A/N: Today's review acknowledgments go to Black Dragon Master, Tertius711, Sharpe, AsahixMe, Guest, Raider, FireLordAziz, and devilfiredog18. Thank you as always for remaining so committed to giving me quality feedback. Robert, thanks for your Valentine's wishes - feel free to also write some thoughts on the story.
Guest, I am also part of the Doctor Who and Sherlock fandoms, but no, the teatime idea did not come from there. You may be right that it's a quintessential British menu, but that's probably more a result of my hailing from a Commonwealth country.
Now, a special acknowledgment and a big thank you to StevenBodner, who is steadily working their (his?) way through and leaving reviews on every single chapter, thus singlehandedly boosting the review count by a significant margin. Steven, when you reach this chapter, know that I am extremely grateful that you would take the time and effort to review all chapters of a story you found when it was already 49 chapters long. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
The agenda for today: you asked for more Makorra, and I am happy to oblige.
50. With the stars in the moonlit night
The note slipped under his door reads simply: Meet me in the courtyard.
He recognises Korra's handwriting at once. After checking the weather at his window — it's a cool night, so he dons his coat along with his scarf — he makes his way out the door and retraces the path through the manor back to the courtyard.
Outside, the sky glitters with stars. A refreshing breeze carries the ocean with it, nipping at his cheeks and swirling around the ends of his scarf. Korra stands near the centre of the courtyard, dancing with the wind and adding her own currents to the air. Her hair is down — it falls between her shoulder blades now, flowing in the eddying flurries. He pauses to observe her motions, admiring the grace and fluidity of her movements. She's come a long way from the rough-and-tough, no-holds-barred bulldozing style that used to be her only trademark.
She spots him and waves, and he feels the intensity of the wind fade slightly. In long, loping strides, he reaches her and catches her around the waist, nuzzling a kiss into her neck and drawing a delighted giggle from her.
"I've missed that," she tells him.
"Sorry," he apologises. There aren't a lot of opportunities for intimacy on what is essentially an official royal tour; moreover, he's been rather preoccupied of late. He rests his chin on her shoulder. "I'll make it up to you."
She smiles impishly. "I'll hold you to that." She lets a second pass before commenting, "So, big day, huh?"
He exhales, his breath tickling her ear. "Yeah."
"How're you holding up?"
"Not bad," he says honestly. He's had half a day to come to terms with his newfound heritage, and the earlier tea had certainly helped. "Now that the shock is over, a lot of things are starting to make sense."
She pulls away slightly so she can look at him. "Like what?"
He tugs her body, indicating that he wants to return to their previous position; she complies, leaning back and letting him nestle on her shoulder again. He loves holding Korra this way; having her solidly in his arms in front of him is a reassuring reminder that she is his.
"It explains why Mom never spoke about her family. And how she always seemed to know things. I had a history project at school once about the Harmonic Restoration movement, and Mom went deep into the political context when she was helping me with it." He sighs. "And then there was firebending. I didn't realise till much later that nobody in the city learned firebending the way Mom taught it to me."
Korra cocks her head contemplatively. "Hmm. Now that I think about it, you don't really firebend like anyone else I know."
He chuckles wryly. "I learned three different styles, Korra. Mom's style — which I'm gonna guess was traditional firebending — triad tactics, and pro-bending."
Korra grins suddenly. "Real Mr. Hat Trick, aren't you?"
His laugh this time is heartier, his heart lighter. He's finding out, time and time again, that with Korra around, anything he deals with seems easier. (Which is good, because he has a growing feeling he'll need that in coming days.)
"I love you," he says, pressing his cheek into her neck.
"I love you too." She twists to plant a kiss on his lips, then tilts her head back against his chest with her gaze fixed upwards. "The stars are gorgeous here."
He looks up, beholding the shimmering spots of silver against the violet sky. Once, his mother would have looked at these same stars. "Yeah, they are."
"When I was at the compound, I used to watch the stars every night. My mother told me they were where the spirits of past Avatars went, and that they would always watch out for me. Whenever I got frustrated that I couldn't connect to them, I would take Naga and run out and just…look." She sighs, pensively. "When I finally got in touch with my spiritual side and could talk to them, I didn't bother looking at stars anymore. But after Harmonic Convergence…the stars are all I have."
He knows this mood: it's a nostalgic melancholy that seizes her sometimes, the overwhelming regret for what she views as her biggest failure. It doesn't come up much these days, but sometimes something will come along to trigger it. Tonight, it's probably the fact that he's found a long-lost part of him, and the knowledge that she won't ever be able to do the same with her past lives.
He hugs her against him and nudges his lips against her ear. "You know, when you think about it, everything on earth comes and goes. Even the Avatar spirit has a cycle." He nibbles playfully on her earlobe, aiming to make her giggle again (it works). "But the stars? They're there forever. They see everything, and we're basically looking at the history of the universe."
These stars have seen hundreds of Avatars live and die. They had watched his mother grow.
"But the stars don't decide what happens in the here and now." He cups Korra's face and turns it towards his. "We do. And maybe someday —" A long, long time from now. "— your spirit will find a star to live on too. But for right now…" He rests his forehead against hers, relishing the warmth of her skin. "We have more than stars, Korra," he whispers.
He cradles her head and kisses her deeply, tilting his face to meet her lips just right, shaping his mouth to the curve of hers. Her hands come up to twine into his hair, and it's a while before they surface for air.
"Hey, Mako?"
"Yeah?"
"Will you teach me how to bend lightning?"
He blinks. "Now?"
She laughs. "No, silly. When we get back to Caldera."
"Iroh could probably —"
"No, I wanna learn from you."
He chuckles at the insistence in her voice, the stubborn set of her jaw. Iroh definitely had better instruction in lightningbending than he did, but Korra knows what she wants.
Agni, he loves this woman.
"Okay."
Her eyes shine, and they are the brightest stars he sees.
A/N: Lyric is from 'Walk With Me' by Bella Thorne (from the movie Midnight Sun).
I have written a whole entire essay on Mako's firebending (because I can), and it is way too long to throw into the author's note. Since the next couple of chapters will be focusing on firebending, I will select specific, relevant excerpts of the essay to include at the end, starting with this one.
Mako's Firebending, Exhibit A: Legwork
Mako's firebending style is very distinct. More than any other firebender we've seen in TLOK, he has an eclectic blend of various styles and techniques. Iroh bends very much like Zuko did, in what is presumably the traditional firebending style; triads seem to mainly employ punches and flame daggers; pro-benders rely on quick one-twos and short bursts. Mako, though, seems to utilise elements of all three styles. Obviously, he's received training from triads and pro-bending, and we do see him use quick fire blasts, rapid combos, and even a flame dagger on one occasion. However, there are many telling traditional elements in Mako's bending too.
Perhaps the most obvious traditional aspect of Mako's bending is his legwork. Firebending movements in ATLA were based on the real-life martial art of Northern Shaolin style, which is characterised by its emphasis on kicking strikes. Mako in canon is shown to use his legs to bend much more than the average firebender in Republic City. I went back and rewatched literally all the pro-bending scenes in TLOK, and I counted only three small instances of another pro-bender firebending from their feet, so we might assume that it's not typical pro-bending style to do so. Yet Mako consistently bends with his legs in the arena, most prominently in his establishing character moment by winning the 3v1 in S1E2 (seriously, watch that scene — lots of legwork there from the Captain of the Fire Ferrets). Mako also uses his legs a lot in combat; many times — especially when he has the space — his opening offensive is to fling fire from his legs. He seems particularly fond of a spinning kick in mid-air, which produces a long arc of powerful fire.
Clearly, when Mako needs power, he relies on legwork — crucially, this is similar to what we've seen in Zuko's fighting style as well. In both his Agni Kais against Zhao and Azula, Zuko lands the decisive blows with fire from his feet. Iroh also gets in on this, fire-kicking an Equalist pilot out of a plane in the Book 1 finale. This even extends to Korra, who also firebends a lot with her legs — best exemplified in her fight against Equalists on the rooftop of the pro-bending arena in S1E6 — and we know she was taught the older, traditional styles. For that matter, Aang also used leg-based firebending a good deal in his final battle with Ozai — and Zuko was the one who taught Aang.
Thus, it's safe to assume that traditional firebending — the kind that's taught to nobles like Zuko and Iroh — incorporates much more legwork than modern firebending. Naoki, as a noblewoman with traditional parents, would have been taught this style as well, and therefore passed it on to Mako.
We've now hit 50 chapters (man, this story has grown!), and I would tentatively say that we're about two-thirds of the way through. Stay tuned for more narrative and analytic content!