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( she keens into him. she never had a lack of affection growing up, but she's too handsy to deny herself it, when it's offered so freely, at the hands of someone she loves. growing up means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. for mako, it was learning to live for himself, instead of bolin. for korra, it was learning to accept help when it's given.

a large part of her still thinks dissonance in the world is a weight that falls on her shoulders. it's almost like she's lamenting every time the world needed to be realigned, like she should've been there to stop it - in the hundred year war, in any of the thousands of wars that came before then. but. in a way, she was there. her previous lives. it's a common thread between all avatars in any age, from wan all the way through to korra - they'd all rob thousands of years of misery off the shoulders of all their other lives, so everyone else could have the freedom to experience our two worlds in all the joy they posses. if all the suffering in the world's history could've been bounded up in korra's twenty-one years of existence, she would have done it without a second thought. it's not an unusual feeling. aang would've done it, roku. kiyoshi. all of them. all of us.

but that isn't how the world works. you don't get ten years of blessing followed by ten years of misery, like the seasons passing from one into the other. there's always dark and light in every corner of the world, vaatu and raava always feuding each of their glorious fights. balance isn't peace, because peace is a conundrum of its own - you wouldn't know relaxation without the pain of tension, and you wouldn't know happiness unless you felt the fiery hot tears of sorrow. peace can only exist because chaos is lurking behind every twist and turn of life. even now, korra can only say it's peaceful, because she knows the world has been worse off before - in reality, there are always evil doers, there are always dark spirits, there are always people like zaheer and amon who see balance as a means to hurt others. that's where the avatar fits into their role. it isn't even really about bringing peace. it's about maintaining balance, and dealing with the consequences.

she's never heard mako talk about his father before, in any kind of specific manner. she mostly just knows he was earth kingdom, and that he died, and that bolin looks like him. korra isn't sure she agrees with the sentiment either - was the adolescent mako made of some material stronger than the rest of them? could he stand seeing his parents burn more than some other child? - but it is a very fatherly thing to say, wise and boyish. korra takes a bite of curry, but she doesn't taste it much. mako always makes it a little too hot, but it's a blessing for now, letting korra feel the burn of spice on her tongue. )

I think, ( her finger strokes against the bowl, mako's handiwork. ) sometimes you have to break a bone to make sure it heals correctly.

( waterhealing. katara taught her that. sometimes you have to be at your lowest, be broken and beaten and destroyed, body and mind, in order to find your path. it's not about what you can handle, it's about what you do handle, and what you choose to repress. )

Pain can help you discover a lot about yourself, too. I guess ... that's a good thing. ( she shrugs. ) Maintaining balance would be easier if it didn't come with all these ... hard edges. Toph Beifong told me that evil would always exist in the world, no matter what I did. I guess ... accepting that is part of how to become a good Avatar. You know? At a certain point, you have to accept the world for how it is, no matter how ugly. One day I'll die and the next Avatar will have just as much chaos to conquer as I did — maybe even more. Bah, I'm babbling. ( she munches on more curry. ) Thanks for listening. I'm just scatterbrained.

[resistivity]

( his focus on her sharpens, like the twist of fire in the air in the moment before it becomes a blade. mako knows all about self-recrimination. he knows, rationally, that he was a child when his parents were killed. that he'd been firebending for only a little while, and that he was no match for a hardened criminal. but there is still a part of him that thinks he should have tried.

so yeah, he knows what it looks like, to have something awful happen to you and think that maybe you deserve it because of what has come before. every fight he got in, every time he went hungry, even.

he looks down at his arm, tucked into the sling. firebending all aside, he hasn't even been able to move pebbles with a twitch of his fingers — even trying was agony. it's possible that the chi is permanently blocked. even that, there's a ghost of a whisper at the back of his mind about how it's all warranted.

but what's acceptable in him is... abhorrent in korra. it's not growth, it's guilt. it's a justification for all the evils that other people have laid down at her feet, i guess it's good i learned about myself as a result of all this pain. and then, to have her just. talk so easily about her own death. he doesn't care that it's a cycle. that it's been a cycle, ten thousand years back into an ancient world. something in him breaks at her pain, and it's not like a bone you can set, it's just. there to hurt. )

Korra. ( his mouth twists in frustration, because he already knows he isn't going to articulate his thoughts properly. ) You were always a good person. A good Avatar. I believed part of that was because you didn't accept the world as it was. You were always looking for ways to make it better, make it brighter. You didn't need. ( there is a very slight, almost imperceptible tremor in his voice. all those times he almost lost her. all those times he could do nothing but stand by while she fought some battle alone. all those times she woke up beside him in a cold sweat, terrified and suffering. ) Pain to teach you that. Growth doesn't have to come from being broken. And you haven't deserved any of the awful things that've happened to hurt you.

( he brushes her cheek with his knuckles, a gentle, tender thing. there's no intent behind it, it's not a prelude to a kiss like it might have been once. it's just. human contact. )

Even the stuff I did, when I was — well, you know, kind of an idiot. Pain isn't a good teacher. It just makes you hurt.

( when he learned how to manipulate lightning from zolt, the gangster wasn't gentle. he would often use more than mako could handle, and then laugh when he faltered. toughen up, kid. you'll thank me one day. mako's still angry about the time that zolt almost killed him, not because of the risk to his life but because bolin had to watch waterbenders working on him, and that's not an easy thing for a kid who has nothing else left in the world.

so yeah. true. the pain taught him. lightning didn't save zolt, but it saved him in the fight against amon. but what zolt did. it was still cruel. mako has enough self-awareness now to realize just how much. he didn't need the pain. he would've learned lightning without it. and maybe he'd have been. gentler, somehow, to have done it a better way. it's the same with korra. and he's not going to listen to her telling herself it was a necessary thing, to suffer so much so that she could have a moment of enlightened self-discovery. )

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( the thing is - it doesn't feel like a friendly gesture. it feels like how it used to. she's pretty sure mako is going to kiss her, and what's more, she's pretty sure she'd let him.

it's good that he doesn't. the end of their relationship was never about a lack of feelings, and true enough, korra is positive she'll love him until the day she dies, but was instead built on the foundation of that some people can just. love each other more than life itself and still not be meant for each other. they don't need to confuse those feelings. ending the relationship was the right choice, but it still stung like branding iron laying mako's name over her heart. she never fell out of love with him, she just. loved him so much, to know that she'd never be able to make him happy.

that's not even to mention - jesus, asami. a good friend would mention it to mako, at least. give him some sort of heads up. maybe korra's not a good friend. she just wants asami to be here, like seeing her might clear up all these confused, messy feelings. she'd probably know what to say to him, if they said anything at all. really, korra doesn't even know what to call them. girlfriends? dating? she needs to be here.

she just presses a little more on his shoulder, turning her face down so she doesn't have to think about - kisses, or anything other than the sound of mako's voice. pain isn't a good teacher. maybe he's right. but. then.)

Wouldn't you rather feel like everything happens for a reason, instead of just ... ( she shrugs, a little hopelessly. she's just spitting back words that were told to her, once. she isn't sure she really believes it herself. ) Because things and people in our world are inherently bad?

( no. she sighs. she really doesn't believe in any of this. evil is a part of maintaining balance in all things good - there's no reason why anything horrible happened to her, or to mako, or to anyone else she's seen suffer in her lifetime. pain is a product of cruelty, not the universe punishing you for your mistakes.

she shakes her head. )

You're right, of course. I just. Wish I could help make the world ... a better place. Not a perfect one, just ... better.

[resistivity]

( he strokes her hair. it's so much shorter than he remembers it that the ends almost jar him, he's expecting to continue on, fingers threaded in the deep tangle of rich earthen brown. they've changed. grown up. grown apart, maybe, in some ways. he's still sore she never wrote him. she said she needed space but it seems like all that space brought her was misery. he should've insisted. he should've gone with her. who lets their friends walk out the door and never tries to. find them. help them, hold them?

it's telling, that of all the people in his life, korra was his very first friend. bolin doesn't count, he's family. mako would do anything for him, but that was never a choice. that was an instinct, a duty. something born of love. but he picked korra. he fell in love with the searing fire in her eyes, the hard line of her jaw, the callouses on her palms. the way she was always battle-ready and eager to fight. he even loved the dark spirits in her, the shadows that clung as the light got low, the horrors of what they've all endured crowding in close. he just. he loves her. wholly, completely, without compromise.

it's probably why he doesn't kiss her. he wants to. of course he does. but she's water in all the places he's fire, she's earth where he's air. they are all about checks and symmetries and balances and it isn't in their stars. they've made that mistake. they've made it time and time and time again and he wants to kiss her so badly that the phantom taste of her mouth is on his tongue.

but he doesn't. their world is cyclic. maybe they'll circle back around. maybe this cycle is broken with that last kiss they ever had, and there are only fresh beginnings. mako heaves a breath, and presses his lips down against the crown of the dark halo of her hair. )

No. I don't think things do happen for a reason. That's too easy. You get to just throw your hands up and say 'hey, I couldn't have changed anything, it was just meant to be'. Bad things happen and you deal with it, but I don't think it was your destiny to have Amon take your bending. Or to have Zaheer poison you. I think it was a choice they made that you had to live with.

( he tucks her hair behind her ear. )

Korra. Korra. You have made the world better. Where would we be right now if no one had stopped Amon? Or Unalaq? We'd be right back in another Hundred Years' war if Kuvira had taken Republic City. You've done so much. You just can't see it because you're too close to it. Take a step back and look. Really look. I mean it. And don't talk.

( he pulls back from her enough to tap his hand against his chest. over his heart. )

Start here. Just with me. If I hadn't met you, I would've — done what? We never would've made it to the tournament without you. So that would've been it for me and Bolin. We would've been back on the streets. And the only thing either of us would've been good for would've been crime. We were too old to rely on the tricks that kept us alive as kids. So... what, then? I'm the new crime boss of the Triple Threats?

( there wouldn't have been a choice. he would have done it if he had to. to protect his brother. he'd tried so hard to keep out of crime, but if there'd been no other recourse? of course he would have. and anything mako puts his mind to, he excels at. )

I would've been a horrible person. But you showed me there was another way. You gave me all the best parts of yourself without ever asking for anything in return. You're the one who made me realize I could be more than what I was. That I could be better. You gave me that. Just by being you. And I'm just one person. You made that difference.