Title: real life fairy-tale
Summary: "Oh." Korra blinked. "Well, I didn't mean to do THAT." For some reason, Mako's head was now even with Korra's ankles - even though he was stretching as tall as he could on his four paws. ...wait. Paws? Makorra AU. Crack.
A/N: So what if Mako was a kitten? That's basically what inspired this story, haha. It's a busy summer, so I will continue this if I get 15+ reviews (not to hold you guys hostage; I just don't want to publish if no one's reading). Unbeta'd. Enjoy!

"We're here!" Korra announced in a sing-song voice, and stopped right in front of them, without so much as a warning to the exhausted brothers behind her. Mako almost smacked into her, but jerked to a halt an inch away from her dark blue tunic.

He almost wished he'd run into her, just to spite her. But Mako was not reassured that Korra wouldn't do something...Korra-like if he accidentally ran into her, like challenge him to a duel.

Which, despite Mako being an acclaimed knight who'd won his share of jousting tournaments, Korra would quite possibly win. Especially considering the prophecy she'd informed them of a few days prior, which Mako could not remember word-for-word but heralded from a famed oracle and had something to do with Korra's destiny to save the world, in which case the world was likely screwed, and the ensuing promises of "super cool awesome powers" that Korra would soon behold.

Stupid Korra and her stupid powers and her stupid prophecy.

"We're stopping here," Korra repeated, and appraised her surroundings as though for the first time: a dusty clearing, no water to speak of, and the gnarled tree branches of a few long-dead oaks looming ominously overhead. "Yup." She nodded. "Here."

'Here' as in the middle of goddamned nowhere.

After a scuffling a couple of feet forward, Bolin groaned.

"Stop? Rest? Now?" Bo asked weakly, so exhausted by days of travel that he could no longer construct coherent sentences. From his perch on Bo's shoulder, Pabo whimpered pitifully and implored Mako for a reprieve from travel with wide, black-rimmed eyes.

Unaffected by their misery, Korra beamed at them. "Did you hear me, guys? This is it! We're here!" The white of her teeth practically glinted in the afternoon sun.

When a beat passed and Korra still paid no heed to Pabu's soft, pathetic noises (or Bolin's, for that matter), Mako decided that it was time to intervene. He could justify ignoring Bolin's whining, but when Pabu joined in, it was a sign that something was wrong.

"What the hell, Korra?" Mako demanded, straightening up to glare at her and wincing at the sharp ache in his back when he did so. Though he and Bolin had lugged their supplies, weapons and armor all the way from Republic City, Korra had no baggage to speak of, because she, Korra had announced self importantly (not that she ever announced anything any other way, Mako noted darkly), had to be able to defend them from robbers, or Equalists, whatever those were. Korra hadn't clarified. Instead, she'd informed them that it was all part of the prophecy, which would, naturally, be revealed to them in due time.

Stupid Korra. Stupid Korra and her stupid prophecy and stupid ensuing quest to bring balance to the world, whatever that even meant.

Said idiot companion placed her hands on her hips and whirled around to face them.

"Thank the spirits!" Bolin sighed, a strained quality to his voice that suggested he might actually weep from joy, and allowed his baggage to slide off his back.

"No!" Mako barked. "Bolin, pick up your bags back up." Bo's lower lip trembled and Mako rolled his eyes, before turning to Korra and jabbing his finger into her shoulder with each word: "We. Are. Not. Stopping. Here."

Korra's eyebrows knitted together.

"Yes, we are." Her rounded blue eyes shrunk into slits.

"No, we are not." His eyebrow twitched. Also Korra's fault. "Korra, there's no water anywhere around here. Do you want us to die of thirst?"

"Of course not!" She sounded indignant, like she couldn't fathom that Mako was not exhibiting blind faith in her abilities to provide food and water and/or guide them back to civilization (after a day of trekking through creepy forests with no signs of human presence to speak of). With a flourish, Korra reached into her tunic pocket and withdrew a crumpled black book.

"I have spells," she proclaimed, flipping to a section near the beginning and motioning to the runes inscribed across the water-stained page with typical conviction. "I can make water. Or fire, for that matter." She sounded even more pleased with herself than usual, if that was even possible. "Or anything else you might want!"

"Korra," Mako said slowly, after a prolonged pause during which he convinced himself not to strangle her, as strangling maidens was not gazed upon fondly by the ruling lords, especially if said maidens were mentally insane. "You are not a magician. Now help me find a goddamned village before Bolin gets so hungry that he tries to eat Pabu -"

Said knight made a noise somewhere between horrified indignation and crippling terror, evidently too tired to speak.

Korra drew herself up indignantly. "Damn straight I'm not a magician! I'm a sorceress!"

Mako blinked. Pabu and Bolin continued to radiate misery, punctuated by the occasional whimper.

Eventually, Mako croaked, "A sorceress? But magic - it's not even - are you crazy? It's not real!" Mako took a break to sputter helplessly. "And even if it was - all of the magicians are dead!"

"Sorcerers," Korra corrected.

"That doesn't change the fact that they're all gone," Mako snapped.

"Except me!" Ducking her head, Korra busied herself examining the runes in her book.

"What are you even - do you know how to read those?" Mako demanded, squinting at the yellowing pages. Certainly didn't look trustworthy. "That's not a good idea, Korra! You don't know what that book could do!" He caught himself a moment later. "Wait, what am I even saying? Magic isn't real!"

"Of course it's real," Korra said absentmindedly. Brow furrowing in concentration, she trailed her finger across the page and muttered nonsense words under her breath. "Here, I'll prove it!"

Before Mako could tell her, whether magic was real or not, that that was definitely a bad idea, Korra rocked back on her heels, made some gibberish noises with a few grunts mixed in, and flicked her fingers at him. Briefly, her eyes glowed bright white - Bolin and Pabu gasped in unison at the sight - and Mako began to realize in mingled panic and awe that, okay, maybe she was a sorceress -

Suddenly, Mako felt dizzy, and his legs wobbled beneath him. When his vision finally stopped spinning, he was sprawled across the ground with a stabbing pain in his temples. He raised his gaze to Korra, who was staring down at him with disappointment tinged with guilt.

Strangely, she also looked the tiniest bit impressed with herself.

"Oh." Korra blinked. "Well, I didn't mean to do that."

Mako shook his head, in an attempt to clear away the fog. But no matter how many times he blinked, his vision remained distorted - not so much that he couldn't see, but just enough to make him uncomfortable.

And, for some reason, his head was now even with Korra's ankles - even though he was stretching as tall as he could on his four paws.

...wait. Paws?

In the meantime, Korra had dropped to her knees and was reaching out a hand to him tentatively, saying, "I'm so sorry, Mako. I'll find a way to fix it, I promise, okay? Actually, there's this guy... I think he can help us but, well, he have to find him, but he's somewhere around here, I just - I mean, that's why I stopped here, you know? But I couldn't tell you guys because I'm not really sure about lot of the prophecy and that's why I had to find him, to ask him about this whole thing, I mean."

Korra, who seemed to have forgotten to breathe throughout her rambling apology/explanation, paused and breathed in.

"The point is that we'll get you back to normal somehow, okay?" she finished, twisting her hands in front of her, the book stuffed hastily into the pocket of her tunic.

A sickening feeling swelled in the pit of Mako's stomach. He glanced down at himself at horror and found his chest had sprouted fur: thick, white, fluffy fur.

Then, it dawned on him with crippling outrage that Korra had turned him into a kitten.

A kitten.

Mako tried to screech in anger. It came out gentle meow.

"Not that I'm not going to try to fix this and everything, but..." Despite her attempts at apology, the corners of Korra's lips quirked upward. An adoring note crept into her eyes as her gaze roamed over his slender creamy tail and tiny paws. "I think I kinda like the new you."

Blinded by anger, Mako lunged in a valiant attempt to bite her on the throat, but before he could, a pair of large, calloused hands closed around his torso and lifted him in the air.

"Hey, there, lil' buddy!" Bolin grinned at him. (It would be Mako's unseemly transformation that had finally revived his exhausted brother, Mako realized in dumbfounded fury.)

Bolin raised Mako to eye-level, leveling his wide, green gaze with his brother's amber glare. When Mako instinctively flattened his ears and bared his teeth in a threat to Bolin to put him the fuck down right this instant, Mako only got a laugh in response. "Aww! You'll be the perfect best friend for Pabu!"

Bolin was just an innocent bystander in all of this, insisted the only sane part of Mako that remained. He would not attack his brother. He would not.

"Can we call you May-may?"

Mako hissed, and scratched Bolin across the face.