Just because Amon is no longer an issue doesn't mean that the Avatar can rest easy. There are still people to protect, crimes to fight, and balance to maintain.

Mako knows this just as well as the Avatar herself.

So when Korra stumbles into the practice room of the pro-bending arena where he was training, covered in what looks like the consequences of charging into a brick wall, Mako doesn't panic (much). He catches her before she collides abruptly with the stone floor, and gently lifts her into his arms (how many times has he done this?). Carrying her to a bed on the far side of the room, he lays her down carefully.

Mako reaches under the bed and pulls out a zippered bag, packed with the necessities to deal with accidents in practice (or in this case, an injured Avatar). He pushes the bag aside and gets to his feet. Walking in slow, measured steps (because that's how he calms himself down when someone he cares about appears looking like a wreck), he finds a bucket along the wall where the waterbenders keep their equipment, and fills it with water from the tap.

Returning to Korra's side, he offers her a small smile as he glimpses her pained expression. She returns it, though it looks more like a grimace.

He sets the bucket down by her hand as he sits beside the bed, and gets to work on the scratch by her temple. "Who did you pick a fight with this time?" Mako asks her, only half-teasing.

Korra draws a stream of water out of the bucket with her right hand and places it over a burn on her left arm, the liquid soon glowing as she works her healing abilities. "Some firebenders. They were stealing food from an orphanage. I figured it would be best to step in. Even the odds a little."

Mako doesn't speak for a while. He is proud to be a firebender, but the reputation surrounding his kind isn't exactly admirable. He remembers the weeks following his parents' deaths. He had refused to bend at all. Mako recalls staring at his hands for hours on end in the night, trying to come to grips with the fact that he had something in common with the monster that killed his parents.

"What happened after you 'stepped in'?"

Biting her lip as Mako rubs a little harder at her head wound, Korra says, "Nothing major. Lin's metalbenders showed up a bit into the fight, so that was helpful."

Mako pauses with his hand poised above the cut. "Then how did all of this—" he gestures at her battered body "—occur?"

Korra shifts her arm to return the water to the bucket. Mako can see the fatigue in her eyes. "One of the firebenders took an orphan hostage and threatened to kill her if we didn't back down. I took him out with some earthbending, but it turned into a firefight after that. The girl was safe, though."

Mako nods and focuses his attention on the burn on her shoulder. Usually, she would heal a burn on her own, but by now, Korra has closed her eyes and looks to be utterly spent.

He considers her story as he smears salve on the burn. Mako can claim to have been in a similar situation, one that induced him to firebend once again. He recollects Bolin's terrified expression, the taste of blood in his own mouth, and the blast of familiarity as he threw a jet of flame at the men cornering him and his little brother. He visualizes the shock on their faces, the astonishment that the diminutive street rat was actually a powerful firebender. He feels the tingle in his fingertips as he remembers the wonderful sensation of firebending for the first time in months.

Mako knows that since then, he has come to realize that firebending was not an elemental manifestation of rage. It was not anger. It was light, and heat, and beauty. How he used it would determine its meaning. So he practiced self-control. He breathed. He went to the library and read Fire Lord Zuko's texts on his encounters with Ran and Shaw. He mastered his element.

Finishing with her shoulder, Mako glances down at Korra's face. Her eyes are still shut, but he hears a faint humming from her. He sets his hands down in his lap and listens, breathing as quietly as possible so he can hear the entire song.

When she stops, Mako asks quietly, "Does it have words?"

Korra looks surprised that he has been listening, her eyes open suddenly and fixed on him, but she nods.

"Will you sing them for me?"

She studies him for a long moment, so long that Mako thinks he's offended her, but just as he's on the brink of apologizing, she closes her eyes again and begins to sing, slowly, softly, "Leaves from the vine…"

Mako observes the serenity on her face as she sings, registering in a small part of his mind that she has a beautiful singing voice. He quickly loses himself in the words, though, and the tune of the song. It is quiet, mournful, meaningful. He detects an underlying story to the song, perhaps one that stretches beyond their years. It sounds like something that would be sung to a child to assuage the terror of a nightmare, or in memory of a loved one. He can picture a brokenhearted parent singing it to their deceased child, and the thought nearly brings tears to his eyes.

He notices that she has completed the song, and that she is watching him. "Who taught you that?" he says in a lower voice, afraid to break the tranquility that has settled over them both.

"A visitor of Master Katara's," she replies. Korra appears to meditate on the memory for a few moments before she continues. "I don't remember what he looked like. I was very young at the time. He and Katara were visiting my parents one night, and I was supposed to be asleep. He saw that I was awake, and offered to sing to me if I got back into bed. That was the song he sang, and I never forgot the words. I loved it as much then as I do now."

Mako contemplates this, and they sit together in companionable silence for a while. He plays absentmindedly with her hair, replaying the song in his mind. He understands her love for the song. He doesn't think himself to have much of a singing voice, but he wants to learn the words, if Korra will teach him. He wants to be able to sing the song to himself when he is alone, when he needs the emotion that the song brings to him.

He turns his head to make his request, but sees that Korra has given in to her exhaustion. Her head is resting slightly sideways, her chest rises and falls rhythmically as she drops further into sleep. Mako smiles. Another time.

Dampening a rag with water, he dabs gently at the small cuts on her cheek, humming the song to himself as he works.

Leaves From the Vine...anyone remember what Avatar: The Last Airbender episode that song is from? I highly recommend you go and listen to it on YouTube. It is a beautiful song.

I'm not sure if Korra has a decent singing voice, but judging by her voice in the show, she sounds like she could sing.

Thank you for reading!

~RR