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According to the news outlets, Mako is a hero.
“Gonna have the ladies lining up at your door now,” Bolin says with a waggle of the eyebrows and a playful nudge. “Well, our door. But you know what I mean.” He’s in good spirits. There are no bags under his eyes, no dull gaze or waxy complexion, no faint tremble in his hands. He’s been sleeping fine, probably. There’s no reason for him not to.
Mako says, “Maybe,” and pushes the newspaper away. He holds his cup of tea with both hands and doesn’t drink it, just keeps up the pretense of wanting to, convinced that if he lifts it even an inch off the table it will end up spilled all over the cheap wood. It’s not worth drinking anyway; by now it’s already tepid, like dirtied water.
Bolin looks at him, impish grin fading into the tiniest possible frown. “Hey, something wrong?” he asks, and then he really looks at Mako, and just like that a sudden anxiety radiates from him as he seems to realize how stupid of a question that is. His posture turns stiff and uncertain, the same way Mako’s does when he isn’t sure how to react to something.
The two of them are a team, no matter how disparate their lives have become. They always have been. So Mako doesn’t make a point of keeping things from his brother, except when he knows it would hurt him, when it would only make things worse. This is one of those times. The reply he gives is, “I’m just worried about Korra,” because it’s easier for both of them than an honest conversation just now.
Bolin—who hasn’t woken up in a cold sweat every night for the past week, his breath caught midway up his throat as he lashes out in a delirious panic—relaxes and says, “Yeah, I get that.” Because he knows what to do with concern, with grief. He knows Mako isn’t good with things like that, so he can wear his heart on his sleeve enough for both of them. He’s unmistakably somber all the same, though, as he folds the newspaper up. “But you know she hates it when people feel sorry for her.”
“I know,” says Mako. And he does. He tries not to dwell on the reality of how she’s doing in the present, because he knows that if anyone can overcome a setback like this, it’s Korra. Even if her legs never recover. Even if she can’t bend like she used to anymore. He’s not convinced anything short of death could stop her from doing the miraculous, the impossible. Though, well, he supposes death has never stopped the Avatar before. So maybe not even then.
“We could head over and see if she’s up for visitors today,” says Bolin, curling a page between his thumb and forefinger so it crinkles softly. “Uh. If you don’t mind waiting until after my date with Opal.”
There’s no sense in having two miserable people drown in their self-loathing together, but Mako can’t say as much without it becoming all too obvious he was lying through his teeth just now. “She probably doesn’t want us bugging her,” he says.
“Asami’s been seeing her,” says Bolin.
“That’s different,” Mako replies, without really understanding what he means. It feels true, though. Asami sitting at Korra’s bedside and rambling about patents and shareholders and expenditures to fill the terrible silence is different from Mako trying desperately to make stilted, uncomfortable small talk just to avoid saying anything that matters.
“Uh-huh,” says Bolin, thoroughly unconvinced. Then he says, “Just to double-check, you’re definitely not still in love with her, right? Like, this isn’t you brooding because you’re—”
“No.”
“Okay, sure,” says Bolin, “just thought I’d ask. You do kind of repress things sometimes.”
Mako grunts, hunches over his cold tea even further, tightens his grip as though it will stop the shaking. His limbs are all freezing and his stomach feels empty and sick in ways that can only be wrought by exhaustion. He says, “I’ll go see her this afternoon. Alone,” he adds.
Bolin brightens, and the smile is back on his face, so pure and precise it may as well never have left. Getting him to feel any way at all is so painfully easy. “Good! Then you’ll both feel better.”
Mako very much doubts that, but he nods anyway.
He takes a ferry at noon to Air Temple Island. It’s only when he sets foot on the pier that he realizes he should have called ahead, checked to see if Korra’s even taking visitors. If she isn’t, he’ll find something to do. Help out Pema, maybe. Take Naga for a walk. Meditate at the pavilion. The idea of not thinking is an appealing one, now more so than ever.
He finds Kya just outside the dining hall. She asks if he’s there to see Korra, then tells him, “You don’t look so good.”
“Just tired,” he says. It’s not a complete lie, at least. “Is she up to it? I can come back another time.”
“You picked a good day, actually,” says Kya. “Tenzin took her out to one of the gardens not too long ago. You can probably find them if you head past the training area.”
He thanks her and turns to go, but she stops him with a hand on his shoulder. “Take care of yourself, alright?” she says softly, sea-blue eyes full of kindness. “You don’t wanna end up like my little brother. He got his first grey hairs at twenty-five.”
“I’ll try,” he says. “World isn’t making it easy.” Too honest. He grimaces.
“Yeah, tell me about it.” She sighs, withdraws her hand, says her goodbye before they both head off in different directions.
Just as Kya said, Tenzin and Korra are out at the bamboo garden west of the courtyard reserved for airbending training, the latter seated in a wheelchair. She’s looking at a violet-colored flower, tracing fingers over the petals while Tenzin seems to give one of his impromptu history lessons in his typical stuffy and overblown manner. Her hair is separated into just two messy pigtails, Mako notices, sloppily brushed if it was brushed at all.
“Ah, Mako!” Tenzin says suddenly, breaking out of the trance of his pomposity with a look of surprise. Korra half-turns to follow Tenzin’s gaze, and it makes Mako feel desperately awkward in his skin, put on the spot like he’d hoped he wouldn’t be. “I didn’t know you were coming today.”
“I forgot to call ahead,” Mako says by way of apology. Then, “Hey, Korra.”
“Hey,” she replies, more subdued than usual. She turns back to Tenzin. “You should give Pema a break from looking after the kids. Mako can wheel me back in.”
Tenzin looks to Mako, who nods. “Right,” says Tenzin. “Well, come find me if you need anything.”
“We will,” says Mako.
They both watch him go in silence, doing nothing. Birds are singing nearby. It’s a nice day, sunny and mild, windless, but Mako still feels an unshakable chill rattling through him. He’d rolled his sleeves down earlier, back on the ferry, then restlessly took them right back up moments later. It hadn’t helped anyway. He should’ve worn a coat if he wanted—
“So,” says Korra, interrupting his miserable train of thought. She’s let go of the plant, her hands just resting on her lap now. “Here we are.”
“Yeah.” Mako hesitates. “Was this a bad time?”
“Depends why you’re here, I guess.”
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I wasn’t really sure what else to do.”
She hums. “Yeah, I’m not sure, either.” Then she turns her head and looks at him again, her gaze haunted, the soft brown of her skin turned unnaturally pale, stark against the dark rings of her eyes. She’s shrunken down into herself, small and unassuming where her presence was once so large, so vibrant and impossible to ignore. Fragile enough to shatter at the lightest touch. In the time he’s known her he’s never seen her like this, never known her to be so conquerable. But everyone has their limit, don’t they? Anyone can fall like this if pushed hard enough. She’s only human. She asks him, “Can we go down the path? It’s a little exposed out here.”
He nods and walks over to the back of her chair, taking hold of the handles.
“There are a few rough spots,” she says.
“I’ll keep an eye out,” he replies.
They move through the garden in silence. Mako hasn’t been to this part of the island since the whole team was staying here during Amon’s attempted revolution. Asami had liked the scenery, and they’d stolen little moments here, just the two of them, kissing in secret among the reeds. Passing a tucked-away spot now, he remembers parting hurriedly at the sound of the kids running nearby, Asami pretending to watch butterflies gathering around the winter daphne while Mako rubbed at the spots of lipstick he could taste on his mouth. Those days seem so far in the past now it’s strange to think they’re all even the same people. Or maybe that’s the point. Maybe the Mako he was before—who somehow believed that thinking a girl was pretty meant he had to be in love with her, and who thought he was already too jaded, too street-hardened to feel guilty over necessary evils—doesn’t exist anymore, and he’s just borrowing his face, playing at normalcy.
The chair hits a crooked stone and jostles. Mako curses, says, “Sorry,” feels his face burn with embarrassment. He isn’t cut out for anything like caretaking. Not gentle enough.
“It’s fine,” Korra mumbles, the response so quick it seems reflexive. “Turn right at the fork.”
He does, and soon they hit a dead end with just a stone bench and some shrubs and a cliff high up above them. He parks the wheelchair next to the bench and sits down.
Korra says, “They’re having the ceremony to celebrate Jinora becoming an airbending master in a week. You and Bolin are invited.”
“That’s great,” he says, not exactly surprised but still, in spite of everything, pleased to hear it. “We’ll be there.”
“It’s kind of a big deal,” she continues, like he didn’t say anything. “She’s the first master of her generation. All the world leaders are coming and everything.” She pauses, sighs agitatedly. “The ones who are left.”
“Speaking of leaders,” he says, “where’s your dad?” No point in trying to comfort her about the queen. He knows a lost cause when he sees one.
“Had to leave a couple of days ago. Something about urgent business back home. He’ll be back for the ceremony, though. Mom, too.” She starts to say something else, then stops and falls silent, staring at the stony ground.
Mako doesn’t know what to say. He never does, really. One of the biggest problems he and Korra had while they were together is that he was never sure what she wanted from him, and she expected him to understand these things without being told. It’s a lucky thing there’s nothing between them now, he thinks, or he’d stumble his way through clumsy attempts at consolation and just make everything worse. As her friend, he’s allowed to be just a little inept. The bar is lower, easier to clear.
During this lull, he thinks about the things he could tell her or ask her or confess into the stillness, so hushed it would be like the two of them weren’t bearing witness to it at all, and the words would just float away into nothing. He imagines how she might react if he asked how it felt when she killed her uncle: a solemn frown, a thoughtful pause, then the answer, I don’t know what it felt like. I wasn’t really me when it happened, and after Vaatu took over, I don’t think he was really Unalaq, either. I guess it didn’t bug me as much as it should have. And Mako would nod and try not to be too visibly disappointed by the response, and Korra would ask where the question even came from, and he’d make up some half-assed explanation they’d both pretend to accept because they don’t have the energy for anything else. He’d leave feeling just as lost as he was when he got here.
Then he imagines instead that he tells her the truth, everything that happened in that cavern with Ming-Hua, the shell he’s been since then. He would tell her about the moment he saw the woman fall to the ground, and how a pit formed in his gut as he watched tendrils of smoke trail out from her body, and how, through the bright, metallic smell the lightning left behind, there was the faintest trace of burning flesh cutting through the air. He’d mention, too, how he’d just sagged helplessly for a moment, overcome, then remembered Bolin still needed him, and there was a volatile, panicked energy coursing through him as he ran to find his brother, which fizzled out the moment he stopped moving. And Korra probably wouldn’t know what to say to that, either, but she’d at least understand, would nod grimly and reach out to give his hand as firm of a squeeze as she’s able in her condition, and she wouldn’t expect him to cry, even though he thinks he’s supposed to. It would be good. Wouldn’t solve everything, but it would help just the slightest bit.
He can’t do that. His guilt isn’t her problem, he knows, and even if it were he wouldn’t feel right putting the weight of it on her now.
Eventually, she clears her throat and says, “Anyway, I know I’m not the most fun to be around.”
“I’m never fun to be around,” he says. It might as well be true. He thinks it could be, at this rate.
The laugh that bursts out of her is weak but still somehow forceful, carrying an echo of her former self. The ghost of a smile dances on her lips for a moment as she says, “You’re all right.” Then the smile’s gone, and she’s back to that listless, withdrawn state. “Can you take me back to the dormitory? I’m getting kind of tired.”
“Sure,” he says, getting to his feet.
As he’s circling back behind her again, she says, “Sorry.”
He replies, “Don’t be,” even though he doesn’t know what she’s apologizing for in the first place. Whatever it is, he’s sure it isn’t warranted. Then he adds, “It was nice getting to see you, Korra.” And it’s not a lie. Knowing she’s suffering and being powerless to do anything to help—yes, it’s hard. Everyone who cares about her struggles with that same impotence. But he’d rather she were here and demoralized than the alternative. It had been a near thing this time. Frighteningly so. He’s just glad she’s still around at all, whether or not he can express it in a way that matters. Because he’s not in love with her, but he does love her, in a uselessly earnest way.
He pats her on the shoulder, at once feeling awkward about it when she startles at the contact. “Sorry,” he says once again, because all they can do is keep trading apologies until one of them stops feeling like a failure.
But she reaches back over her shoulder and holds her hand out until he, bemused, takes it. Her grip is stronger than he expected from this shroud, enough to make him believe even more firmly that the old Korra isn’t so far away after all, just hiding somewhere, lying in wait. Still, her breath shakes, and her voice is brittle when she says quietly, “Thanks, Mako.”
“Anytime,” he says, and doesn’t let go until she does first.
Wu groans and grumbles the way a person only can when they’re utterly sauced. He’s using his arms as a pillow, protecting him from the surface of the bar table that’s been made irreversibly sticky with spilled liquor.
“Should get you home,” says Mako, who hasn’t had a single drop all evening. The woes of being a bodyguard. He’s never tried bending when he’s been drinking, but he’s seen what happens when Bolin does. Saw a good deal of it back with the Triple Threats, too. It doesn’t end well.
“S’my birthday,” Wu mumbles.
“Yeah, so let’s keep you alive until your next one,” says Mako. He stands, then gets a hand on Wu’s upper arm and shakes him a bit. “Come on, up and at ’em.”
Wu lifts his head up and squints at Mako. Even in the dim candlelight his face looks flushed, his cheeks burnt umber. His eyes are glassy and unfocused. “You,” he says accusingly. “You tried to leave me.”
Brow furrowed, Mako says, “What? I’ve been here all—”
“No, I heard about your trasfen—tra—ngh—transfer request,” Wu says, enunciating each syllable slowly to get the words out. He slumps down sulkily. “Almost our anniversary ’n everything.”
Anniversary? Ridiculous. Mako sighs. “What do you want me to say?” he asks. “It didn’t go through. I’m still here, and that means you have to let me do my job.”
“Job you don’t want,” says Wu, pouting.
“Well.” Mako doesn’t know what to say to that, because it’s true: He doesn’t want this job. Didn’t before he got it, and continues not to now, almost a year later. It’s like babysitting, except Wu is a grown adult, which makes it all somehow worse. “Look, are you gonna come with me, or do I have to drag you out?”
“Don’t worry, officer.” Wu clambers to his feet, swaying in place. “I’ll come along quietly.”
“You’re not under—whatever.” Ignoring the prince’s protests, Mako slings one of Wu’s arms over his shoulders to better support him. “Let’s get you home, you lush.”
The tab’s already been settled, so Mako helps Wu stumble his way outside, then all but dumps him into the first cab he flags down. Wu whines all the while, accusing Mako of manhandling him. A brute, he calls him. A scoundrel. Mako would tell him he sounds like an uppity old lady, but then he remembers Wu was more or less raised by just that, by a woman who sneered and scowled and looked down her nose at everyone right until the end. It doesn’t feel right to point that out. So Mako endures the complaining and doesn’t say a thing when Wu’s head comes to rest heavily on his shoulder, breath carrying the sweet smell of cloudy rice wine. More bearable, at least, than those pungent perfumes he layers on.
Back at the apartment, Mako checks in with the guards stationed outside before half-dragging, half-carrying Wu into the building. It’s not a difficult feat—Wu’s feather-light, a hollow-boned little baby bird, and Mako’s kept himself in as good of shape as ever—but it’s still a hassle in its own way, lugging around someone who’s turned to dead weight. He just reminds himself it could be worse. At least Wu doesn’t drink himself sick and then cry inconsolably like Bolin.
It’s not a regular habit, the drinking, though it’s happened just often enough that Mako’s developed a routine around it. To start with, he helps the prince out of his shoes and coat, sits him down at the kitchen table, makes him drink glass after glass of water until Wu starts to grumble that Mako’s trying to kill him, that he’ll drown at this rate, and Mako just tells him to stop being dramatic. When Wu hobbles off to use the bathroom, Mako puts on a pot of water for tea, rinses some rice and leaves it to soak. Then, like clockwork, Wu reemerges, face wet from splashing water on it, still red as a plum and drooping with misery.
“Food?” Wu mumbles. He trudges back to the table and sits down.
“Yep,” says Mako, walking over to the icebox. He had the good sense to cut up a small chicken from the butcher earlier, and all the parts are right there, waiting to be cooked. He takes stock of the other ingredients on the shelves, mulling over what he knows they have in the pantry, too. He adds distractedly, “You should get some sleep. Won’t be ready for a while anyway.”
“Not tired,” Wu says, like always.
He’s mercifully silent as Mako prepares the food and gets the tea steeping, only speaking up to say, “Don’t make it spicy.” Mako, who’s already chopping up chili peppers, ignores him. He’ll be the one eating most of it anyway, so he’ll make it how he pleases, thank you very much.
Then, too, like clockwork, he turns on the stove for the pot of rice and turns to see Wu slumped over the table in a dead sleep. Sighing, he goes to pick him up, then carries him two rooms over to an unmade bed fitted with too-luxurious sheets. On his way out, he lights an oil lamp in the corner so the prince isn’t left fumbling in the dark when he inevitably wakes up later. Babysitting, he thinks again, exasperated.
He shuts the bedroom door and goes back to the kitchen, where he turns on a little radio with a broken dial that’s left it permanently tuned to a news station. While he cooks he drinks barley tea and listens to updates about Kuvira’s steady rehabilitation of the Earth Kingdom. A cluster of three small villages in the eastern Si Wong Desert liberated from bandits this week. The Great Uniter, they’re starting to call her. Mako thinks back to Bolin’s last letter, all praise and giddy enthusiasm over the work he and the rest of Kuvira’s army are doing. Making a difference, he says. Changing the world. They’re certainly changing something, Mako supposes, for better or worse.
Then the news shifts to lighter stories. A new bakery opening in the commercial district. Six-year-old triplets all coming into their power as airbenders. University students forming a junior pro-bending league. Rumors about a Nuktuk spin-off series, centering around Nuktuk’s mischievous cousin. Mako snorts. He very much doubts Varrick would allow anyone else to touch his critically-acclaimed masterpiece, and the inventor himself is off adventuring with Kuvira in the Earth Kingdom. The host talks for a time about the weather, and then Mako finally switches the radio off, plunging into perfect silence.
After everything he and his friends have been through, it’s odd to realize the world still turns. Even for him, he thinks, there’s a sense of order and predictability he wouldn’t have thought possible just a year ago. Here he is, sitting down with a serviceable meal at the end of a long day, reading the sections of the newspaper he didn’t have time to get to this morning. After he’s done, he’ll clean up in the kitchen, set aside Wu’s dishes, and draw up a bath for himself. He’ll sleep until the early morning, go for a run to wake himself up, come back in time to make breakfast and force Wu to take disgusting herbal medicine for his hangover. Then he’ll spend his day accompanying Wu as the prince does whatever frivolous bullshit he thinks will make him happy. It’s always the same. The unchanging nature of it all is as comforting as it is infuriating.
He eats. He cleans. He sets a bowl of rice and plate of stir-fried chicken and vegetables at the spot where Wu always sits, knowing it won’t matter to a still-drunk Wu if the food goes cold, or if Mako’s cooking is just this side of acceptable and not the gourmet delicacies he’d been accustomed to in Ba Sing Se. Then he waits for the tub to fill, thinks about everything and nothing, watches the faint clouds of steam rise up. When he finally sinks into the water, the first thing he does is dip his head under the surface and rinse all the wax out of his hair, wondering as he does if he’ll ever stop feeling like a kid playing dress-up.
Eventually, Wu shuffles in through the unlocked door, mumbles something that sounds like “Sorry” before heading to the toilet to pee. Equal parts too drunk and too groggy to be all that fussed about privacy. If Mako cared, he would’ve locked the bathroom door, or taken less time bathing, or waited just a bit longer to get in. He just grunts in acknowledgment, eyes closed as he soaks in the tub.
Wu spends some time at the sink, washing his hands and rinsing his mouth out. After he turns the tap off he slurs, “S’there dinner left?”
“On the table,” says Mako.
“Oh, good,” says Wu, and it’s the closest to thanks that Mako’s likely to hear. He exits the bathroom, shutting the door too hard behind him and leaving Mako to crack open his eyes and send a withering glare to the wood.
Soon after, he drains the tub, towels off, dresses himself in shorts and an undershirt that’s soft as a cloud. Being the Earth prince’s bodyguard has its perks, at least: His wardrobe is less shabby than it used to be, and the apartment he shares with Wu is the nicest he’s ever lived in. No perpetually dripping faucets or drafty windows, no blanket-thin walls that let him hear all too clearly how active his neighbors’ sex lives are. It’s comfortable in a way he’s reluctant to get used to.
He goes back to the kitchen and finds Wu still at the table, eating his food by the clumsy spoonful, quiet and calm. His clothes are disheveled, hair mussed. Sober and fully awake Wu would be appalled by the sight. The thought has Mako breathing out a huff of amusement.
Wu looks up at him and blinks, pausing with the spoon barely lifted off his plate. He looks like he wants to say something, but after a beat he tears his gaze away and just goes back to eating.
“You’re quiet tonight,” says Mako.
“Getting tired,” says Wu. His words are still muddled, but less so than before as he sobers up at a snail’s pace.
Mako’s had enough experience both vetting alibis and telling that same sort of lie himself to know when it isn’t the full answer. Holding back a sigh, he takes a seat opposite the prince. Says, “You were just asleep.”
Wu pauses again. This time he lets the spoon fall with a clatter, too loud in the still of the night. He looks up at Mako once more, but instead of addressing the comment just asks, “Why’re you being nice if you hate me?”
“I don’t hate you,” says Mako, feeling like he missed something.
“You tried,” Wu says emphatically, “to quit.”
“Because I don’t like being a bodyguard,” Mako replies as patiently as he can. “Especially not for someone who—” He stops, bites his tongue.
“What?” It’s impossible to miss how Wu stiffens, tense as a cornered animal. Frightened or ferocious, or maybe both.
“Someone who’s used to a different kind of life than I am,” says Mako. Kinder than who’s a spoiled brat, even if it’s somewhat less honest. “It’s not even about you, it just… isn’t a good fit. I don’t belong here, doing all of this. It doesn’t feel useful. It’s an important job, I know,” he adds quickly, “but I don’t think I should be the one doing it. I should be out there helping ordinary people.” Like his friends and brother are, he doesn’t say. Like Korra would be if she were healthy.
The rigidity leaves Wu’s body, the fight going out of him all at once. “I know,” he says. “You’re a hero. You should be out there doing… hero things.” He sniffs.
Mako flinches. “I’m not a hero.”
“Of course you are!” Wu cries. “You helped take down the Red Lotus! You—you and the Avatar stopped an anti-bending cult! And you probably… saved people when you were a cop? Maybe?”
“Korra’s the hero,” says Mako, sinking down in his seat and crossing his arms. “I’m just her backup.” He doesn’t say it to be modest. It’s just that there’s a fundamental difference between a hero and someone who’s done a handful of good things. Heroes are righteous and noble, just, courageous. Mako’s just been lucky enough to find productive outlets for his selfish, indignant fury.
“Even if that’s true, which it’s not,” says Wu, “I couldn’t ask the Avatar to be my personal guard.”
It’s a fair point. Mako hums.
Wu wrings his hands, looking suddenly anxious. “I know you don’t wanna be here, but,” he says, then stops. “After what happened to Auntie, I can’t settle for anything but the best.”
However inflated Asami might tell him his ego is, Mako would never call himself the best. But he is, he knows, the most reliable individual person that Wu’s likely to find to guard him. Anyone else who might qualify is either busy or out of commission. So as much as Mako hates being saddled with this sort of work, he might be the only one cut out for the job at all. He replies, “Well, here I am.”
“Yeah,” says Wu, then sighs, inexplicably dejected. “Here you are.”
Whatever the issue is now, Mako decides it’s not his business, not his problem, and stands. “I’m gonna head to bed. Make sure you put your dishes in the sink.”
“Uh-huh,” Wu mumbles, already spooning rice into his mouth again.
Mako retreats to the smaller bedroom just one wall away from Wu’s, where he ends up lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling for so long he forgets he’s even doing it. He thinks about the letters he’s sent to Korra that never got a reply. He thinks about Bolin saying Kuvira will save the Earth Kingdom—Kuvira, the woman with a hammer for whom the entire world is just one nail after another. He thinks about Asami’s corporate ventures, which he only hears about through the newspaper these days, when it used to be that she’d gush or complain to him about them herself. He thinks about how Prince Wu and his advisors are so worried about assassination attempts that they won’t even allow servants in the apartment, because anyone could be an enemy to the crown, and now His Royal Highness is stuck in relative isolation with no one but Mako, who doesn’t even want to be here. So much is happening. He wonders if the world they’re creating will be a good one, or if they’re just careening toward disaster again.
That last thought is a restless one. Mako—who only recently stopped flinching every time he bends, who has nightmares sometimes where he kills the people he loves, who thinks he’s too much like a stray dog to know how to be gentle when it counts—gets out of bed and walks to the desk in the corner of the room. With a snap of his fingers he lights a candle, because lamps are too bright, and if he turned one on then the whole world would look suddenly real and that’s not what he needs right now. Everything is easier in dreams, and that’s what this will have to be. He sits down, grabs a sheet of paper from the top drawer, and starts to write a letter he won’t send, one that’s both too honest and too late. The words pour out effortlessly, a fissure in a dam.
Once he’s done, he folds it into untidy thirds and stuffs it in an envelope, then slips it into the bottom drawer of the desk, where he puts things that he doesn’t care about. He blows out the candle and gets back in bed. With a twinge of guilt, he realizes he never wished the prince a happy birthday, then thinks just an instant later that Wu probably didn’t think he would anyway.
The scarring on his arm will be permanent. Kya tells him this apologetically, as if it’s somehow news. Then she says the healing process will be a slow one, that her waterbending can only do so much when the burns are that severe. But eventually his skin will recover. Eventually it will feel less like agony when they clean the wound and change the dressing, and someday after that it will only itch, and then it will be pink and strange and different but tolerable, even if it won’t look or feel the way it did before.
She looks him in the eye, searching, and says, “It’s okay to be upset. Injuries like this can be traumatic.”
The air temple built by Avatar Aang has been repurposed into temporary living quarters, the island’s dormitories already filled to capacity with the wounded and displaced. Mako’s on the second floor, which he shares with Bolin, the Beifong twins, and a couple of airbenders who are helping with relief efforts. Grandma Yin asked him and Bolin to just stay with their family at the house—begged, really, after seeing the state Mako was in—but there’s too much to do. They have to be in the middle of it, doing whatever they can to help. Because Bolin has to make amends, repent for his mistake of putting so much faith into the wrong person, and Mako just doesn’t know what to do if he isn’t making himself useful. And he likes it here on the island, even if things are a far cry from what they were like the last time he stayed here, or the time before that. It feels like something close to home, more so than any of the other places he’s lived over the years, which have now been reduced to rubble or overgrown with vines or changed into something wholly unrecognizable to him. When he takes two seconds to think about it he realizes it’s because this island isn’t lonely like everywhere else has been.
For now, this floor, at least, is all but empty, the others helping out on the island or around the city proper. It’s just Mako and Kya, his self-assigned healer who’s knelt beside his bedroll with her flask of water and basket of medical supplies. His sling is set on top of everything, waiting to be put back on.
Scratching just along the edge of his fresh set of bandages, he asks her, “Will I still be able to firebend like before?”
“I don’t see why not,” she says.
“Then it’s fine.”
“Men,” she mutters. “Alright, if you wanna act all stoic and indifferent, that’s up to you. I’m not about to tell a war hero how to feel.”
“I’m not—”
“But anyway,” she cuts in, “since you’re not in any shape to go back to work yet, have you thought about taking a vacation?”
He hasn’t. He tries to convey as much with an incredulous squint, still scratching at his arm, fingers pushing very slightly under his neatly-wrapped dressing and making it loose at the edges. Once he realizes he’s doing it, though, he stops, abruptly self-conscious.
Kya clucks her tongue. “What did I tell you all those years ago about aging prematurely, kiddo?”
It’s a little late for that, he thinks ruefully. What’s left to salvage from the youth of someone who watched his parents die when he was eight, then took a life himself when he was nineteen? “Like I said,” he replies, “world isn’t making it easy.”
She doesn’t say out loud that she understands, but her eyes tell him she does all the same. “You should give traveling a shot,” she says, tone gentler than before. “That’s what I did when I was your age.”
“I’ve traveled,” he says.
“How much of that was for fun?” she asks, brows raised.
“The South Pole,” he starts before realizing that’s the beginning and end of the list. Flustered, he says instead, “I don’t need to go anywhere.”
She shrugs. “Why not? If you don’t like it, you can always head home.”
Then he tries, “I don’t know where I’d even go.”
“Have you ever been to the Fire Nation?” she asks.
He shakes his head. Sometime after their parents died, Bolin had wanted desperately to go there and see where their mom had grown up. He wanted the connection to her that Mako had by virtue of their resemblance. For years Mako skirted around the subject, unwilling to admit to his brother that he couldn’t think about that place without remembering their parents’ murders, that he didn’t have any interest in visiting the birthplace of monsters. He knew then that Bolin would read between the lines into his self-disgust. But he isn’t nine years old anymore. He knows that places themselves aren’t evil, because evil can come from anywhere and anyone. Knows, too, that firebending is not a terrible thing, even if he struggles with accepting what it’s made of him.
Kya says, “You should think about going. You learn a lot about yourself when you see where you came from.”
He wants to say he came from here, from Republic City, but he knows that’s pedantic. At a glance anyone could tell he has Fire National blood. Even if he weren’t a bender, he’d still have the eyes, the perpetually stern expression. As a baby he’d already looked so much like his mother that they saw fit to give him a Fire Nation name, one that meant trust and faith. He is so unmistakably what he is that it’s sometimes stifling.
“Maybe,” he says. Before he can think better of it, he continues, “I just don’t know what I’d do if I got there and couldn’t figure anything out. I’d probably end up with more questions than answers.”
Kya laughs, her crow’s feet crinkling. “That’s what growing up is,” she says. “You just keep looking for answers until you find something you’re okay not knowing.”
“That’s what you did?”
“For years and years.” She nods slowly, looking wistful. “Probably too long, if you ask my family.” Then she says, “But it’s not all fun and games. Sometimes the things you learn about yourself are shitty. Or you get your heart broken, and it’s by someone you thought would appreciate the real you.” She reaches out and lightly taps the elbow of his bad arm. “It’s a healing process.”
He takes it into tentative consideration, because he still isn’t sure it’s something he even needs. Kya is older and wiser than him, true, but she’s also a different person from what he could ever be. What worked for her isn’t guaranteed to give him the same purpose or solace. He mulls over it halfheartedly for a bit and then tucks the thought away to a little corner of his mind.
That night, after he and Bolin help relocate a handful of families to makeshift shelters, they’re back on the ferry bound for the island again. The sun has set. Mako leans against the railing, looking out at the city lights that are so much dimmer and fewer than they used to be. He hears someone approach and sees out of the corner of his eye that it’s just his brother.
“Wow, what a day,” says Bolin, joining him at the guardrail. “You think Pema still has any dumplings left?”
“No chance,” says Mako.
“Damn.” Bolin sighs. “Y’know, I should really just ask her for the recipe. Then I could have all the dumplings I wanted.”
“You can’t even cook,” Mako reminds him.
“I could learn,” Bolin says defensively. “I mean, how hard could it be?”
Mako doesn’t dignify that with an answer. His gaze roams toward the pro-bending arena across the way, untouched during the attack on the city but still rendered dark and forbidding by widespread outages, a shell of a thing. He wonders idly how long it will be until they get it up and running again, return it to the shining beacon it used to be. Probably a while. There will be time later for people to try and get their minds off of what’s happening around them, but for now they’re all rooted firmly in the present.
“I can see those wheels turning,” says Bolin. “What’re you thinking about?”
“What’s supposed to happen next,” says Mako. “A lot’s changed.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
“What are you doing after all this?” Mako asks, turning to look at him. Bolin, though, is staring up at the sky, dark blue and dusted with stars.
“Well,” he says, “Opal’s heading with her family back to Zaofu after the wedding, so I’ll probably go with them. Make a few stops on the way to help people get stuff figured out.” He shrugs, then tears his eyes away from the stars to spare Mako a glance. “What about you? Going back to your detective-ing?”
In that moment, Mako feels himself come to a decision he hadn’t even known he was going to make, and says, “I think I’m gonna take a vacation.”
“Whoa, seriously?” Bolin gapes, visibly taken aback. “Where? When?”
“The Fire Nation, I guess.”
“Oh,” says Bolin, still surprised. He seems to hesitate, then asks, “Do you want me to go with you?”
Do you want me to, not can I. Because Bolin is no longer that child looking for a piece of himself that seems forever out of his grasp. He knows what he wants and what he’s doing, and it’s all waiting for him in Zaofu—or will be soon. He likely doesn’t have it all figured it out, of course, and Mako knows there will undoubtedly be years ahead of them still where Bolin tries out new things, reimagines himself as something ridiculous and improbable all over again, then moves on to something else like his last adventures never happened. But despite all the uncertainty of the future, Bolin at least seems to know where to look, and who he wants by his side as he does it. And so much of what Mako’s done up to this point has been for his brother, even when they were apart, even when they worked toward different goals, that the awareness of it no longer being his responsibility washes over him and brings with it a flood of pure relief.
“Nah,” says Mako. “It’s something I have to do on my own.”
Bolin nods, and he looks relieved, too. He asks, “So, does that mean you’re giving up your title of Personal Bodyguard to the Earth King?”
Mako huffs. “Already done. Not really fit to do any guarding.” He raises his injured arm a bit. “Not for a while, at least.”
“Man, once things are back to normal you’ll have so many girls after you,” says Bolin.
“You know, the last time you said that, all I got was a job babysitting a monarch who’d never washed his own underwear before,” Mako says dryly.
Bolin grins. “And did you or did you not get approached by women, like, all the time?”
“Didn’t notice,” Mako lies.
“Mmhm.”
“And even if I did, all I saw were security risks.”
“Now that I can believe,” says Bolin. “You can lead a cop to water but you can’t keep him from profiling it, eh?”
With a sigh, Mako says, “Shut up.” Then, “If they wanna fawn over me this time, they’ll have to find me first.”
“Hey, someone out there might take up the challenge,” says Bolin. “And they have newspapers in the Fire Nation too, y’know. They might recognize you as the hero of Republic City who single-handedly took down Kuvira’s giant mech.”
“I doubt it,” says Mako. “I’ll probably blend in with everyone else.”
“Are you kidding? You’ll say one word and everyone in a one-mile radius is gonna know you’re not a local.”
“I’ll tell them I’m from one of the colonies in the Earth Kingdom,” says Mako, and it occurs to him that he’s talking in when’s and not if’s now, like he’s already made up his mind that he’s doing this even though he can’t recall making the choice consciously.
They chat and bicker and joke, and when they get to the temple they’re greeted at once by Pabu, who squeaks and squeals as he climbs up to a giggling Bolin’s shoulders. Bolin scratches his ears, asks if he wants to go on a long and boring boat ride with Mako or fly to Zaofu and have Su and Huan secretly feed him nuts and candies all day, because oh yes, they knew about that all along, Pabu, you weren’t fooling anyone. Pabu lets out a sound close to a sneeze and just leans into Bolin’s touch, eyes falling contentedly shut.
Mako chuckles. “Look after him for me, Pabu,” he says, brushing a hand over the fire ferret’s back. “Don’t let him do anything stupid.”
“Excuse you,” says Bolin, “when have I ever done anything stu—hi, hello, Tenzin, nice to see you, please don’t answer that.”
Tenzin, who was just walking by, gives him a tired look and says, “I wouldn’t even know where to begin, Bolin.”
Bolin sulks, and Mako reaches over and musses his hair like he did when they were kids, his heart feeling oddly light in a way it hasn’t in a long time.
—CODA
Mako gets the feeling Firelord Izumi doesn’t altogether like him. When he says as much to the servant guiding him to the guest quarters of the palace, the woman blinks at him confusedly. “Why would you think that?” she asks.
“Well.” Mako scratches his arm. It’s become something of a nervous habit now. “She… glared at me whenever I spoke to her?”
“Oh!” The servant laughs airily. “Her Lordship is due to have new eyeglasses made soon. She couldn’t see you very well, that’s all.”
“Oh,” says Mako, awkward. “Well, good. Not good that her eyes are getting worse,” he adds, flustered, “just, uh, good that she doesn’t hate me.”
“Believe me, if my daughter didn’t like you, you would know.”
“Lord Zuko!” the servant squeaks, stopping in her tracks and falling quickly into a deep bow. After one baffled second, Mako bows, too, unsure both of where the older man came from and how Mako could possibly have failed to notice his approach.
“Sir,” Mako says when he straightens.
Zuko looks him over consideringly, his stare lingering on Mako’s bandaged arm. In lieu of a greeting, he asks, “How are you at pai sho, Mako?”
“Not good,” says Mako. “I’ve never really had the patience for it.”
Zuko nods. “Young people usually don’t.” Then, turning, he says, “Come along. I’ll teach you to play like a master.” He starts walking down the hallway, not bothering to wait for Mako to follow, not even pausing to see if he is at all.
“Sir?” says Mako, all but stumbling after him. He glances back at the servant, who’s wide-eyed with confusion, and offers her an apologetic shrug.
“From what I’ve heard, you’re already a more talented firebender than I ever was,” says Zuko. “But the burden of educating the younger generations is still mine to bear, so I’ll pass this along instead.”
The compliment has Mako’s head buzzing. He feels his ears go hot. “That—that would be an honor, sir,” he says. “I really doubt I’m better than you at bending, though.”
At that, Zuko scoffs. “I’m old, not stupid,” he says. “For you to do what you’ve done with lightning and not wind up dead takes a level of mastery over this element that I could never reach, even in my prime.”
“Thank you, sir,” Mako says dumbly. He reaches up to scratch at his arm again, then catches himself doing it and lowers his hand. He isn’t sure yet how he feels about this being the thing he’s known for; about people praising him time and time again for commanding lightning to wreak devastation; about the mark that this power has left on him, now forever visible; but he supposes he has time to figure it out. A healing process, he remembers, pulling his arm closer to his chest.
Zuko glances back at him, opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again and hums. After a pause, he says, “You remind me of someone.”
“Who?” asks Mako.
Lord Zuko doesn’t answer. Mako just keeps trailing behind him, perplexed, feeling as he so often does that he’s missed something important. Maybe that, too, is just something he’ll have to learn to accept.