A/N: Thank you so much to Sharpe, Ardnessela, Black Dragon Master, AsahixMe, CrazyPhenom, IrishDreamer4, BrightWatcher, devilfiredog18, and Aquamirra for reviewing!
And now, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce - the most Makorra chapter yet. I am VERY pleased with this chapter, I've been very excited to share it with you all. I hope y'all enjoy it.
23. You know the warm, red scarf that I wore with you
Korra finds him on the patio.
"Hey, city boy, your party's still going on in there."
"I know."
"So why are you out here?" She leans on the railing next to him. "Everything all right?"
"Everything's fine. Great, even. I just stepped out to get some air." He looks at her. "Thank you for all this."
She shrugs. "Don't thank me. It was Asami and Bolin who planned most of it. I just gave the speech."
"You did more than that, Korra." His features are soft, his amber eyes earnest. "If it weren't for you, I don't think I'd have made it to 24."
He subsides, recalling the darkness and silence that confined him just under a year ago. Back then, this level of love and support would have been beyond his imagination. Even now, it's still somewhat mind-boggling that he has this many people to care for him. He'd been on his own for so long…
"Hey."
He flicks his gaze down to see Korra's brown hand resting on top of his, then back up to her face.
"That's in the past." She smirks at him. "You'd better get used to people hanging around you, cool guy, 'cause we're not gonna stop."
There's a certain shine in her eyes that stirs something in him; he ducks his head, his eyes dropping once more to their joined hands. She seems to realise she's lingering too long; she shifts her hand off and uses it to tuck her hair behind her ear.
She clears her throat and asks, "You're happy, right?"
"I am. More than I've been for years," he answers honestly. Since we were together…
"Good. I'm…glad." She's being careful, now. She's shifted her body to put a bit more space between them. Her eyes meet his only briefly before sliding towards the view of Asami's garden.
He allows her to inject the distance. He's acutely aware of the tension that's been between them since his confession at the gazebo — tension that heightens when it's just the two of them alone. It isn't unbearable, and it hasn't disrupted their friendship — but something has changed. They're more aware of their interactions with each other, more conscious of how they behave…overthinking what should or shouldn't be done for their level of friendship. His words that day have opened a door, lifted the veil of blissful (maybe) ignorance.
In the back of his mind, he thinks they wouldn't have to be so cautious — wouldn't have to enforce distance…if Korra didn't feel the same way.
He resists the urge to look at her, and follows her example of staring at the trees of the Sato estate.
"You know…" Korra begins, still resolutely not looking at him. "I meant always too."
He whips his head around so fast he swears he hears something crack. Korra smiles wryly…and a little sadly.
"But I'm with Asami," she clarifies. "I love her. And…it isn't fair to her, if I just…"
"I understand." And he does. Korra is avoiding the mistake he made when he was dating Asami, and for that he's glad. Asami deserves better.
"I owe it to Asami to give our relationship all I've got," she goes on. "I can't just…stop, or hold back…just because I know how you feel."
Even if you might feel the same. "I know."
She huffs, and the sound is a poignant mix of wistful exasperation and bittersweet acceptance. "I almost wish you'd told me earlier."
I wish I had too. But realistically, he knows why he didn't.
"I would've liked to," he admits. "But I wasn't ready. It would've been a disaster." He's only now in a place where he feels like he could do right by a woman, instead of dragging her into his quagmire of issues. Even if he had told Korra how he felt at Varrick's wedding, and even if she had chosen to get back with him instead of Asami, they would have eventually crashed and burned the same way they did the first time around.
He can see, from the quiet resignation in her eyes, that she understands that.
"We never really had a chance, did we?" she says forlornly.
"I guess not." It's a hard pill to swallow, but it's the truth.
He had refused to acknowledge his feelings for Korra from the beginning, getting together with Asami because it 'made more sense'. Then, when he'd realised he was just kidding himself, Korra lost her bending, and only an Avatar miracle had resolved that quickly enough for Korra to return his affections.
When they first started dating, it was bliss. But the Water Tribe Civil War and their emotional immaturity made their conflicting loyalties too much to overcome. He'd regretted breaking up with her the moment he'd done it — it was a stupid, impulsive decision, and when Korra lost her memory he'd taken it as an opportunity to pretend it never happened. Though he finally came clean, a part of him had wanted them both to forget about it, mend fences, and fix their relationship. But the larger part of him had to agree when Korra said they didn't work, and he'd let her walk away while his heart broke in two.
And then, when they muddled their way back into a comfortable friendship, and finally started growing closer again, Korra was poisoned; and any tiny hopes that they might try again were broken with Korra's spirit, extinguished with her three-year absence. Then she came back, and they re-established their friendship — but any potential romance was now strangled with the tangles of their history and his own insecurities.
It had never been the right time for them. And now it is just too late. And poor Asami is caught in the middle again.
"Our lives have been…pretty eventful," he remarks. "Not always in a good way."
"That's life," Korra concedes with a sigh. "One big, bumpy ride." She shakes her head and seems to come to a decision, glancing at him with a bit more cheer. "But regardless, I'm glad you're in it with me."
He smiles, soft and genuine. "Me too."
The exchange settles their emotions, eases some of the tension. The last vestiges disperse when Korra announces, "I have something for you."
He raises an eyebrow at her, silently wondering why she didn't bring this up when everyone else presented their birthday gifts to him.
"Wait here," she orders.
She slips into the house and returns a minute later with a wrapped package which she presses into his hands. He weighs it contemplatively. It's about the size of the RCPD's orientation handbook, but much lighter and much softer. At Korra's encouraging nod, he rips the paper and slides out silky red fabric.
He stares at the scarf, stunned. It's an exact replica of the one his father used to wear — the one Grandma has draped around her shoulders right now — the one Korra rescued from the wind on his birthday five years ago.
"I found it when Wu and I made a trip to Ba Sing Se to set up the provisional government," Korra explains. "Actually, it might even have been the same shop your dad got it from. It wasn't too far from where your family used to live."
He is utterly speechless. There's no way Korra just happened to spy the same scarf on a spontaneous stroll through the Lower Ring. She had to have been deliberately looking for it.
She seems to realise what he's thinking, because her lips quirk into a playful smile and she says fondly, "It was really sweet of you to give your scarf to your grandma, Mako, but you've been without it for too long."
She casually plucks the scarf from his slack hands and not-so-casually arranges it over his collarbone, knotting it loosely at the junction between his neck and left shoulder — exactly how he used to wear it.
"There," she says as she adjusts the trailing ends of cloth. "Now you look like yourself again."
He imagines he does, especially since he's started wearing his hair in spikes again (after numerous unsubtle comments from Kai about how his slicked-back bodyguard hairstyle made him look like a stiff).
He catches Korra's hand on his chest and locks their gazes, and for a moment — just a moment — they see what could have been.
"We should get back to the party," she advises softly.
"Yeah." He lets her go, sinking his fingers into his new old scarf instead.
Korra heads in first, leaving him to savour the final dissipating remnants of their shared moment, reminders of a connection they've always had. He allows himself a few more seconds to ponder, and remember, and desire — and then he pulls himself back to the reality of the present, and returns to his birthday party with a renewed resolution to move forward.
But the scarf stays.
A/N: Lengthy author's analysis incoming. You have been warned.
I wanted to use the "You keep my old scarf from that very first week" line from 'All Too Well' by Taylor Swift — because I am a massive Swiftie and 'All Too Well' is a stunning masterpiece, one of my absolute favourites from her — but upon further analysis, I realised that 'All Too Well' has some underlying resentment and passive-aggressiveness which doesn't quite fit with the tone of Makorra's star-crossed romance. So then I went hunting, and I stumbled across 'Until I Tied That Knot' — a lovely little indie tune by Maddy Hicks, and I knew instantly that it was the song for this chapter. It is all about bittersweet yearning, which is perfect for what Mako and Korra realise about their relationship. You really need to go read the full lyrics to get the full impact (better yet, listen to the song!), but here's an analysis of the most significant lines for this story.
'You know the warm, red scarf that I wore with you' — Mako's trademark scarf, which he wore throughout his entire romance with Korra. It obviously symbolises more than that, given its history — but I find it interesting that he wasn't wearing it when he broke up with Korra in S2E5: 'Peacekeepers' (yeah, he was in his police uniform, but still). He was wearing it when they broke up in the Book 2 finale, but as highlighted in this chapter, it was Korra who made the decision to end things at that point. Mako's words and body language during that scene read more like someone who regretted a snap breakup and wanted to take it back. I also view Mako's giving up the scarf to Grandma Yin as a moment when he learned to be selfless (giving up something he cherished to someone who needed it more), which by his own admission is something he learned from Korra (as stated in S4E8: 'Remembrances'). In my head, Mako giving away his scarf represented him growing up. It's also after this moment when his interactions with Korra start becoming less post-breakup awkward and more naturally friendly. Granted, they don't have a ton of scenes together in Book 3 anyway, but every scene they had before Mako met his family drew attention to how awkward he felt around Korra, whereas the scenes after showed him treating her fairly normally.
'If I give it up like I'm supposed to do, it's like I'm giving up every last chance with you' — now that their feelings are out in the open, perhaps it's not the wisest idea to give or accept such an intimate gift (you really do overthink gestures when you know there are boundaries you need to keep); but Korra gives him the scarf and Mako accepts it regardless of the implications, because they can't deny the wistfulness they both feel about how things turned out, and how they could have been instead. Incidentally, this is also why Korra gives it to him privately, instead of at the party with everyone else's birthday presents.
'It still feels new, like I felt with you' — this scarf is obviously new, but because of its significance in this chapter it makes Mako feel the way he did when he was with Korra.
'It whispers memories of honest love and I can't undo it 'cause I'm tied up too' — self-explanatory.
'When the wind was crazy, but you kept me safe' — refers to Mako's windy 19th birthday at Air Temple Island, mentioned in chapter 22 (and deliberately written that way because of this lyric, I'll admit).
'I'm wrapped in the love that we had that fall' — the Makorra romance canonically began in summer and ended in winter. Fall would therefore have been its peak (the peak that we didn't see!).
Moreover, this song speaks to Korra's thinking too. Look at the lyrics: 'I guess I forgot until I tied that knot'; 'That's something I'd never thought until I tied that knot'; and 'It's all that I want, and it's all that I fought until I tied that knot'. And who tied the scarf here?
Conclusion: this song is extremely appropriate for Makorra at this point in the story, and I am not the slightest bit sorry.
A/N #2: I'm not sure yet if I'll be updating this Saturday, because I experienced a loss yesterday and I've been in no mood to write (and I don't want to whittle down the buffer chapters too much) - but I do promise an update next Wednesday even if I miss this weekend. So just keep an eye out and know that the latest I'll see y'all again is next week. Thanks!