Cadence Chapter One: Caught in the Cross fire

'Tenzin always said my compassion would be the death of me,' Korra reflected bitterly. 'I just never thought he meant that literally.'

Korra had been sent to a village on the out skirts of the United Nations to deal with an outbreak of a particularly nasty strain of measles. It wasn't much of a concern to mature, healthy adults, but several toddlers had contracted the disease and had later died from it. It had taken a few days, but Korra had managed to isolate all those infected and those suspected of being infected, planning to let the disease run its course in those who were otherwise healthy and strong. The young children – those most in danger– she'd used spirit water on, to cure them.

Unfortunately, performing such long hours of healing was very draining, even for the Avatar, and Korra, having set off for Republic City, was very much lacking in energy– mistake number one.

Then, when she'd heard the sounds of battle and cries of distress on the road ahead of her, she'd sped forward to help without really considering the consequences of doing so – mistake number two.

In short, a few mistakes had led to her current predicament – battling with a bunch of Equalists in an attempt to liberate a group of travelers they were in the process of kidnapping.

A battle she was swiftly losing. Her energy was low, she was exhausted, and she had leapt into a battle with twenty-plus Equalists without really considering the consequences.

'Good thing you can't be criminally stupid, or I'd be judged guilty as charged within five minutes.'

The fight had gone from 'help the people they're kidnapping' to 'try not to get abducted yourself'. She didn't know why they were being so indiscriminant about the people they were grabbing, but all their attacks had clearly been meant to incapacitate her, rather than kill – maybe Amon needed people for his rallies or something...

Korra danced backwards, avoiding the spark of electricity that came from an Equalist glove...and discovered she'd forgotten to take the position of the river into account when she moved.

'Another sign you really weren't up for this battle,' she told herself as she let her body go limp, so that the tumble down the steep bank wouldn't break any limbs. 'You're not even thinking straight! Idiot!'

The plunge into the water winded her slightly, but Korra had enough presence of mind to refrain from breaking the surface instantly. Instead, she yielded to the current, hoping it could carry her out of danger before the breath in her lungs ran out.

She took a moment to be thankful it was the rainy season – thus, the strong current – and that the river was deep.

When Korra finally broke the surface and clambered onto the grassy bank, she allowed herself to hope for a moment that she'd eluded them...until she heard the shouts, and the sound of many people clambering through the forest.

No matter how skilled they were in hand-to-hand combat, stealth was not the Equalists strong point.

Unfortunately, she'd reached a lull in the river – the current would not sweep her along very fast here, and it certainly couldn't take her far enough away from her pursuers. She could run, but Korra doubted she'd get very far. Or she could fight...

Frankly, Korra preferred the option of fighting – at least that way she wouldn't end up at the mercy of twenty-plus Equalists without morals or scruples, but...

The world would never forgive her. More importantly, Korra would never forgive herself. So she mentally revised her plans. 'I'll have to get caught – for a while, at least. I'm too exhausted to fight them off; I'll have a better chance of escaping after I've had some rest. Even if it means spending a night or two as a captive.'

She wasn't stupid – she knew she was inviting a lot of variables into this plan by enabling her capture...but it was currently the best idea she had.

So, mustering up the remaining energy she had, Korra clutched the Earth Kingdom dagger she'd received from Suyin and gathered her thick hair in her hands, slicing the long chocolate locks clean off her head. She clenched the tendrils of her hair in her hands a moment before tossing them into the river before her, her hair almost immediately swept away by the current.

She wasn't going to be captured as 'The Avatar', because that was just inviting all kinds of trouble. She wasn't even going to be captured as a woman – something told her it wouldn't be a good idea to be a female captive.

The pulse of energy in her body died to a low-level hum, and Korra leaned out over the water to check out her handiwork.

A much more boyish Korra gazed back at her, her once luscious long hair now sat at her jaw line, falling slightly into her bright turquoise eyes. 'My eyes,' Korra grimaced, were something that Korra had no control over, and that she certainly could not disguise.

Hearing her pursuers closing in, Korra swiftly shed her fur pelt and parker so she would appear to be clad in unisex clothes and discarded any and all items she had with her, shoving them into a particularly dense patch of reeds.

Then, though it was difficult to do, she sprawled herself out on the bank like a lizard sunning itself, trying to act as though she was completely unaware of the Equalists closing in on her. With a bit of luck, she could pass as a boy lounging carelessly on a riverbank. They'd come along, and she would...well, she was fairly certain most people would run for their lives upon encountering a group of Equalists. Any bender certainly would.

She tensed as they came closer, finally looking up when her pursuers burst from the trees.

Korra painted her best look of wide-eyed disbelief and shock on her features, before she scrambled to her feet and tried to run. She didn't have to fake running at non-bender speeds – her exhaustion and the fact that she was already so tired, she thought she could be outrun by a geriatric snail.

So she wasn't surprised when her arms were grabbed and twisted sharply, forcing her to her knees.

"Boy!" one of her captors hissed, his fingers clenching in her hair and pulling her head back. "Did you see the Avatar pass by here?"

Korra shook her head wildly, trying to act as though she were scared speechless. She was inwardly pleased that her new hair cut was enough for her to pass by as a boy.

"Who cares?" another of them snapped. "We can meet our quota with this one – take him!"

Korra found herself hustled back towards the road they'd initially tangled on. The travelers she had tried to help had been strung out in a long line, their hands bound in front of them, roped to each other by nooses around their necks. In fact, it looked a lot like...

Korra froze as realisation hit. This was a slave line!

Of course, she shouldn't be surprised. The Equalist faction was so corrupt it came as no shock to her that they would either use slaves or profit from their sale.

Korra allowed herself to hope they would simply be sold at some market in one of the less hospitable countries – it would be far easier to escape from there than from a Equalists stronghold.

Not to mention, she might encounter...

Korra shook her head, driving all thoughts of Mako out of her mind. She needed to concentrate on her own survival, first and foremost.

By the time the straggling slave line had reached one of the Equalist strong holds, Korra was truly furious at the world. She was furious at herself for being stupid and getting involved in a battle without considering the consequences; she was furious at the fact that she and the other prisoners were being taken to an Equalist base instead of a slave market somewhere; and she was definitely furious at the Equalists who were 'escorting' them.

Of course, they were probably pretty furious with her, too. In the three days since she'd been captured, Korra had gained a reputation for being a resistant troublemaker. She'd tried to escape a total of four times, and been recaptured and dragged back each time. Her back still stung from the lashes she'd been given in punishment, though the wounds had stopped bleeding.

All her failed escape attempts had done was driven home the message that she had to play ball – at least for now. She couldn't escape if she was beaten half to death, could she?

She darted a compassionate glance at the people in front of her. After three days of captivity, sprinkled with constant threats and her own public punishments for her attempted escapes, the travelers seemed well and truly cowed. It was almost ironic – her whippings had more of an impact on them than they'd had on her.

But then, she was The Avatar – she was used to pain. It wasn't pleasant to bear, but it was something she could deal with.

The line halted at what appeared to be a solid cliff face...until one of the Equalist lackeys rapped sharply on it – Korra memorised the pattern: two soft, three loud – and a hidden door opened in the rock.

Korra didn't know what was happening, but the slave line moved forward in stops and starts. Her first thought was that they were being processed somehow, and trepidation welled in her at the thought of what that process might involve.

When it was her turn to be shoved through the doorway, Korra set her jaw and squared her shoulders, determined to face whatever awaited her...

To find it was a thin, weedy man wearing the standard Equalist 'uniform' and holding a collar and what looked like brown clothing. Korra thought she could make out others behind him, but the change of lighting from the bright forest to the dim stone corridor had bright spots flaring in her vision as her eyes adjusted.

Someone grabbed hold of her hair, and she resisted the urge to lash out, settling for flexing her bound hands in frustration. The man in front of her raised the leather collar then frowned.

"I can sense strong energy from him," he murmured, making a vague motion behind him that Korra didn't catch in the low light.

The collar he brought forth made Korra's blood freeze solid in her veins, thickening to jelly. It was leather, yes, but there was a strip of metal adorning the middle, with a long needle protruding from it. And it wasn't a simple strap that secured it, but what looked like some sort of lock.

One look and Korra knew she didn't want that collar anywhere near her. She had no idea what it was going to do, but that needle didn't look like it would help her in any way, shape or form.

So she bucked against the hold on her hair like a wild Ostrich Horse, trying futilely to twist away from the collar. Someone kicked her in the back of her knee, forcing it to bend and sending her lurching to the floor. Hands gripped her shoulders, keeping her down as her hair was wrenched forward so sharply she felt tears prick her eyes, baring the back of her neck.

She still struggled, but there wasn't much she could do, and she couldn't help crying out when she felt the needle slide into the back of her neck.

But the pain of needle was nothing compared to the sensation that jolted through her body as the collar was snapped closed, like a powerful electric shock. She didn't know what that needle was doing, but it somehow interfered with her energy. Korra struggled to maintain her balance as the world blurred before her, her limbs folding like green twigs. Every ounce of energy in her body went towards stopping her from collapsing to the ground.

And it seemed to work. She managed to keep herself from meeting with the graveled ground beneath her. As she was yanked to her feet again, Korra became aware that the collar had done something to her strength. She didn't know what, but it felt...restricted.

'It's probably meant to restrict the captive's ability to bend the elements somehow,' she told herself as she was handed a simple brown clothes and shoved in the direction of the other slaves with orders to get dressed quickly. 'The needle must deliver some sort of electric pulse.'

She knew it was probably meant to keep energy at a non-benders level, but she was lucky in that respect – she was already drained, so the energy and strength the man had sensed wasn't her true strength. Nowhere near it. In other words, the restriction they'd placed on her probably wouldn't restrict all her strength when she managed to recover it. It would make fighting in a battle difficult, but she'd certainly have more strength than they would expect her to have.

At least, assuming the collar was set to a specific level.

Freed from her bonds and left with the other slaves, Korra set about trying to change into the brown clothes and surreptitiously use the remains of her old clothes to bind her chest flat. A boyish hair cut was all well and good, but she needed to make sure there was no physical hint of cleavage.

In the end, Korra's chest wasn't completely flat, but certainly flat enough to get by beneath the shapeless slave shirt. She could pass for a male physically, but she'd need to modify her behaviour to a certain extent as well. On the journey, she'd been dredging up recollections of her friends in en effort to emulate masculine behaviour. Of course, given that her male friends were Bolin, Meelo and Kai, the other prisoners probably thought she was crazy, but it was better than thinking that she was a female in disguise.

Placing her back against the stone wall as the other captives milled around in confusion, Korra took stock of her surroundings. This seemed to be another of Sound's underground hideouts, though she couldn't guess at how big it was or if it was one of the main ones. For all she knew, this could just be a pit stop before they reached their true destination.

"Koda?"

Korra had to remind herself to turn to the boy who had addressed her. She'd introduced herself as Koda, on the grounds that it sounded like a male name, and since she was already accustomed to answering to 'Korra' when she was summoned, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to respond to it.

"Yeah, kid?" she asked.

"What do you think is going to happen to us?"

"Don't know," Korra admitted, trying to sound unaffected even as her heart broke for him. "Maybe they're trying to figure out-"

"Shut up!"

Korra jerked automatically as one of their captors bellowed at them, his voice reverberating across the stonewalls.

"Someone didn't get their Ginseng tea today..." she muttered under her breath. The sarcasm and bravado was helping her cope with her situation; as long as she was defying them in some way, she could pretend her immediate future wasn't about to be decided by corrupt sadists.

"You have brought in a good crop..." The soft voice from the shadows sent a tremble rippling through Korra's frame.

Amon.

Apparently they had been brought to one of the Equalist factions main bases, after all.

Their captors bowed, and the Equalist head stepped into the light...with Mako at his side.

Korra tensed, her heart suddenly slamming against her ribs like the kicks of a wild Ostrich Horse.

"Well, are there any that catch your eye?" Amon asked Mako, as though they were discussing a group of hippo cows.

"I require no slave." Mako stated.

And he didn't. The slaves the Equalists used always made him uneasy, their bowed heads and empty eyes always stirring something within him. Something that he told himself was contempt, but that was dangerously close to pity.

Amon ignored his statement, however, and a flare of rage burst in Mako's gut.

"Take your pick," the masked man shrugged. "Since you seem so averse to the slaves already working here..."

Mako skimmed his eyes over the ragtag group – apparently a family of travelers that had been waylaid on the road.

And now, they were looking at a lifetime of servitude.

Mako shook off the cloud of sympathy that threatened to disperse, forcing himself to feel nothing but disgust at the obvious fear in their eyes, the way they cringed back against the wall like mice cowering from a cat. Their spirits were already bending.

Then his eyes landed on the boy standing in the back. He, too, was leaning against the wall, but it was a posture closer to that of a casual slouch than a cringe. He, too, was averting his eyes, but it wasn't in fear – on the contrary, it was more an act of disinterest, as though even Amon was beneath his notice.

And the collar; the leather secured with a metal lock; Mako had seen those kind of collars before. They were only used to restrain those who could manipulate the elements – those who were benders.

Mako's curiosity was piqued. The boy couldn't have been much older than him, perhaps even younger.

As though sensing his gaze, the boy's gaze flickered to hold his own, and Mako found himself staring into iridescent turquoise eyes. Eyes that were fierce and spirited, and were certainly not the eyes of a broken man.

There was something strangely familiar about those eyes. Something that tugged at the back of his mind, teasing him with whispers of recognition and echoes of memory.

"Him," Mako said bluntly, pointing to the turquoise-eyed boy.

Korra bit her tongue to keep herself from swearing. As soon as the purpose of Mako's visit had been made clear, Korra had tried to make herself as unobtrusive as possible, praying to the Spirits, that he wouldn't pick her. She didn't need a large bucket of emotional upset on top of her current problems. She'd even averted her eyes, remembering that eye contact was a sure-fire way of gaining someone's attention.

And he'd picked her anyway.

'Great. Just great.' Even her thoughts were sarcastic.

"Sure you wouldn't like one of the women?" Amon murmured. "The males might be physically stronger, but the females can take care of...certain needs. Though I suppose you can use males for the same purpose, if your desires are such."

Mako paid him no mind.

Korra, for her part, was on the verge of screaming. How was she supposed to escape when she was going to be around Mako all the time? She refused to admit that some part of her was glad; for Spirit's sake, if he'd been prepared to kill his own brother, he certainly wouldn't hesitate when it came to her.

A swift wrench on her shoulder pulled Korra from her horrified thoughts.

"Go to Mako," her thuggish captor barked.

Korra rolled her eyes unobtrusively; it wouldn't do to go asking for trouble, and obeyed.

Mako turned and strode away down the corridor without looking back. Assuming she was supposed to follow, Korra hurried after him, glancing back at the small group of new slaves being inspected by Amon before she had to turn a corner and they were blocked from her sight.

She shadowed Mako through the corridors, trying to memorise their layout for when she made her escape. When they reached a heavy door at the end of the corridor, Korra assumed they'd reached their destination, and she was proven correct when Mako opened the door and entered without preamble.

Korra strolled in behind him, a little taken aback at the size of the room. His entire back in Republic City apartment wasn't this big!

Mako jerked his head in the direction of a bare corner. "You sleep there. If you want any sort of bedding, get it yourself."

'He's changed so much.' Korra was certainly taken aback by Mako's newfound curtness.

"Someone's pissy..." Korra breathed, too low to be heard.

But she hadn't taken into account the rooms' stonewalls that amplified sound or Mako's keen ears. "What was that?"

"Nothing," She denied automatically.

She doubted that Mako would pursue the line of inquiry – he probably considered it beneath him – and was surprised when he turned to her, amber eyes sharp and seeking. She felt the urge to step back but stood her ground determinedly.

"What's your name?" he asked suddenly.

"Koda," she stated.

"Last name or first name?" Mako interrogated.

"I don't think I want you to know," Korra snapped, feeling off-balance and a little nervous. What was Mako playing at?

Mako stared at the boy, half intrigued and half exasperated. Koda was either completely ignorant of his situation, or he possessed a lot more guts than Mako had first anticipated.

Even if the defiance did make him want to bite back, Mako thought it was still a nice change from the usual brand of slaves toiling from Amon.

But Koda wasn't even paying attention to him anymore; his eyes were darting around the room in what someone less perceptive might have taken for fear. But Mako could see the calculation in his face – the slightly furrowed brow a sign of concentration rather than unease – and knew he was scanning the windowless room for obvious weak points or escape avenues beside the door they had just come through.

"You're already planning an escape," Mako noted, just to see how Koda would react at the idea that his plans were discovered.

"Wouldn't you, in my place?" the boy snapped.

'Play it cool, Korra,' she urged herself. 'Play it cool, play it cool – you can do this, you can do this...'

Mako shocked Korra with his next words. "I suppose I would."

Korra reflected that there was something oddly comforting about the fact that Mako's honesty hadn't changed. "Exactly..."

She hoped her remark would end this weird conversation. Why was Mako bothering to talk to her? For all he knew, she was a young male slave with a smart mouth who he didn't want to have to serve him in the first place.

What she did know was that she didn't like the look on his face. As though he was staring at a jigsaw puzzle that hadn't been finished, and he was trying to work out what the complete picture was. As though she intrigued him, and he wanted to figure her out.

And frankly, her escape was going to be a lot more complicated if Mako was going to be watching her like a cat owl.

When she wanted his attention, she never got it and now, when she didn't want his attention, he was giving it to her in spades. It was kind of funny, in a way and also kind of painful, but Korra wasn't about to dwell on that.

"You stink, go clean up," Mako ordered, turning his back on her.

Korra might have been offended, except she knew he was telling the truth. Between three days of traveling in the wilderness, one escape attempt that had led her into a swamp and the dried blood that was making her back itch even now, Korra knew she must smell something awful.

And she wasn't going to turn down the offer to bathe. At least, that's what she thought he was ordering her to do.

So Korra moved towards the door at the other end of the room, the door that she was fairly certain led to a bathroom, as Mako was already rifling through a closet like she wasn't there.

Five minutes later, Korra decided she loved whoever had invented indoor plumbing. Loved them completely, utterly and unconditionally. Loved them, loved them, loved them.

A hot shower had never felt so good.

But it did sting the welts on her back, making the water at her feet tinge pink for a few moments as the blood spiraled into the drain, some of it old and brown, some of it new and bright from where the wounds had reopened. Korra grimaced at the sight, gingerly feeling her injuries and turning the possibility of infection over in her mind. On one hand, she was young and fit, and she ate well, got plenty of sleep, and in general kept her immune system in good health. On the other hand, she was tired, under a lot of emotional stress, with only more to come, and the injury had been given many long hours of exposure to dirt, dust and grime. Infection was a definite possibility. Maybe not serious, but certainly debilitating and irritating – plus, she wouldn't put it past Amon to just kill any sick captive on the spot in lieu of medical attention.

Korra stood under the water and considered what she could do. She could let Mako know about the injuries, were they to become infected, but she had no idea how he'd react. Besides, even if he did decide to get her treated, that would involve being poked and prodded by some healer she was not familiar with, which Korra was rather keen to avoid to all costs..

Of course, she could always try to heal it herself. The collar limited her ability to connect with her bending, but it didn't block it entirely. Sure, she'd probably get her ass handed to her if she tried to start a fight, but she probably had enough to knit the marks on her back together without much trouble.

Then again, she didn't know precisely what the collar would do if she tried to perform any sort of bending.

With that thought in mind, Korra twisted her head until she could glimpse the bathroom mirror out of the corner of her eye. She'd avoided it when she entered, not out of vanity, but more because it was just plain weird for her to see her boyish self, looking back at her, but now she thought she had some use for it. With a careful alignment of eyes and mirror, and pulling a few wet strands of hair out of the way, Korra got her first good look at the back of her collar.

It was a small band of metal not unlike the lock that held it closed. Except this was rounded and slightly raised, and she wondered if there was some kind of electric current or toxin contained within it. It would explain the needle, and also the way the area had gone slightly numb. Of course, assuming there was only a limited amount of toxin contained or a set number of hours for the electric current in the collar meant that this restraint had a use-by date. There would come a time when it would no longer function.

Korra poked and prodded at the collar, wincing when she yanked a little too hard, the thin needle shifting slightly in her neck. Apparently there was only so much the toxin or pulse numbed; if someone ever grabbed it and used it to shake her, it would hurt her more than she'd be willing to admit.

Silently vowing not to allow anyone to touch her collar, Korra finally decided to take a chance. It couldn't hurt just to try a little bit of healing, to just see what she could get away with. Besides, it wasn't like she needed to heal them entirely – just enough to close them and deal with any infection that had already set in.

Inhaling deeply, Korra pressed a hand against her side, gathered any strength she could conjure and took a gamble.

It left her light-headed, slightly dizzy and a little nauseous, though that could have been a result of the dizziness, but the welts on her lower back healed to the point where they had firmly scabbed over, though they were still red and raw.

Korra toweled herself dry, dressed in the brown clothes that she was beginning to think were the mark of a slave under the Equalist regime, and started to leave the bathroom. Korra just managed to stop herself just before she broke her nose against Mako's chest.

"Whoa!" she couldn't help exclaiming, darting backwards and then kicking herself as she realised her movements had betrayed reflexes and graces most non-benders simply didn't have. Sure, the collar was a mark that they'd sensed strong bending ability, but for all they knew, she could have been some Water Tribe kid who was simply more in touch with his energy than most.

But she'd just revealed that she wasn't simply a non-bender more attune to her own energy than most. Mako probably couldn't guess as to the extent, but the fact that he knew she was quick enough to prevent a collision with his chest was cause for concern.

"What were you doing in there?" Mako asked in a low, monotone voice. He'd felt a sharp spike of energy from the bathroom, muted – obviously by the collar – but still enough for him to sense. It hadn't been enough to be a threat, so he'd waited until Koda had emerged to confront him about it.

"Taking a shower," Koda said in a surprisingly even tone. "I assume that's what you meant when you told me to clean myself up."

"I felt a spike of energy," Mako said bluntly, his amber eyes the colour of embers. "What were you doing?"

Korra hoped she wasn't about to break out into a cold sweat. There was a dangerous edge and intensity to his voice, like a blade of sharpened steel held against her neck.

But Korra was a bender – more specifically, The Avatar– so she was used to thinking fast under pressure.

'If I lie and say nothing, he'll see right through it,' she realised. 'So, I'll go with...'

"If you must know, I was trying to see if I could get the collar off," she said, shrugging carelessly to cover her unease. "Now are you going to beat me or something in punishment or can I go root around for a blanket?"

Mako simply stared at her for a long moment – so long that tension was beginning to coil in Korra's muscles as she prepared for his response, some kind of reaction from him; possibly violent.

But it never came. Mako simply strode past her into the bathroom, the soft click of the door closing signaling an end to whatever that had been.

Korra arranged the blankets she'd found, making a small nest in the corner, uncomfortably aware of Mako's amber eyes on her. He hadn't said a thing, and the silence was making her edgy.

"So...what am I supposed to do?" she asked after a moment longer. She was fairly sure slaves, if that's even what the captives were, shouldn't be asking their masters anything, but she couldn't take this silent observation anymore.

Mako's expression didn't so much as falter.

"I mean, what work are you going to have me do?" Korra elaborated.

Mako shrugged – a small, economic movement of his shoulders, as though loathed to waste the energy required to do so. "Keep the room clean, keep the gloves I use in good shape and do whatever I tell you to."

Korra turned away to bundle up one of the blankets in something resembling a pillow, rolling her eyes the minute her back was to him.

As though he had been given some invisible, unspoken cue, Mako strode to the door and left the room, pausing only to instruct her not to leave the room as he departed.

Korra had no idea what to make of that, maybe he was going to speak with Amon, but she wasn't about to waste this golden opportunity.

She proceeded to slowly and carefully rummage through Mako's room, meticulously cataloguing what she had access to, just in case. When deep in enemy territory, you never knew what you might need.

It took less time that she had thought it would; Mako's room was large, yes, but rather sparse in terms of furniture and worldly possessions. He had a bed, a closet, and a rack where he kept his Equalist gloves and that was it. His bathroom supplies consisted of soap, shampoo, a toothbrush and toothpaste.

The more Korra looked at it, the more it looked like a guest room. The sort of things you'd take on a camping trip; only the bare necessities, because you weren't going to be there for very long. But then again, Amon moved from base to base every few weeks, so it was probably safe to assume Mako moved with him.

Better to assume that than to tell herself that Mako had only ever intended his allegiance to Amon to be temporary.

Assured that she had made a mental list of everything she might possibly need, and feeling that it was probably late at night, it was hard to tell being underground and all, Korra's snuggled into the blankets she'd set up earlier, her circadian rhythms were demanding she sleep. Mako wasn't back yet, but if he wanted something, he would just have to wake her up!

After one final thought of those whom she'd left behind in Republic City, Korra curled in on herself and shut her eyes, telling herself to rest up before she attempted to escape.