A/N: So these one shot stories are for the forth season of the Pro-bending competition as such there will probably be no connecting factors or constant characters or setting. Important information will be addressed in the author's note at the start of each chapter. For instance this story is a ghost/tragedy story centered on Mako.

Important Information:

Toza's gym challenge
Team: Ember Island Eelhounds
Position: Waterbender

Word count: 1810

Weights: 1201 - 2000 words - 4 points

The Dancer

Mako's whole body hurt as he walked back to his empty apartment. Another bad guy was behind bars after another brawl, another fall through a window, another rough day. The punks had been fencing stolen items from the Fire Nation embassy; including items from the recently murdered princess. Some people had no class. One of the thugs had even broken a hand mirror and stabbed Mako in the leg with a large shard. It hurt like hell and Mako really hoped it would not become infected. He really could not afford a doctor or any time off from work at the moment.

Opening his door the aging detective passed the pictures of his friends and family. He barely looked at them anymore; they were all living their happy lives while he was here doing the same thing over and over again. Like one of those organ grinder lemurs, just wind him up and watch him dance for your amusement. Mako walked over to his fridge and pulled out a cold beer. Settling down on the sofa, Mako took a large gulp and turned on the radio before drifting off to sleep. Something moved at the corner of his eye just as he was falling but Mako was too tired to really care and ignored it.

He woke a few hours later with a start as the usual drone of the radio switched to the chimes of a music box. Mako looked around to see what had caused the change and found the radio powered down completely. He tried to turn it back on but the thing would not power up, nor would the lamp next to it all while the music grew steadily more annoying. Puzzled, Mako got up and limped towards the sound, which was now clearly coming from the hall out side his door. He grumbled under his breath. "Why didn't people get that at this hour people wanted to sleep and not listen to their overly loud music boxes?"

Thoroughly annoyed, Mako wrenched open the door and looked down the hall. It was completely black and Mako guessed that the power was out in the whole complex. To his left something moved in the shadows. Mako made a fire with his and stood there stunned for a moment. On the pealing wall was the silhouette of a ballet dancer turning to the music but there was not anyone there to cast the shadow.

"I've got to still be dreaming." He muttered turning back into his room.

"No, don't leave."

Mako spun around. "Who said that?"

"I did, please come and stay with me. Let's not be alone."

"What?! Who are you?"

"I'm so alone please, don't let me be alone."

"Are you trapped?"
"Help me."

"How."

"Find me. I'm right here."

Mako strained his eyes for any more movement in the darkness but there was nothing there to see. Even the dancer's shadow has disappeared. He waited a moment for the voice to speak again but the hall was completely silent. Shaking his head and swearing never to drink before bed again he turned back to apartment and found himself in another hallway.

Mako groaned. "Great, looks like I'm not going to wake up anytime soon. Better get this over with. You know it's Korra's job to deal with weird stuff not me! I'm just a detective! I solve murders not cryptic as hell dreams!"

Cursing under his breath he walked down the hall following the music. It never seemed to get louder or softer but stayed at the same Omni present volume. After walking for what seemed like a mile, Mako tried a few of the random doors. Most of them were locked or opened up into the same dark hallway but one opened up into a red hallway lit with torches. Figuring this was the best way to progress Mako walked through the door and into the red hallway.

As he walked, Mako passed large paintings. The first was of a small girl playing with what looked like a teenaged Iroh. The next had the girl alone a picture of Iroh on a desk surrounded by letters. Mako walked further and found a third picture with the girl in slippers striking a graceful pose.

"That must be Princess Zula." Mako muttered. "But she's dead so why am I here? I'm not special, I never even met her." He looked up at the painting. "Kind of wish I did though, she looks like she needs a friend."

Frowning he kept walking and checking the paintings. They were all the same: the princess alone in a room holding a slightly different ballet pose. It was only after he passed the tenth one he realized the pictures were showing the years passing and now he was looking at young woman not a girl. Mako looked down the hall at the pictures he had passed.

"She's been alone ever since her brother left." He looked up at the portrait and gazed up at her melancholy face. Her golden eyes, which had shown so brightly in the first picture, had lost all their luster. Walking further he saw more of the same, Zula dancing. Sometimes she was in a room and sometimes she was on stage. She smiled while on stage but in the empty room she wore a frown. "Poor thing."

Mako came to the end of the hall where a music box with a broken leg spinning on the top stood below the last painting. Looking down Mako picked up the rest of the ceramic figure off the floor and looked up at the final portrait of the hall: Zula laying the sage surrounded by white flowers.

Mako looked around and spotted two doors on either side of the picture that had not been there before. Mako tried the one on the right and entered into a dusty nursery. All the picture frames were empty and the toys placed perfectly as if on display. Mako walked over to the crib and found it filled with torn up photos of the princess and a different man. He picked up one that looked the most recent and read the back.

"That dream is dead." Mako's shoulders slouched as he turned to look at the room in a new light. It was all so perfectly laid out. "A dream that never had the chance to happen."

He felt a pang of regret in the nursery. It was true he had nieces and nephews and was even called 'uncle' by Korra and Asami's kids but it was not the same as being a parent. Mako sighed, he had always hoped to become one but the right lady just never came around and single men cannot adopt. It just was not a thing. Mako shook his head, he was trapped in this dream the last thing he needed to do was feel sorry for himself.

Mako left the room and tried the other. Now he was in a dressing room, posters of ballets covered the wall while doctors' letters and bills covered the floor in a trail. Mako fallowed it to a broken mirror and bloodied vanity where the princess lay slumped over a gun just below her limp hand. Mako stepped back starting to panic.

"Ok, I really want to wake up now." Mako looked at himself in the broken mirror and saw in the reflection the princess with an arm wrapped around his neck.

"Hello handsome." She whispered in his ear. "Want to join me?"

Mako quickly moved away to face the specter that was a dead ringer for the last portrait, right down to the broken bloodied leg. Mako cringed looking at it, the thing was barely hanging on by a tendon.

Zula's eyes narrowed. "Bet you're wondering what happened here aren't you?"

Mako nodded still backing up. "I thought from the picture you just fell or something what did you do to it?"

"I did nothing!" She shrieked. "It was that damned Lia! She did this to me! She took away the only I had all to get what she hadn't worked for." The phantom was all out seething before she caught herself and became composed again. "Well as they say cheaters never win."

She pointed to something and Mako followed her finger to a pile of papers on the floor. He picked up an old newspaper article reporting a story about the newest dancer in Republic City; the woman was not named Lia. Mako looked up.

"She didn't get what she wanted."

Zula shook her head. "No, I called up an old friend from back home who runs a dance academy send over his brightest pupil. Lia was passed over for a girl half her age." Zula laughed darkly. "Not even sleeping with the owner can top pure talent."

Mako looked back at the slumped over body. "But then why are you dead? And why did you put a gun to my head?!"

Zula floated the sollom look from all the painting returning to her face. "I had nothing left, the warm fuzzies from revenge doesn't last as long as you hope. I had nothing left to live for."

"You did, you had your job."

"What job? I could never dance again."

"You were a princess."

"I was alone! I had nothing!" Zula yelled.

"You had your family!" Mako yelled back.

"No! They left me alone! Even my brother left me alone! They didn't care anymore." Zula curled into a ball and began to weep.

Mako felt a tear run down his cheek. "Sure they did, they were just a call away. All you had to do was call."

Zula looked up. "Like you could have?"

Mako blinked in confusion and stepped back as the room changed from a dressing room to his office at the station. Papers were everywhere, pinned to the wall, stacked on cabinets and scattered on the floor. Slowly, Mako turned to where the vanity had been and found his desk a different body slumped onto the wooden surface.

Mako shook his head in disbelief. "No I couldn't, I would never." He looked at Zula. "This is some kind of trick! You're trying to trick me!"

Zula shook her head. "No, I'm just showing you the truth. Look at the boxes and remember."

Mako looked around at the multiple boxes half filled with items he had collected over the years and felt hallow. "That fight, where I was stabbed with a mirror shard, it became infected. I had to have surgery and I'd never be able to run again."

"A necessary ability for a cop." Zula added.

Mako nodded becoming more and more numb. "I had to retire early, everything I had worked for gone. I had nothing left. I was alone."

Zula wrapped her arms around him. "We both were. We both were."