauses and takes a quick look. "Oh, sorry. Good girl!"
Maybe Mako's seeing things. Maybe he's so hungry, he's started hallucinating.
He steps forward, urges to Bolin to get away from the giant wild animal (although with the way it's behaving, maybe it was someone's pet, at some point) on the tip of his tongue. But then the world tilts sideways.
Bolin thinks maybe he has a new favourite animal. This big, white bear-dog is so sweet, and she even helped him convince Mako to eat some damn food instead of doing his stupid 'I don't care what happens to me Bo, just eat all the food' thing that both annoys and terrifies his brother. Speaking of Mako, after about half a minute or so of scratching the dog's belly without his big brother making any protests, Bolin looks up to see him leaning against the corrugated steel wall of the alley, looking for all the world like it's the only thing holding him upright.
"Mako?" Instantly, all his joy at his newfound furry friend vanishes at the sight of his brother in dire straits. He runs over, slipping himself under Mako's arm in an effort to support him. "Mako, you need to sit down and rest."
"'M fine, Bo," Mako mutters weakly, "'C'mon, we need to get back to our spot before night falls."
Bolin sighs, but he knows Mako's right. They've got a spot staked out near the train station, where the flaming statue of Fire Lord Zuko warms the air in the vicinity just a little bit, but it could be taken at any time.
Still, he stays under his brother's arm, grabbing the ratty backpack filled with all their possessions and shouldering it before pulling them past the polar bear-dog despite Mako's reluctance to get anywhere near her. "Thanks for the help," he tells her cheerfully.
The dog whines and gets up, starting to follow them.
"No," Mako insists, his voice mostly firm but wavering a little, "Sit. Stay."
To Bolin's surprise, the polar bear-dog obeys, but not without making the saddest sad-eyes ever.
"Huh," Mako muses aloud, "Guess it was somebody's pet before, if it listens like that."
"Does that mean we can-"
"No, Bo; we can barely feed ourselves."
Bolin gives her one last sad look over his shoulder before leaving the alley.
They make it less than halfway to their spot, however, when trouble finds them as they cut through the mostly-empty park.
"HEY!"
Three older boys come running at them. They all have nice clothes that look like they ripped them on purpose, and they all look angry. "You're the little bitch that stole our food!"
The one who shouted is yelling at Mako. He's tall and has a lot of big muscles. Actually, they all look like that.
"Seriously, what the hell is your problem?" a second one snaps.
"Please," Bolin tries to reason with them. Mako is silent for the moment, still leaning on Bolin's shoulder, but he's aiming a smouldering glare at the bigger boys. "We don't want any trouble."
"You street rats shoulda thought of that before you stole from us," the third one growled.
"Whaddya say, Fu, Jin?" the second said arrogantly, "should we teach these little bugs about respecting their betters?"
Mako's shifting his weight, standing on his own and raising his fists. "Walk away," he warns them as smoke curls from his fingers.
"Ooh, I'm so scared."
Before either brother can react, the apparent leader stomps his foot, and the ground erupts under Mako's feet, sprouting a pillar that launched him backwards and threw him onto the ground. "Oof!" Mako gasps as he lands.
"MAKO!" Bolin runs to his brother. Mako is wheezing, the breath having been knocked out of him. He can't firebend if he can't breathe properly.
The boys are laughing. "That all you got, fire-snake?" either Fu or Jin taunts.
"LEAVE MY BROTHER ALONE!" Bolin shouts. He stomps on the ground, too, and brings up a chunk of earth a bit bigger than his head. A desperate punch sends it flying at the leader, but the ground here is soft dirt, not rock, and he bats it to the side.
"Little mixed freak!" he growls, "I'll show you-"
"RRRROOOOOOOOOAR!"
Bolin jumps at the sound coming behind him. The loud noise almost drowns out the sound of thundering footfalls (pawfalls?) that he hears before a big shape flies over him and Mako and lands heavily between them and the boys.
The sweet, friendly polar bear-dog that let Bolin pet her in the alley is nowhere to be seen. Now, she's angry, growling and snarling at the teenagers who now look like they're having second thoughts. "WHAT THE FU-"
"RUN!"
All three turn and bolt, a flash of green falling from one guy's belt as he stumbles and just misses the angry polar bear-dog snapping at his heels. For a few seconds, Bolin is afraid that he's going to see something really bloody and deadly.
However, once the boys are across the nearest park bridge, the brothers' new four-legged friend stops giving chase. She lopes back over to them, heading straight for Mako and whining worriedly. He flinches, but she only licks his cheek.
And finally, Bolin feels the last dregs of fear leave him. "That! Was! AWESOME!" he cheers, throwing his fists up in the air, "Did you see that, Mako? She totally saved us!"
Mako sighs tiredly. "Okay, yeah, fine, she did." He looks around. "At least no one else was around to see anything. Thanks, I guess."
He gets licked again in response, this time right on the mouth, causing him to sputter and spit out the dog drool.
Remembering seeing one of the bullies drop something, Bolin gets up and jogs over. He feels a wide grin split his face when he finds a bright green money bag, which clinks loudly with coins and, when he opens it, turns out to also have a thick roll of paper yuans inside. "Mako, look!" He runs over to rejoin his brother, who is reluctantly accepting the polar bear-dog's assistance in standing back up by using her head for support. "One of them dropped this!"
Mako's eyes widen as he takes in the money. "This'll feed us for at least a week!" he gasps.
"And we can get some meat for the dog!" Bolin cheers, "I mean, she did save us and score us the money!"
Mako rolls his eyes, "Okay, fine, just this once. And only because it's a lot of money and she helped us get it!"
"Yes!" Bolin starts giving the dog more pets and scratches, "Who's a good girl? You are! Yes, you- Hey, we should probably give you a name, right?"
"Bo…" Mako groans.
"How about, Mu Lang?"
The polar bear-dog growls, but she sounds more annoyed than angry.
"Okay, not Mu Lang? Let's try… Xue?"
Another growl, if a bit softer.
"Eh, we'll find something."
The shopkeeper raises one eyebrow skeptically at the ragged, thin boy holding out the handful of coins. She's seen him and his brother around; sometimes she spots them lifting the purses of the more affluent shoppers, but since she's of the opinion that they need the money far more than those stuck-up fools, she keeps mum about it. And when they show up later with their hard-"earned" coins in hand, she doesn't question anything and simply provides them as much food as she can reasonably justify for the given amount of money. (The older boy is highly suspicious of anything resembling charity, so there's a limit to how much extra food she can add to their purchase.)
Usually, they buy the very basics: loaves of bread, a few fruits or vegetables, and a bowl or two of soup (especially if they haven't been by lately; she personally recommended soup as the best way to get their stomachs used to accepting food again, and it looks like today is one of those days, what with how he seems a little off-balance). Today's order, however, deviates from the norm. Today, the boy has eyed the rows of fresh cuts of meat and selected a slab of hippo-cow steak to go along with their usual order. And he wants it raw. His exhausted slight glare silently dares her to ask, but she doesn't take the bait. So, she wraps up the steak and adds to his bag without comment.
From there, it's business as usual: the boy pays for his purchases, grunts under the weight of the stuffed shopping bag, gives her a suspicious look because he knows it's more than what he paid for, and then clumsily bolts before she can change her mind. (Yes, he definitely has gone too long without food. He's usually much nimbler than that.) As he stumbles around the corner, she goes back to whatever busywork needs doing until the next customer arrives, letting the bustle and chatter of the marketplace wash over her.
"-the gorilla-goat that got loose this morning?"
She turns a bit as one snippet of conversation catches her attention. Two women are gossiping as they examine her apples.
"I heard from Jia that it was a polar leopard," the second woman refutes her friend.
"Nonsense, Kun! Those are only found at the Poles!"
"Well, she swore it was white!"
"I heard on the radio it was a tigerdillo," a nearby man offers, "Could it have been an albino tigerdillo?"
"I think we'd have heard if the zoo had an albino tigerdillo, though."
"I'm more concerned about where it is, now! Word is, the cops lost it somewhere in the streets, and it was headed for this neighbourhood! I know I'm heading home as soon as I'm done here, and I'm not letting my kids out until I know for sure the beast is locked back up!"
The shopkeeper frowns. She heard the radio report, same as everyone else. By all accounts, RCPD got panicked calls about a large white beast, the Republic City Zoo is swearing up and down that they aren't missing any of their animals, and everyone's wondering just how anyone could lose a beast of its purported size. Surely somebody would have noticed something, especially if the mysterious animal was hungry…
Her mind drifts to the unusual order of raw steak from the boy who would typically have no need for such a thing. The large slab of meat that might be a good snack for a large carnivore…
No, she thinks, shaking her head. He's a smart kid; that much is obvious. He wouldn't mess around with a large animal big enough to eat him, let alone leave it alone with his baby brother…
Mako can't remember the last time they spent a cold night in which he didn't need to stay awake and periodically bend a flame to keep himself and Bolin from freezing to death. It's a task that has gotten marginally easier as the years went by, as his power and control steadily grew, but one that also grows more difficult as he goes more and more days with a minimal amount of sleep. It usually culminates in him passing out in the middle of the day, exhausted from the effort, and scaring the daylights out of his little brother. But if that's the price of surviving the winter on the street, he'll gladly keep paying it, in order to keep his little brother alive.
So, when he's startled awake by the unmistakable yowling of a stray crococat, his first instinct is to panic. He needs to stay awake! He has to keep the flame going! Bolin will-
Bolin is just fine, curled into Mako's side as usual under their shared (ratty, thin, he needs to find a better one before winter really set in) blanket. What is not usual, however, is the large, white, furry thing lying on top of the blanket and pinning it in place over Bolin's lap.
The next unusual thing Mako notices was that his back is not, in fact, pressed against cold, rough brick that leeched the heat from his body. Instead, he's resting against something warm, soft, and moving. Something alive.
His heart starts hammering all over again, and he twists around to see what it is, the blanket falling off his shoulders as a flame bursts from his palm for light.
Bleary, black eyes blink back at him. Mako nearly screams at the sight of the huge beast staring at him, until the events of the past day catch up to him. The polar bear-dog cornering them in the alley, the rich punks trying to corner them in the alley, the dog scaring the rich punks off, Bolin convincing him to use the rich punks' dropped gold into buying her a steak as a thank-you, and the three of them (two boys and one beast) sitting and eating together until the day's exhaustion caught up with them.
And here they are, still alive, still not frozen, or and not eaten, for that matter. The polar bear-dog didn't decide to make the boys a midnight snack while they were vulnerable, and in fact kept them warm while they slept. And now she's staring at him with a curious look on her face, staring at the boy who startled awake from his place sleeping against her side.
"Uh… Sorry." Mako feels a little stupid talking to the dog, but accidentally waking someone (or something) up feels rude, and being rude to a giant animal that could bite your head off and not apologising feels really stupid. "You can… um… go back to sleep."
She blinks blearily at him again before leaning in to nuzzle his shoulder for a few seconds, then setting her large head back down. Mako blinks, still surprised at how affectionate this giant beast is. Clearly she's been someone's pet at some point. Still, he picks the blanket back up, shifts slightly as his leg is starting to fall asleep, and focuses on bending the heat of the flame around himself and Bolin, not willing to let the giant dog do all the work of taking care of his baby brother.
And yet, even with the enormous extra mouth to feed, Mako can't help but find himself hoping that maybe, just maybe, this could work out.
THE END
No, we don't know how Naga time-travelled. No, I have no plans to take it from here. I just really wanted her to adopt Little Mako and Bolin as her pups.
Writing Naga's POV was quite fun, even though I had to stretch my brain a little to come up with a vocabulary with concepts that a dog might understand.
To Naga, Mako smells like fire and lightning, while Bolin smells like earth and lava. Even though this is set at a point in time when Bolin hasn't discovered his lavabending yet, and Mako has yet to master lightning, she can still smell the potential on them. Because she's a smart girl like that.
Fun fact: A word for a group of polar bears is a 'celebration'.
Translation note: 'Mǔ láng' (母狼) is Chinese for 'she-wolf'. Naga doesn't like it because a) she is not a wolf, and b) she has a name, already! 'Xuě' (雪) means 'snow'. Naga still doesn't like it because she has a name! She just hasn't quite figured out that the boys don't know her name.
This idea came from a few different inspirational sources. It started as me imagining a time-travel scenario wherein the Krew meets their older/younger selves and the younger Mako and Bolin freak out a bit over Naga when they first see her, only for the older ones to just casually start giving her pets and scratches. That in itself was inspired by 2 things: An unfinished fanfic called 'Take it Back Now, Y'all' by jester_complex on AO3 (it's restricted as private, so you need to be logged into an AO3 account to read it), which features older versions of the Gaang suddenly showing up in the South Pole when Aang comes out of the iceberg and scaring and confusing the shit out of their younger selves; and the episode 'The Ultimatum', specifically the scene where Mako and Bolin arrive at the Oasis with their family and reunite with the rest of the group, starting with Pabu and Naga, who terrifies the family as she barrels towards them and tackles Mako to the ground, while he just (mostly) calmly tells her yes, he's happy to see her, too, and please quit licking his mouth, it's gross!
