Title: and yet i stumble

Fandom: legend of korra

Pairing: Amon/Korra; mentions of Mako/Korra

Rating: M

Summary: AU, Amon keeps Korra prisoner after the Counter Revolution fails.

if i could tear you from the ceiling
and guarantee source divine
rid you of possessions fleeting
remain your funny valentine

placebo – blind

i.

She sleeps horribly, wakes up worse, but what -or rather who- awaits her in the corner of the cell is the worst.

"You... fuck" whispers Korra, and hates how weak her voice sounds. Her very first thought is Mako but dares not ask where he is. (does he live?) The last time she saw him, both of them were paralyzed and then...

Amon's amused voice rings on the walls as she fights tears and the urge to throw up.

"Feel free to admire your new home, Avatar." His mask is mocking, his voice low in the dim light. Everything in this man makes her want to vomit all of her courage out. "Or rather, regarding your current state, may I call you Korra?

"Nonononononono" her head screams. This should not be, this cannot be: being an Avatar means ultimate victory by all means, all ends; does it not?

Suffocating in her own pity, she doesn't hear him come nearer. Only when the blood-red spot on his mask blinds her vision does she acknowledges that he stands before her.

He is very tall, but Korra does not wince, does not flinch.

"But I can be merciful if you want." he breathes deeply, and she feels a calloused hand on her face. It is unsurprisingly cold. "Would you like that?"

An ancient spark is lit. However he broke her body, she feels her spirit soaring, wanting to be terrible and tower above all mortal things. The former (younger; wholer) Korra, the reborn-Kyoshi, the Avatar in a young woman's body spits right on the masked face of his opponent hoping that it reaches his dark eyes, his dark mind, his dark heart.

The hand leaves her face and Korra shakes from the contact and the fury. He laughs: it is deep and mirthless, but full of want and unspilled blood.

"If I am an empty shell," the almost-Avatar thinks as Amon leaves. "He must be rotten inside to the core."

ii.

Mako lives.

He lives just as Lin Bei-Fong and Tahno and Tarrlok live: part of their soul stolen, a slice of their substance ripped out, a gift taken away.

When Korra really, truly thinks about it (she has time now, and silence too) she wants to weep how it only took a destroyed childhood and a flick of a finger. Fire won't obey, water won't dance, earth won't sing: not for any human, never for the Avatar (not anymore, not ever)

iii.

Amon visits every day and becomes Noatak as he peels off his mask.

It's a bitter fact, a cruel irony that he has water-blue, ocea-deep eyes. In another life, in another time, they might have been gentle acquaintances, even friends. He must have been attractive once, but it was surely consumed by bitterness.

"I hate you" it's a sigh, into the shell of his ear, into the thick blackness of his hair.

"I think you hate the very idea that I represent." he murmurs into her neck. His sharp-lined face is ornamented with pearls of sweats as he tastes her delicate skin. He knows it's always more complicated, always more complex than just one person.

iv.

Korra only allows herself to smile when she sleeps, because Mako appears in her dreamscapes and tells her stories about another (a peaceful, a simple) world. He wears his ever-red scarf and his ever-serious frown but Korra loves him deeply, truly, and painfully and forgets about reality for an hour or two.

Once she dreams that Mako kisses her, and only then (just once) she allows herself to cry.

v.

The next day when Amon fumbles with his own coat, she tries to focus her energy on her third chakra and tries to firebend (tries it for Mako).

He senses it immediately: the blood circulating in her hands, the heat in her heart giving her away.

Korra's crimson-coloured, sacred blood decorates the plain stone floor as Amon slaps her, hard.

He look impressed though.

"Surely you noticed I despise bending, giving that I've been continously reminded of its horrid potential." His voice is outrageously polite, but Korra senses the rage in it.

"I think you forgot its magnificence." her voice is pumped by venerable vigor.

For a moment, Korra thinks Amon will slap her again, judging by his darkened eyes. Instead, he stares at her mouth entraced and inhales; his own going wet or dry or perhaps both.

He makes her kiss his mouth for the fist time: Noatak tastes like guilt, Amon tastes like power.

vi.

She doesn' count the days anymore, but at the end of her hope and the beginning of her death a man with a scarf as red as her tired heart comes for her.

"Everything will be alright" says the man, because Korra cannot find the boy in his eyes whom she met a lifetime ago. He gathers her into his arm and she trembles: the spirits within her echo loudly and she feels (finds) peace, at last.

end