sough, (v), (n)- to moan, to rustle, to sigh; the gentle, soothing murmur of wind or water

The Water Tribes are known for echoing the give and take of the tides, a community of people who draw together against adversity. And as Mako watches the Southern Sea crash against the cliffs below him, he wonders that it is the ability to heal and to change that is most espoused about the Tribes rather than the crash, the hiss, and the spray that beats against millennia of stone. Water is not gentle—this is the first mistake. It beats endlessly until even the most unforgiving obstacle wears smooth and away beneath it and its opponents crumble to its will.

In Republic City, the waters of Yue Bay lie in wait, lapping gentle against the shores where it will only creep a few inches throughout the day. Perhaps this is fitting, Mako thinks, when he thinks of its waterbenders. He has seen the subtle surge: of a cheater who only wanted fame, a politician who pulled strings because he could, of a terrorist who could bend the limbs and tear the souls from any he held in his hands. Water is not gentle. Here it isn't subtle, either. Water rushes with a roar in the South Pole until Mako forgets what silence is, crashes and sprays until salt is a constant on his lips, and he thinks that this—this is fitting, too.

korra runs her hands over the sheets, clenches and tugs in rhythm

He thinks of these things when he returns to the South Pole after Korra's whirlwind trip back to Republic City to restore the lives of the hundreds of benders who were victims to Amon's failed revolution. He lets her sleep—leaves her alone with her family to rest where he thinks she would rather be. This is a mistake he will soon learn to stop making when Korra finds him one night with the moon only a sliver in the sky, a flicker of flame held dying on his palm as he sits over the crumbled rocks of the place where he watched her find herself again. The wind bites his face and cracks his lips, but he does not move, even when she crouches beside him and holds out an ungloved hand.

"It might be hard to kiss me if you're frozen out here, city boy," she says as her only explanation, and she touches his mouth with her fingertips, warm against the wind, and this time when he licks his lips he can't taste blood.

korra is not quiet—the noises she makes are unashamed and loud, deep moans from the back of her throat while she scrabbles for a hold, the sheets beneath her slipping until mako is there, one hand spread along her jaw while the other—

Mako stands, and she slips her hand into his, bare palm to the knit of his gloves through which he still feels the heat that pulses through her body. Korra smiles and rises up on her toes, and Mako's response is automatic: he leans down to meet her, to catch her lower lip between his. "…You just ate sea squid," he mutters, "Ew,Korra," and Korra laughs into his mouth and pulls him closer.

She leads him back to the village, and this time she keeps the wind from his face, an excuse to show off the airbending skills she's been gaining in strides. Mako watches her cheeks puff as she blows rather than turns it away, suppresses a smile over the thought that in a style of bending formed around circuity Korra still chooses to push far more than pull. Take that away, though, and there is no Korra.

She pulls him between two yurts, sheltered from the wind and only a few steps from the entrance to her home.

mako throws back his head and her mouth is there, along his collarbone and the hollow of his neck, still sloppy from her kisses between his legs

"Korra," he says, patiently—he knows how to say much through only the two syllables that are her name, and she's learned how to understand him—but she cuts him off with another kiss, pressure on the nape of his neck as she pulls against his scarf and hauls him down, to her hot breaths and the taste of salt and sea. Mako waits, and then he responds, curls an arm just light around her waist and cups a hand around her cheek, against the hair that tickles against his wrist.

"Not yet," she finally says, and her head drops against his shoulder. He can feel her pulse against her neck, quicker than it should, just a push push push without an ebb.

Mako makes a guess. "It's over—all of it, for real this time," but he feels Korra's head shake before he even finishes. "It's only just begun," she says instead, and he's not sure whether to laugh at how Avatar that sounds or be scared of it instead.

they lie in silence, nothing but hot breaths and racing hearts and from korra, eventually, a breathless laugh when his hand curls over a sensitive spot on the inside of her knee. they don't need words, naked and with no light but the dim glow through the window of moonlight and street lamps from ten stories below. they're alone in that silence, conscious only of each other, and it's the few moments like this they have—in nights when they can lose themselves, remember that they are teenagers and forget who is the avatar and who is a cop, remember only lips and hands and skin hot against skin.

Tonraq finds them minutes later and laughs at them for staying in the cold where, he says, they could wake even the deepest of sleepers if they were going to stay right outside his and Senna's bedroom. "You can kiss her in the kitchen," he informs Mako, because "it's warm in there," while Mako's shoulders hunch and Korra helpfully pushes her father through the door in front of them.

Mako does kiss her in the kitchen, though, despite his still less-than-full-certainty of how to handle himself around Tonraq. He kisses her in her bedroom, too, and pushed back against the furs and skins of her bedding, ignoring Naga's sleepy yawns in the corners. Korra runs a hand through his hair, and her kisses are light, not her usual enthusiasm, but he leans closer and still tastes the affection and the unspoken agreement that With you, it's all okay.

Water isn't always gentle, but it whispers when it reaches its shore.