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Chapter Text

It had been just over a month since Ayla started working at Jiang’s. The work was good, the food was better, and the location was divine; walking distance from her apartment, which meant no more crowded transit cars or sprinting after the last evening tram. A miracle, really.

Tucked away from the tourist-heavy part of town, the place didn’t get the suffocating waves of customers her last job had. Jiang’s was a small hole-in-the-wall between the hospital and the precinct, which meant the clientele was basically medical staff, exhausted healers, and a rotating group of rookie metalbenders and detectives who came in loud, hungry, and full of stories from patrols.

And then there was her.

Ayla’s gaze drifted toward the bar, where Chief Beifong sat alone, quietly sipping her drink as she made notes on what looked like a casefile while she waited for her takeout order. She came here often, every few nights like clockwork, but Ayla’s attempts at polite conversation or friendly banter had always bounced right off her. She'd never been rude, just… her attempts at conversation were rarely reciprocated. But the dining room was dead, Ayla was bored, and she was the only interesting thing in a twenty-foot radius. Fine. Great. Sure. Death wish activated. She grabbed a rack of clean glasses for cover and approached. “So, is this your favorite restaurant?”

She didn’t look up. “What about it?”

Ayla stared at her, surprised she’d gotten anything resembling a response. She covered it with a grin. “Nothing. Just making conversation. I’ve seen you here a few times.”

“The other bartender doesn’t pester me this much.”

Ayla put a hand to her chest in slightly exaggerated offense. “Is that why you put your order in with Kira tonight? I’m hurt.” A faint eye-roll. Then she went right back to her notes. Okay. Well. That went… about as well as expected. Ayla turned, stacking glasses on the shelf behind the bar, until she heard a quiet, put-upon sigh from behind her. “It’s on the way home from work.”

Ayla looked over her shoulder. “The precinct, yeah?” Smooth, Ayla. Really subtle. Bend me into a hole actually. 

Chief Beifong held her gaze for a beat, unimpressed. “Obviously,” she replied. “Do you have a point?”

“Damn, Chief, so testy. Long day?” The glare she got in return could have melted glass. Ayla took the hint and backed off, busying herself wiping menus and pretending she wasn’t full with victory from having gotten a full, well, she used full loosely, conversation out of the city’s most famously untalkative cop. Eventually the cook called out, “Food’s up,” and Ayla bagged the order and slid it across the bar. She downed the last of her drink, set a handful of coins on the counter, and stood to leave. “Hope your night gets better, Chief,” Ayla offered.

“Doubtful,” she replied, already stalking toward the door.

Ayla watched her go, eyebrows raised. Wow. That woman is held together by nothing but spite. She thought back to the other times that she had seen her at the bar. It was as if Chief Beifong wore a permanent scowl on her face, her eyebrows furrowed by whatever unfortunate piece of paper was in front of her. Which, to be fair, some of the columnists in the paper she sometimes reads could stand to write with a little more nuance. No Ayla, that’s not the point.

Ayla snorted. “I wouldn’t call that talking. She barely gave me three sentences.”

“Still more than she gives me. I swear she hates me.”

“She does not hate you. If anything, she hates me now because I told her she was being testy.”

“…You must really have a death wish.”

Hours later, Ayla locked the restaurant doors and headed into the night on her now familiar walk home. Warm light spilled from apartment windows above, and the faint sound of a radio drifted down from somewhere nearby. 

New towns, new cultures, new temporary friends. Never enough time to belong. Republic City had been her first real attempt at staying put. Even now, though, she wasn’t sure she’d gotten it right. She couldn't quite kick the habit of starting over every couple years. Every fresh start made it easier to leave before anyone noticed the cracks, and she felt like she had lived a half dozen different lives since coming to the city. 

She tucked her hands deeper into her coat pockets, quickening her pace against the spring chill. At her building’s door, she stepped around a pile of boxes one neighbor had left out, climbed the softly lit stairwell, and passed a unit where a loud, indignant voice shouted something about an “immoral card play.” Ayla couldn’t help smiling.

~*~~*~~*~

“Chief Beifong,” Ayla said, sliding behind the bar with a folded cloth in hand, “lovely as always to see you.” She had slipped in so quietly Ayla had almost missed her. She sat in her usual spot, posture straight, eyes scanning the menu like she didn’t have it memorized.

She flicked her gaze up just long enough to acknowledge her, then returned to the menu. Ayla pressed on anyway. “Nice evening, don’t you think? Snow finally started to melt.” She hummed but didn’t look up, and Ayla sighed. “I don’t know why you look at the menu when you get the same thing every time.” She poured her usual drink and nudged a water glass over with it. 

“I do not.”

Ayla’s heart did a stupid, triumphant little kick. She responded. Oh thank god. This was getting awkward. “Chief, I’m the one putting in your order most nights. You absolutely do.”

“You’ve put in my order less than ten times,” she countered. “I hardly call that ‘every time.’”

“Oh, so you’ve kept count? I’m flattered.”

“I have not.”

“Sure. Alright then, what’ll it be? If not what you get every time.”

It was subtle, but Ayla saw it: the tightening around her eyes when she realized she’d been cornered. Ayla bit back a smile and took the new order, scribbling something extra on the slip before handing it through the window.

After greeting a couple at the far end of the bar and pouring their drinks, she drifted back toward the other end of the bar. Instead of paperwork, Chief Beifong had the day’s newspaper open, edges crisp and folded. “Anything interesting?” Ayla asked. “I haven’t read the paper in a few days.”

“Just the usual.” She didn’t look up. “Useless bureaucratic nonsense. Pro-bending highlights from matches I’m too busy to attend. Same garbage, different day.”

“You’re into pro-bending?”

A shrug. “Used to. I haven’t been to a match in years.”

Ayla grabbed the boxed order from the window, bagged it neatly, and brought it over. “Well,” she said, “maybe this season will change that.”

“Unlikely.” Ayla slid the food over, and tried her best not to look suspicious about it. She did not buy it. “What did you put in there?”

“Nothing,” Ayla replied. “Just your receipt. Have a good night, Chief.” She watched her leave, twisting her fingers anxiously. It wasn’t just the receipt. She always ordered a small side of potstickers but had skipped them tonight after Ayla’s teasing. Trying to fix it, Ayla had added them back into the order and left a note explaining they were on the house. Sighing, she slipped a couple coins from her apron and deposited them in the register before returning to her closing routine. This is what you get for pushing, Ayla. Spirits. 

On her walk home, Ayla paused by the corner store beneath her apartment and bought a copy of the paper from the metal dispenser. She tucked it under her arm, grabbed a few groceries, and headed upstairs. Inside, she stored the food, leaving the new bag of coffee on the counter for morning, then sat at her table and spread the newspaper open. Kira had mentioned some unrest at the ports, yelling, someone shooting a metalbender cop with a firework, but had no details. Ayla flipped through the pages until a headline caught her eye:

Equalist Unrest Reaches New Heights as Demonstrators Cause Chaos at the Ports

She read about slashed tires, stopped cargo shipments, the quoted protester explaining that non-bender labor held up the city more than anyone cared to admit. They weren’t wrong. Ayla chewed at her lip. She’d heard the arguments, on both sides, and tried to steer conversations back to neutral when restaurant patrons brought them up. The whole thing always seemed ready to explode. 

Her mind flicked back to Chief Beifong at the bar. Was this the ‘bureaucratic nonsense’ she meant? No, probably bridge construction delays. Or council infighting. Or some operational nightmare Ayla couldn’t imagine. Still… Ayla realized she didn’t know anything about her beyond her title. And she definitely wasn’t going to ask.

~*~~*~~*~

It was a Tuesday evening, the first slightly warm one in weeks. Earlier that afternoon, Ayla had cracked open the windows and propped the front door to bring in the humid spring air. She was stacking clean glasses behind the bar when a low voice came from behind her. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“You know what.”

“Drawing a blank. I do a lot of things.” She grinned openly now as she poured a measure of whiskey and slid the glass toward her.

She leveled her with a flat look. “My order.”

“Oh, that?” Ayla said lightly. “Chef made too many. Tragic waste avoidance. Your order happened to be conveniently nearby.”

“Mm,” she said, unconvinced. Ayla jotted down her order and passed it into the kitchen window before leaving her to her paperwork. Back to her usual. Balance is restored once again. There was something almost comforting about the return of the equilibrium. 

Fifteen minutes later, she slid the order across the bar. She was so absorbed in the paperwork in front of her she barely noticed at first. Her eyes flicked to the bag, then she quickly finished her drink.

“No note today?” she asked.

Ayla leaned forward on her elbows, tilting her head. “Why, did you want one?”

“That’s not what I meant.” Was that heat crawling up her throat? No. Absolutely not. Ayla ignored the tiny spark of triumph warming her ribs.

“Relax, Chief. I’m just strategically flirting. It’s all part of my plan to convince you to drop all the heinous charges on my record. Is it working?”

She shot her a look that could flatten concrete. “No.”

“Damn.” Ayla laughed, ripping the used pages off her notepad and crumpling them just to give her hands something to do now that her pulse had decided to be annoying again.

There was a beat of silence, then she said dryly, “Toss in a free drink and then we can talk.”

Ayla froze. Her head snapped up. “Did you just joke with me?”

“Don’t get used to it.” A brief pause. “Were you serious about the charges? Do you actually have a record?”

“Aren’t you the cop?” Ayla countered. “If anyone would know, it’s you.”

“Would I?”

“I guess that’s for you to figure out then, Chief.”

She rolled her eyes, but the motion lacked teeth. She grabbed the bag, stood, and said, “I’m not going to dignify that with a response.”

Chapter Text

It was a bright Saturday morning when Ayla headed toward a protest Kira had mentioned. She had the day off, the sun was warm, and the river still smelled faintly of thawing silt as she walked along the retention wall, careful to avoid the crumbling stones near the edge.

It all felt so circular. 

She watched the protestors, tired, angry, frightened, chanting about representation, wages, violence. Some of their points were good. Some were painful. Some were too simplified for a city as complicated as this. Benders had power, literal, physical power, and it frightened people. It always had. The ability to summon lightning or fire at will… how could the average person not see that as unfair? Divine intervention of the spirits had essentially granted some humans the power to defy the laws of physics, at will. They were always armed with unbelievable power that could kill or seriously injure someone in a flash, and there was nothing that outwardly indicated that they had the potential to do so until it was too late.  

There wasn’t a world in which a non-bender could compete with something like that. Sure, one could become incredibly skilled in combat, and many did. She had heard the stories from the hundred-year war that detailed the contributions of many non-benders that had turned the tide in favor of the revolution. But for the average person, they didn’t have the time or resources to dedicate to training those kinds of skills and therefore left ample room for fear. Of course this fundamental unfairness would sow deep mistrust, jealousy, and resentment among non-benders. It also certainly didn’t help that bending gang violence was at an all-time high in many boroughs of the city.

But the truth, the messy middle that no one wanted to say out loud, was that most benders were just people. Underpaid workers. Exhausted parents. Kids who didn’t have the luxury of mastering their element because they were too busy trying to keep their families afloat. Ayla’s chest tightened. It shouldn’t be benders vs. non-benders. It should be people vs. the systems crushing them both. Why was the average bender getting scapegoated as if they were part of a triad and terrorizing civilians?

But that nuance was nowhere to be found in the slogans echoing around her. It might have been there originally, months ago, but those sentiments were long gone by this point. An airship’s engines roared overhead, blowing dust off the pavement. Ayla jerked her head upward. Why were they mobilizing? No one was rioting. No one was attacking. The protest was loud, yes, but not violent-

Metal cables clattered as oficers descended into formation along the perimeter. Their presence alone was almost enough to pop the bubble of tension. Then the crowd surged, pushing toward the refinery gates. Crates toppled. People tripped. A thought slammed into Ayla’s chest. Is Chief Beifong here? Would she see me? Would she think I’m part of this? Would she think I’m a threat? The idea unsettled her more than she was willing to admit.

Before she could second-guess herself, she slipped out through a gap between two buildings and walked back toward the main road, the noise faded behind her as she crossed back toward the bridge, chin tucked deeper into her scarf. She tried to make sense of the knot twisting in her stomach. Why did she feel so conflicted about being here, at a protest meant to demand equality? Why did it suddenly feel like the movement she’d supported was shifting into something sharper, something that didn’t leave room for people like her who landed more in the middle? 

Why did she care so much about what one metalbender, one cop, might think if she saw her in this crowd? None of it made sense. 

The radio droned through a list of newly approved council ordinances, noise limits for the waterfront, tax exemptions for construction supplies, some zoning change she couldn’t bring herself to care about. She kept folding.

Then the broadcast crackled, a burst of static that made her glance over. “We’re coming to you live from the Industrial Sector this evening as crews have finally managed to get the situation under control.” Ayla froze mid-fold. Industrial Sector? 

“Reports are coming in that what began as a peaceful protest has once again erupted into chaos as demonstrators set fire to the Kayo Copper Refinery. Fire crews have managed to contain the blaze before it spread to nearby buildings, but officials say the damage is extensive enough to shut down operations for the time being.”

Ayla’s stomach dropped. That’s where I was. She gripped the fabric in her hands a little too tightly. The reporter continued, “In a dramatic turn, Amon, who until now has remained largely behind the scenes of the Equalist Movement, made his first public appearance at the scene. As demonstrators set fire to the refinery, he addressed the crowd, saying, ‘Citizens of Republic City, we hear your frustrations, and we’re here to help you achieve the equality you seek. Join us, and finally break free from the oppression of the Republic City elite.’”

Ayla’s hands went still. Amon’s words seemed to linger in the air long after the broadcast had moved on to interviews with fire crews and council PR reps. She set the towel down slowly, fingers stiff. She had walked away minutes before everything ignited. She had been standing in the same crowd Amon now claimed as his. And she hadn’t recognized anything that came after she left, the violence, the flames, the rhetoric sharpened into something weaponized. Her chest tightened, confusion and dread knotting together. This wasn’t what she’d gone to support. And she didn’t know what it made her now: complicit, lucky, foolish, or something worse.

~*~~*~~*~

She pushed an escaped strand of hair back into its pin and made another mark on the map, a warehouse on 9th, then immediately regretted it. The map was useless. A patchwork of dead ends. What bothered her most was the tension beneath all of it, the legitimate grievances threading through the chaos. Republic City had thousands of non-benders who felt unheard, unseen, undervalued. And they weren’t wrong. She knew that. It was the one thing she kept turning over in her mind, despite herself. They deserved better representation. But Amon wasn’t interested in fixing anything, he was using their anger as fuel for whatever his personal goal was. 

She hauled herself upright, cracked her back, and pulled the telephone receiver toward her. She didn’t have a menu, she never did, so she dialed the operator.

“Operator.”

“Jiang’s Restaurant. Third and Bridge.”

Lin felt something in her chest pull before she could force it down. Her cheeks were flushed from the walk, and there was a looseness to her posture that didn’t match the stack of stress on Lin’s desk. “Your order, Chief. Long day?” Lin gestured to the table. “You could say that.” Ayla stepped closer, eyes taking in the scattered mess of her office with something like concern.

“Anything I can help with?” she asked lightly.

Lin shook her head without looking up. “No.”

Ayla laughed. “Fair enough.”

Ayla handed over the receipt, crinkled from the walk, and Lin signed and handed the check over. “Chef waived the delivery fee,” Ayla said. “Since you come in so much.” Lin snorted. Small victories. She pulled an additional bag from her pack and set it on the desk. “This one’s yours, I made sure to keep your things separate.”

“Ever heard of a tip?” Lin deadpanned.

Ayla flushed. “Right. Thank you,” she hesitated just a second too long. 

“Out with it.” 

“What? Oh. I just, I was wondering what you thought about all this Equalist stuff. The refinery fire. Everything happening.”

Of course. That. Fucking great. The one thing she didn’t have space for tonight. The one thing she couldn’t afford to answer honestly. “My opinion is irrelevant,” Lin said tightly. “Buildings are being set on fire. People are getting hurt. If your friends want change, they can write to the council instead of destroying half the city.”

Lin exhaled, pinching the bridge of her nose. “That came out wrong. I didn’t mean- It’s complicated. The situation, I mean.” Why was she even taking the time to explain this? What was it about Ayla that made her want to? Sprits, she was so fucking tired. This was not the time to have a conversation like this. “I don’t get to have personal feelings about this. I enforce the law. That’s my role in this mess.”

Ayla nodded once, stiff. “Right. Sorry I asked. Have a good night, Chief.” She left quickly, and Lin bit back a curse. Great going, Beifong. She shoved the feelings down. She always did. There wasn’t room for… whatever the hell that was.

She carried the food out to the bullpen. “Help yourselves.” Her officers offered tired thanks. Back in her office, she pushed her own takeout aside, then paused. The side of the bag was cold. She frowned and reached inside and found a can of beer and a note at the bottom, which she unfolded with one hand.

"Since you couldn’t get your usual pour tonight, I brought you one. Beer’s allowed off premises. I’ve noticed you’ve been stressed lately. Sorry if this is weird. Hope you have a better night."

Lin stared at the note for a long moment. Oh, hell. This was the second time Ayla had slipped something extra into her takeout. And for what? Lin couldn’t make sense of it. Unsolicited acts of kindness didn’t happen to her. Not twice.

She tried to rationalize it. Ayla was friendly with everyone, she'd seen her laugh with other regulars, maybe this was nothing more than that. Except that didn't explain why this landed differently, why being short with her had felt worse than it should. Why, out of all the bartenders and delivery runners she'd interacted with, she had been glad to see her walk through the door. And that realization irritated the hell out of her. She thought back to the last couple months, all of their interactions. She didn't like being aware of someone like that. She didn't like the fact that she could picture the way Ayla tucked loose hair behind her ear, or how her posture loosened when she made someone laugh. She especially didn't like the faint drop in her stomach at seeing disappointment flash across Ayla's face earlier. Why should it matter? It shouldn't, it was a problem. Because inevitably, at some point, Ayla would show up asking for leniency for a friend. Or herself. Or she’d get caught in something messy. And I would be the idiot who let my guard down and made it harder than it needed to be. 

Best to shut it down now. Get ahead of it. She set the note aside, opened the takeout box, and forced herself to focus on her reports. 

~*~~*~~*~

Ayla left her apartment early, still replaying the conversation she’d had with Chief Beifong the night before. Fucking hell, she’d really stepped in it, hadn’t she? She had looked exhausted, the kind of grinding exhaustion that didn’t come from a single bad shift but from weeks of carrying entirely too much on her shoulders. And Ayla had gone and asked her about politics.

Idiot.

They weren’t friends. It wasn’t her place to poke at things like that. And yet… she had actually answered her. Not kindly, exactly, but honestly. 

Ayla tucked her hands in her pockets as she walked, letting the river breeze cool her face. Whatever Chief Beifong believed privately wasn’t something Ayla had any right to pry into. The woman had a city on fire and a police force stretched thin. Ayla resolved to leave it alone. Which was exactly when she rounded the corner and walked straight into chaos.

Police everywhere. Half a storefront blown out. Electrical lines hanging from the transformers above.

“Oh hell,” she muttered under her breath, weaving past the tape. Triad violence, probably, though triads didn’t usually go this insane for unpaid fees. Whatever happened, she’d clearly missed it; the perpetrators were already cuffed and kneeling on the sidewalk, heads down. By the time she slipped into work, the lunch rush was in full swing. 

“The Avatar,” Kira hissed the moment Ayla walked past. “She’s in the city.”

“What the hell?”

“The Avatar. The actual Avatar. She showed up this morning and wrecked half a street brawling with a Triad. Lee saw the whole thing.” As if summoned, Lee launched into his retelling from a barstool, reenacting dramatic movements with his hands, prompting shouts of laughter from customers. Ayla listened, stunned. The Avatar. The Avatar was… here? In their city? Fighting triads? The image felt wrong in her mind. Like hearing a constellation or something equally as mythic had descended to break up a street brawl. “The Avatar was supposed to show up like a diplomat,” Ayla said, confused, “not like… this.”

“Nope,” Lee snorted. “She’s in police custody. They’re bringing her straight to Beifong. Taking bets to see if she makes it out alive.”

Ayla froze. Of course. Of course they would bring the Avatar to her. Chief Beifong oversaw the entire city. And Ayla had slipped a beer and a horribly earnest note into her takeout bag last night. Tui and La, she could die from humiliation. Maybe next time she saw her she would politely ask to be bent into a hole and left there. 

The next day, on her way home, she picked up a copy of the paper. Right there on the front page was a photograph of Avatar Korra, looking much younger and far more mortal than Ayla expected, breath caught mid-speech, sunlight flaring off her Water Tribe clothes. And standing next to her, jaw set, shoulders squared, was Chief Beifong.

Ayla’s stomach flipped. She looked almost godlike, the sun glinting off her armor was captured despite the low quality of the photograph. There was something easy, a rightness to seeing her there, side by side with the Avatar, that made Ayla’s chest ache. Of course this was where she belonged. Of course she was the person you brought a living myth to when they got arrested. Ayla swallowed hard. Whatever… thing she had been attempting, if you could even call it that, the stupid little notes, it felt ridiculous. Lin Beifong didn’t have friendships. She had duty, responsibility, an entire city balancing on her decisions. And Ayla… Ayla was someone who wrote stupid notes on receipts. 

~*~~*~~*~

The dinner rush had calmed down just enough for Ayla to catch her breath. She wiped down the bar, grabbed a clean glass, and reached for the tap when the familiar scrape of metal boots registered, and she snapped her head up. Fuck. This was either going to be slightly awkward or incredibly awkward. She wanted to crawl into a hole. 

Chief Beifong settled into her usual spot at the bar, and Ayla's heart pounded. She tried to school her expression into something neutral. "Chief," she said lightly, aiming for casual and landing somewhere else. "Fancy seeing you here."

She didn't respond right away, she just looked at her, too long for politeness before bluntly asking, "Why did you really bring me that beer at the station?" 

Oh. straight to incredibly awkward then. "...What do you mean?" 

She leaned forward over the bar, voice low enough not to carry. "You in some kind of trouble and need a cop in your corner?" Her gaze was sharp, but there was something frayed underneath. "Everyone has a motive." 

Ayla stared at her, slightly stung by the accusation. "I wasn't trying to make you upset, I was just doing something nice. You've looked stressed." 

"Most people only do 'nice' when they want something." 

"Is it really that hard to believe I didn't?" 

"Yes," she deadpanned. "Have you met me?" 

Ayla huffed out a breath, rubbing the back of her neck. "Okay. Fair." Oh, fuck. Shit. I understand this whole thing now. She hesitated before adding, "I need to apologize for a joke I made a while ago then. You know," Ayla grimaced. “‘Relax, Chief, I’m strategically flirting so you’ll drop the heinous charges on my record.’ That one." 

"Ah. Yes, I remember that one." 

“I was being an idiot,” Ayla rushed out. “I didn’t mean it like I thought you owed me something, or that I expected anything from you. You joked with me, I panicked, and then I made it weird.” She scrubbed a hand through her hair. “So. Sorry. I never wanted you to think I actually meant it.”

She studied her for a second, expression unreadable enough that Ayla had to fight the urge to fidget, before she replied, "I didn't actually think you had an angle." 

"You didn't?" 

"No." She sighed slightly. "But it's... hard to tell, sometimes." 

Ayla's voice softened as she replied, "It really was just a drink. And the note, sorry if that was too much. It's been a weird few weeks." She glanced back as the chef slid several plates through the window, and, grateful for something else to focus on besides this mortifying conversation, Ayla took them and ran them. She returned to the bar, heart still hammering, and realizing she had forgotten to pour her drink or put her order in. Fuck. Ayla passed the order back and slid her drink over, trying again at conversation. "You're off early, it seems," she offered, trying to redirect. 

"My metal benders forced me out for 'rest'." The sarcasm in her tone was impressive. 

"So off early for you means nine p.m.?" 

"Yes, well, the usual shit plus extra shit. I'll just stay late tomorrow." 

Kira rounded the bar, heaving a tub of dirty dishes from a nearby table, muttering a string of curses under her breath before she glanced up, and immediately straightened. "Oh, Chief Beifong, sorry. Didn't realize you were here." 

Ayla sighed, rolling her eyes as she helped her start scraping. "She's not going to arrest you for swearing under your breath." 

“Please. That’s the mildest language I’ve heard today.”

Ayla had to reign in her face at the comment. She was joking with her, or at least her version of it, again. This was unprecedented. 

~*~~*~~*~

Ayla sat at the worn bar of the hole in the wall Earth Kingdom restaurant down the street from Jiang's, elbow propped on the counter, the edge of her coat slung over the back of her stool. She pushed her glass across the counter when the bartender, Kenji, passed by, who topped it off. "Were you working another double today?" he asked. 

"Was supposed to be a mid-shift," Ayla sighed. "But Hana's kid got sick, so." She shrugged. "I didn't have plans anyway." 

"Good woman," he said, grinning, as he moved down the bar to greet a couple who had recently sat. 

Ayla snorted. "You only say that because it means I'm in here spending money." She took another sip, finally loose enough to feel pleasantly buzzed. When he came back, she was halfway through telling him a story about one of the more unruly drunk customers from her shift that had tried to order soup that "wasn't wet", when she heard a voice behind her. Low, dry, unmistakable. 

"Wasn't wet?"

Ayla froze and almost choked on her drink. "Chief Beifong-" she blurted, whipping around on her stool. She stood just behind her, and she looked exhausted. And hot, her brain helpfully supplied. Which was not useful, or appropriate, or remotely helpful when she was already three drinks in. Spirits, you couldn't pay me enough money to put up with whatever the hell she does at work all day. 

Her gaze flicked over Ayla's glass, the half-eaten dumplings in front of her, Kanji smirking down the bar at what he could only assume was Ayla dying a slow death. She exhaled through her nose, sliding onto the stool next to her. "Jiang's was packed, I wasn't waiting an hour." 

Ayla's brain short circuited a bit when she replied, "And you came here?" 

"I do eat at restaurants other than yours," she muttered, picking up a menu. 

"How have I never seen you in here? I'm here all the time." 

She shrugged. "Then you weren't paying attention." 

Ayla dropped her forehead briefly into her hand. "You have got to stop joking with me." 

"That was a joke?" Her mouth twitched, barely, but it was there. Fucking hell. 

Kenji reappeared, and Ayla could almost sag with relief at the distraction. "Evening, Chief. Usual?" She nodded, and Ayla stared at her. Usual? Here too? 

"So, Chief Beifong-"

"You don't have to call me that every time," she interrupted, weary. 

"Chief?" 

"Yes." 

"Oh." Ayla straightened slightly. "I didn't want to presume I could use your name." 

"Well," Lin said, tone flat. "I'm giving you permission." 

Ayla stared at her, bewildered. "Alright then. Lin." 

That earned her the faintest sigh, not annoyed, not quite resigned. "I'm going to regret this, aren't I." 

"Offer's out," Ayla grinned, lifting her glass in a tiny toast. "Too late to take it back." 

Lin shook her head. "How many drinks have you had?" 

"Enough that your sarcasm feels affectionate." God, Ayla, what the hell? Where had that come from? 

"It isn't." Fuck, recover, oh I've got it-

"See? That's exactly what someone would say if it was," Genius. It earned her the flattest look imaginable. Fuck. 

Okay new plan, we're just going to pretend I didn't say that. Ayla leaned back a little, fidgeting with her glass. "I honestly can't believe you're sitting here with me. I thought you hated me for the longest time." 

Lin sighed. "I never hated you." 

"Well," Ayla managed, "you do give off a very 'get lost' vibe." 

"I've been told."

Ayla pushed her empty glass to the edge of the bar and Kenji refilled it, earning a slightly raised eyebrow from Lin. "Fire whiskey?" 

"Assimilate or starve," Ayla said, raising it. 

"You're fire nation?" 

"Sort of. I grew up in the Fire Nation but lived in the Earth Kingdom near the end. My dad was United Forces, so we moved a lot. They run an import shop now in the southern mountains."

Kanji slid Lin's order across the bar, and Lin stood, digging a few bills out of her pocket. Ayla tried to squash the disappointment of her leaving, unsuccessfully. Stop. You're buzzed. Stop making this into something it isn't.

"Enjoy your evening," Ayla said as Lin took a step back. 

"You too," she replied, the ghost of a smirk tracing her mouth as she eyed Ayla's glass before making her exit. 

When the door shut behind her, Ayla dropped her face into her hands. "Fucking hell," she muttered under her breath, heat flooding her face. 

Kenji snorted from where he leaned behind the bar. "You're doomed." She dropped her head fully to the counter and groaned. Fucking hell indeed. 

~*~~*~~*~

A few days had passed since the infamous run-in. Ayla was trying very hard not to think about it, about the way she had leaned in too close, declared that Lin's sarcasm felt affectionate. That memory alone was enough to make her want to crawl into a storm drain and live there forever, but she also knew that the moment Lin walked through that door she'd probably still open her mouth and try to say something to get a reaction out of her. She was powerless and entirely complicit in her own demise. Spirits, she'd called her Lin. It felt wrongly personal to have permission to use her given name when the rest of the city called her Chief Beifong. It didn't make any sense. She called everyone by their name. That was normal. Casual. So why was this any different?

Every time the door opened, she half-expected Lin to walk in and give her that flat, unimpressed look reserved for people who made absolute fools of themselves. So when the familiar scrape of metal boots cut through the din of the restaurant, she jumped slightly, her brush jerking a bit across the specials board she was working on. 

“Chief,” she said automatically. Spirits above, she was not calling her by her given name again. She cleared her throat. “You keeping busy at the station? Haven’t seen you in a few days," Ayla said as she pushed the board aside and grabbed a glass. 

Lin looked… stressed, sure, but otherwise completely unaffected. No awkwardness, no sign she'd spent the past three days replaying that mortifying exchange, and Ayla wished she could say the same. 

“You could say that.”

"Long day?" 

She exhaled slowly. "Long week."

Ayla nodded, clinging to the normalcy. If Lin wasn't going to bring it up, neither was she. Maybe she'd gotten away with it. "Anything new?" 

Lin leveled a look at her, like she was deliberating with herself about what to reply. "What do you know about the Revelation?" 

The Revelation. She’d heard the name tossed around in half-whispered conversations all week. “Not much, just rumors,” Ayla said. “No one knows what it actually is.” Before Lin could respond, the door banged open and a loud group stumbled in, laughing about strip Pai Sho and someone losing their clothes and having to walk home after.

“-I had one sock left, okay? One.”
“You used it to cover what?”
“Don’t you dare judge me-”

Ayla bit down on a laugh, dragging her eyes back to Lin, who was absolutely not amused. “Are you planning on going to the rally tomorrow?” Lin asked, cutting through the noise.

“I don’t know. Chef’s planning on closing early so we can go if we want.” She had to glance away for a second to keep from laughing at “one sock” guy. “Depends how tired I am, I guess.”

Lin’s gaze didn’t soften. “Be careful if you do. People get stupid when they're scared.”

"Should I not go? Most people are thinking it's going to be some kind of plan for a workers union." 

"Go if you want, but I doubt it's going to be something like that." Ayla mulled that over as she grabbed a stack of menus and went to greet a table. By the time she made it back to the bar after pulling their drinks, Lin's order was ready to be bagged. Ayla tied it and set it in front of her, and Lin stood, placing her payment on the bar. 

"You sure you don't want to sit for a minute?" Ayla asked before she could stop herself. "You look like you could use one." 

"I could," Lin admitted, surprising her. Her eyes flicked to the now-occupied tables, and then back to Ayla. "But if I sit, I won't want to get back up. And that's inconvenient." Lin had said it flatly, almost careless, but something in the delivery, the way her gaze had lingered for half a second too long, landed low and hot. Paperwork, Ayla. She means she won't want to get back up and do the paperwork she's definitely headed back to do. 

"Right, well," Ayla managed, entirely too aware of the warmth creeping up her neck anyways. "That makes sense." 

"Careful, you'll start thinking my sarcasm's affectionate again." One corner of Lin's mouth tugged upward, just barely, like she knew exactly what she'd done and had been waiting to land that blow. She turned and left, leaving Ayla standing there completely flustered, mortified in the confirmation that Lin very much had thought about what she'd said and had calculated when to remind her of it. 

~*~~*~~*~

By the time the last table left the following night, Kira was practically jumping out of her skin. “Revelation time,” she sing-songed, sweeping menus into a stack. “Come on, you have to go. We’ll never hear the end of it if we miss it.”

“I don’t know,” Ayla hedged, wiping the bar. “I’m kind of tired. I might go home.”

Inside, the place was packed, wall to wall, standing room only. They handed over their flyers and pressed into the back, craning to see up to the front where a small platform had been erected. Cheering erupted when Amon stepped onto the stage. Spirits, she thought. Seeing Amon in person really was something else. Kira was right, he does have a certain aura. 

“You still think he’s hot from this far away?” Ayla leaned toward Kira.

“Oh, definitely,” Kira murmured. They were shushed from behind. 

“My quest for equality began many years ago. When I was a boy, my family and I lived on a small farm. We weren’t rich, and none of us were benders. This made us very easy targets for the fire bender who extorted my father. One day, my father confronted this man. But when he did, that fire bender took my family from me. Then, he took my face.” Her stomach turned. She hadn’t known any of that. She’d thought the mask was theatrics. Something symbolic maybe. 

“I’ve been forced to hide behind a mask ever since. As you know, the Avatar has recently arrived in Republic City. And if she were here, she would tell you that bending brings balance to the world. But she is wrong…” Murmurs rippled around her. Ayla’s skin prickled. He was good, she had to admit. Voice pitched perfectly between grief and conviction, each pause engineered to catch just right. “I know you have been wondering, ‘What is the Revelation?’ and you are about to get your answer…the spirits have granted me a power that will make equality a reality.” A chill swept through her. Please be policy, she thought. Please be a union. Please be something normal. “The power to take a person’s bending away. Permanently.”

The word dropped like a brick in her chest.

What?

A wave of whispering rolled through the crowd. She barely heard the introduction, “Lightning Bolt Zolt, leader of the Triple Threat Triad”, before he was there, fighting on stage, bending lightning like a weaponized god. And then it stopped. It didn’t fade. It didn’t misfire. It just… died. Eaten by something she couldn’t see. Ayla’s blood roared in her ears. Her vision tunneled. This wasn’t what the messaging had promised. This wasn’t better lives. Cultural annihilation was what the spirits wanted for the world?

They had Zolt. They could arrest him, put him in prison. Instead they were peeling away the core of who he was while everyone cheered like it was a show. Her thoughts scattered as people were shouting, jeering. Kira was yelling something in her ear about how wild the lightning had looked. Ayla caught only snippets as her mind raced. 

She tried to convince herself this could still be a good thing. Zolt was a monster. He’d made whole neighborhoods afraid to walk home at night, hers included. If this only happens to people like him, she reasoned desperately, is that really so bad? Then they dragged out the next criminal. And the next. “This is for the greater good!” someone shouted behind her. “And what happens when they run out of criminals?” she wanted to ask. But her throat had gone dry.

A familiar face appeared at the end of the line, a young earthbender she recognized from a pro-bending match she’d gone to with Kira a few weeks ago. It took her several seconds to place him. One of the Fire Ferrets. Mako? No, no, Bolin. Not a crime lord. Just a stupid, reckless kid in the wrong place. Her stomach flipped.

“Kira,” she hissed. “How do you think they’re going to find all the benders? If he can do… that… do you think he can just tell?”

“Huh? I dunno,” Kira said, eyes glued forward. “Hospital records? School records? Who cares, we don’t have anything to hide.”

“What if he asks people to turn in their neighbors?” Ayla pressed. “What if they start checking people at the exits? What if-”

“Ayla,” Kira said, frowning. “Relax. I doubt there are any benders here. And even if there were, it’s for the greater good.” The room closed in, the air too thick.

“I’ll come with you,” Kira said immediately. “Hold on.” They pushed through the crowd. “…together we will usher in a world free of bending oppression…” Ayla gripped Kira’s hand like it was the only solid thing in the room. She could hear Amon speaking but didn’t register anything else, all she could feel was Kira’s firm grip on her forearm, and she clung to that small sense of safety to ground herself. Things would be fine. Kira was here, and they were leaving, and she would go back to her apartment and figure it out.

But if Amon is really doing this with spirits, she thought, throat tight, what if that won’t matter? What if he can just… see? God, this was all so fucked. “Still wild, huh?” Kira was saying, chatting as they walked. “The way that last flame sort of sputtered out of his mouth, he looked like some fire-breathing sorcerer.”

“Yeah,” Ayla said faintly. “Wild.”

The streets were quiet, and it should have been peaceful. Every step seemed to land a little off. What are you more afraid of? she wondered. Losing your bending? Or being seen for what you are? She chewed her lip and kept walking, balling her fists in her pockets so tight her nails cut into her palms.

A memory rose against her will, one she kept buried deep inside herself. A leaf in her yard, and a gust of air she had somehow managed to control that had spun it in a lazy circle. She had run inside, excited, yelling about how she had just used bending for the first time. Her mother’s face had instantly gone white. “Did anyone see you? Were you alone?” She’d been twelve. Old enough to learn how dire it was as her mother explained that her father had apparently been stationed at that particular outpost because of people with airbender lineage in their ancestry kept disappearing to ‘research programs’, and that the United Forces was trying to quietly get it under control. “You can’t tell anyone,” her mother had said. “If they find out, you’ll be at risk. Do you understand?” She’d understood enough.

Eighteen years later, and here she was again, hiding the same part of herself from a different kind of threat. She kept walking. Her chest hurt. As far as she knew, the United Forces had handled it, had shut the ‘research’ program down, and no other air benders had been found. She had never heard anything further. What were they even researching? Every time she had tried to ask, she was shut down. She assumed it was something to do with entering the spirit world, since air benders tended to have an easier time accessing their spiritual connections. But that wasn’t jsut ancestry, that was years of dedication to spiritual study. Whatever it was, she hadn’t sought answers because she didn't want to know. 

As the bridge approached, she slowed her pace. She could go home, crawl into bed, and pretend she’d never gone to that warehouse. Tomorrow, she’d serve lunch to people talking about how brilliant it all was, and she’d nod and smile and hand them menus like she wasn't falling apart inside. If Amon was coming for benders, then he’s coming for people like Lin. The thought hit her hard, and her stomach dropped. Lin was one of the only benders she knew besides the chef at work, that she regularly interacted with like this. Certainly the most high profile one. Surely she had undercover officers stationed there, she likely already knows what the revelation was.

But what if she didn’t?

Her heart lurched in a way that had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with fear. Fear of something happening to her, of waking up tomorrow to hear a radio announcer explain that the Chief of Police had been ambushed and dragged up on a stage and stripped of her bending. No, no. Don't think about that. You're being irrational. She can handle Amon, you know how powerful she is. She would never be in a situation like that. You completley hallucinate that she maybe, barely flirted with you one single time and suddenly you feel the need to cross the city to warn her about something she probably already knows about? Idiot.

She turned before she consciously decided to. One moment she was headed toward the street that would take her back to her apartment, and the next she was headed left toward the station, each step heavier than the last. The weight of dread settled across her shoulders but she kept moving. This is irrational. She knows, or will soon. She told herself over and over and hated that it didn't work to convince her to turn around. It was a short walk, and the streets were nearly empty. She kept her head down, hands shoved in her pockets, focusing on her task. Tell Lin about the revelation, just in case, and then go home and sleep. 

Her thoughts felt sluggish and frantic at the same time. She had survived these last few years by momentum alone, keep moving, keep working, don't stop long enough to feel anything. She could do it for a little while longer. But holy hells, she was so tired. Exhausted didn't feel like an accurate word for it. And the closer she got to the station, the more stupid she felt. This is so stupid, go home. She's busy. She might not even be there. She'll think you're insane. But Ayla still didn't turn around, and she neared the building, climbing up the steps and pushing through the heavy door. The polished floor clicked under her boots, loud in the empty lobby. She waved automatically at the intake desk, hoping she didn't look as insane as she felt, and headed up the main stairs. 

Lin's office. Second floor, right side, all the way down. At this time of night, hopefully no one would be at their desks. She would walk in, relay the information, and leave before she had time to regret showing up like some panicked idiot. She rounded the corner and almost sagged with relief at the empty desks. Thank fucking god there wouldn't be witnesses to her making an embarrassment of herself yet again. Why can't I seem to stop making a fool of myself in front of her? I'll unpack that later. 

Then the realization dawned on her. Lin might not even be here. Which would mean she had just walked across half the city for nothing but humiliation. A note. She could leave a note. A note? What the living hell, Ayla? 

Her brain screamed at her, but she pushed forward anyway. She crossed the room and knocked on her office door, hyper aware of how insane she was acting. She had just come from an Equalist rally. Even if she hadn't done anything illegal in doing that, she felt like she had, like she was dragging the stench of it with her. She could hear movement on the other side of the door, but no response, so she knocked again, a little louder. 

“Whoever it is, it better be fucking important!”

There was a beat of silence, then the sound of a chair scraping back, followed by metal boots on tile. The door jerked open.

“Ayla?” She her face was an impossible combination of exhaustion, anger that quickly disappeared, and confusion. “It’s almost midnight. What are you doing here?”

~*~~*~~*~

​​

Lin stepped aside before she’d fully made the decision to, gesturing stiffly to the chair in front of her desk. Ayla. Here. At midnight. Fucking hell, this couldn’t be good. Lin braced herself for, well, she didn't know what. “Are you hurt? My officers haven’t filed their reports yet. Tell me what happened.”

“I’m fine, I just-” Ayla swallowed. She looked wrung out. “I don’t know how to… say it.”

“Ayla.” Lin softened her voice without meaning to. “Breathe. Whatever it is, my officers can handle it.”

She shook her head once. “Not this time.”

“What was the Revelation?”

“Amon can take people’s bending away.”

Everything inside Lin went silent. “No. Only the Avatar can do that.” Surely she was mistaken-

“I thought so too. But he, he did it. On stage. To Lightning Bolt Zolt. Just… took it. And he made it seem like he’s eventually going to come for everyone.” Lin sat down hard without deciding to, her vision blurring for a moment at the edges. This was bad. Beyond bad. “I just wanted to warn you. In case they try to ambush you or something. I left before I heard anything else.”

Lin dragged both hands through her hair, elbows hitting the desk as she pressed her forehead into her palms. This is so much worse than I thought, and I was already expecting it to be bad. The panic was rising fast, but underneath it something else surfaced, a realization. Warn you. Lin lifted her head, really looking at her. She looked exhausted, still half in shock, and she had come here to warn her. Not to ask for protection, not because she needed anything. 

"You came to warn me?" Lin heard herself say, almost disbelieving. 

Ayla made a vague gesture. "You're one of the only benders I know," she said, shaking her head. "I panicked, I don't know. I just wanted to make sure you knew. You warned me about the revelation, so I figured I'd return the favor." 

Lin stared at her, stunned, as Ayla shrugged slightly, moving to get up from her chair. "Thank you," she managed. For the first time in far too long, someone wasn’t asking her to protect them, and Lin didn't know what to do with that. Someone, Ayla, had come to protect her, in the way she was able to. It cracked something open inside her. The crack inside her was tiny, almost imperceptible, but Lin felt it anyway. 

Chapter Text

Rain splattered hard against the corrugated metal roof of a warehouse. Ayla slipped through the wide loading bay door, hood pulled low, heart beating too fast for the walk she’d taken to get here. It had been months since she'd stepped inside. Four? Five? Long enough for the smell of sweat and old oil to feel almost nostalgic. She’d told herself she stopped coming because her collarbone needed time to heal, but that had been a lie even back then. She’d stopped because she was tired of hurting all the time, tired of waking up sore, tired of explaining away bruises. Now here she was again, because fear hurt worse.

Amon’s revelation had knocked the ground out from under her. And Ayla, who had spent her entire adult life trying not to feel helpless, had come crawling back to the one place where she could hit something and have it hit her back. Where pain made sense. She knew it was a terrible habit, illegal at that, but she loved the anonymity of it, and she figured the tangible pain of getting her ass whooped was easier to focus on than the emotional pain of fearing the unknown. No one here knew her, it didn’t matter who she was or what she was doing with her life.

She moved toward the center, ducking around crates and stacks of old tires. Goddamn, last time I was here there weren’t half as many crates piled up like this. She got her name on the roster the moment she’d walked in, half shocked they still remembered her face, half relieved they did. Being one of the only women in these fights meant the crowd remembered her, and more importantly, meant they wanted to see her fight again. A spectacle. A crowd-pleaser. Fine. She needed the distraction.

The warehouse thrummed with noise, shouting, coins clinking, the raw scrape of boots over dirt. Sweat and spilled beer clung to the air near the platform. The old fractures ached in familiar places as she stretched out her arms waiting her turn. “Next up is,“ The caller looked her up and down. “You sure you’re in the right place, sweetheart?” The crowd laughed.

She rolled her wrists, cracking the joints. The caller raised his hand, pale scars visible twisting around his wrist. “One round, no takedowns past the circle. We’ve got money on both sides. Put it down now or shut up and watch. Toza versus Ayla. Odds sitting nice and hot: three-to-one on the upstart. On my count! Three, two, one…” The signal came. The man, named Toza apparently, stepped in first, and threw a jab to test her reach. She blocked it with her forearm, countering with a low kick aimed at his calf. Good to know her instincts were still there at least.He checked it, absorbing the impact with a turn of his shin, and returned with a straight punch. She caught part of it, but he still grazed her cheek.

They circled each other, watching. She had it, she could figure it out. She just needed to focus, to pinpoint his weaknesses. Everyone had one. He threw a quick jab cross, then closed the distance with a knee strike. Ayla turned sideways, caught his leg mid-rise, and tried to sweep his other foot. He shifted his weight before she could, quickly balancing, and brought an elbow down toward her back. She ducked away, releasing him before it landed.

“Bring the bitch down and stop wasting my coins!” Someone yelled from the crowd.

He pressed forward again. She feinted high, then struck low, a snap kick to the ribs. He grunted, absorbed it, and responded with a tight hook that clipped her shoulder. The next jab caught her square in the gut. She folded forward for a half second but twisted out of the follow-up elbow he threw. Spirits, that one hurt. I remember why I stopped doing this as much.

I need to be quicker. She feinted left, ducked low, and shot forward. Her shoulder hit his midsection, driving him back a few steps before he locked his arms around her. He tried to pull her into a clinch, aiming for another knee, but she managed to wedge her forearm between them, pushing off and striking his thigh with her knee as she broke out of it. She barely had time to catch her breath before he countered with a low leg kick, and followed through with a right cross that snapped her head sideways. Ayla stumbled, caught herself, and reset. She could feel the warm, wetness of blood on her jaw, and the tightness associated with a split lip. Fuck, that’s going to suck to have to wear to work tomorrow, she thought distantly.

He tried to close in with another series of punches. She slipped under the last one, caught his arm, and spun behind him, locking an arm around his waist. He threw his elbow back, barely missing her. She shifted her grip, hooked her leg around his, and brought them both down to the ground. It was a gamble, but she was getting tired, and wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep taking punches. They both hit the dirt, rolling once. He tried to twist out, but she’d already moved to control weight across his torso, knees anchored.

He grabbed for her wrist but she broke the grip, slipped her leg over his shoulder, and fought to lock him into an armbar. Ayla straightened her back, pressure tightening. He resisted for a few seconds, but eventually slapped the floor twice.

She released him immediately and rolled to her feet. He sat up beside her, breathing hard, but nodded once in acknowledgement. She needed the win. Desperately. The world was tilting out of her control, Amon had seen to that, and this was the one thing she knew how to do when the walls closed in. As she stepped off the ring, the background noise drowned out. None of it meant anything. What mattered was the way her fear had quieted. Just a little. Enough to think.

~**~*~**~

Tarrlok was a snake.

Lin kept her face neutral every time she had to stand within spitting distance of him, which was, unfortunately, more often than any sane person deserved. He was like every other politician who’d slithered through this city since the day she put on her badge: oily charm, manufactured benevolence, and always, always working some kind of angle. Tonight’s gala was no different. A “celebration” for the Avatar. For what, exactly? Arriving in the city and blowing up a street? Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t altruism.

These days, all anyone seemed to do was undermine her. Second-guess her. Criticize every decision she made while she tried to manage three overlapping crises with a fraction of the officers she needed. Tarrlok’s “task force” had been the latest slap in the face, a publicity stunt masquerading as civic duty, siphoning away her people, her carefully built patrol schedules. Crime was rising in the cracks he’d created, and she knew exactly who the press would blame for the consequences. Not him, of course. He’d be too busy giving press conferences about his “decisive action.”

And now she was here, wasting her officers’ time providing extra security for his spectacle. As if she didn’t have enough to do already. As if her department wasn’t drowning. Lin exhaled slowly, tightening her jaw as she watched Korra being paraded around. That was another knot under her ribs tonight. Lin had held this city together for decades. Quietly. Brutally. And now a teenager walks in and becomes the center of gravity, smiles for the newspaper, shakes a few hands, and suddenly the world bends around her. Lin didn’t hate Korra for that, she hated the world for acting like a title automatically made you competent. Respect wasn’t owed, it was earned. And Korra had barely stepped off the ship.

Lin knew she wasn’t being fair. Korra was young, coddled, saddled with expectations no one person should have to carry. But Lin was too exhausted to be generous. Too fed up to pretend she wasn’t furious that the entire city expected the girl to effortlessly fix the messes Lin had been quietly bleeding to try and contain. She already regretted snapping at her earlier, briefly. The way Korra’s face had fallen replayed in her mind like an unpleasant itch. But someone had to tell the Avatar the truth: the world doesn’t hand out respect because you exist. If anything, it tries to take it from you. Welcome to the job, kid.

Lin rubbed at her temple as she watched Tarrlok charm the crowd. She could already see the angle: pressure the Avatar in public, provoke her pride, push her into his orbit. And of course Korra took the bait because she was impulsive, reactive, and eager to prove herself. Now she’d signed onto Tarrlok’s task force. Fantastic. The Avatar had just taken a political side in a city splitting down the middle. And when that detonated, and it would, guess who would be expected to pick up the pieces.

Lin took a breath through her nose, slow and controlled. She hated this. Hated the way everything was changing too fast. Hated how outnumbered she felt. Hated how vulnerable the city suddenly was. And most of all, she hated knowing she would be the one blamed for the collapse long before anyone held Tarrlok accountable.

Typical.

~**~*~**~

Ayla was wiping down the counter when Kira bounded over, practically vibrating with excitement, a flyer pinched between two fingers. Ayla dried her hands on her apron and took it. “Self-defense workshop?”

Kira grinned. “Chi-blocking, it's a women’s class. We should go.”

Ayla stared at the paper a moment longer, thumb brushing its edge. “You’re not worried about Tarrlok’s task force? They’re cracking down on anything even adjacent to Equalist training.”

Kira waved her off. “Please. They’re not going to raid a bunch of women learning how to not get mugged.”

Ayla wasn’t so sure. She pressed her knuckles to her mouth, thinking. Tarrlok’s task force had been hammering the message that any chi-blocking was dangerous extremism. And Amon had turned a centuries-old martial art into a symbol of uprising. Something ordinary people used for self-protection was suddenly being painted like paramilitary training. Spirits. How did any of this become normal?

“Yeah,” Ayla said eventually, exhaling. “Actually… that sounds good. I’ll go.”

Fear settled cold inside her, familiar by now. But it was also practical. If she could buy herself even a handful of seconds, one counter, one opening, maybe she could get away from Amon if it ever came to that. She didn’t know if chi-blocking could stop someone like him, but she couldn’t keep doing nothing. Standing still made her feel like she was drowning.

Besides, she was starting to separate Amon from the rest of the movement in her mind. Whatever he was doing now… it wasn’t about workplace conditions or equality or protecting the vulnerable. That had been the wrapping paper. The real thing inside was something else entirely, something darker she didn’t want to name. She wasn’t betraying her coworkers or her neighborhood by being afraid of him. Being afraid of him felt like the only sane response.

“Perfect,” Kira said, already digging in her pocket for coins. “I’ll go call and reserve us spots. They’ve got a late-night training tomorrow, want to go after work? Bring a change of clothes.”

Ayla nodded, letting out a slow breath as she stacked a handful of trays on the now clean counter. “Yeah. After work is fine.”

Kira came back a few minutes later, triumphant. “Got us in! The downtown location. They’ve been popping up everywhere, east end, river district… honestly I might drag my sister to one.”

Ayla forced a small smile. “Probably not a bad idea.” But when she glanced down at the flyer in her hands, she felt the weight of it. She needed whatever edge she could get.

~**~*~**~

~**~*~**~

The following night, Ayla was woken up to frantic knocking on her door. Shit, it must be important- She scrambled up from bed, struggling to pull on a pair of discarded pants from the floor, nearly tripping as she shoved her leg through. She wrenched the door open only to find Kira, panicked, with two small children. One balanced on her hip, the other holding her hand.

“First off I am so sorry, and I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t an emergency. But I need a favor. A huge one.”

“Kira what’s wrong? Here, come in. Are you ok? Whose kids are these?” She ushered them in and immediately took the baby from her, laying him down on a hastily folded blanket on her bed. Kira, as far as she knew, didn’t have kids, so it was alarming that she suddenly showed up with two in the middle of the night.

“They’re my sisters kids, she was just arrested-“

“Arrested?”

Kira nodded, guiding the toddler to the bed. “She was at a chi blocking training over in Dragon Flats and that task force came and, spirits, it was awful. She got so fucked up. They flooded the whole room. She got arrested and called me from the station.”

“Oh my god.”

“I know. We were just at one of those. I can’t believe it. What if we had gotten arrested?” She paced back and forth, gesturing wildly. “It’s self-defense.”

“Kira,” Ayla said softly. She didn’t know what else to say. It was for self-defense. But Amon had twisted it, and Councilman Tarrlok was exploiting the optics. Everything was corrupted and frightening and unfair.

“Anyways, I need to ask you a huge favor. I promise I’ll pay it back, I swear, but they’re asking for more money for her bail than I have on hand. I still need around a thousand yuans, I’ve got the three thousand. If you don’t have it I understand, please don’t feel bad about saying no. But gods, I could-“

“Spirits, you keep three grand in cash on you?”  

“Not the time, Ayla!”

“Okay! Okay. Sorry! Here, I’ll loan it to you. I know you’ll get it back.” She quickly crossed the room to her wardrobe and dug in the bottom for the loose board, popping it out. Inside was a small box, and she opened it, revealing a couple wads of cash. Thank the spirits she had won that last fight, or she wouldn’t have been able to help. “Here. Are you going by in the morning? Or right now?”

“Right now, I mean, don’t they have a night clerk at intake?”

“Yeah, but what about the kids? They’re so little.”

“Yeah, about that… could you watch them? Just for like an hour?”

Ayla looked at the tiny kids curled on her blanket. Two kids, in a strange place, with a stranger, in the middle of the night. She couldn’t imagine being that small and afraid. “How about this,” Ayla said. “You stay here with them. I’ll go. I’ll bring your sister back and we’ll all get some sleep.”

“You’d really do that? Oh my god. I’ll owe you forever.”

“No, don’t say that. I know you’d do the same. Here, give me the money. There are towels and extra blankets in the wardrobe. I’ll be back with your sister.”

“You’re a lifesaver.” Kira sighed as she tossed a wad of bills towards Ayla and toed off her shoes. Ayla pulled on a warmer shirt and slipped into her boots. This would be quick, she’d pay the bail money, and they would be on their way back. Easy.

The station was quiet when she arrived a little while later. The clerk barely looked up as she gave the name. “Sorry,” he said flatly. “Policy change. No bail for Equalists. They stay until trial.”

“What?” Ayla tried to keep her voice level. “She called earlier-”

“Take it up with Councilman Tarrlok,” the clerk interrupted. “That’s the new directive.” He went back to his paperwork. Ayla stood there for a moment, stunned, the cash heavy in her pocket. If she had come thirty minutes earlier… But she hadn’t. And that was that. When she slipped back into her apartment after the walk home, Kira stirred. “Did you get her?” 

“No,” Ayla whispered, sinking onto the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry. Tarrlok changed the policy. I put your money back on the table.”

“Oh…shit.” Kira buried her face in the pillow. “Their dad doesn’t get back from the refinery until the day after next. What am I supposed to do with these kids for two days?” She groaned into the pillow. “I’m going to have to call in for my shift, unless you think I could bring them.” She sighed and turned back to Ayla, rolling over. “Do you think I could bring them?”

Kira nodded against the pillow, exhausted. “Thank you. You’re such a good friend.” 

~**~*~**~

Lin raked her fingers through her hair as she stepped into the restaurant, already bracing herself for the usual end-of-day grind when she got back to her desk: paperwork, complaints, another stack of reports about Tarrlok’s reckless raids. Instead, she was greeted with the sight of Ayla behind the bar…wearing a baby strapped to her. Lin actually stopped walking.

Ayla looked up, bright-eyed despite the chaos strapped to her torso, and burst into a laugh. Shit, I must have made a face. Oh well, can't be helped. She slid into her usual seat at the bar, and Ayla already had her drink poured. Of course she did. “I’d ask why you’re wearing a baby,” Lin said dryly, “but I’m not sure I want the answer.”

“I don’t have a kid, if that’s what you’re afraid to ask,” Ayla teased. She pushed the glass toward her. “Usual?” Lin nodded as Ayla scribbled down her order, and, against her better judgment, felt some of the tension bleed out of her shoulders. “Kira’s sister needed help. We had the kids with us all day.” She gestured to a toddler at a corner table, a mountain of scribbled pages in front of him.

“She couldn’t get childcare?” 

Lin’s jaw locked. Oh, I knew. I knew too damn well. “I’m sorry about your friend,” she said.

Ayla huffed a strained laugh. “It was so stupid. I actually went to bail her out last night and got there half an hour too late.”

“Yeah,” Ayla said, wiping down the counter absently. “He changed the policy right before I got there. ‘No bail for Equalists.’ I had the money on me, but it didn’t matter. She’s still stuck. Whatever, we’re figuring it out.”

Lin stared at the amber swirl in her glass. Tarrlok changed bail protocol without notifying me? Her pulse ticked hard beneath her skin. And then, something else registered. Ayla came to my station. Afraid. Frustrated. Holding money for a friend. And she didn’t come to my door. She didn’t ask for help. Not last night. Not now. Lin wasn’t sure what emotion surged up first: relief, guilt, or something else that she didn’t want to name. The part of her that always expected people to angle for favors fell uncomfortably quiet. “It’s out of my hands,” Lin finally said. “I’m sorry you had to deal with the fallout.”

Ayla waved it off. “I know it’s not your fault. Really. Anyway, can we talk about literally anything else?” She adjusted the baby slightly, and Lin had a sudden, visceral awareness of how loud the station had been last night, and how empty her own apartment had felt afterward. She shoved it down. “Do you listen to radio shows?” Ayla continued. “There was one the other day that was insane. Tell me you heard it.” Before Lin could answer, Ayla launched into a ridiculous retelling of an over-the-top earth kingdom western drama, and Lin found herself listening, amused, despite trying to pretend she wasn’t.

When her glass hit empty, Lin found herself ordering another, and Ayla looked at her, surprised. “Two? On a weeknight?” 

It’s just one more before you’ll get up and go deal with Tarrlok’s shitstorm like always. “Long day.” Ayla grinned and poured it.

~**~*~**~

The following night, Ayla returned to the warehouse after her shift. Lin hadn’t come in, and while part of her rationalized it, she was probably just busy at the station, she couldn’t help but feel a little disappointment. She had stayed for a second drink last night and had let her talk about her stupid radio shows. But it didn’t mean anything. Lin still hadn’t called them friends. Maybe she just wanted a second drink. Put it aside, time for a distraction.

And there was no better distraction than a good knockout. Can’t think about someone who probably doesn’t want you while you’re trying to defend yourself against someone who wants to hurt you. Stellar logic, Ayla. She had also come back in an attempt to earn more winnings. Kira coming to her needing bail money was unexpected, and she wanted to have more money on hand in case other last-minute emergencies came up. And this was quicker than picking up multiple shifts.  

Cone shaped lights buzzed overhead, but Ayla couldn’t hear them over the sound of the voices surrounding her. Dust drifted down through the haze of cigarette smoke, and she wiped her face with the heel of her palm. The caller’s voice rang out. “Keep your damn feet off the ring! Fighters up or I’ll start picking names myself!”

Ayla heaved herself up onto the platform. “Oh, look who crawled back for another go! Thought we’d seen the last of this one. Odds just flipped, everyone, five-to-one she drops him cold!” The caller lowered his hand, signaling the start of the fight. He advanced fast, faster than she expected, with a jab followed by a right cross. She slipped to the side, caught his arm mid-swing, and redirected it past her. Oof, that’s what she got for assuming he wouldn’t be fast.

Her counterstrike landed, a controlled elbow to the ribs. He grunted and took a small step back, absorbing the impact. They circled. He threw another combination. She deflected high, ducked under, and drove her knee into his midsection. He staggered but recovered quickly, catching her leg on the way down. Shit. Before he could twist, she spun, using her trapped leg to pivot and hook behind his knee, pulling him slightly off balance. She could vaguely hear the crowd cheering as she followed up with a sharp uppercut that snapped his chin. Fucker.

He stumbled back, shook his head once, and reset. This was her opening. She shot her right hand out, landing just below his jaw. A man in the crowd yelled out, “Someone tell her chi-blocking won’t fix them twig arms!”

His whole body flinched, and he reeled backward, blinking hard. Bingo. Thank the spirits for chi-blocking, this is proving to be useful. She moved to close in, but something caught in her peripheral vision.

Up near the rafters, two men were hauling a crate with a rope pulley. One of the men glanced toward the ring. It was nearing midnight on a Thursday, what would they possibly be- Her focus skittered, and it was all he needed. He came forward with a surge, body low, shoulder driving into her stomach. The impact knocked Ayla off her feet, and she hit the dirt with a thud. “Fifty yuans says she taps!”

Ayla grunted, trying to move. Before she could roll away, he was on her, pressing down, knee on her thigh, arm pinning her down. She tried to twist free but he shifted his weight, she reached for a sweep but was too slow. He caught her wrist, trapped it against her chest, and drove his forearm across her collarbone. Pain shot through her as she gasped and tried to counter, but he locked her arm, rotating it tight. Her other arm scratched at the floor, trying to find leverage, but was unsuccessful. She slapped the ground once, twice.

He released her, standing, and she hauled herself up to her knees, sucking in heaving breaths. Her vision was spotty. She glanced back up to the rafters, but the men were gone. The rope they had used still swung slightly, but the crate was pushed out of sight.

She heaved herself onto her feet and stumbled to the bench. Spirits, she was sore. The caller handed her a small stack of bills, the loser prize. Money was money, however, and she pocketed it. She glanced up in the rafters again, stepping through the crowd to get a better vantage point. It appeared that there were several crates up there, piled almost out of sight. She chewed her lip. Was this worth telling Lin? It was just a bunch of crates. For all she knew, it could be spare light bulbs and windowpanes for the warehouse. But what if it wasn’t.

She knew that there were equalists here. She knew they recruited chi-blockers from places like this. Maybe it was worth mentioning. But there was a flaw in her plan. How could she ask Lin to investigate it without revealing how she knew about it? Hello, Chief Beifong, while I was participating in an illegal fighting ring as people illegally gambled on my performance, I witnessed a suspicious box being put in the rafters. Please risk yourself looking into it. Thank you for your time. It seemed like a very scary, weird box. She scoffed. But something about the boxes, and the way that man had scanned the crowd as he lifted it up, just seemed off.

I’ll turn it in as an anonymous tip. She chewed her lip. She had read in the papers that Tarrlok’s task force was handling all leads tied to the Equalists and Amon. She should probably send it to him. Lin didn’t need more on her plate; she had already expressed frustration at the increase in her workload as of late… But part of her wanted to send it to Lin. If anything, just as an excuse to contact her, even if it was anonymous. It couldn’t hurt, because if she didn’t want to investigate it, she could simply pass it along to the task force and go on with her day.

~**~*~**~

Ayla shut the door and leaned against it. She was tired. She had gone back to another chi-blocking training after work today and was just completley exhausted. Despite Councilman Tarrlok hunting the workshops down, she wanted to get one more practice in to make sure she had the movements down. With how many raids they were doing, she figured this was one of her last opportunities.

This was all beginning to feel like so much. Too much. The weight of the fear she was carrying around was heavy. Part of her rationalized the chi-blocking trainings as self-defense, which they were, sort of. It would be handy to be better at chi-blocking if she was ever on the wrong end of a triad. A smaller part of her whispered, maybe you could use it on Amon if he ever came for your bending. Did chi-blocking work on spirit-given powers? On the energy bending Amon could do? It didn’t matter. She still wanted the option.

She still wasn’t sure why she was so spooked by the threat of having her bending taken away. It wasn’t as if she relied on it for her job or used it as an integrated part of her life. For all practical purposes, she lived as a non-bender. But underneath it all, it was still a core part of her identity. The thought of not being able to reach down into herself and feel it, even if she rarely made attempts to use it, made her feel sick. There was also the nagging fear that she would lose any sense of community she had. She enjoyed the anonymity that came with flying under the radar, the ease at which she was able to move through the city. If people found out I could airbend, even if it’s because I lost it, things would never be the same. She had spent almost her entire life built around the suppression of her bending, under the assumption that it would remain inside her. Who would she be if she didn’t have it for real?

Her bending. She had rarely explored those pathways through her body, typically choosing to disregard all of that in favor of pushing it down and not dealing with it. It had started as a trauma response but had snowballed out of control and now it just felt completely overwhelming to try and fix. But the chi-blocking training had made her curious.

She pushed aside a stack of books and sat down on her floor, closing her eyes. Her bending signature was so quiet that she had to concentrate to feel it. Ayla pictured herself crouching down in front of a tiny pool and cupping a golden stream of light within herself. The light slipped through her fingers and splashed messily onto the ground. She felt fragmented.

She could feel the weight of her energy. It was as if all the residual fear she carried around constantly was feeding it, causing even more unbalance within herself. She drew a slow breath and felt the oddest sensation of something catching slightly below her ribs, snagging. Ayla focused on that place, pressing slightly into it with awareness. It would be so much easier if I could massage everything into place. I haven’t done internal work like this in years.

She began tracing the flow of energy through her body, running her mind along pathways from wrist to shoulder, down her torso, through her hips. Those same channels she had memorized in in the chi-blocking training now felt unfamiliar as she traced them through her own body. There were places her energy didn’t seem to move at all that felt like scar tissue, unwieldy from the years of neglect.  

She tried to push through the spiritual scar tissue again with her energy, but her chest clenched. The line of energy fizzled out. Ayla exhaled. She would try again, but with less force.

She gently teased out the feeling, and she could feel her chi stirring. A small, golden current. It wound through her right arm, stopping at old blockages. Ayla had read somewhere a long time ago that chi flowed best in balance, and she tried to guide it gently.  

The feeling was strange, and she almost quit. This was the hardest part, the thought with gritted teeth. Where she had always stopped in previous attempts; not letting it close back up. Choosing fear was so easy. Little resistance. No. This time she wouldn’t shut down again. She would push through, and she would stop being so afraid of the unknown and what came after it.

Most of the pathways stayed blocked, but she had reclaimed a small piece of herself. She could feel the threads twisting through her arm. Her chi hadn’t healed. But it was moving again.

She opened her eyes. Her previous attempts to airbend had felt shaky, like walking on a foot just released from a cast. She was able to feel the energy around her, but it was difficult to manipulate, and impossible to control with any accuracy. She hadn’t felt in tune with the physical act of bending in a long time, maybe since she was a child. In the past few years, all she had successfully managed was to swirl leaves, blow pages of an open book, and move her hair around her face. She had bent air surrounding her houseplants to simulate weather a few times. But each time had felt more like an out-of-body, disconnected coincidence rather than an extension of herself, which discouraged her from trying to develop it further in fear of losing control.

Now, she wanted to try again. Because things felt different.

This time, Ayla pulled her chi inward first, into her center, where she held it previously. It felt unwieldy, but she fought with it and eventually released it back outwards, a rush of air surrounding her outstretched hand. She felt the energy surround her fingertips, could feel the movement of air skitter across her face.

Her control slipped, and her heart pounded. The air stopped moving. It wasn’t elegant, but it felt different. She felt it inside of her. It was progress. 

~**~*~**~

Lin tugged the scarf higher along her cheekbone, wishing it didn’t feel like she was wearing a target on her back every time she stepped outside the damn station. She was too recognizable, too visible, decades of headlines had seen to that. She would’ve sent one of her metalbenders out here instead of going herself, but the tip was too strange, too specific, and she needed to verify it before Tarrlok stuck his nosy political claws in and fouled everything up.

She was familiar with these types of places. The police typically turned a blind eye, usually allowing patrons of these… establishments to simply work out their own grievances. These types of fighting rings bled out tension that might otherwise spill into street violence. Better they break each other than break other things, she thought bitterly. These rings existed as a pressure valve for a lot of people who might otherwise resort to other kinds of crime, and as long as it didn’t spill into the open or target civilians, she didn’t care very much. She wasn’t naïve enough to think she would be able to contain it all without sacrificing control somewhere more important to public safety.

It was selfish, maybe a little shameful, but she lingered at the back wall when the crowd shifted enough for the ring to become visible. She glanced over at it as the crowd exploded in a mixture of yelling and groans. Her lips twisted in a slight smirk. She wouldn’t have bet on the shorter man either, but that was why she didn’t gamble. He had his hands raised, blood dripping from his nose, as his opponent peeled himself from the ground and slunk off to the side and off the platform. Just one fight. She would never admit it, but there was just something about these kinds of fights that had something that pro-bending didn’t. Watching people fight for real stakes, somewhere that she didn’t have to intervene? Not be a cop for a moment? A few minutes of brutal honesty before she had to go back and write the report, get the warrant, deal with whatever the hell this was. Those crates weren’t going anywhere in the next ten minutes.

She scanned the crowd to see who would be entering next and froze. A woman sat on a bench near the ring, with half pulled back dark hair, just long enough to brush her shoulders. Shoulders she recognized. Familiar posture as she wrapped her hands. A jawline she’d watched curve into a smile over a stack of takeout cartons. Her pulse lurched before her thoughts caught up.

Ayla?

No. No, impossible. There were hundreds of women in Republic City with dark hair and attractive posture and- The announcer called out, interrupting her thoughts. “Last fight of the night, folks. No rules, no calls, no mercy. You’ve seen what she can do. Bets close on my count. Ayla versus Kano. She’s certainly a scrawny thing, but don’t let her fool you. This one put a man on the floor last week and didn’t say a word about it. Two-to-one odds she drops him.”

The room faded at the edges. All that remained was her line of sight to Ayla, Ayla, who had stood and was stretching her arms out above her head. Ayla, who had spent almost fifteen minutes ranting about a radio show while wearing a baby strapped to her. She could do nothing but stand there and watch, completely frozen. The sounds of the crowd drowned out; she could barely hear the jeering voices taunting Ayla as she stood from the bench.

“This is no place for a girl, go on back to your knitting pretty thing!” “Aw, I almost don’t want to watch!” Ugly, drunk laughter followed. Lin’s heart beat so quickly she thought it might explode. Remaining spectators pressed in tight, clearly anticipating a quick fight. Lin had to crane her neck to keep her eyes on Ayla. As much as she was shellshocked, she felt a morbid sense of curiosity. Clearly, she knew what she was doing and had done this before. How had she not noticed that Ayla was trained in martial arts?

Lin watched, fixated, as Ayla stepped into the ring. The light colored, packed dirt of the ring was already smeared across the dark, form fitting clothing she was wearing. She stood opposite the opposition, easily a fraction of his weight, shorter by a head. He rolled his neck and flexed his fists as she adjusted her stance.

The caller’s hand dropped, and all hell broke loose. Kano lunged first, swinging wide right off the bat with a hook that he clearly thought would make quick work of Ayla. She slipped under it, a dodge too clean for a novice, pivoting on her heel, and drove her palm into his ribs, hard enough to make him grunt but not slow him down. He turned faster than Lin expected him to move given his size, bringing a backhand with his full weight behind it. Ayla dodged again, narrowly, and came up behind him with a short strike to the base of his shoulder. A pressure point. Smart. She was using her size to her advantage. Kano staggered a small step, surprised as he caught himself, his face darkening with what could only be rage. Clearly this had already lasted longer than he expected it to.

She circled, and he tracked her, breathing hard through his nose as he jabbed forward. She caught his wrist, twisted, and evaded the punch as she stepped around to his side. She used her free hand to land a solid punch to his jaw. He swung again immediately despite the less-than-ideal positioning, which grazed the side of her face without fully making contact. Lin’s stomach clenched. If this guy was able to land a solid punch, it would be bad. How had she never noticed any injuries on Ayla? Was she really that unobservant?

By now, Ayla had landed a half dozen targeted hits, nothing dramatic, but precise. Ayla was clearly targeting pressure points. Chi blocking? She was chi blocking? Since when- how had she never seen-  She vaguely felt like she was having an out of body experience. A spark of something shot through her. Since when did competence look like that? 

Frustration was showing in Kano’s shoulders after he missed again. He charged, trying to grab her. She turned with his momentum, hooked his arm, and dropped low to send him stumbling past. He spun around, red-faced, shouting, “bitch!” as he swung high, but she wasn’t there. She had already sidestepped, slipping out of reach.

His punches came heavier, faster, but without aim. She blocked one, redirected another, ducked under a third. Her movements stayed small. Pivots rather than hits. It appeared her strategy was to let himself tire out before she delivered any more hits. Smart, Lin continued to watch in shock. Who the hell-

He feinted left, then threw a low right hook. It connected, square into her collarbone. Lin gasped despite herself. Ayla jerked back, off balance. Before she could recover, his other fist caught her jaw. She hit the ground, rolling onto her side, one hand braced in the dirt. Kano stepped forward to finish it, chest heaving. But as he reached down to grab her, she kicked up, one leg across the dirt, hooking behind his ankle, the other colliding with his knee. He lost his footing and toppled backward, landing with a thud. She moved instantly, rolling to her knees, following him down. Her arm slid under his, trapping his elbow against her chest, her legs circling his shoulder and neck. She twisted, locking the hold tight. “Yield!”

He roared and tried to pull free, but the torque on his shoulder was too much. “Yield!” Ayla yelled again, through gritted teeth. She was panting, dirt everywhere. He slapped the ground twice, gasping.

She watched Ayla unwind from where she was tangled on the ground and push herself up onto shaky legs. Lin couldn’t breathe. Fucking hell, this was the last thing she needed. Being horrified and turned on at the same time. Shove it down. Some part of her, the irrational, embarrassing part she thought she’d buried at age sixteen, just wanted to grab Ayla by the shoulders and drag her out of this hellhole. Another part of her wanted to watch her for hours to understand every tell in her movement she’d somehow missed. Someone handed Ayla a stack of bills and she tucked them into the bag she was pulling over her shoulder, grimacing as she did it.

Being the last fight of the evening, most of the crowd made to exit, with Ayla hanging back to speak with a man Lin didn’t recognize. Some lingered, finishing their conversations as they smoked lazily, laughing. Lin quietly made her way to the main door, ducking between piles of crates, keeping an eye on the exit. The moment Ayla stepped into the open, Lin caught the back of her shirt and pressed a hand to the small of her back. Ayla jumped, eyes wide as she tried to wrench herself away. Shock flew across her face as she registered, “Li-”

“Not here,” Lin hissed. “Move.”

Ayla obeyed instantly. That didn’t help the knot in Lin’s chest. She didn’t let go of her shirt until they came up on an unmarked squad car parked a couple blocks over. She opened the door, gestured for Ayla to sit in the passenger seat, shutting it behind her. Lin rounded the front of the vehicle and slipped into the drivers seat. As soon as she shut the door, Ayla spoke. “Lin, spirits, you’re the last person I expected to see tonight.”

“I could say the same,” Lin bit out. “What in the living hell were you doing there?”

“Pro Bending’s not an option for me, and I like to compete.”

“You do know sparring gyms exist, right?”

“Yeah, and they come with so much red tape regarding what you can and can’t do that I’d rather just go somewhere else. Plus, they’re expensive.” Lin could sympathize, but Tui and La, Ayla. Come on.

“How’d you even get started with something like this?” She still couldn't wrap her mind around it. This was insane. She was the last person she expected to see tonight. 

“I used to work with a few people who liked to go watch. I showed up and scoped it out a few times before figuring out how to get on the roster. I hadn’t gone in a while, but with the Revelation, I don’t know.” She shrugged, curling her arms around herself. “I didn’t like how afraid it made me feel. So, I started coming again.” Ayla was silent for a moment. “Are you going to arrest me?”

Lin scoffed. “I have bigger things to worry about than this.”

“Yeah, speaking of. Why were you there tonight?”

Lin chewed her cheek before answering. How much should she disclose? “I got an anonymous tip about smuggled goods. I was there to confirm if the tip was legitimate.”

Ayla sucked in a breath. “Did you find anything?”  

Suspicion flickered across Lin’s face. “What do you know?”

Ayla hesitated. “I was the one who turned that tip in.”

“You?” 

“Yeah. The other day I saw them lifting the crates up there, but I had no way of figuring out what they were. I went back tonight to see if I could find out any more info.” That answer rearranged something in her. Not because of the information itself, she’d already confirmed the bombs, but because Ayla had done it for no reward. No protection. No motive. She had put herself at risk because she thought it would help. What the hell was going on? 

“Did you?” 

Ayla shook her head. “Not really. Nothing concrete at least. I heard that Amon has some new kind of tech that’s being developed, they’re testing it right now, but no one knows anything. Apparently, he keeps hitting roadblocks. Or at least that’s what people are saying.”

“Who was that man you were speaking with? Is that what he was saying?”

“No, he was asking if I wanted to teach chi-blocking trainings out here some nights. Since I’ve, well, used some of the techniques in my fights recently.”

She already knew the answer but asked her question anyways. “And how do you know how to chi-block?”

“I went to some trainings with a friend. They were framed as self-defense for women, but obviously that’s not what Amon uses it for.”

Lin asked, carefully, “Are you an equalist?” 

Ayla took a deep breath and spent several moments thinking about what she was going to say. “Spirits, this is starting to feel like an interrogation.” Lin winced internally. She felt bad, but she needed as much information as Ayla could provide. “I identified with some of their ideas. But not anymore. Not like this. I think Amon’s twisting everything. I think he mis-interpreted what the spirits have told him. I wouldn’t call myself an equalist now, no.”

Lin swallowed. She could feel the temptation rising, say it, ask her, use this, use her, but it felt vile in her mouth. Then Ayla surprised her again. “If you want me to pass you information… I can. If you want.” She should say no. She knew she should say no. She’d sent officers into danger for twenty years with a clear conscience, because they’d chosen it. They’d trained for it. Ayla hadn’t.

She heard her own voice say, “I couldn’t ask that of you.” This all felt like an out of body experience. 

“I’m offering,” Ayla said softly.

Lin looked at her, really looked, and something in her chest twisted. Ayla was clearly capable in ways Lin was only just beginning to grasp. And she had already placed herself in danger, voluntarily, so how was this any different than what she was already doing?  “What would that entail?” Lin heard herself ask, even though she hated herself for it.

Ayla held her gaze for a second before looking away, leaning her head back against the glass of the car window and pressing her lips together. “I don’t want to get arrested if I tell you.”

“Consider this conversation off the books.”

A beat of silence. “Alright. I’m pretty good at chi-blocking now. I told that guy I would think about it, but I could say yes to leading some trainings. Use that to get some clearance. Also, this." She gestured vaguely. "I hear a lot of talk when I go. I mean, being here's how I found out about the crates. Wait, circle back. What was inside them?”

“Bombs. A lot of them. Any idea what they could be planning?”

“No, nothing. But I can see if I can find out.” Lin felt unbelievably conflicted. She had spent her entire life believing that her purpose was simple: protect Republic City, no matter the cost. The cost had always been something she paid herself, through her sacrifices of her time, safety, personal life. But now, that cost had a different face, and it was hers. Lin, think. You’re not asking Ayla to die, you’re asking her to do things she’s already doing, which could help you deal with the growing tension in the city. You could get ahead of it. Lin was ripped out of her thoughts as Ayla spoke again. “If I agree to this, how will it work? I just pass you information?”

She took a deep breath. “Essentially. You will do… whatever it is that you do, and when you find something worth passing along, you’ll let me know.”

Ayla nodded. “Sounds easy enough.”

“You don’t have to do this.” Please say no, so I don’t feel responsible.

“I’m not doing anything I didn’t offer. I don’t think it’s going to be too risky.”

Lin watched her, unconvinced. She shook her head. “Hopefully this will all be over soon, and you won’t be put in any dangerous situations.” She paused, then sighed, resigned. "I'm only agreeing to this because you aren't a bender. If Amon caught wind of what you were doing, that would be the first thing he'd take, so at least you won't be risking something like that." 

Something indecipherable flashed across Ayla’s face, a small flicker of.. she couldn’t place it. Ayla looked away. “I know what I’m risking. It’s worth it if it helps you.”

One last order of business. The final nail in the coffin. “I can’t protect you should you find yourself in a… situation with Tarrlok’s task force, or even my own police force. I’ll have to follow protocol.”

She nodded. “I figured as much. I don’t expect you to bend the rules. How should I contact you?”

She debated for a second before reaching to dig out a piece of scrap paper from the glove box of the car. She quickly wrote her office phone line. “Call to see if I’m in my office, and then stop by. Don’t reveal anything over the phone.”

Ayla took the paper. “Understood.”

She tore off part of the paper at the corner, writing on it. “Here. In case something happens.” Lin took it, and it was a phone number, followed by an address. “I don’t have my own phone line, I share it with the neighbors on my floor, but here’s my address. I don’t know. Feels like I should give it to you since you gave me your contact information.”

Lin looked at her, slightly amused, but the feeling didn’t reach her eyes. “I didn’t give you my address.” 

“I obviously wanted you to have it in case I end up dead in a ditch somewhere, so you know where to find my belongings.” Ayla deadpanned.

“Funny.” Lin didn't laugh. 

“So, I should only use this for official reasons?”

“What other reason is there?” Lin replied too fast and immediately regretted it when Ayla blinked in surprise. Smooth, Lin. Fucking hell. 

“Well, I don’t know. I’d been thinking about asking if you wanted to grab a drink again, like that time you ran into me at the bar.”

“I don’t-" she exhaled, irritated at herself more than anything. "I don't have time to think about any of that right now.” 

“I just enjoyed it, that's all." Ayla said. "I wanted to get to know you better.”

Lin's jaw locked as the guilt hit immediately. Why would Ayla want to get to know someone who asked her to put herself in danger? “You don’t want to get to know me.”

Her eyebrows scrunched. “You don’t get to tell me what I want.”

“I wasn’t-“

Ayla shook her head, as if clearing it. “It doesn’t matter. I should really let you get back to it, then, I guess. I’ll let you know when I have something.” She pushed open the car door, shut it behind her, and started walking down the street.

Lin swore under her breath and got out. “Ayla, wait.” She stopped walking but didn’t turn around. They were the only ones on the deserted street, and the sound of a train passing across the elevated tracks could be heard in the distance. “I’m sorry, that's not-" she grimaced, "That's not what I meant.”

Ayla faced her, eyes guarded. “I thought we were friends, or at least your version of that, after you let me call you by your name. I shouldn't have assumed.”

Friends. Ayla considered them friends. The words hit Lin harder than they should have, and she let out a breath, rubbing her hand over her jaw. "I'm not... good at this." 

“At what?”

"People." She paused. "I used to be. Not anymore." 

Ayla stared at her, but didn't speak, and Lin pushed forward, hating how much effort it took to force the words out. "Look. You're... straightforward. And I'm not used to that. Most people want something from me, and you don't seem to. I'm... still trying to figure out what to do with that." 

Ayla's expression softened a little as she took a step towards her. "It doesn't have to be complicated. I wasn't asking for anything big. I just liked talking with you. That's all. Simple." 

Lin laughed once, humorless. "Yeah, well. This thing I'm asking you to walk into, it's not... simple. And I can't afford to mix it up with," she gestured vaguely between them, "whatever this is." 

Silence sat between them before Ayla asked, quietly, "Why not?" 

The truth slipped out before she could stop it. “Because I give a damn about what happens to you," she said, then added quickly, "I care about what happens to all of my officers. It's just-" Her voice faltered slightly. "For some godforsaken reason, this is different. I can usually put some distance between myself and the people I send into things like this. I cant't seem to do that right now." Lin cleared her throat and stepped back. "Just be careful. Please." 

Chapter Text

17 Days Before

Ayla, 9:00 p.m.

Ayla shoved her hands in her pockets as she walked towards the warehouse. The roads were still damp from rain earlier; it would probably start snowing soon at this rate. She tried not to think too hard about what Lin had said the other day. I give a damn about what happens to you. Not ‘I care about you’. But coming from Lin? It had to mean something. She kicked a piece of gravel. Get a grip, Ayla. She just means she’s worried for your safety. 

She’d switched to morning shifts, which gave her more time to do this job Lin had given her. But part of her hated that it meant seeing both Kira and Lin less. She thought about the way Lin had gripped the steering wheel that night while driving her home, eyes fixed on the road, as she had given her directions. ‘Documents. Shipping manifests. Logs. Invoices. Times. Locations. People.’ She’d nodded, trying to absorb it all, ignoring the building fear of it all rising in her chest. This was all so new. She felt in over her head. Overwhelmed isn’t the same thing as incapable. You’ll figure it out. She rounded the corner and slipped through the open door.  

A little while later, Ayla sat on the bench just below the ropes and wrapped her hands. Spirits, it was loud. How was she supposed to hear anything outside of the jeering and drunken hollering of the crowd? She was an idiot. She rolled her shoulders as she crouched to stretch. She was distinctly aware of residual tenderness in her ribs from her fight the other day. When Lin had watched her. She’d been in this ring a couple dozen times now. The pain was predictable. Manageable. She would win her fight, linger back, see what she could overhear. A simple plan. She glanced towards the betting table out of habit. The caller, a rat of a man, grinned at her. Well, here goes nothing. 

16 Days Before

Ayla, 8:30 p.m.

This was such a stupid idea. Lin was relying on her, and she was going to let her down. She had no idea what she was doing. She had gotten exactly zero leads yesterday. The crates were a one-off, and she was toast. Worse than toast. This was pointless. The caller’s voice rang out, signaling the start of her fight once bets were closed, but she didn’t move yet. The man with the betting log was arguing with someone, and she struggled to listen. It was probably just a drunken gambler, but she wanted to practice trying to listen better with the crowd. 

“No, the east dock’s shipment’s not till Tuesday.”

“If they push again, you tell-“

“We can’t sit on those crates, they’ll rot before they move.”

“Just keep your ledger straight and-“

The ledger sat in front of him, open. Names, bets, payouts, fight outcomes. She knew she was in it, her fight payouts. Everyone’s were. Maybe they were funneling betting money? Wouldn't be surprising. “Fighters to the ring!” The caller yelled out. “Betting’s closed, odds are two to one on Kuro!” 

She rose, shaking out her hands, and climbed into the ring. She barely registered the signal. 

Across from her, Kuro was already grinning. Spirits, he’s built like a wall. “Try not to cry, sweetheart.” Ayla didn’t answer. He came in fast, too fast for someone built like that. All strength. No guard. His fist swung for her jaw, but she twisted out of reach at the last second. The second swing caught her off guard. A solid shot to her shoulder. She staggered back a half step, arm pressed instinctively to her side. He lunged again, but she sidestepped, and drove a precise strike to his collarbone with the heel of her palm. The impact made him stumble. “Lucky shot,” he spat. 

“Wasn’t luck.” Ayla returned with more confidence than she currently felt. He snarled and lunged again, throwing wide punches. When he overextended, she slammed a short kick into his lead thigh. The impact ripped through her leg. He cursed, stumbling. “C’mon! Hit her!” someone from the crowd jeered. 

He obliged, storming forward. Ayla slid into a clinch before his next swing connected, her forearms snapping around the back of his neck. He tried to power out of it, but she had leverage now. She drove her knee hard into his ribs. And then she did it again. On the third knee, she felt his balance start to break. He managed to shove her off, throwing another hook. She ducked low, pivoted, and answered with a clean hit to the jaw. His head snapped sideways. She followed with a kick to his stomach, shoving him back. The crowd howled around her. Kuro roared and came for her one last time, sloppy. She slipped past his swing, turned on her heel, and slammed an elbow into the side of his head. His legs folded. 

She wiped her mouth, slid down off the platform, and sat back down on the bench, purposefully closer to the betting table this time. She looked up as she was handed a stack of bills and tucked them into her shirt. Under the pretense of removing the tape from her hands, she took a few extra seconds longer than she normally would to leave. What did they mean by crates? It had to be tied to the ones with the explosives.  

There was a burst of commotion next to her. She glanced up at the table and saw several men shouting, money being shoved around, someone knocking one of the ledgers to the floor. It slid halfway under the bench next to hers before anyone noticed, everyone’s focus had shifted to the ring. She followed their gaze in time to see the fighters climbing up. Oh, that makes sense. One of them was a regular with a reputation for being brutal. The other was one of the ring champions. It would be a good fight, but goddamn I’m glad I’m not up there right now.

Heart pounding, she looked back at the table. No one was looking. She bent down as if to put her wraps away and slipped it into her bag. It took everything in her to keep her face blank. It was a betting ledger. Lin would take one look at this and know it was useless. Keep your ledger straight. No, there was something here. She had to get out of here before they noticed.

On her way out, she noticed the same man from the betting table earlier, leaning close to the one who’d tried to recruit her as a chi-blocking instructor. Oh, right, my other task for tonight. I almost forgot. They looked to be speaking in low voices about something, and when she approached, she caught the tail end of their conversation. “We’re expanding south next week. Tell them the fabrication tests move with the hardware. I don’t care what the inspectors say, move them.” The man nodded and left, not even sparing Ayla a second glance.

She stepped closer to the chi-blocking recruiter, who looked her up and down with an appraising stare. “You handled yourself well tonight, that was a quick match.”

“I thought about your offer. I’d like to take it.”

“Thought you’d come around.”

“What’s the schedule?”

He handed her a small slip of paper with an address on it.  “Meet me here. We’ll assign training levels and time slots then.” 

“I’ll be there.” Ayla could hear commotion behind her. The betting ledger. Shit. She needed to leave. She made her exit as she heard the distinct sound of someone getting punched behind her. Heart pounding the entire walk home, she gripped her bag so tight she thought her fingers wouldn’t unclench when she finally shut the door behind her. 

Ayla, 10:00 p.m.

First, a shower. And then, well, she didn’t know what this was. But it was something. Half an hour later, she sat with a cup of coffee and opened the ledger on her kitchen table. Columns. Numbers. Words. A few notes scribbled in the margins. Most entries had dates, others didn’t. She flipped to her fights from the past couple weeks to try and make sense of everything since she could still remember the details. Weird. Ayla scrunched her eyebrows together and ran a finger down one of the columns. 

Ayla, Batch 3B, Cleared. But that was the fight she had lost, when she saw the crates. Cleared. Was that a mistake? Or deliberate? She flipped through a few pages and found the next one. 

Ayla, Batch 2A. Cleared, payout 10,500. Verified, transfer pending. No, that was incorrect too. She had been paid 750 yuans for that fight. She quickly found her third fight.

Ayla, Batch 7D, delayed. Delayed? No, she had won that fight. What was going on?

It didn’t make sense. Were they just terrible at keeping books? Was the betting manager pocketing money? Should she have received more winnings than she was given? Ayla, not the time, fucking hell. 

She flipped the pages back to earlier fights, compared more. There were several other notes that didn’t make sense in the context. Special handling, affiliate payout, sponsor hold. No, back up. She needed to figure out what cleared and delayed meant first. And the numbers by her name… a batch? It sounded like something to do with a shipment. But why would she have one tied to her if she had nothing to do with anything besides being a spectacle? 

A note in the margin next to one of the fights from earlier in the season caught her eye. N.C., reschedule. TBD. The date looked familiar. With a lurch, she sprung up and grabbed her stack of old newspapers, rifling through them until she found the one she was looking for. She flipped through the pages until she found it, a headline that read “Kayo Copper Refinery set ablaze by Amon”. It was dated the same day as the fight. She scanned the rest of the page for any other relevant information that could tie the event to the ledger. Nothing. Maybe there was another event from that day? She flipped the page to the classifieds, and ran her finger down the column. 

“Certified lightning bender seeks love. Looking for someone grounded. Earth benders preferred.” She snorted. Good luck, buddy. 

“Looking for a late drop, contact Northern Circuit. Tuesdays only.” 

N.C… Northern Circuit?

She had no idea what it meant. No idea how to piece it together. No idea if she was just grasping at loose ends and seeing patterns because she wanted to. All she had was a loose handful of coincidences and coded language she didn’t understand. It seemed almost like the ledger wasn’t just a gambling record, it was a shipment log. Shipping what? She didn’t know. Probably bombs, if that was what Lin found the other day. 

She flipped back to the entries of her fights. The numbers in columns next to her name didn’t match her weight, her winnings, her age, nothing. It appeared that the only record of the actual bets was scribbled in the margins next to her name, but the rest was something else entirely, something like quantities almost. She’d seen the same patterns once before, in manifests back when she worked kitchen inventory a few jobs ago. What did it all mean? Who knew. Well, Lin would. Lin probably already knew the ring was a front, and if I bring her this, she’ll think it’s worthless. But still, she was relieved she had found something. It was a start. 

15 Days Before

Ayla, 6:15 a.m.

Ayla sat with her legs crossed on her floor. She had been slowly working on healing her chi pathways ever since that first night whenever she had time. It was slow, painstaking work. But so far, she had been making progress. She closed her eyes, drawing her awareness inward down the familiar path, to the fractured thread of her chi. It still felt clumsy, unwieldy, but it was there. She found it behind her ribs, the same snagging place, but this time when she pressed against it, the resistance gave just a little. 

She knew enough about chakras to know where she was pressing into. The heart chakra, the axis everything else revolved around. Of course that was where it snagged. The snag was in a place meant to hold harmony, and air was about movement, trust, and release. And she had done the exact opposite for most of her life by closing herself off and shoving things down. That weight and fear she had carried around had twisted itself into this… resistance over the years. 

She deepened her breath. She wasn’t trying to force anything. Today was for listening. She pictured that golden thread as soft and weightless, and tried to guide it down both arms this time. She exhaled again, and she could have sworn she felt it. In a way she hadn’t before. She opened her palms in front of her, and air rolled over them like a living thing just barely. Ayla’s chest tightened. It felt effortless for that half second she held it before it fizzled out again.  

Air wasn’t about control. It was about letting go. She loosened the invisible fist she’d been clenching inside herself. It wasn’t perfect. But those few seconds had felt like an extension of herself. Was this what bending always felt like? All the times she had tried it before it had felt so disconnected, but this? This was something else entirely. 

She thought about the other day, when Lin had said she was relieved she wasn’t a bender. That it made her worry less. Ayla chewed her lip. She hadn’t lied, she’d just… let her believe something that was easier to carry. Was lying by omission still a lie? Lin already carried so much, and Ayla didn’t want to pile something else on top of that. After the Equalist mess calms down, I’ll tell her. If there’s a good moment. Once I can control it. I want to tell her. Just not yet. Not until Amon isn’t a threat anymore.  

Lin, 5:30 p.m.

Lin sat at her desk, a mug of coffee abandoned at her elbow, staring down at the sprawl of maps and notes that still didn’t lead anywhere. Colored pins marked the locations of stakeouts, movements patterns, protests. She’d spent the afternoon putting her already overworked officers through another round of surveillance sweeps that led to nothing. No suspicious shipments. No goddamn leads. She stared blankly at the map and felt like it was mocking her. 

Ayla’s face flashed through her mind. Lin had seen a lot of people fight. Very few of them had made her almost stop breathing while they did it. And then came the part where she’d asked her to go back to that place. She’d told her officers the operation was about smuggling, and technically, it wasn’t a lie. It was smuggling. Just not the kind they were authorized to touch without Councilman Tarrlok’s explicit approval, which he would never give anyways. She’d lied because the alternative was leaving Ayla in there alone, unmonitored. The least she could do was gather some intel about the damn place. 

She raked her hand through her hair and leaned back against her chair. No concrete routes, no confirmed staging facilities, no hijacked shipments reported. The only reason she’d gotten even a sliver of a lead was because of Ayla. Ayla, who shouldn’t have had to step into any of this. Lin hated that. She reached for the mug, realized the coffee was cold and likely had been for a long time. Dammit.

Ayla, 6:00 p.m. 

Ayla showed up to the old textile warehouse in the industrial district at the requested time to receive her chi-blocking training schedule. She stood outside for several minutes before knocking, debating internally whether or not she should just quit and go home. This all just felt so…weird. They’re going to see right through me. No they wont, there was a time you genuinely sympathized with this movement. Pull on that and make it believable. There was a small red lantern hanging crooked above the door. She could hear a passing train in the distance. She knocked. 

When the door opened, and the man she had spoken to at the ring nodded her inside. “You’re on time. Good.” She looked around. A few other recruits stood around, quietly speaking with each other. On the far wall hung a faded banner with Amon’s face on it. 

He gestured for her to step forward. She obliged. “Everyone has a time slot. You’ll receive your schedule on a 5-3 rotation, encoded for security.” 5-3 rotation. Whatever that meant. The rest of the trainers inclined their heads slightly, clearly understanding. 

“Pick it up on the way out. You’re dismissed.” Dismissed? She had expected to be evaluated, to have to demonstrate her chi-blocking skills at the very least. She lingered, watching the instructor disappear into a back room. 

She was handed a slip of paper with training windows and locations when she walked up to the table. “You’ll teach at the first level.” As she took the paper from the man, she glanced down at the table and tried to make sense of the rest of the papers that were strewn about. Manifests, ledgers, something with rows of numbers and names. None of it meant anything to her. Spirits, she would need Lin to give her a crash course. Why had she sent her into this blind? Get information? Sure. Right on it. Because I totally know what I’m looking for. Obviously, there is going to be a nice invoice that says, “Here are the payments for the bombs you ordered for your secret plans of exploding the city.” 

Wait. One of the lines looked familiar. 3B, N.C., Cleared. From the betting ledger. “Inventory sheets,” came a flat voice from behind her. “We keep track of gear shipments. That’s all.” Ayla nodded and quickly walked out, heading back to her apartment. She needed to get better at reading things quickly. Batch 3B. Northern Circuit. 5-3 rotation. Spirits, she was so in over her head. 

Ayla, 7:45 p.m.

Ayla stood next to the ring, wrapping her hands. Her fight was next. She would get through this, and then go back home and look at the ledger some more. Her plan was to pay extra attention to the language, the odds, the win record tonight. Maybe she could remember some extra details that would help her decode things if she paid closer attention. 

“Alright folks, you know what it is, end of the month, so you know what that means!” He paused as the crowd hollered. Her stomach sank. Pile on night. How could she have forgotten? She had participated in one of these before, a couple years ago. And last time she had only lasted two rounds. And it was brutal. She had stopped coming for a month and a half after that one. Oh, fuck it all. 

“Unlimited rounds. Unlimited poor bastards who think they can outlast the meat grinder,” he yelled. “Step right up, sweetheart.” He gestured to her. Her palms were already sweating and she hadn’t even taken a step yet. “Odds are five to one on the pile. Nine to one she leaves on a stretcher. Any takers?” 

She thought she was going to have one clean fight tonight. Instead, she was about to get so, unbelievably fucked up. But she would do it. If it helped secure her place here, somewhere where she could get information that could help. She could fight for it a little more. The first fighter climbed onto the platform. A big guy, wide shoulders. She knew him. She’d beaten him before. Good. That meant she might be okay. She exhaled through her nose, dropped into a low guarded stance, and waited for the call. Round one was clean. Practiced. They danced around each other until a solid elbow to his jaw sent him sprawling, and the crowd howled. She had only taken a few hits. Good. One down. 

Then her second opponent climbed in. This one she didn’t know. Taller than her. Faster. The way he rolled his neck before stepping up made her stomach sink. She was already breathing heavier than she wanted to be, and he didn’t waste his time. Came in hard, a knee aimed at her gut. She twisted just enough to soften the impact, but it still slammed through her ribs. Pain radiated up her side, sharp and hot. Her vision spotted. She ground her teeth and kept moving. Kick. Hook. Step back. She was fast, but fatigue was sinking in. He landed a clean, nasty hit to her jaw. Her ears rang. She stumbled, caught herself. The crowd jeered, but it sounded fuzzy, distorted. She snapped back, targeting his forearm with a strike she remembered from chi-blocking and followed with an elbow to the back of his neck. He went down with a strangled sound. She didn’t celebrate. She barely breathed. 

Two down. And she was barely standing. She spat blood on the ground. This wasn’t good. The third man heaved himself up onto the platform. Massive. Fresh. He looked like he knew he was going to win. She knew he was right. 

The call rang out, and he came in with force. The first hit, a kick to her thigh, nearly made her lose her balance. She snapped sideways, and her knee felt like it was splitting. She pivoted, tried to block the follow-up, but his fist caught her shoulder and sent her reeling. She landed on one hand, with her breath knocked out of her chest. A ragged gasp tore its way up her throat. Get up, you have to get up. She did, only to take another hit across her ribs that made her fold. Pain spiked. She was going to be sick. He didn’t even look tired. 

The fight didn’t last long. She got in a weak hit to his ribs, and then he slammed a knee into her stomach so hard the ground blurred. She hit the floor on her side. She heard the crowd distantly, but it sounded like she was underwater. Her cheek was pressed against the mat. She could taste iron. She tried to get up, but couldn’t. She tried again, forcing air into her lungs, pushing her palms into the ground. Not to keep going, just to leave. 

She dragged herself off the platform in a daze. No one paid attention as she left, the man’s second opponent was already climbing into the ring. He didn’t stand a chance, she thought distantly. Why am I doing this again? It was hard to remember. There is a point, I know, but right now it feels senseless. She limped her way out of the warehouse and down the street. Fuck, she couldn’t ride this one out. She needed healing. 

There was an emergency clinic a few cross streets away, between a dumpling restaurant and a pawn shop on the boundary of the district. Not an official hospital. Half their patients came in bleeding from “accidents”, and Ayla liked them because they didn’t ask why. She half-limped, half-drug herself down the street. Inside the clinic, the nurse at the desk looked her up and down, nodded her head towards the curtains behind her. “Waterbender’s on call tonight. Lucky you.” 

Lucky. Sure. 

She dug a handful of cash out of her bag and slid it across the desk before making her way to the back. Once behind the curtain, she lowered herself onto the clinic bed. Spirits, she felt like shit. When the healer arrived, he didn’t say much. Just washed his hands, pulled up a stool, and set a bowl of water on the table. 

“Where’s the worst of it?” 

“Ribs. Jaw. Thigh.” The room was spinning.

She eased out of her shirt and stripped off her pants, laying back down in her undergarments. He nodded and got to work. No matter how many times she had received waterbending healing, she would never get used to the alien feeling of it. The healer’s hands moved in slow circles, and she could feel pressure against her ribs. Not pain, exactly, but pressure. The pain lessened. It was still there, but manageable. 

Her thigh came next. The worst bruising, maybe a tear. She could feel torn muscle stitching itself back into something that could hold weight again. Last came her jaw, and she almost cried with the release of pressure that came with the repair. “You’re lucky. No full breaks. Just hairlines and bruising. You’ll feel it for a few days but you should be fine.” She lay there, blinking. The stabbing pain had dulled to a heavy soreness. She bent her leg, flexing her thigh. It felt tight, but solid. Breathing was easier. 

“Thanks.” She managed. 

The healer shrugged. “Try not to get torn up again tomorrow, but you have my blessing for the weekend.” She exhaled. If she wasn’t so sore, she would have laughed. 

14 Days Before

Ayla, 5:50 a.m.

Waking up this morning had been brutal. Ayla had been told to arrive “before rotation six.” She didn’t know what that meant, but she’d shown up at dawn, just in case. It felt like a safe bet. The training room was quiet, the gray-blue light only just starting to filter through. Her shift at Jiang’s wasn’t until ten, so she was fine on time. As an instructor, she was apparently expected to be able to flawlessly execute all forms and combinations and that required extra practice where they could monitor her technique. She set her bag down by the wall and stepped onto the mats. Her muscles still ached from last night, but she pushed the feeling down. This wasn’t a fight, it was drills. So she was still listening to the healer. And by the time the other instructors for her borough arrived, she was already stretching on the mats. 

“Load 3B cleared customs.”  

“Good, that means N.C.’s on schedule.”  

“We’ll need another set of runners by the end of the week.” She was surprised at how casually the words were tossed around. But, she supposed, whatever this all meant was common knowledge among the people who had been at this for a while. She was the only one who was out of the loop. 3B, N.C., cleared. Cleared must have meant on schedule, 3B was some sort of freight order. A shipment. Northern Circuit was either a company or code for whatever pier it was coming in, or maybe a route?

The morning training was tedious. Ayla worked in silence, mulling over the betting ledger and comparing it with what she knew about shipping lines as she ran through drills. Which, admittedly, was barely anything. Why would Kayo Copper Refinery be tied to one of the fights? Was it even tied? They had fired all of their non-benders. They clearly weren’t sympathetic to Amon. The dates lining up was probably a coincidence. 

Ayla’s hands ached as she worked through the drills. “You’re overthinking your angles,” one of the trainers called out from where he stood, a few paces down. “Chi-flow’s not about strength. You’ve got to feel where it breaks and exploit that.” Ayla flexed her fingers. Up close, chi-blocking was almost clinical. Like taking apart a machine. She didn’t like to think of her body in those terms. When the drills ended, the trainer gestured for her to speak with him. If I’m about to get chi-blocked…

“You’ll be handling the new recruits tonight. Basic strikes, pressure mapping. Keep it efficient.” She nodded. Basic classes were a good fit for her, and she had been relieved when she was assigned that schedule earlier. She could handle that. And teaching meant she’d have access to training schedules, and possibly other files. 

She spent the remaining hour before she needed to head to work reviewing stacks of rosters in the back room. They were neat columns with initials instead of names, and addresses. If these were new recruits, this wouldn’t be of any use. None of these people likely knew anything, and she figured she was on a roster somewhere for the training she went to with Kira. She shook her head. There would be a connection. She just needed to stick it out. 

Ayla, 8:00 p.m.

That night, Ayla ran her students through drills. Teaching was a welcome distraction; it gave her something structured to focus on. Teaching was easy, predictable. Methodical. She needed that. She demonstrated technique, her students replicated it, and she walked around offering corrections. Elbows tucked. Foot adjustments. It was structure. It was safe. Well, safe was relative. She knew Councilman Tarrlok was still hunting down chi-blocking trainings. It was only a matter of time until he found her, if she kept at this. She corrected a student’s footing. “Wider stance. Good. Again.” She told herself the dread was normal, a job hazard even. She knew she had signed up for this when she had proposed the idea to Lin. It was worth it, she just needed to figure out what it all meant.

13 Days Before 

Ayla, 10:15 p.m.

She cracked open the ledger again. It had been another long day. But she would figure this out, and then she would give it to Lin. If the Equalists were using this ledger, and others like it, to coordinate shipments, it wouldn’t be like those detective radio shows she used to listen to where the criminals used a cipher key. It would be disguised as normal ring business. Would be fucking nice if they just used an easy little key, though. 

She slid her finger down a column. It would be nice if they could just have written, this is a smuggling operation. Numbers. Initials. Abbreviations that looked more like someone had gotten lazy. DBL, R5.  She’d seen that scrawled in the margins next to some of her fights from last week. R5. Rail? Rail line? She tried to think like someone running a smuggling operation. The trains had been running the night she ran into Lin, her third fight. Shipments moving across the city by rail? She knew Line 5 ran at night to the west end, she used to unload freight from it to the wholesale market as a night job. Spirits, that was what, seven years ago. The rail lines had probably changed since then. But maybe they hadn't? 

DBL. Double. She didn’t need to think hard about that one. It was circled on the night she had come back after being gone for a few months. Other winners had gotten double payouts, and she hadn’t because of her hiatus. Fuckers. That was the night the crates surrounding the ring were stacked so high she almost thought she was in the wrong place when she walked in. 

Oh my god. It wasn’t code. It really was just shorthand. 

She flipped the page. E5 -> B12, B12 -> CW/E5, B12 2300

Clearly this was some sort of movement of goods. E5 and B12 could be warehouses maybe? A batch code? Wait. She knew E5. It was near the Kayo Refinery; she had passed a sign on the way in when she went to that protest. That was where she took a left after the bridge to continue along the retaining wall. And it kept showing up next to the same codes. CW, RL, E5, DBL. 2300 must the pickup time. She flipped back a few pages and found a piece of scrap paper someone had shoved between the pages. A betting sheet, but instead of yuans it was sloppy shorthand. 

PTx2 -> RL, B12 all night, Owe Miko 4 

Four what? Batches of something? She cross referenced a few more entries and it was still unclear, but it didn’t matter because she was right. She knew she got it right. PT always came before RL, whatever that meant. Shipments always landed in B12, wherever that was, before being moved to other numbers, probably other warehouses. These weren’t symbols to crack like a code, encrypted on purpose. These were lazy, insider notes made by people who thought no one was paying attention. Ayla exhaled, chewing her lip. It didn’t solve everything, but she was right. It wasn’t pretty. But she had done it. And now she could bring it to Lin. Her heart pounded in her chest as she stared at the ledger. 

She felt at least marginally confident about E5. A shipping yard near the edge of Yue Harbor. Ayla decided it was worth it to try and check out one of the notes before she handed this all over to Lin. For verification. Fact checking. Or is it because Lin was trusting you with this and you’d never be able to face her again if you gave her shitty leads? No. She’s been doing this for decades. She makes good choices. She knew you could handle it, and that’s why she is trusting you with this. You can go places she can’t, Ayla. You will get this figured out. 

12 Days Before

Ayla, 4:45 a.m.

She had got there before dawn, watching from a stack of crates. She felt stupid. What was she even looking for? Suspicious crates? Please. She wasn’t a cop. But she still wanted one more piece of proof before she brought her ideas to her. 

A few men in uniform waited near a fleet of trucks, speaking in low voices. Shipyard workers. Good going, Ayla, you staked out someone talking near a truck. You should join the police force. She crept closer, staying behind the stack of crates between herself and the trucks. She could see the back of one of the trucks between a crack in the pile. One of the men checked a clipboard and waved over a small group of people, maybe a dozen, that had just exited another truck nearby. They all seemed about Ayla’s age, and in good shape, and carried large bags over their shoulder. She recognized a few of them from last week at the ring. 

“New batch,” one of the men said. “Rotation five.”  

“Put them through clearance.” Ayla furrowed her brows. The “shipments” weren’t just crates, they were also recruits? Each one handed over a slip as they were ushered into the back of the truck. The door shut behind them loudly. It reminded her distantly of watching her father leave base when he was deployed. But this wasn’t the United Forces. These fighters were being recruited. From the ring, from Koh knows where, she didn’t know. Recruited for what, training? Was Amon building an army? Was he going to stage a coup? Were these soldiers going to be used to enforce bending removal? Ayla, think. You were recruited to teach chi-blocking after a fight. Maybe this is just something like that.

She turned to leave and nearly collided with a man she didn’t recognize. “You lost, sweetheart?” he said, eyes narrowing.

She forced a smile. “No. Rotation five, right?”

He grunted and waved her off, muttering something about schedules. Ayla’s heart pounded so hard she thought she might explode. Tui and La, I don’t know how Lin does it.

Ayla, 3:50 p.m.

Her shift whizzed by in a blur. She felt like she was going to collapse. She didn’t even know how she made it home. The second she locked her door and kicked off her shoes, she was in bed. The weight of the past few days crushed her to the mattress. Spirits, she was so fucking tired. She knew she needed to contact Lin, tell her about the ledger, but forming words felt impossible at the moment Tomorrow. I’ll call her tomorrow.  

11 Days Before

 Ayla, 8:00 p.m.

She was still sore from a couple days ago, but she had followed the healer’s orders. No fights the past couple days, but today she had his blessing. As long as it wasn’t another pileup, she would be fine. 

She didn’t want to be here tonight. She was running on too little sleep, too much adrenaline. But she didn’t really have a choice. She was desperate for more information now that she had the ledger shorthand figured out. Anything that could help Lin. Just one more fight, and she would contact her. And then the caller could be heard like some preacher from hell. “Alright you degenerates, house special tonight since pile-on was such a hit. Made me a fuck ton of money.” Jeering and boos. “Hey now, hey now. I’ve got an opportunity for you. No bullshit. Weapons allowed. You want a spectacle? You get one!” The crowd roared. 

Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck, dammit. Fuck it all to hell. Fuck it all further than hell, actually. My name is already on the roster. This isn’t fair. Why didn’t he say it up front-

She quickly ducked and rifled through her bag, blood rushing in her ears. All she had on her was a small knife. Sturdy, for protection. Not fighting. Oh, fuck it all. She looked back up. Her opponent was holding his blade in the air while the crowd cheered. The blade was heavy, long. I am going to die.  

This was her first knife match. She had managed to avoid them up until this moment. What were the odds? She’d done enough of everything else to think she could maybe, maybe handle it, and the chi-blocking training had improved her ability to read people’s body language and gauge space. But still, knives were different. There was more finality in it. She’d watched others, sure. She’d seen weapons fights here at the ring. She’d trained in some mock-armed grapples, but she’d never officially done one of these herself. Panic rose in her and she thought she might drown in it. No, no time for that now. She had a purpose, a job. She would fulfill it. She climbed onto the platform and shoved down her emotions, inhaling deeply. 

The caller leaned forward, lowering his voice like it was a secret. “This one’s an interesting one. Our favorite, Rin, four-time city champ on the circuit. Odds’ve been set: three to one. House’s taking a twenty cut on all bets. If you put ten on ‘em, you walk with thirty minus house. If you back this pretty thing?” He gestured to Ayla, lips twisting. “Ten to one. Ten. Think about it.” 

She could hear the commotion in the crowd as people shifted money around. “Extra side bets open. First blood, finish in under a minute. Survival to the bell. Don’t come whining if you lose.” Ayla’s gut clenched. 

The caller signaled the start of the fight, and Rin came at her, the first sweep of his blade meant to test her. She ducked on instinct, but the cut grazed her bicep, and she felt a hot sting slice through. Fear shot through her. Not the usual rush of adrenaline, something more primal. Think, Ayla, don’t panic. Panic will only make it worse. Breathe. 

Her plan, well she used the plan loosely, was weak. Don’t let him use his reach, get in close, make his weight useless. Rin kept his distance and grinned at her before lunging, hard, and she misjudged the distance. The point of his blade nicked her shoulder. Panic rose like bile and for a second, she debated just throwing herself down on the mat and surrendering. Spirits, it was so tempting. But if she did that, she would lose any sense of social capital she had in this wretched place. No, she would keep fighting. With a deep breath, she pushed forward into the panic instead of letting it overtake her. 

Getting close meant inviting his weight in. It also meant reducing the length of his blade into something more clumsy. She stepped in hard, shoulder first. His momentum pushed through, blade whipping by, but her knife slid along his forearm, leaving a decent nick. He yelled through gritted teeth, and she could hear the crowd jeering around her. She’d bought a few seconds of time. Barely. 

He hit her across the ribs in a shove that knocked the breath out of her. Pain cut through, hot and white, and she felt dizzy. She tried to breathe through it, anchoring herself. She pivoted under a wide swing, caught his wrist and shoved so hard that his balance broke. Her knife came up quick and scraped his thigh. Not deep, but leaky enough to change the betting. Her vision tunneled at the edges when he returned a hard blow to her jaw. The caller ate it up.

She forced him off his primary line, he responded by overcommitting, and she took her shot when his weight betrayed him. She stepped into his swing and her knife sliced across the gap under his elbow and nicked tendons. He cursed and swung harder, but he was sloppy now; anger made him dangerous, but it also made him predictable. She used that to her advantage and bought some recovery time ducking, slipping out of his reach. When he came in with a shoulder, she ducked and drove her knife up into the back of his knee with a sick, ugly twist. He dropped. 

She was panting, and her hands shook so hard she could visibly see it. Pain came from everywhere, like her body couldn’t decide what to prioritize. The cut along her arm throbbed. 

But she had won. 

The realization landed hollowly, distant, like someone else was speaking it to her rather than it being thought inside her own head. She could keep her place in the ring. She looked around in a daze, not registering anything. It had been worth it. That was the whole point. Everything felt far away. She felt, oddly, like she was piloting herself externally as she made her way to the edge, rather than being inside of her body. Her hands were still shaking. It’ll wear off soon.  

She eased herself off the platform with a hiss. Someone clapped her on the back hard enough that she winced. Relief coursed through her, but there was something raw woven in. She didn’t want anyone to see her like this, weak and about to collapse. Shaking. Dizzy from the adrenaline that comes with thinking you’re going to die. 

And yet, some part of her, selfish, unguarded, vulnerable, wanted Lin to see. She didn’t want pity. She wanted Lin to see the blood sticking to her arm, she wanted her to see the cost of what she was doing here, what she was paying, what she was putting herself through to keep her place. 

“Impressive,” someone beside her said, drawing her out of her thoughts. “Not a lot of people get Rin off his feet.” 

She glanced up at the man and gave him a smile that felt more like a grimace. He raised his beer in appreciation. 

“You made me a fat purse tonight. You ever need a favor, sweetheart, you come to me.” She nodded, and he continued. “Actually, there’s a friend of mine looking for something… special. Private exhibitions. One-on-one. He likes winners. Especially the ones who bleed a little.” He handed her a folded slip of paper between two fingers. “No pressure. You show, he pays. You don’t, no one talks.” She took the paper and nodded again. Words seemed impossible at the moment. “If you do show? Make sure to wear somethin’ pretty.” 

Ayla, 9:35 p.m.

This would be the first time she’d gone to see Lin since their conversation. I give a damn what happens to you. Despite her earlier thoughts, Ayla stood under her shower anyways. The disassociation was starting to wear off and she felt like she was slowly coming back to herself. Now, horror aside, it was just kind of funny. A fucking knife fight. So ridiculous that it almost made her want to laugh. 

She scrubbed her skin, washing away all of the blood, sweat, and grime from the fight. She watched it all swirl down the drain. Lin already knew what she was doing. Ayla had seen carefully guarded fear in her eyes after she watched her fight last week. Seeing her like this wouldn’t make anything better. It would just make it harder. 

She stood under the water, breathing slowly. She dressed slowly afterwards, careful not to disrupt the bandages she’d wrapped over her arm. She slipped out into the hallway and dialed Lin’s office number, shoving the slip of paper back into her bag as she waited for the call to connect. “Chief Beifong speaking.” Her voice came through with a bit of static. This wasn’t a very good phone. 

“Lin, it’s Ayla, are you available for a meeting?” She briefly considered the ridiculousness of the situation in spite of everything else. Hello, Chief Beifong, here’s the info I stole while I was doing other illegal activities, such as knife fighting. Are you pleased? 

“Are you available to come by in the next hour?” 

“Yes, I can head there straight from here.” 

“Good. See you then.” The line disconnected. Well, here goes nothing.

Lin, 10:15 p.m.

Lin sensed the uneven gait before the knock even came. Most people’s footsteps blurred together, but she caught the way Ayla’s right foot struck the floor just a shade too soft. Her stomach dropped. Then the knock. “Enter.” She kept her eyes fixed on the file in her hand for one disciplined breath. Then Ayla stepped inside, and Lin’s control snapped.

“Hey, Lin.”

“Spirits,” Lin breathed, already setting her mug aside. “What happened to you?” She looked terrible. 

Ayla lifted her hands in surrender, and winced as she lifted her arms. “In my defense, I didn’t know it was going to be a knife fight-”

“A what fight?” 

“It wasn’t as bad as the pile-on from the other night-”

“Pile-on?”

Ayla grimaced. “It’s… a thing they do. I don’t know. It’s stupid. It fucking sucked.”

“It’s not just a fight,” Lin snapped. “I didn’t agree to this- not like this.”

“But I didn’t die,” Ayla said, cracked grin and all. “I won. That’s usually where you say ‘congratulations.’”

Lin was on her feet before she realized it, palms slamming onto the desk. “This isn’t funny. Someone came at you with a knife.”

“Right. Okay. No jokes.” But the corner of Ayla’s mouth still twitched, like she couldn’t help herself. Lin’s breath caught. Fury? Fear? She couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. Ayla tilted her head. “You always lean on your desk like that when you’re trying to make a point, or is that just for me?”

Something shifted. Lin didn’t move much, just enough for Ayla to feel it. “Careful,” she warned, voice low. So low it almost wasn’t a warning at all. She needed to sit down. Needed to breathe. Needed to not do whatever her brain was trying to do.

But Ayla went on undeterred. “I got an invite to compete in a private exhibition because of my win.” 

Lin forced herself back into her chair. Professional. Detached. Put it away. “When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“So soon? How bad are you injured?”

Ayla chewed her lip, and Lin hated how familiar that gesture was becoming. “I went to the clinic after the last fight, and this is just surface. I’ll be fine.” 

She stared at her for a long moment before eventually sighing, “Do I even want to know what a pile-on is?”

“I don’t think so,” Ayla grimaced. 

Lin wanted to reach across the desk and shake her. Or maybe hold her. Maybe both. Fucking hell. “At least let me-” She stopped. What? Let me help you? Protect you? Patch you up? None of those were simple. None of those were professional. “You’re going to get yourself killed,” she said instead, just a little too soft to pass as anger. Ayla’s expression flickered. A brief, unguarded flash of something. Then the mask went back up. 

“I can handle it.”

“No, you can’t. Not if you’re taking hits like this.”

“It's worth it. There’s more.” More? Ayla reached into her bag and set a ledger on the desk. “The ring isn’t clean, but you already knew that. It’s a front. The fights logged in here match shipments. I thought they were codes for goods, but it’s people too. Recruits, maybe. Amon’s building something. A militia maybe?”

Lin’s jaw clenched. “How did you figure this out so quickly?”

“I was there for most of it,” Ayla shrugged. “I figured out it’s just shorthand. I started noticing inconsistencies between the ledger and what actually happened in my rounds.”

Lin stared at her for a second before responding, “Show me." 

~*~~*~~*~

Ayla rounded the desk, flipping the ledger open so it lay between them. “Here, see this one?” She tapped the first dog-eared page. “Ayla, Batch 3B, Cleared. But I lost that fight. Cleared doesn’t make sense.” Lin moved in beside her. Not around. Beside. Close enough that their shoulders brushed, close enough that Ayla could almost feel her through her jacket. Lin didn’t step away, she just tilted her head, studying the book with that concentration that made Ayla’s pulse skip.

She flipped the page quickly before she said something embarrassing. “Here’s another, ‘Delayed.’ I’m pretty sure that’s about the shipments.” Lin hummed, low in her throat, and reached forward to track a column with one finger. Her fingertips skimmed Ayla’s forearm where it braced the desk. Not intentional, Lin’s eyes hadn’t moved from the page, but the light contact sent a skitter up the back of Ayla’s neck. Does she know what she does to people? Fucking hell. She’d heard the stories, Toph Beifong’s seismic lie-detecting talents, and if Lin had even half of that sensitivity... Do not think about that right now. Focus on the work. Not her hand. Or her shoulder. Or her voice. Lin, oblivious and devastating, murmured, “Alright. Noted. What else?”

Ayla forced herself to remember how to speak. “Locations. I think I decoded most of them. E5, east bay five. R5, rail line five. Here, these are my guesses.” She passed Lin the sheet she’d written containing all of her attempts at translating the shorthand based on what she knew. 

“And you’re sure about this?” Lin asked.

“I checked E5 myself. That’s where they moved the people. Looked like… military. Down by the copper refinery.”

Lin didn’t speak for a moment, she simply reached for a blank page and began writing. Ayla glanced at the notes; it was a short list of names, a pier number, the slot code, a question mark. Maybe notes for her to follow up on? Then Lin murmured, almost to herself, “Not many people would make that jump from betting patterns to logistics so fast.” Shock through Ayla’s chest. “If I’d sent in an officer,” Lin continued, “they might’ve missed these links. You saw them because you understand the context. I’m impressed.”

“Good,” she said quietly. “Glad it’s useful.”

Lin nodded, already thinking two steps ahead. “We'll need originals. Shipping manifests. Inventory logs. Courier signatures. Anything we can cross-reference to verify the shorthand in the ledger. If I can trace where these recruits end up after they leave the yard…”

Ayla blinked. “Where do I even get that?”

“Records storage,” Lin said without hesitation, tapping the map. “Third-party archive warehouses. Companies dump their paperwork there when they don’t want to maintain it. Helion, Future Industries, Cabbage Corp. All of them. They usually have sloppy security." She circled a point on the map. “Dock G. There's a blind corner by the compactor bay. Guards don’t bother with it. There’s a service door you can get through. Don’t overthink it. Get in, grab what you can, get out. No talking to staff you don’t know. I can use the records to verify what they've recorded in here if the shorthand is consistent.”

Ayla nodded slowly. “If I get caught-”

“You won’t get caught.” Lin’s voice dropped into something certain. “You’ll be careful. Leave nothing traceable. And if something goes wrong, you’ll call me. I’ll come get you.”

Something in Ayla’s chest skipped. “Alright.”

Silence hovered, heavy, charged, and Lin was the one to break it. “I still don’t like you going back to that ring.”

“It’s just for a little longer,” Ayla said. “I want to see what else I can find.”

Lin’s mouth pressed into a hard line. “If you’re going to keep doing this, then no more reckless risks. You call me first. And you come straight here after. No more solo tailing. No improvising.”

Ayla held her gaze. “Okay. I’ll call. I’ll come straight here.”

Lin watched her another beat, something warm and dangerous creeping into her expression, the protective edge slipping into something too soft, too personal. “Good,” she said quietly.

10 Days Before 

Ayla, 1:30 p.m. 

The lunch rush had finally died down. She only had about an hour left before she could leave. Mostly sidework. The front door rang, and Kira breezed in with her hair tied up, a clean apron tied around her waist, and a grin that immediately faltered when her eyes focused on Ayla. “Spirits, Ayla,” Kira stopped halfway to the counter. “What happened to you? You look like you lost a fight with a cabbage cart.” 

Ayla snorted, walking back over to the bar. “You’re not far off.” Fighting that guy built like a wall had certainly felt like getting hit by a cabbage cart. 

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she sighed. “I joined a sparring gym. Turns out I’m rusty.” 

Kira crossed her arms, still skeptical. “You joined a gym. Recently. And you look like that.” 

Ayla shrugged, and Kira just gave her a look that was half worried, half exasperated. “You’re insane.” 

“Thank you. So supportive.” 

Kira smirked. “Always.” Ayla started on her sidework, and Kira lowered her voice as she slid a stack of clean glasses onto a shelf. “Can I ask you something weird?” 

Ayla glanced over. “Sure.” 

“It’s just been on my mind. At the revelation together, remember? When Amon, well, when he took that firebender’s bending on stage. Everyone was cheering and I looked over at you, and you looked like you were going to be sick. I should have asked you then if you were okay.” 

“I was fine.”

Her gaze softened. “You didn’t look fine.” 

“I just didn’t like watching it. It didn’t feel right.” She didn’t want to talk about it. 

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot since then. At first, I thought maybe it was… justice? For some people at least. I mean, the council’s a mess and the triads make everything worse. But,” she hesitated, fidgeting with the hem of her apron. “I met this guy out dancing last night. He’s a waterbender. A really sweet one. And it just made me think that it’s not fair. What if someone decided he didn’t deserve to bend anymore?”

“Yeah. It isn’t.” She said softly. 

Kira exhaled, relieved. “It’s just, once you start deciding who deserves to have something like that, I don’t know. Where does it stop?” 

“It doesn’t. Once someone has that kind of power, it’s never about justice.” 

Kira studied her face. “You’ve been thinking about this too.” 

“Yeah, it’s hard not to.” She gave her a tired smile. 

“We don’t have to talk about it anymore if you don’t want to. I just, I don’t know. Wanted to see what you thought.” 

They worked in silence for a few moments before Kira spoke up again. “So, about this mysterious gym of yours…” 

Ayla swatted her with a menu, but she was laughing. “Don’t start.” 

Ayla, 6:30 p.m.

Ayla walked along a deserted side street, mulling over her recent meeting with Lin. It was obvious how Lin Beifong had climbed her way to Chief of Police. Ayla remembered, distantly, seeing her face next to the Avatar’s in the paper months ago. Back then, Lin had felt untouchable. God-like. Listening to her last night, Ayla understood why. The way Lin spoke, confident, practiced… it was a switch being flipped. One moment she was the Lin that she had grown used to while taking her order, the one with a dry sense of humor. And then suddenly, she was Chief Beifong. It wasn’t just authority, it was something else entirely. 

She should have been listening more closely to the actual words Lin was saying last night about the plan. But all she could think of was how close she was when she had gotten angry when she first arrived. How her hands were flattened across the desk. How the light caught the loose strands of her hair that had become unpinned at her temple. Spirits, she had thought as her heart skittered, why does she have to look like that when she’s mad? And on top of it all, there was the fact that she hadn’t been angry at her. She’d been angry for her. Because of the fight. Because Ayla had done something reckless enough to make her composure crack. 

The address the recruiter gave her led her to a warehouse she’d never seen before. It was cleaner than the ring, no drunk yelling, no one smoking by the door. She knocked once, and a panel slipped open. A man’s eyes looked her over, bored. The door buzzed open. She had torn apart her wardrobe trying to find “something pretty.” She settled on a cropped, skintight, sleeveless shirt with her usual pants. It would have to do. 

She passed through the door, taking it in. Inside didn’t smell like the usual ring she was used to. No beer, no wet rust. It smelled like polished concrete. Someone had scrubbed this place clean. 

“Ayla. Glad you showed.” She turned to find the same man from the ring. “Thought you might chicken out.” She didn’t answer. He led her through a narrow hallway and into a large, airy room where the fight would take place. It was nothing like the ring she was used to. This was custom- small, square, and padded. Something someone rich might have built just to watch people hurt each other for fun. 

There were maybe ten people here. A few of them had a glass of some kind of liquor in their hands. Whatever it was, it was probably more expensive than anything they served at Jiang’s. One man wandered over to meet them by the ring. He looked at her like she wasn’t a person, like she was a purchase. “She’s fast.” He replied, like she was an ostrich-horse or something he was selling. “You saw the fight.” 

He hummed, amused. “I like fast.” 

Ayla rolled her shoulders. She was still so sore, but she forced the pain down, keeping her posture loose. The opponent they brought in was a man maybe five years older than her. He gave her a nod. Not friendly, just mutual recognition that they had been hired to fight each other for someone else’s entertainment. 

“First one to hit the mat,” the man with the cufflinks said lazily. “No killing, no eyes. We want her pretty.” The crowd, if you could call a handful of rich assholes a crowd, chuckled. She stripped off her jacket, unlaced her boots and toed them off, and climbed into the ring. 

They rang a small bell. The fight was quieter than she was used to, and it threw her off. No jeering, no odds being shouted. It was so quiet she could occasionally hear the clink of ice in someone’s glass. Her opponent was good, heavy on legwork. She moved the way she always did, even if her ribs complained. He lunged, she twisted past. He caught her on the side once, and pain tore through her.  

She used the environment to her advantage. No crowd meant no noise blurring everything. She could hear his breath when he overextended, the slide of his foot on the material of the mat. She waited for him to make a slightly off step and then used his weight against him, hooking low and driving him down with a clean sweep. He hit the mat, and the bell rang. 

She heard a few polite claps as she made her way back to the floor. “Very nice.” The patron remarked from where he sat on the couch. He didn’t even get up when he motioned her over. She approached carefully. He held out a thick envelope. “For your trouble.” He tilted his head toward the man from the ring. “Book her again. I like this one.” She took the envelope, heart pounding. She didn’t want to be here. But she knew this was somewhere Lin could never go. 

As the man from the ring walked her out, she tried to pay attention. The sound of a generator hummed from somewhere in the building. But she couldn’t catch anything else worth noting. 

“See? Easy money.” Ayla shoved the envelope into her pocket and nodded, thoughts elsewhere. This warehouse was only a few cross streets away from the place Lin wanted her to grab files from, and she wanted to ride her endorphin high as long as she could to get through the next part of her night. 

Ayla, 8:00 p.m.

She slid along the warehouse perimeter, breath tight, crawling under the low fence and slipping between stacked pallets. The compactor bay was exactly where Lin said it would be. Good. She crouched behind a row of empty freight drums, heart hammering as a guard finished his cigarette and wandered back into the loading docks. What the hell was she doing? She wasn’t a thief. She wasn’t a cop. She wasn’t even someone who liked breaking rules unless they were inconvenient. And yet here she was, sneaking into a warehouse to steal corporate records… on behalf of the Chief of Police.

Earlier this year she’d been folding laundry and listening to radio dramas. And now she was doing this, climbing into the shadows of a freight yard to try and stop a man with spirit-granted powers. To try and help Lin. To try, in some small, unhinged way, to matter to someone who mattered to her. What a fucking mess.

She darted across the loading zone and slipped inside the propped side door just as a forklift whined to life somewhere deeper in the facility. Rows of dented metal bins lined the far wall, half-filled with shredded papers. She moved quickly, scanning for ARCHIVE labels, sliding between crates, keeping her body small.

There, unshredded boxes shoved haphazardly into metal shelving: Helion Biotech, Future Industries, Republic Transit Authority, Emerald Textile Works. One crate stamped ARCHIVE. PROCESSING OBSOLETE smeared across several lids in red ink.

Perfect.

She tore into the boxes, rifling fast. She still didn’t know exactly what she was looking for, she wasn’t a detective, but she knew patterns. And she trusted her instincts. Grab now, think later. She stuffed folders into her bag in handfuls. Some were useless. Maybe all of them were. But she didn’t have time to be picky. She opened another crate, saw a familiar scribble, RL-2300, CW -> B12, GL (Partial). Similar to the ledger shorthand. Her heartbeat jumped. She shoved it into her bag.

Two bundles marked with the same inspection stamp she remembered seeing on some of the crates. Another with R5 Late Cargo scrawled in the margin. All of it went in. Her bag was too full; she shoved things deeper with her forearm and hoped nothing tore. A door slammed somewhere far off, and machinery groaned. She froze, heart in her throat. She stayed tucked where she was until the hum died away and the footsteps receded, then slipped back out the bay door and into the alley.

Her hands were shaking. Adrenaline was one hell of a drug. But she’d done it.

Ayla, 10:30 p.m. 

She knocked the office door shut with her elbow. “I got the files. Or some of them. I don’t know. You’re the expert.”

Lin looked up sharply, surprised, then instantly alert. “I thought your private exhibition was tonight.”

“It was. I work fast.” I want to be useful. I want to bring you something that matters.

“Tell me everything. Are you hurt?”

“Only in the ‘I should be getting paid hazard wages’ kind of way.” Ayla tugged out an envelope. “We’re talking rich men. Very rich. Cleanest ring I’ve ever seen. Insane money.” I might go back just for that. 

Lin’s eyes narrowed immediately. “Who? Where?”

“No idea who he is,” Ayla said. “Some patron. The place is a few blocks north of the old cannery.”

“Did you overhear anything?”

Ayla thought back, frowning. “Something about… philanthropic funding? One guy was bragging about being a major donor to something, I don’t know. I wasn’t really listening. Sorry. I think I can get more if I went back,” Ayla said. "The payout was two month’s rent.”

Lin’s mouth tightened. “If that’s all you’re going to get from that place, I’m not sending you back.”

Ayla shrugged and unloaded her bag, folder after folder thudding onto the desk. "Alright, then. I won't go back." Damn. 

Lin blinked, startled at the stack of documents. “Spirits, Ayla… you did good.”

“I didn’t know what I was looking for. I just grabbed anything that didn’t look like trash. See this?” She pointed to the shorthand. “Matches the ledger. And here, R5 again.”

Lin was already flipping through papers, her eyes darting, tracking patterns faster than Ayla could follow. “Cold warehouse. Rail Line 5. Block 12. Gloves…” she murmured, jotting down notes. 

Ayla leaned forward. “Gloves? Cold warehouse?”

“Come here.” Lin gestured for Ayla to come around the desk, and she leaned over the stacks, sorting them quickly. Ayla circled to stand next to Lin, trying not to think about it too hard. “There’s a lot of non-important noise, but if you look closely, here. GL.” Lin traced a line with the tip of her pen, her shoulder brushing Ayla’s arm. “They’re listed with other freight and equipment maintenance items. Someone’s moving a lot of them. Probably insulated gloves for working with wiring, or gloves for freight handling. Safety gear, or maybe factory surplus. It would make sense if they were working with explosives.” Ayla nodded. Yeah, that made sense. She swallowed, trying to focus on the words and not the fact that she was leaning over the desk like some divine test of willpower. Spirits, she’s- No. Focus. "And cold warehouse, did you remember seeing CW in your ledger?” She pulled it over, flipping to a page she had marked. “‘CW-E5-0200’. Likely a late-night shipment to cold storge at East Bay 5. Most of the factories out that far are decommissioned. Cheap space to rent.” 

“What would they be moving to cold storage?” 

“Likely perishable goods. Food, probably. Not our problem.” Lin pulled another file towards her. She paused her pen halfway down the page, and Ayla looked over her shoulder as she jotted something down in her notes after cross referencing the ledger. MATS-Received 22:15-Block12-ROT5. “We’ve got initial links possibly established now, I feel more confident about the shorthand translations.” 

Ayla drifted back to the chair and nearly fell into it, her body finally registering how exhausted she was. “There’s more at the facility,” she said. “Dozens of boxes if you need more.”

Lin’s mouth twitched. “Eager to go back, are we?”

“I did make a lot of money tonight.”

The humor vanished. “If those men wanted you gone, no one would have found your body,” Lin said flatly.

“I know, I know. But hell, that ring was nice." Lin shot her a look so sharp she sat up straighter. “Kidding,” she amended. “I want to go home and sleep.”

“Tomorrow,” Lin said, leaning back, “I’ll run checks on the warehouses. Truck registrations. The routes between docks and rail. You-” her voice softened just slightly- “Hang tight for now. Nothing risky until we know what we're working with. The records at the ring are current, so they’ll be noticed more easily if they’re missing, don't touch those. I have enough to start with here using this ledger.”

Ayla stared at her hands. “Alright. I just don’t know if I’m doing all this right. I have no idea what I’m doing. I'm glad what I found could help you.” 

“You’re doing more than you realize.” They sat in silence for a moment before Lin’s voice cut back in, wry, “What do you even spend all that cash on anyway?”

“That’s for me to know and you to worry about,” Ayla smirked despite exhaustion bleeding through. 

Lin gave her the flattest look she’d ever seen. “Please don’t tell me you’re buying drugs.”

“If I were, you’d be the last person I told.” Ayla laughed. “Rent. Mostly rent.” But the realization that what she had done was useful to Lin coiled inside her. She wasn’t just a source anymore. She was an asset. The work she was doing was helping. Lin trusted her. But holy shit she was tired. She didn’t know how many more days like this she had in her.

9 days before

Lin, 1:00 p.m.

Lin hated patterns that didn’t move the way they were supposed to. The rules were different with this investigation. She had to stop thinking like a cop chasing gangs and start thinking like someone investigating a system built to look legal. Or, legal enough to not alert her automatically, she thought with a shake of her head. Using a betting ledger to disguise movement was smart, she had to admit. Anyone looking wouldn’t think to look for records when surrounded by so many drunk idiots. 

She sighed and pulled the ledger back in front of her. Gangs moved predictably. They paid their bribes on Fridays, fought on weekends, moved product on slated days of the month. You learned the routine, and it didn’t change. They had designated hideouts that didn’t move. Territory boundaries that were obvious and could be drawn on a map. Simple. 

But Block 12? For all intents and purposes it looked like a dead end paper trail. A freight routing designation, used by dockworkers, smugglers, or in-company shorthand. It could be a floating staging area, a specific part of a larger shipping complex, or a zone between legitimate warehouses. It could be multiple different zones at once depending on who was writing it. It’s not an address as much as it’s a routing tag. Could be anywhere between the rail line and the docks. Really makes her job easy, huh? 

She’d been staring at the numbers for four hours now, and her eyes were starting to burn. She ran her eyes down a list of cargo numbers she had pulled earlier. Her usual techniques of matching shipments by frequency, flagging the ones that disappeared mid-route, looking for the predictable upticks in dock power draw all came up clean. She got up and started pacing, threading her fingers together behind her head. 

The logs were all too evenly distributed. Not random enough to be organic, not steady enough to be accidental. I know that kind of precision, she realized with a start. It was the precision of bureaucracy. Gangs don’t sign manifests. They don’t log inventory. They don’t submit duplicates for the tax board. This wasn’t street work, it was corporate laundering disguised as logistics. She’d been looking for turf wars, and what she had was a supply chain.

She quickly moved back to her map, pulled out all of the pins she had placed, and started over. Instead of mapping protests and ring locations, she mapped warehouses leased by major companies. One group caught her eye. Helion Biotech. They had six registered warehouses in the city. Four were active, two “inactive”, located down near where some of the routes she'd been investigating passed through. She rifled through the documents she had pulled from the Records Office. The inactive ones shared a single feature, the same contracted courier firm had been used by both, Mats Transport and Recovery. Her eyebrows scrunched. Recovery? Recovery of what? 

She needed to find out the courier’s owner. Quickly walking down to Records, she walked along the shelves, fingers tracing the spines of the boxes until she reached the one she was looking for. She heaved the box down. Redacted. Industrial classification. Figures. But one of the subsidiaries had been cited six months ago for unsafe storage of medical solvents under an older name, and it wasn’t redacted. There you are. One of Helion's subsidiaries had likely been bribed or someone was being blackmailed into smuggling goods along their routes. No one would think to investigate a Biotechnology company for moving Equalist freight along their normal routes. 

She pulled the file and quickly made her way back to her office, and discreetly called for a few of her officers. Tarrlok could have his photo ops with the chi-blocking busts. This was hers. “Mobilize a small unit. Quietly. Docks D-G. No lights, no sirens. I want eyes only. Smuggling operation. You see uniforms? You leave. We’re trying to verify routes, I’m looking for confirmation only. No movement. Copy?” 

“Copy, Chief. Quiet sweep.” She took a deep breath. This wasn’t a gang; it was a hydra. You didn’t cut off its heads. You tracked its bloodstream. 

Spirits, she was tired. Pulling sixteen-hour days back-to-back was a lot, even for someone who was used to it. But she didn’t want comfort. She wanted to keep working until the ache in her chest turned into something she could weaponize. If she stopped, the first thing she would feel was the heavy guilt that she was making progress because of the danger she asked Ayla to walk into, who did so without complaint.

So, she didn’t stop working. She had to make sure she solved this, so it was worth the cost Ayla was paying. Part of her also wrestled with the realization that if she hadn't met Ayla, randomly, in a restaurant she frequented, she may have never gotten an inside source. That terrified her. It all felt so random. She didn't like random, and she certainly didn't believe in luck. It had to be for something because she would make it worth it, through sheer force of will if she had to. 

Ayla, 8:40 p.m.

Ayla sat down hard on the bench, and started removing the tape from her hands. Her whole body ached, and her head was pounding. She had lost her fight, but it didn’t matter. She had won enough of them to know she could keep coming back. Her real purpose was to listen. It was crazy how much you picked up when you knew what to listen for. She was just about to get up and leave when she heard a man speak. 

“Truck’s supposed to hit 12 tonight.” 

“Block 12’s a write-off till the rain clears. Boss said delay by three. You didn’t get the note?” 

“No, that’s not what the book says. Ledger still has it logged.” 

One of the men swore. “Then fix the damn ledger before the foreman sees it.” Ayla’s chest tightened. The ledger she’d given Lin. They already had a new one and were making changes. How could she keep up with the new information? She couldn’t keep stealing the ledgers. It was a miracle she didn’t get caught stealing the first one. The book lay open, and a man leaned across it, muttering something illegible. She knocked a beer off the edge of the table, drawing his attention. While he was distracted, she glanced at the page. Letters near the date, “MATS”. Mats? Chi-blocking training equipment maybe? 

She stepped away and grabbed her bag as the man spoke up again. “Tell ‘em to bring the crates through the east corridor next time. An undercover patrol went by earlier today and the drivers almost shit themselves.” East corridor. Lin’s patrol? 

Ayla, 10:15 p.m.

“I know you said you didn’t have time for another dinner,” Ayla said, hovering in the doorway with a paper bag, “but I thought we could go over my updates while we ate.”

Lin looked up. One eyebrow lifted, surprise, then something else she hid quickly. “Oh?”

Ayla swallowed. “I was grabbing something for myself, and since I was coming by anyway, I figured we could eat together.” Please let me stay.

A soft exhale from Lin, not quite a sigh, not quite agreement, then she nodded. “Alright.” She began clearing the avalanche of paperwork from her desk, stacking reports with a neatness that betrayed nerves more than orderliness. As she pushed a file aside, she murmured, “Sorry. I don’t have a table in here. I usually just eat at my desk.”

“I don’t mind.” Ayla pulled the takeout containers free and handed one to her. “Earth Kingdom food. I know you’re loyal to Jiang’s, but I wanted something different.” Lin rolled her eyes, but faintly. It lacked its usual edge, and Ayla felt her chest loosen.

She opened her own container and said, “Okay, so. Updates. I saw something in the new ledger, MATS. It’s all I caught before they moved me along, but… I also overheard something else. They know about your patrols.” She hesitated. “They’re moving something from Block 12 soon. It was supposed to be tonight, but they’re ‘delaying by three.’ Whatever that means. And whatever it is, it’s moving through the east corridor.”

Lin froze mid-bite, chopsticks hovering. Her eyes sharpened. “I sent a patrol down there today,” she muttered. “If they spotted them, it means we’re close. They must have recognized the undercover vehicles.” She sat back, thinking hard, staring down at the food Ayla brought. It took a moment before she spoke again, a fraction softer. “You know… this is one of my favorite dishes.”

Ayla blinked. “Really?”

“Mm. My mother didn’t cook much when I was younger, she was always working, but when she did, it was usually food from where she grew up.” She smiled faintly. “She always made this the regional way, though. It’s different from the city version. When she left, I used to try to find a restaurant that made it the same.”

“Did you ever find one?”

Lin huffed a quiet, self-mocking breath. “No.”

“How many restaurants did you try?”

Lin finally looked at her, a flicker of humor breaking through the exhaustion, warm enough to make Ayla’s heart twist. “All of them. It took a while.”

Ayla laughed under her breath. “Was cooking it yourself not an option?”

“It isn’t the same when you’re making it for yourself.” A beat. “Besides, I famously don’t cook. Isn’t that how we met?”

“Fair,” Ayla said, smiling despite herself. “So what’s the difference? The regional version?”

Lin’s eyes softened a little with memory. “Restaurants here use star anise as the main warming spice. Lighter soy sauce. A touch of sugar. But in the southern mountains, they use mountain peppercorns. Dark soy. More dried chili. Richer, stronger flavors.”

“That sounds incredible,” Ayla murmured. “I wonder why they don’t make it that way here.”

“Local palate.” Lin shrugged, setting down her chopsticks. “People like what’s familiar.”

Ayla hesitated before speaking again.“Thanks for letting me stay. I didn’t want to eat by myself.” 

Lin’s expression shifted, something unreadable flickered in her eyes, gone as fast as it appeared. “You’re always welcome.” She said quietly.

Lin, 11:00 p.m.

Every time Ayla walked into her office, she looked a little more battered. A new bruise, a fresh abrasion along her jaw, another wave of hair shaken loose from whatever careful order she’d forced it into that morning. And every single time, the same impulse hit Lin like a punch: the urge to reach out and tuck that stray strand behind her ear. It was ridiculous. It was completely inappropriate. And it sank deeper every time she saw her.

So did the guilt.

Ayla looked like that because of her. Because Lin hadn’t said no when she should have. Because every bruise Ayla carried back into this office was one Lin had indirectly sanctioned. Because of that, the quiet moments were the worst now. The almost domestic ones. The ones that felt too close to a life she didn’t get to have. Ayla bringing dinner. Ayla leaning over her desk, their shoulders brushing as they read the same line on the same page. Ayla laughing softly at something Lin didn’t realize she’d said aloud as she poured her a drink at the restaurant. It all felt suffocating.

She’d hoarded those moments over the past few months, despite knowing she shouldn’t. It felt wrong, sitting across from her in all this chaos, eating takeout like nothing was wrong in the city. But spirits, she wanted it. She wanted it like something she wasn’t allowed to hold but kept picking up anyway just to feel the weight of it in her hands. And wanting was the most dangerous thing Lin knew how to feel.

Lin braced her palms against her desk, closing her eyes. For a terrifying heartbeat, she could imagine it, Ayla choosing her willingly, without fear or stakes or obligations. And then she shoved that image as far down as she could. She didn’t get to want. Not now. Maybe not ever. Wanting her only put Ayla further in danger. And still- still, Lin couldn’t deny it. She had become the one thing she couldn’t stop reaching toward, even while telling herself she had no right. 

8 days before

Lin, 9:30 a.m.

Lin scoured her map again. She had drawn red route lines all over the industrial sector, and they were starting to form a lattice over the southern docks. Could this be what block 12 was referring to?  Earlier that day, her officers had confirmed another shipment line, the same subcontractor, Mats Transport, hauling unlisted cargo through abandoned maintenance tunnels under the wharves. But when she’d pulled the registry, every driver ID traced back to fake names. Saikhan knocked once before stepping into her office. “Stakeout logs,” he said, holding a thin folder out for her to grab. 

“I think I might have narrowed it down.” 

Saikhan raised an eyebrow. “You did?”

Lin tapped her finger against the betting ledger where it sat on the map. She chewed the side of her cheek. How much should she reveal? She needed help from the inside. “This isn’t just smuggling.” 

His expression sharpened. “What is it?” 

She hesitated. Not because she didn’t trust him, but because once she said it, there was no walking it back. “It’s Equalist territory. Tarrlok’s territory. Any whiff of this and he’ll get me removed for insubordination. I didn’t tell you sooner because I didn’t want to put you and my officers on the line.” 

For a moment, silence stretched between them. “So, you lied.” 

“Technically, I omitted.” Lin said dryly.

It earned her the faintest huff of a laugh before he said, “My loyalty’s to you, Chief. Not him. Tell me what you need.” 

The corner of her mouth twitched. This was why he was her second in command. “Good. I want to go check something.”

He looked down at the betting ledger on her desk. “Where’d you even get something like this?” His brow furrowed. “That kind of thing doesn’t just walk into a precinct.” 

Lin stood, pushing up from her chair. “I have a source.” 

Saikhan’s eyes lifted to hers sharply. “In the ring it came from.” 

She just held his gaze, crossing her arms and leaning against the edge of the desk with her hip. 

Saikhan let out a low whistle. “You’ve got someone on the inside. Spirits.” He leaned back over the desk, flipping through a couple pages of the betting ledger. “Is it that girl? The one who’s been in here a couple times, always late at night? Half the patrol’s been speculating.” 

Lin’s jaw clenched before she could stop herself. “Speculating?” 

“Yeah.” He held her gaze. “You’ve got rumors flying through the bullpen. I meant to ask you about it but didn’t know how to bring it up. You know how that kind of talk spreads.” 

Lin pushed off the desk. “Then make sure it doesn’t.” 

Saikhan looked at her for a moment before he straightened just slightly, professional concern in his eyes. But he didn’t push. “Alright. Your source stays off the books. I won’t ask again.” He closed the ledger. “I just need to know how far this goes, Chief. If Tarrlok catches wind that you’re running an operation off his books with an unvetted source-“ 

“She’s not unvetted.” Lin cut in.

Saikhan was silent for a second before responding. “She’s not a cop, either.” 

“No. But she’s effective.” 

“If this goes sideways, it won’t just land on her. It lands on you.” 

“I know.” Lin responded without hesitation. She knew the price. Well fucking aware. 

“Then we do this carefully. No loose ends.” He paused. “I’ll handle the rumors.” 

Lin exhaled slowly, letting some of the tension release from her shoulders. She nodded. Saikhan’s mouth twitched. “You’re getting soft, Chief.” 

Lin shot him a look. “No, I’m being careful.” And that was the truth. Sort of. Not the time, Lin. 

She sighed. “Back to the matter at hand. You up for a field trip?” 

He lifted his eyebrows. “Where are we going?” 

“Warehouse search.” She tapped the map. “I have it narrowed down to an inactive cold storage facility and want to get eyes on what’s down there.” Cold storage. It made sense, these types of facilities wouldn't jump out as the first place she'd usually think to check. 

The yard was empty. Long rows of container bays, a single security building with a bored guard. Lin and Saikhan skirted along the loading ramp. She gestured for him to move into the building. “Empty,” he muttered. 

“Not entirely. See the pitting on that steel beam? That’s an arc. Something shorted against it.” 

Tight, crescent shaped burns. Melted insulation. “Yeah, looks like a short.” Saikhan mused, following her flashlight beam. 

Lin shook her head. “Or a test. If they’re building charges, they’d need somewhere to run dets.” She ran a thumb across the char. The scars weren’t random, they were tight, almost deliberate. It looked like they were concentrated near benches, which suggested wiring work. There were also arc scars outside, larger with shrapnel. They were likely assembling the explosives inside and testing the detonations out in the yard. 

Gloves. Wire. Devices that left arcs. She rifled through a stack of manifests Saikhan had pulled from the compactor while she was investigating the building, scanning for commodity codes. The same codes came up again and again: TI-qty-47-secured. Tin? Tin for casings, cheap metal for junk. Tin for unrelated manufacturing. Boring, plausible. Hide in plain sight. No one would suspect high volumes of tin being ordered, first glance wouldn't assume it was being used for bomb components. 

It all made sense. “They were checking the circuitry here. Before assembly,” Lin said as she stared at the sheet. 

“Could be. But it’s not like the usual pipe work. These arcs are-“

“Focused. Which means precision charges. Clean detonations, not crude blasts.” She looked around. “They aren’t just building crude bombs. They’re perfecting them for something.” 

“You want a residue run?” 

“Check for nitrates. Metal composition, too. Tin, copper, anything they’d use in caps or detonators.” 

She jotted down a note. Investigate material grade of components. Check suppliers. Cross ref with FI-7X. She made another note below. Contact the procurement division. Pull paperwork for tin shipments to relevant subsidiaries. That would take days, with how slow bureaucracy moved. She didn’t have days. 

Something in the back of her brain snagged. Tin tarnishes and flakes; it doesn’t arc in teeth. But it's a good conductor of electricity... It could be titanium... But titanium was too expensive to be a viable alternative metal for what they were using it for, and wasn't as good of a conductor. No one in their right mind would be dropping that kind of money on something that was just going to blow up. 

It didn’t make logistical sense to be anything else. She straightened. This wasn’t some homemade garage bomb with blasting powder. This was deliberate, and she had to figure it out fast. The fact that they were already cleared out from here could only mean that one, they knew she was closing in, or two, that they had already finished and were staging somewhere. 

Ayla, 7:45 p.m.

Back at the ring, Ayla watched from the bench, breathing carefully through her injuries. Nothing had slipped so far. Her fight had been quick, and she was still riding the endorphin high that came with her win. She told herself she would do a loop of the crowd, maybe try to see if any of the crates had stamps on them. But after a pass, nothing. 

She made her way outside, towards the loading docks. Down the alley, she ducked behind a stack of oil drums as the sound of two men’s voices carried over. Two men leaned against the wall near an open shipping bay, cigarettes glowing faintly in the dark. A truck pulled up while she watched. 

“Truck’s early.” 

“Third shift? Thought it was later.” 

“Changed. Boss called it in. Get ready to unload and stage for pickup later tonight.” 

They pushed off from the wall, flicked their cigarettes into the gutter, and disappeared in to grab freight equipment. Ayla crouched lower. They unloaded fast, pulling crates off the back that hit the ground with heavy thuds. The men covered the crates with a large tarp and headed back inside. 

When the truck finally pulled out, she followed the sweep of its headlights between the buildings. It looked like it took a left at Pier G, or maybe F, and then a right once it reached the cannery. The only thing past that was a low wharf that held a group of rusted cranes leaning over black water.  

They men had gone back inside, leaving the bay door slightly ajar. She crept up, and fiddled with the knot holding the tarp down. She freed it and lifted a corner, running her hand along the seam of the crate nearest her. At one of her old jobs, each crate had come tagged with an inventory list. These didn’t, apparently. Maybe because this wasn’t their final stop, just a holding place? She had almost given up when her fingers brushed something. A folded edge of paper wedged between slats. Bingo. 

She tugged the paper and fished it out from under the tarp, squinting at it in the low light. FI-7X, listed in batches, with TI scribbled in the main margin beside a string of numbers. The list included conductors, small cases, electronic modules. What would the equalists need high grade electrical components for? More bombs? Maybe they’re going to blow up City Hall. She stuffed the inventory list in her pocket and folded the tarp back down into place. She made her way back down to the main road, trying to calm her pulse. She had to get to Lin. 

Lin, 9:00 p.m.

Ayla passed the crumpled sheet across the desk. “I got a manifest showing they’re ordering some kind of metal. It’s getting moved sometime tonight, I saw the truck drop it off at the ring.”

Lin smoothed the paper with the flat of her hand, eyes narrowing as she scanned the text. “TI. Tin. It’s tied to electrical components for explosives. Casings, triggers, conductors.” She exhaled through her nose. “Enough to make a statement.”

But the tiny fissure of doubt in the back of her mind whispered, If these are bomb components, why does the burn pattern look like a current, not a flame? She shoved the thought aside. Not now. “I’ve got Block 12 staked out already,” Lin continued. “If they move anything tonight, we’ll catch it.” She wanted to be down there herself, boots in the dirt, ripping through crates until she found whatever Amon was building, but this was where she needed to be. Pinning down the chain of movement. Following it to the source. Following it to him.

Ayla shifted her weight. “I think the ring is a staging area. Middleman or something. I saw them unloading crates for later pickup.”

“That would make sense,” Lin murmured, still studying the sheet. She didn’t look up, but Ayla could feel her attention sharpen, coiling tighter. “I’ll send a unit there too. Did you catch a time?”

“Just ‘later tonight.’ Schedules are shifting. They might know they’re being watched. Or Amon’s changing plans.” Ayla gestured vaguely, fatigue softening her movements. “They headed toward the old cranes after. That’s all I got.”

Lin leaned back, arms folding. “That whole strip is unregistered now. Half of those buildings don’t have active permits. They could be anywhere in that corridor.”

Ayla rubbed her arm unconsciously. “I can go back. Try to spot the pickup.”

“No.” It came out too fast, too sharp. Lin felt the heat rise in her chest and forced her tone down. “No,” she repeated, quieter. “You’ve done enough for tonight.” Ayla blinked in surprise, and Lin hated the way relief and guilt twisted inside her. “You’re exhausted,” Lin continued, voice gentler but still certain underneath. “If they’re watching for patrols, they’d spot you too if you're somewhere you shouldn't be. Let me handle it.” A beat of silence. “You did good.” Lin hesitated, then added, softer than she intended, “Again.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Ayla’s mouth, small, tired, but genuine. “You always say that like you’re surprised.”

“I’m not surprised.” The words left Lin before she could stop them. Ayla looked away first.

“I’ll head home, then. Let me know what happens at the cranes.”

“I will.” Lin wanted to tell her be careful, but the words felt too fragile, too revealing. It would be useless anyway. Ayla would walk into the fire regardless.

The door shut with a soft click. Too soft. Too final. Lin stood, just to have something to do in the silence. She stared at the door for a moment, staring at it like it might open again, like Ayla might step back inside and say something else, some parting joke, some quiet thank you, something to anchor the room back into place. But the doorway stayed empty. Lin exhaled, sharp and shaky, and pressed both hands to her desk as if steadying herself after a physical blow. Spirits, that smile. She needed to get a grip. She needed to remember what this was. A source. An informant. A civilian she should never have involved but chose to anyways for the benefit of the city. Not a… not anything else.

Ayla, 10:30 p.m. 

The night air was cool against her overheated skin by the time she stepped out of the station. She hadn’t realized how warm Lin’s office always felt until she left it. Her footsteps echoed softly down the front steps, but her mind was still upstairs. Still with Lin. Still seeing the look on her face when Ayla said she’d head home. Concern mixed with… something else. Something Ayla couldn’t name without feeling her pulse trip.

Her chest felt too full.

She walked quickly, hands buried deep in her pockets, trying and failing to control the stupid grin threatening at the corners of her mouth. She shouldn’t crave Lin’s approval this much. Shouldn’t get warm in the chest every time Lin said you did good in that low voice. Shouldn’t replay the way Lin leaned close over the desk, shoulder brushing hers, like it meant anything other than proximity. But she did. And she was. And it wasn’t slowing down.

Ayla pressed a hand to her cheek as she walked. She was overheated, and that wasn’t from her undercover work. It was her. Spirits, she was falling. Hard. The kind of hard that made her stomach flip at the thought of Lin saying her name or looking at her too long. The kind of hard that made her wish she could be the one Lin went home to instead of the emptiness of her apartment and a cold takeout box. You’re ridiculous, Ayla. Get a fucking grip. 

Streetlamps glowed gold on uneven pavement. Her boots hit steadily against the sidewalk, grounding her in the physical world even as her mind spun in loops. I want her to want me back. The thought hit like a confession. She wanted more than approval. More than partnership. She wanted Lin’s attention, her trust, her warmth, whatever warmth Lin still had left after letting the city grind her down. She wanted to matter to her.

She reached her building before her nerves settled. The hallway was too silent. Her apartment too small. Too empty. Lin’s absence echoed through it in a way that made her chest ache. She wanted her here. She set her bag down and stood in the center of the room, staring at nothing. She needed something grounding. Something that made her feel like she existed in her own body and not just looping through her thoughts like an unhinged person. Her bending.

She swallowed, throat tight, and moved to the floor. She hadn’t tried in a couple days. But tonight? Tonight she needed to feel in control of at least one part of her life. She closed her eyes. Inhaled. Exhaled. Reached inward. Follow the familiar path. Her awareness brushed the place inside where her bending lived.

But instead of the cautious warmth she’d touched before she hit a jagged edge. When she reached in again, just trying to understand it, the faint thread had been replaced with something sharp and frantic, and it lunged outward, too much all at once, spilling through every channel she’d carefully mapped out. 

A burst of air exploded through the room, rattling the windows, whipping her hair across her face. “Shit-”

She tried to pull back, but it surged wider, filling the room with a violent current. Loose papers lifted off her counter. A dish clattered to the floor. The air roared, deafening. Her heart leapt into her throat. Stop. Stop. STOP-

She tried to shove the current back down but panic only fed it. Her breath grew tight, as the wind circled her in a jagged spiral. Her lungs seized. She gasped- nothing. Sweat slicked her palms. Tears blurred her eyes. She couldn’t breathe. Surrounded by air, and she couldn’t breathe. Her knees hit the floor as she pressed both hands to the wood, trying to anchor herself, but the current slammed into her back. It felt like drowning on dry land. The air snapped again, turning inward, collapsing in on itself. The pressure vacuum punched her diaphragm and she choked on nothing. She reached inward blindly, wildly, and wrenched her chi back with brute force.

The air died instantly.

Silence crashed over the room.

Ayla’s chest heaved, lungs burning. Her whole body shook. Tears streaked hot down her face. She folded forward, palms flattening uselessly on the floor. Ugly, heaving sobs tore out of her throat. She stayed curled on the ground for a long moment, trembling. Sweat cooling on her back. Vision swimming. Her breath ragged and uneven. She had thought, stupidly, foolishly, that touching her bending again could ground her. Help her feel like herself. Instead it cracked open everything she’d been holding shut. All the fear. All the stress. All the feelings she’d been ignoring, especially the ones with Lin’s name carved into them. She wiped at her face with shaking fingers.

She didn’t know what she was doing. She had no idea how to control this part of herself. No idea how to control what she felt for Lin, or the aching feeling of knowing there was no possibility she’d ever want her back the same way. No idea how to deal with any of it without breaking. But she couldn’t stop wanting. 

She dragged herself into bed and curled onto her side, breathing unevenly into her pillow, desperately wishing, just for a moment, that she had someone’s arms to crawl into. Someone who could hold her steady. Someone with warmth carefully hidden beneath the surface. Someone like- She pressed her eyes shut. No. Don’t think her name. Not right now.

Chapter Text

7 Days Before

Ayla, 5:20 a.m.

Her floor was still littered with the aftermath of last night. After her heart had slowed, Ayla had crawled into her bed and stayed there. She’d wanted balance. Healing. What had happened instead felt like ripping open a wound with her bare hands. The panic was gone now, but it was replaced by something worse. Not fear of Amon, but fear of herself. 

What she felt last night was pure, blinding panic. The opposite of control. What if Lin had been there, what if- No. Lin wouldn’t be there. Because it wouldn’t happen again. At least not for a long time. Not until all of this other chaos was under control. There was only so much imbalance she could handle. And right now, she just needed to get through the day. She had to get to that damn instructor practice and push through like she always did. 

She knew how to do that, how to push through and shove it down. She’d spent years perfecting the method. Lock it down, push it deep, forget it’s there until it’s safe to deal with. She could do that for a little while longer, even if it made her feel sick. 

Lin, 9:00 a.m.

Councilman Tarrlok had scheduled a press conference at the station, and Lin wanted to be anywhere but there. She stood behind a wall of reporters, arms folded, jaw working as the cameras flashed. 

Tarrlok had planted himself in front of the microphones with his sleeves rolled up, like he’d been out working since dawn. He pointed at a line of uniformed officers walking behind him, bringing in more chi-blockers for booking, as if they were part of a backdrop he’d curated. “This is proof,” he announced, “that the Equalist threat is almost contained. Republic City will not tolerate these unruly thugs endangering its citizens for much longer.” 

Flashes followed, and shouts from reporters rang out. Tarrlok moved on, ignoring them. “We rounded up the last of those chi-blockers from their training camps. That's right, folks, every single last training camp was raided, you can take my word for it."

It was all theater. A glossy, dangerous lie. Lin knew it was a lie, because she knew Ayla was still teaching those goddamn trainings. Still attending instructor practice with instructors who were very much not sitting behind bars. 

Tarrlok continued, undeterred. "But we’re not stopping there. Next, we’ll move on to other places these criminals hide. Illegal fighting rings, underground pits. I promised safety from Amon, and I will deliver.” Lin's stomach turned to lead. Every word Tarrlok spoke was another statement that could bury the entire structure of what she’d been slowly building. The thin pipeline of intelligence tracing back to the ring. If that got severed, if the ring shut down or went deeper underground, Ayla’s work could vanish in an instant. Ayla could vanish in an instant. Fucking hell. 

She pushed through the crowd until she found Saikhan. He leaned against a pillar, expression careful. Lin lowered her voice. “If he hits the wrong ring, we lose everything. Pull me a list of planned raids, scheduled patrols. Quietly. I need to know which locations are at risk.” 

He nodded, understanding. She forced her face to remain neutral. Tarrlok’s brand of publicity didn’t apprehend criminals as much as it drove them into darker corners. Each public raid chased the network deeper, made it harder to trace new recruits and routes. It was containment for the spectacle, but the opposite of progress. 

“You want me to reroute any patrols?” 

“Yes.” Lin’s voice was flat, quiet. “Keep our units plainclothes. Watch the west docks and the east corridor. If any of our people catch something, come to me first.” 

“Consider it done.” 

Lin, 10:45 a.m.

Lin stood with her arms crossed as the evidence tech flipped through the residue report. “Okay, here’s what we’ve got on the warehouse samples. Traces of copper, tin, carbonized polymer, and some nitrates. High heat signatures. Pretty clean arcs.” Copper. Tin. Nitrates. It sounded exactly like what she’d expect for controlled charge testing.

“Wiring work?”

“Could be. Could also be a detonation prep site. No primary explosive residue, though. No nitrocellulose, no peroxides.”

“That doesn’t mean they aren’t making bombs. It just means they’re careful.”

The tech hesitated. “It’s strange, though. If this were an IED site, we’d see spatter, heat bloom. This looks like… contained bursts. Electrical arcs. Focused. Tin’s a good conductor-”

“Then they’re calibrating. Doing controlled charge tests to keep it off our radar.” She flipped the report back toward him, tapping the results with a finger. “Tin plating. Wire work. Fuse housings. They’re building detonators.”

The tech scribbled a note on the bottom margin but looked unconvinced. “Want a broader sweep? Could take a day.”

“Do it. But I don’t need a full sweep to see where this is going.” The tech may not think it’s bombs, but it had to be. It’s the only thing that made sense. The tech left, and Lin returned to her desk. She had now mapped her best guess as to the official supply movement lines. The overlapping routes, timing, and contacts lined up perfectly.

She worked slowly, with the manifests Ayla had stolen spread out across her desk. The handwriting, courier initials, stamps all made a tentative pattern across everything she cross-referenced. She painstakingly linked ledger entries to manifests to courier sign offs, then to truck registrations. Her officers had tracked a pattern of pickups that lined up with undercard matches and with Helion subcontractor transfers. She looked at a dozen manifests and saw the same small code, TI, in multiple columns and margins. 

The nagging feeling in the back of her head pestered her again. TI. 

Most materials weren’t labeled on manifests as their scientific shorthand. TI was likely an industry shorthand for what was, in her experience, a much more common material that would be found ordered in large quantities alongside casings, plates, sheet, safety gloves. Maybe tin could be used alongside copper wiring for routing electric current for explosives, but in this quantity? It just didn’t add up. She had asked procurement to run a material check on the samples they pulled from the bay with the burn arcs. The arcs on the metal fit equipment that handled high currents, not cheap casings. But she just couldn't imagine what else it could be used for based on the rest of her findings. 

She sighed and sat back while she mulled everything over. Tin for casings. FI-7X is the electrical module attached to the bomb. Combine them and you could build devices meant to release a lot of power at once. If someone could assemble live circuitry and distribute it into crowds, a well-timed discharge could be a disaster. The Pro-Bending Arena. Public transit hubs, power substations, the fresh markets along the piers. All of those places carried risk, but she didn’t have the manpower to keep an eye on them 24/7.

She drummed her fingers on her desk and began jotting down notes. Possible electrical/explosive device supply chain. TI = double check material composition, FI-7X = module class. Target risk = arenas, transit hubs, public spaces. Schools? Recommend focused surveillance at Pier G and Pro-Bending Arena.

Lin rifled through the stack of documents. Each flagged courier tied back to the same narrow shipping window, but each time she tried to stake it out there had been nothing. She re-traced shipping routes, patrol logs, and timing patterns and compared them to the betting ledger records. Shipments converged on the block. Routes spidered out from it toward high-traffic public sites. They’re not storing supplies there. They were just staging them, she realized. Moving them towards whatever final destination Amon was going to blow up.

She called her officers into her office during shift change. 

“I need quiet surveillance and will be updating your patrols. If something moves along your route that shouldn’t, you intercept and hold. No public face. We have a possible explosives smuggling operation and I need every name, every vehicle, every courier who touches that freight.” 

After she finished relaying the updated routes and dismissing her officers, Lin sat at her desk, tapping her pen. This was bad. She had her metalbenders staking out the explosives movement, but now she had to deal with this other problem. How could she stop Tarrlok from raiding the rings, and destroying her source, without blowing her own hand? Admitting she was working through an informant inside the ring meant openly defying his orders. She sighed and pulled the files in front of her. She needed to figure this out fast. 

6 Days Before

Lin, 8:45 p.m.

Tarrlok’s voice felt like a stain across the city. Everywhere she turned. radio, paper, posters slapped over lamp posts, he was there. The task force is making progress and saving the city, he boasted every damn day. Progress didn’t come wrapped in speeches and photo ops. Her phone rang, and Lin snatched it up on the first trill, pulse already tight.

“Chief, I have an update on the information you requested.” Saikhan’s voice. “Tarrlok’s scheduled a raid for tomorrow night. Pier 9.”

Pier 9.

Ayla’s circuit. Her grip tightened on the receiver. “Who authorized it?”

“He did. Direct order. Claims intelligence flagged it as a recruitment hub.”

“Intelligence from where?”

“He didn’t say.”

Of course he didn’t. Tarrlok didn’t need evidence, he needed headlines. Lin’s jaw clenched until her teeth hurt. He’s going to blow the cover. He’s going to destroy everything. This wasn’t strategy. This was arrogance dressed as leadership.

“I tried filing additional sign-offs and schematic approvals,” Saikhan added. “He bypassed them. Declared the raid a matter of ‘public security.’ Overrode chain of command.” Her vision went sharp and narrow. He’d gone rogue. And he’d chosen the worst possible target.

“Pull every unit we can spare tomorrow evening,” she snapped. “Plainclothes only. If you see his task force, you stay out of sight. We get eyes first. We track runners. And send me the contingency route schematics.”

“Yes, Chief.”

She hung up and was already moving, storming out of her office, down the stairwell, cutting through two hallways, until she burst into legal.  “I want the warrants for the Pier 9 raid pulled from the docket,” Lin ordered. The clerk didn’t even look confused. He just looked… resigned.

“Chief Beifong, I'm sorry but there aren't any warrants on record.”

“What?” Lin bit out. 

“They didn’t go through us.” Her stomach dropped so hard she felt dizzy. No warrants. No oversight. No paper trail. Tarrlok was staging a raid off the books, and her police force had been reduced to spectators while he played warlord.

She needed to warn Ayla. Now. She had no idea what Tarrlok was planning, when he was planning it, what he would do. She had no way of finding out his plans until he acted on them. She had never felt this out of control in her life. She could feel herself starting to spiral as she made her way back to her office. 

She dialed Ayla's number. No answer. She tried again. Nothing. Damn fucking hallway phone. Lin’s pulse hammered. Pick up, pick up, pick up- She grabbed her coat and keys and headed out from her office before she could think better of it. Part of her knew she could call again later, try again, but the other part of her needed the certainty of knowing she could get her warning to Ayla before anything happened. She needed to tell her now. 

Ayla’s building sat in front of her, mocking her. She hadn't been home. Where else would she be? Lin took a deep breath, trying to think. The ring. She's probably at the fucking ring. At any other time she might’ve recognized she was being erratic, driving across the city with no plan. But her body wasn’t listening to the part of her mind that wanted to be rational. All she could think was, Tarrlok is going to get her arrested. Maybe even killed, since he has no fucking idea what goes on in places like this. What if they think she called in the tip? I let her walk into this. I need to fix it right fucking now before I lose control of anything else in my life. 

Ayla, 9:00 p.m.

Everything was starting to blur together. Fight schedules. Chi-Blocking Drills. Work shifts. Meetings with Lin that always happened late at night. When she caught her reflection in a window she almost didn’t recognize herself. Her hair was plastered to her temple with sweat. When was the last time I ate properly? That meal with Lin? She made a mental note to stop by the market on the way home. She told herself she was just going to watch tonight. No fighting, just observe. Pick up new combinations. Maybe see if she can catch something. 

The warehouse was just as it always was when she wound her way through the crowd. She leaned against a support beam and absentmindedly watched a few fights, not really paying attention, until her ears pricked onto a conversation happening somewhere behind her. 

“Councilman’s people are nosing around the west docks.” A heavy pause. 

“Thought we were clear.”

“We were. Till the chief started digging again.”

“Beifong?

“Mhm. They’re moving crates again. East corridor. Before curfew.”

“Thought the raid wasn’t till next week.”

“He moved it up. Wants cameras, a show of strength.”

Ayla kept her eyes on the ring. He. Tarrlok. Lin’s name was making rounds. Someone was connecting the dots. Someone thought she was responsible for Tarrlok and the task force? She had read Tarrlok’s statement in the paper, but didn’t think he’d actually make good on it. At least this quickly. Cleaning up Republic City? Please. She waited for the match to end, intending to slip out before anyone noticed her. She didn’t make it three steps before a hand closed on her arm. 

“Need a word.” The man’s grip was casual, almost friendly, but the pressure said otherwise. “We need someone to grab a manifest. Quick in and out. You want to keep teaching, you’ll follow through.” He said it like he was offering a smoke. Internally, she was screaming. They know. They know. They know.

“Why me?” She managed. 

He shrugged, eyes flicking over her. “Raid’s imminent, as I’m sure you’ve heard. Someone needs it moved. We don’t have hands tonight, and you seem,” he looked her up and down, “capable.” It sounded like a taunt. Capable. Right. They think I’m a leak. Shit, shit, shit. “Pier seventeen, warehouse fourteen. Records room, second floor. File stamped with Y-2713. Bring it back here tomorrow after you get it.” 

She nodded once. No questions. He clapped her on the shoulder as if they’d just made a deal. She forced a smile. “Got it.” Fuck. 

Lin, 9:30 p.m.

Ayla was here. Relief hit Lin so hard it made her stomach twist, so fierce it felt like anger, but she knew exactly what was underneath it. Fear. Ugly and blinding. She moved before she could think, ducking out of sight, shadowing Ayla’s steps until she reached the pinch point between two buildings when she reached out and yanked. Her hand closed around Ayla’s arm, and in one swift pull she dragged her into the narrow alley. 

Ayla gasped, half-twisting to strike before she recognized the grip. “Lin?” she choked out. “Fucking hell, I thought I was about to get kidnapped.”

“Stay away tomorrow,” Lin hissed, bracing one hand on the wall beside Ayla’s shoulder to block them from sight. She was close. Way too close. “Tarrlok’s coming. There’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

“They gave me a courier job. I’m supposed to pick something up and bring it back tomorrow.” Ayla whispered back. 

“No.” The word came out harder than she intended, too raw, too exposed. “They’re raiding Pier 9. You will not be anywhere near here.”

“I’ll be careful. In and out.”

“Careful doesn’t mean safe.” Her jaw locked. She could feel Ayla’s breath ghost warm against her neck. “I’m not asking. I’m telling you.”

Ayla shook her head. “I think I have to. They know someone’s feeding you info. If I don't deliver the file, it’ll point straight at me.”

Lin stepped closer without meaning to, their bodies nearly touching now. “That’s not your concern,” she ground out. “I’ll send someone else. You’re not-”

“It has to be me.” Ayla cut her off, voice steady, though Lin could feel her pulse hammering under her grip. “If one of your officers delivers it, I’m done. And you lose your source.” The words hung between them. Lin didn’t move. Couldn’t. Ayla’s heartbeat thrummed just under her palm, her own pulse raged in her chest. Something in the air shifted, something neither of them acknowledged. Finally Lin dragged in a breath that felt scraped raw. She made herself loosen her grip, just enough that Ayla could step back if she wanted. She didn’t.

“You understand what you’re getting into,” Lin said, her voice low. 

“I do,” Ayla replied quietly.

“Then you get in, you get out, and you vanish. I’ll have people watching the exits. If anything feels wrong, you run.”

Ayla nodded, softer now. “You be careful too.”

Lin swallowed, her throat tight. She stepped back first, breaking the tension. “Go home.” Ayla hesitated, Lin felt it, and then nodded once and slipped out of the alley, disappearing down the street. Lin stayed where she was, listening to Ayla’s footsteps fade until the night swallowed them.

Spirits. What the hell am I doing?

5 Days Before

Ayla: 7:30 p.m

Warehouse fourteen sat on the edge of the manufacturing district, one of the countless anonymous concrete buildings Helion leased to subcontractors. From the street, it looked inconspicuous. Just a storage site with peeling paint and a humming powerline overhead. Ayla watched the patrol twice before slipping through the side door. 

Inside, the air was cold, and it smelled like bleach. Overhead lights buzzed somewhere near the back. She found the records room on the second floor, behind a rusted door labeled “LOGISTICS ARCHIVE.” She stepped inside, shutting the door softly behind her, only to find filing cabinets and half-open boxes crowding the narrow isles. 

Y-2713. 

She scanned labels, checked drawers, nothing. Not on the desk, not on the sorting shelves. Of course it wasn’t going to be easy. If this was a test, they could have at least made it possible. Were they setting her up to fail?  She dropped to her knees and started pulling open boxes, rifling through their contents. Most boxes were simply filled with useless looking inventory sheets and courier receipts. One box caught her eye though, half hidden beneath old ledgers and stamped with a logo she didn’t recognize. Eidolon Development Agency - CONSOLODATED. She crouched further, eyes scanning the room. She should leave it alone. She knew she should leave it alone. But curiosity, or maybe something closer to instinct, made her look into it further. She dug it out. Inside were lab notebooks stacked in neat rows, hand labeled with dates nearly two decades old. Patient files. Diagrams of human anatomy overlaid with chi-flow pathways, precise and clinical. Ayla stared, her heart thudding in her ears. 

None of this belonged here. This wasn’t logistics, or shipments, or anything closely related to the ring. This was research. Old research. Forgotten. She could almost hear Lin’s voice in her head. Don’t linger. Get what you came for and get out. But the small part of her that had been desperate to figure out how to heal her chi flow, how to fix her bending, especially after her last attempt, couldn’t walk away. If these diagrams were what they looked like, if they could help her figure out how to fix the imbalance in her own body, and avoid almost suffocating herself again, she couldn’t risk leaving them here. She reached for a few. A small stack of journals, a file folder, a few folded diagrams, a small stack of pages paperclipped together. Just enough to fill her pack. She shoved the box back into place and moved on to the next one. Finally, on the fourteenth box, her eyes caught the stamp on a file. Y-2713. 

She exhaled hard and stuffed it into her bag. Then, out of habit, she glanced at the folder beneath it. Just a quick look, and the letterhead caught her eye. Cabbage Corporation. What was this doing here? Inside were shipping manifests nearly identical to the ones she’d already seen, same shorthand, same codes, all referencing high volume tin shipments for “manufacturing components.” She hesitated. Lin might want to see this. It couldn’t hurt. She slipped it into her bag too and then got the hell out. 

Outside, she kept a steady pace for several blocks before finally ducking into a side street to catch her breath. She dropped the extra files off at her apartment, under the loose board in the bottom of her wardrobe, and left again immediately, the bag with the test file slung over her shoulder. The sooner she could hand it off, the sooner this would all be over. 

The ring was loud when she arrived. She avoided Tarrlok’s task force staging outside and slipped in through a side door. Shit, she needed to get the hell out of here fast. She moved quickly through until she found the man who’d given her the order. He looked her up and down, satisfied. “You got it?” 

She handed him the folder wordlessly. “Good. You’re done.” That should have been reassuring. It wasn’t. She turned and walked fast toward the exit, forcing herself not to look back. Hopefully that will be the end of it. 

Lin: 9:30 p.m. 

It was dark by the time Lin reached the pier. Sodium-yellow floodlamps washed the docks in harsh light. Somewhere out in the bay, a foghorn bellowed once. Lin crouched behind a stack of shipping crates beside Saikhan, every muscle drawn tight. Her eyes locked on the warehouse. Tarrlok had made his entrance a minute earlier, half a dozen armored trucks, photographers and reporters in tow. 

 “He doesn’t even know what’s inside,” Saikhan muttered under his breath. Lin’s jaw clenched until her teeth hurt. He wasn’t here to stop anything. He was here to perform.

She swept the yard with her gaze again, scanning every shadow near the side doors. Where are you, Ayla? “I’ll take the west end,” she whispered. “Radio me if you see her.” She didn’t let herself imagine Ayla already inside. Or worse, already caught. She stayed low, circling wide, every nerve firing at the same too-fast pace. Seconds crawled by like hours.

Then, her radio crackled. “Chief,” Saikhan’s voice came through, tight, urgent. “Movement by the side door. Task force staging to breach. And someone matching Ayla’s description near the exit.”

Lin didn’t hear the rest. She was already running.

She didn’t think about Tarrlok’s authority, or jurisdiction, or her even own career. She thought about Ayla in that alley telling her, “I’ll be careful.” She thought about Ayla saying she’d run if something went wrong.

She rounded the corner just as it happened. Tarrlok surged forward. Boots thundered. Windows blew inward. Shouting thundered across the dockyard. A torrent of water snapped across the asphalt like a whip, erupting from a tank mounted on Tarrlok’s lead truck. It spread, fast and violent, curling around the legs of fleeing figures. Ayla among them. “Shit-” Lin barely breathed it. Tarrlok flicked his wrist with the same detached showmanship he used during council meetings.

The water tightened. Hardened. And yanked them all off their feet. Cameras flashed. The perfect shot. Tarrlok’s goddamn legacy photo. Ayla hit the ground, rolled, tried to get up. Lin saw the attempt, the flash of determination, but the sweep took her again, dragging her hard across the concrete. Officers swarmed. Hands, restraints, shouting. Ayla’s head turned once toward the chaos of lights, her face full of shock, fear- 

And then she vanished behind the doors of the armored truck. Lin stopped dead. She forced her breathing still. Forced her face blank. Forced down the wild, rising panic clawing at her throat. Saikhan’s voice came thin through her radio, distant. “Runners moving down Twelfth. Probably up near the cranes.” The cranes. Old. Unregistered. Full of hiding spaces.

She swallowed down the spiraling panic and stepped back around the building to where Saikhan was. “We’ll follow up tomorrow,” she managed. “He got her. I couldn’t get to her in time.” Saikhan’s face tightened. He didn’t comment. There was nothing left to say.

Lin made herself stand still for exactly three seconds, long enough to regain the posture of a police chief, not a woman on the verge of losing her mind. She already knew what she was about to do. She had known the moment the truck doors slammed shut.

Ayla, 11:15 p.m.

Ayla sat in the jail cell, knees pulled to her chest, wrists aching from the cuffs. She didn’t know how long she’d been there. Two hours maybe? She was an idiot. She thought she would be fine. And now she was here. Lin had tried to protect her, and she hadn’t listened. I was so fucking stupid, and now I’m going to rot in here forever. I fucked everything up. 

Lin, 11:30 p.m. 

Three floors above the holding cells, Lin sat at her desk with the blinds drawn and her jaw locked so tight it hurt. The light overhead buzzed faintly, the only sound besides the steady rasp of her pen as she signed a name that wasn’t hers. She flipped the page with a crisp snap and stamped a release order under the signature of a shift captain who owed her a decade-old favor. She didn’t let herself think about it. Thinking would slow her down.

Saikhan stood by the closed door, arms folded. “Tarrlok booked her under a standard equalist sweep,” he said finally, voice low. “Unregistered chi-blocking activity. Conspiracy to aid.”

“It’s loose,” Lin muttered, not looking up. “No evidence. Just proximity.”

“That works in our favor.” His tone was careful. 

“It does.” The stamp hit the paper harder than necessary. “She’s not staying here.”

He hesitated. “You’re burning through your capital for this one, Chief. You sure it’s worth sticking your neck out?”

Lin didn’t look up. Her pen continued moving, deliberate, controlled, even as her pulse wasn’t. “I’m not letting him use her for a headline,” she said flatly.

Saikhan was quiet for a long moment. Then he stepped forward, stopping just behind her chair. He’d known her long enough to see the truth: the mask of professionalism stretched too thin, the sharpness beneath it softened by something dangerous. “Alright,” he said softly. “Then we’ll make it clean.” She didn’t answer, but the tension in her shoulders shifted, barely. Just enough to show she’d heard him. He leaned down to set a hand lightly on the corner of her desk. He lowered his voice. “Lin… just be careful.”

She didn’t look at him. Couldn’t. If she did, she might break the fragile dam holding all of this together. “Have someone run this down to booking,” she said instead, handing him the forged release. “And this too. You know what to do with it.” She passed him a small envelope. 

Their eyes met, brief, sharp, understanding, before he turned toward the door. He paused with his hand on the handle. “If anyone asks,” he said, “this never happened.”

“It didn’t.” No hesitation.

He nodded once and left.

Lin sat motionless for several seconds, staring at the door like it had personally offended her. The quiet in her office pressed tight around her, suffocating. She looked down at her hands still braced against the desk, knuckles white.

That forged document was already on its way down to booking. She sat there a moment longer, thinking about the forged paper that was on its way down to booking, and how there hadn't even been a question as to whether she’d do it.

4 Days Before

Ayla, 12:30 a.m.

The sound of a lock clicking open woke her up. “You’re being released.” 

Ayla blinked, briefly disoriented. “What? Why?” She had expected to rot in here. As far as she knew, Kira’s sister was still here. The officer didn’t answer, just opened the door and walked away. 

Ayla stood slowly, every movement stiff from laying on this pathetic excuse of a bed. Everything ached. She followed the corridor down to the booking desk, where a man she recognized from the papers was waiting for her. Captain Saikhan, she thought. What the seven hells? Where was Lin? What was going on? She grabbed her bag from the clerk and stood there, hesitating. 

Saikhan was out of uniform, jacket thrown over his shoulder, with an unreadable expression. He gestured for her to walk with him. Once they were out of earshot of the booking desk, he spoke quietly. “Your paperwork cleared,”  and handed her a folded slip. “Looks like a processing mix-up. Happens sometimes.” 

Ayla took it and asked softly, “You’re not going to tell me how this actually happened, are you?” 

“No. And you’re not going to ask.” 

She hesitated. “Does she know I’m out?” 

A slight pause. “She will.” 

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small paper envelope, offering it to her. “The rest of your belongings.” Ayla nodded and reached for it, tucking it into her pocket. His voice dropped to a whisper. “You don’t owe anyone an explanation. Just go home.” 

She froze. She knew what he was implying, or at least she thought she did. Gratitude for the information she was giving them, warning about being mixed up in something like this, maybe something else. He looked tired, maybe, or resigned. Like someone who had seen Lin Beifong make an impossible choice and decided to protect her from the cost anyways. 

“Thank you,” she said quietly. 

He stepped back. “Go. Before someone notices.”

Ayla, 8:15 a.m.

She’d barely slept. Every time she drifted off, she jolted awake again, heart hammering like she’d been caught doing something wrong. Lin had done this.

Lin had broken the rules, for her.

The weight of it sat in Ayla’s chest like a brick. Gratitude wasn’t big enough to describe whatever this was, relief, something warm, something devastatingly soft, but tangled under all of it was a guilt so sharp she felt flayed open. Lin had risked everything. Her job. Her career. Her reputation. Her entire identity as the Chief of Police, the one person who always did things “by the book.” And all for her.

Ayla pressed the heels of both hands over her eyes, swallowing hard. Why would she do that? She replayed it, Lin warning her not to go near Pier 9, Lin telling her she couldn’t protect her if she got arrested, Lin sounding almost panicked in that alley, Lin crowding her close as if she could physically stop fate itself.

And Ayla had gone anyway.

And Lin had protected her anyway.

Her chest burned. Spirits, she didn’t deserve that. The envelope had held a small, folded slip of paper. Lin’s handwriting, familiar in a way Ayla shouldn’t have recognized so easily.

You’re lucky I’m good at paperwork.
Meet me Sunday morning. We’ll make a new plan.

The first line had made Ayla laugh, a small, breathless, helpless thing. And then she’d stared at the rest until exhaustion dragged her under. We’ll make a new plan. We. After everything that had happened, Lin was still willing to work with her. Still choosing her. But the note didn’t tell her what mattered most. Was Lin angry at her? Disappointed that Ayla hadn't listened? Regretting what she had done to help her? 

That was the part that twisted like a knife every time she breathed. Ayla tucked the note carefully into her pocket as she left her apartment, she didn’t want it to crumple or get lost. It felt too important, like proof that last night had really happened and she hadn’t imagined it. The last thing she wanted was for Lin to hate her. For making her cross a line she wasn’t supposed to cross. For making her choose between her badge and… whatever stood between them now. Ayla swallowed hard, throat tight. She didn’t know what they were, or what they could be, but she knew one thing with terrifying clarity. If Lin regretted saving her, if she decided she’d been a mistake, if she pulled away now, Ayla didn’t know how she’d bear it. She couldn’t. For the first time in her life, she understood exactly how dangerous it was to want something this much.

Ayla, 3:15 p.m. 

Later that day, Ayla was wiping down the bar counter when she heard the door bells chime. She looked up to see Kira walking in, holding a newspaper, and her expression told her everything she needed to know before she even opened her mouth. “Ayla.” She said without preamble. “Tell me this isn’t you.” She set the newspaper down in front of her. 

Ayla winced, rubbing the back of her neck. “Shit.” 

Councilman Tarrlok’s smug, stupid face dominated the front page, framed by a headline that read, “Equalist Sympathizers Arrested in Underground Ring.” Below it, a photo of a handful of people in cuffs, and one of them was unmistakably her. Ayla groaned. “Yeah. That’d be me.” 

Kira just stared. “Wow. So everything you said the other day was a lie?” 

“What? No-” 

“I mean, I didn’t want to believe it, but after we talked-”

Ayla straightened. “No! I don’t! I don’t think Amon’s good. I never did.” 

Kira crossed her arms. “Then why the hell are you fighting in one of their rings?” 

“It’s not an equalist ring! They use it for recruitment sometimes, yeah, but most of us are just there for the money.” 

“Money.” Kira repeated. 

Ayla met her eyes. “That’s how I got your sister’s bail money.” 

“Oh,” she said quietly. “Spirits, Ayla. You didn’t have to-” 

“Yes, I did.” Ayla said flatly. “You’d do the same for me.” 

“The hell I would, I can’t fight to save my own life.” She scoffed. “You really are a disaster, you know that?” 

Ayla managed a tired smile. “Yeah, but a useful one.” 

Kira huffed a laugh. “You’re lucky I like you. If anyone from the paper comes by asking questions, I don’t know a damn thing.” 

“Thanks.” Ayla said softly. 

“Still… Stay out of it okay? Whatever this is with Amon, it’s getting bad. I don’t want to have to read about you in the paper again.” She shook her head. “Sparring gym, my ass.” 

“Hey, speaking of, you never gave me an update on that waterbender boy.” 

“Screw that, did you hear they’re still gonna host the championship? Even with Amon? Ballsy.” Ayla listened with humor at her predictions for how the match would go, trying not to think about what Lin might be walking into. 

Lin, 11:00 p.m.

The residue reports were spread across Lin’s desk as she stared at them. Copper. Tin. Polymer melt. No explosive residue. Her thumb traced one of the lines. Arcing, branching patterns. Not burns, not fire. “Tin’s a good conductor-”

The championship had been a complete disaster. Worse than a disaster. Every fucking, goddamn time she thought she was getting ahead, clawing back an inch of progress, the rug was ripped out from under her. They’d been ambushed with electrocution gloves. Amon had gotten away. Despite everything, she’d failed again. 

She pressed her palm over her eyes. Why does this keep happening? 

“Not charges,” she murmured. “Circuits.”

Saikhan stood across from her, arms folded, silent. 

She flipped through the reports again. “We stared right at their test site. I called it a charge bench.”Her voice was low, tight. “They were building the gloves right under my nose.”

Saikhan hesitated. “We’ll update the weapons report. The council will need-”

“They don’t need anything.” Lin snapped, then softened. “Tarrlok will turn this into another headline. He’ll call it a failure and he’ll be right.” 

“Chief-” 

“No.” She exhaled through her teeth and pinched the bridge of her nose. “They were never hiding it. They didn’t have to. Because I never would’ve guessed it.” The tech, the one who’d questioned her call. She’d brushed him off. Told him to focus on bomb residue, not electrical. Because bombs were something she understood. This wasn’t. “While we were looking for crates of explosives, they were building this.” 

Saikhan shifted his weight and spoke carefully. “Tarrlok’s requested a full debrief to the council at 10:00 a.m. He’ll want to know what we missed. 

Lin laughed, without humor. “He doesn’t want answers. He wants leverage.” 

“He’s drafting a motion,” Saikhan said quietly. “Campaigning for your resignation. Says it’s about accountability.” 

Of course he was. Her jaw clenched until her teeth hurt. “He undermines every chain of command I have, cuts funding, buries warrants, pulls my officers, and then calls me a failure after he raided the one chance we had of actually solving this goddamn problem.” 

“He’s playing politics,” Saikhan said. “You’re playing defense.” 

“That’s the crux of the issue,” she said flatly. “I don’t play.” 

For a long moment neither of them spoke. Lin reached for another page, scanning it. “They’ll say the city needs new leadership. Fresh strategy. Someone willing to ‘collaborate with the Council.’” 

“They’ll say it, but it doesn’t mean they’re right.” 

Lin’s shoulders sagged. “Doesn’t mean they’re wrong, either.” She sat back, exhausted, and then quietly said, “But if it comes to that. If they push me out.” 

Saikhan straightened. “Chief?” 

Lin kept her focus on the desk. “We’ll need to make sure there’s a transition plan in place. Someone who looks cooperative enough to keep the Council calm, but who actually understands what’s at stake. Someone who won’t dismantle everything we’ve built.” 

Understanding flickered across his face. “You think it’ll go that far?” 

“I think it’s already going that far,” she said. “Tarrlok won’t stop until I’m out of the picture. If that happens, I need to know you’ll step in. At least on paper. Keep the department steady, keep intel flowing. I’ll handle the rest from the outside.” 

Saikhan’s expression tightened, but he nodded. “Understood.” 

“This stays between us.” 

He nodded again, holding eye contact. He studied her. The fatigue around her eyes, the tension in her jaw. He’d served with her long enough to know she didn’t need reassurance, she needed space. When she finally spoke again, it was quiet. “File the updated report. Don’t send it to the council until I’ve cleared it.” 

“Yes, Chief,” Saikhan said as he quietly exited her office. 

She had been too sure of herself. Too certain she knew what she was looking for. Bombs made sense. Circuits didn’t. She stared at the city map on her desk. Pins marking warehouses, transport routes, supplier chains. All her careful work, all the hours she’d spent triangulating shipments and schedules. She’d thought she was dismantling their network. Instead, she’d traced the outline of something bigger than any of them knew what to do with. 

‘Meet me Sunday morning. We’ll make a new plan.’ It had felt decisive when she’d written it. Now it just felt desperate. For the first time in years, Lin didn’t know what came next.

3 Days Before

Lin, 8:00 a.m.

She’d barely slept. Every time she closed her eyes, she ended up drafting her resignation letter in her head. Tarrlok’s motion would pass, the Council would fold, Tenzin would yield like he always did, and she would be the one holding the fallout. Because that was how this city worked. It always found a way to make her a scapegoat. A quiet knock broke her spiraling thoughts.

“Come in.”

“You look like you haven’t slept,” Ayla murmured.

Lin gave a humorless ghost of a smile. “You’re one to talk.”

“I wasn’t in a war zone last night,” Ayla said softly.

“You saw the news.”

“I saw enough.” A beat. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” The lie rolled out automatically. Then, more honestly, “I should’ve known what they were building.”

Ayla stepped closer, concern etched into her brow. “You can’t know everything, Lin. You did what you could.”

“That’s not the point.” Lin exhaled, rubbing her temple. “I had the manifests. The materials. I told myself it was bombs because that was the only threat that made sense. But it wasn’t bombs. It was the damn gloves.” She met Ayla’s gaze, eyes tight with frustration she didn’t bother to hide. “We were staring at them the whole time. I saw ‘gloves’ on the manifest and assumed safety gear. They were moving them right under our noses.”

“That doesn’t mean you failed,” Ayla said quietly. “It means they hid it well.”

“It doesn’t feel like much comfort.”

Silence stretched. They were both holding things they weren’t going to say. Things like, I broke the law for you. I risked my life for you. We both know we’ll do it again. Neither spoke it. “I got your note,” Ayla said instead. “Thank you. For what you did.”

Lin’s jaw moved, some emotion flickering through her eyes too fast to read. “You don’t need to thank me.”

“I do, though.”

“You shouldn’t have been there in the first place.” Lin’s voice softened. “You were only there because of what I asked you to do.”

“I’m sorry. For making you choose. Between doing your job and… helping me.”

“You didn’t make me choose,” Lin replied. “I made that call myself.” She held her gave a few seconds too long. Ayla broke the contact first, reaching into her coat, hesitating. “I think I found something in that warehouse. I thought you might want to see it.” She passed her the folder. “It looked wrong. Like someone tried to bury it or something.”

Lin flipped it open. Her breath caught. “Where did you get this?”

“It was mixed in with Helion manifests, but-”

Lin’s chair scraped against the floor as she stood. In seconds she was cross-referencing invoices, matching codes, stacking papers with the speed of someone whose brain had shifted into a higher gear. Ayla stepped beside her, watching the transformation. It hit her again, how brilliant Lin was. How dangerous. How breathtaking.

“I thought it was all routed through a Helion subcontractor,” Lin murmured, almost to herself. “But this isn’t Helion. It’s Cabbage Corp.” She pointed a finger at the margin. “Same account number across different vendor names. They’re using shell companies to move Equalist freight under legitimate business orders.”

Ayla blinked. “So all those crates-”

“Yes,” Lin said. “They weren’t just supplying the Equalists. They were funding them. This is the paper trail I needed.” Then, softer, and something warm flickered in her tone. “You did good, Ayla. Really good.” She grabbed the phone. “Saikhan, office. Now.”

He arrived quickly. The moment he saw the documents, his eyes widened. “This looks solid,” Saikhan murmured. “Ownership chain, accounts, routing. We can take this straight to the Council.”

She turned to Ayla, and something unspoken shifted between them. “I want you to keep your head down for a few days.”

“But I could-”

“Go home,” Lin said, the corner of her mouth turning upward in an almost-smile. “Rest.”

Ayla hesitated. Searching her face. Trying to read all the unsaid things underneath. Then she nodded and slipped out the door. Lin watched the door close behind her. Only when it latched did she let out the breath she’d been holding. Then she straightened, reached for the report, and forced herself back into motion.

Lin, 10:00 a.m.

Lin stood at the center of the chamber floor, shoulders squared. Councilman Tarrlok addressed her, his voice polished. “Chief Beifong. Thank you for coming to give us your report of the disastrous event that-” 

Lin cut him off. “After cross-referencing relevant shipping manifests with residue analysis and subcontractor ledgers,” Lin began evenly, “we’ve confirmed that Cabbage Corp has been facilitating Equalist supply chains under the guise of industrial equipment transport.” 

Murmurs followed, but she continued. “They’ve been using shell companies to conceal financial transactions and subcontractors to move freight through legitimate trade routes. The warehouse at Pier 9, previously flagged as a chi-blocking raid, was one of several storage and transfer sites under their logistical division.” 

Tarrlok eyed her. “You conducted this investigation independently, I take it? Without Council authorization or coordination with my task force?” 

“Yes,” Lin said simply. “Because you were busy arresting fighters in an illegal ring instead of following the freight that armed them.” 

The silence that followed was deafening. “That’s a serious accusation, Chief Beifong. You’re admitting to operating outside of your jurisdiction-” 

“And you declared a unilateral raid last week without warrants or oversight. On the grounds of ‘public security’.” 

Councilman Tenzin leaned forward slightly, hands folded. “She’s right, Tarrlok. You invoked emergency powers to bypass chain-of-command. It seems only fair that the same justification applies here.” The rest of the council nodded. “If Chief Beifong’s findings prevent further Equalist attacks, I’d say the ends justify the means in this instance. It’s a matter of public safety.” Lin schooled her expression to hide her shock. Tenzin had just stood up for her against Tarrlok. She never thought she’d see the day. 

Tarrlok’s jaw twitched. “You’re defending insubordination.” 

“I’m defending results.” Lin replied. “Cabbage Corp’s financing connects directly to known Equalist cells. I’ve already issued a preliminary warrant,” Lin continued, “and I’ll be leading the raid myself.” 

Tenzin turned to the rest of the council. “I second that motion.” The others murmured in assent. “Approved. Chief Beifong, you’re authorized to proceed. Deliver a full report when you’ve gathered additional evidence.” 

Lin inclined her head. “Understood.” 

Back in her office a few minutes later, Saikhan slipped into her office and shut the door behind him. Lin looked up from her desk. “Well?” 

“They approved the raid. Tarrlok?” 

The corner of Lin’s mouth twitched into a satisfied smirk. “Seething.” 

Lin, 4:00 p.m.

Lin walked slowly between the rows of crates, hands clasped behind her back. Around her, her officers catalogued evidence. Crates of shock gloves, printed propaganda, half assembled explosives. Saikhan approached, clipboard in hand. “Propaganda flyers, rally materials, distribution plans. There’s enough here to call it open support for Equalist activity.” 

She nodded. It should have felt like vindication. Weeks of working herself empty had led to this moment. A clean bust. Finally, answers. But the deeper she looked, the more she sat with it, the more uneasy she felt. It was too perfect. Every document neatly indexed, every manifest labeled clearly, every crate stamped and organized. This wasn’t a hidden network. This was a display waiting to be found. Her radio crackled. “Chief, press is gathering outside. They want a statement.” She took a breath and walked outside. She couldn’t do anything without evidence. This was just a hunch.  “Evidence indicates Cabbage Corp was supplying the Equalists. The investigation is ongoing. No further comment.” 

2 Days Before

Lin, 4:00 p.m.

The paperwork from the raid had been delivered in neat stacks after processing. Property inventories, financial ledgers, courier slips. She’d gone through half of the pile before she pulled Ayla’s file from her drawer, setting it beside the others. Her eyes went back and forth between them. Column headings, routing codes, ledger numbers. Everything looked the same. Except… 

A courier ID didn’t match the standard formatting, the spaces were slightly off. A date code formatted in non-standard order. The kind of small, insignificant inconsistencies that would pass unnoticed by anyone else. Lin’s pulse increased. She flipped a page, cross referencing each line, quickly scribbling notes. The handwriting was a little too neat, ink slightly darker. Someone had likely forged it deliberately. Her stomach turned to lead. Ayla hadn’t stumbled upon this. It had been handed to her under the guise of careless filing. They knew she would take it-

Lin stood abruptly, grabbing the phone, panic rising in her fast. This was bad. Fuck. Shit. “Saikhan, I need you to run verification on the raid paperwork. Look for duplicates in the routing chain. Anything tied to the manifest Ayla brought in.” 

“On it, Chief.” 

She paced. If the file had been planted, that meant someone out there knew Ayla was leaking information. They knew she would steal it. They knew she would deliver it right to her. She was going to be sick. She had just raided Cabbage Corp, publicly announcing to whoever the hell knew to listen that Ayla had stolen that file and handed it right to her. 

They’d baited her and let her build a case against a red herring. The Equalists hadn’t just infiltrated the city. They’d infiltrated her investigation. And that meant that someone was still behind the scenes, pulling strings. 

Lin, 8:30 p.m. 

Tenzin and Korra stepped through her office door without preamble. “Tenzin,” Lin said flatly. “You could’ve called first.” Just what she needed at a time like this. Was the universe laughing at her? 

Korra was more of a welcome sight, or she would have been, if Lin couldn’t tell on sight that they were bringing bad news. The pro-bending championship, the moment everything had all gone to hell, had changed her view on her. Lin hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. The way Korra had moved when Amon appeared, no hesitation, no panic, just immediate instinctive courage. She’d thrown herself into danger before anyone else had time to think. Headstrong. Reckless. Determined. She’d seen bravery that wasn’t naive, but earned. It wasn’t quite pride she felt. But something close. Maybe I underestimated her when she first arrived. Maybe she just needed the right opportunity to start making her way as the Avatar we need her to be. 

“We needed to tell you something in person. Is there somewhere we can speak privately?” 

Lin studied his expression. He looked unsettled, which meant this wasn’t routine. She exhaled sharply, pushing herself up from the desk. “Fine. The roof.” 

She led them up the narrow stairwell, pushing open the heavy door to the night air. The city stretched out below, light from the streetlamps glinting off the bay in the distance. 

Korra stepped forward first, no preamble. “I overheard Hiroshi Sato on the phone earlier today. He said, ‘Everything is going exactly as planned. The cabbage corp investigation has bought us enough time. Trust me, by the end of the week, we’ll be ready to strike.’ It seems like he might have something to do with what happened at the championship, and maybe even something to do with the bust.” 

Lin kept her expression neutral, but her stomach dropped. Tenzin asked, “So you think Mr. Sato manufactured the gloves for the equalists? Then framed cabbage corp?” 

Lin’s voice stayed measured. This was bad. This could be very bad. She felt like she was walking on razor thin ice. “That’s a bold accusation. What proof do you have?“ She looked over the railing at the traffic below. Her pulse hammered. She thought about the file, the precision of the forgery. The conveniently placed trail. Spirits, if Sato was behind this… He was one of the most powerful men in the entire city. If she was wrong again…

Korra spoke again. “I don't exactly have proof, but I know what I heard. Sato’s up to something.“

“He does have the means,” Lin said, speaking slowly. Oh, no. Wait. The nail in the coffin. “And he has a motive.” How had she forgotten? 

Tenzin, realization dawning on his face, murmured, "That's right.“

Korra frowned. “A motive? What is it?“

Tenzin spoke quietly. “Twelve years ago, the Agni-Kai triad robbed Sato’s mansion. A firebender killed Sato's wife during the break-in.” 

“That’s terrible.” 

Tenzin agreed. “It was tragic. It’s possible he’s been harboring anti-bending sentiment all this time.” 

Lin’s jaw set. “Maybe we should look at Mr. Sato a little more closely.” 

Korra nodded. “What do you need from me?” 

“Nothing yet,” Lin said. “I’ll handle this and reach out when I have a plan in place.” Tenzin and Korra left the roof, the door shutting behind them. 

Her thoughts raced. The bust was too neat, and now this was walking right into her lap, just like the file. Except Korra hadn’t been spying, and this wasn’t a loyalty test she had failed. But she didn’t believe in coincidences. 

Saikhan was waiting by her desk when she returned, flipping through new reports. 

“Chief, I went through everything from the Cabbage Corp raid again. Every manifest, every subcontractor invoice. It’s all clean. No new anomalies.” 

“Of course it is.” She sighed, dropping into her chair, rubbing her temple. 

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s not relief.” 

She hesitated. “Korra was just here. Said she overheard Hiroshi Sato on the phone. Sounded like he was bragging about the Cabbage Corp investigation buying him time to strike.” 

Saikhan frowned. “You think he’s involved?” 

Cabbage Corp didn’t have the infrastructure to build gloves like the ones used in the arena. They didn’t have the specialized metal fabricators. They didn’t have the distribution pipeline to move it that fast. But Sato did. How did I not see this? 

“I think,” Lin said, opening the file Ayla had stolen. “That this was planted. The Equalists fed us Cabbage Corp so we wouldn’t look at Future Industries." 

Saikhan leaned forward. “You’re sure?” 

“The inconsistencies line up.” 

He was silent for a moment, watching her. Then he carefully asked, “You think she turned on you?” 

Lin’s eyes snapped up. “No. Absolutely not.” 

“Chief-” 

“She didn’t know. She was set up to take it. They wanted it to reach me.” Her voice was tight. “It was a test. To confirm I had a leak on the inside. To confirm who it was.” Fuck. I need to warn her, I need-

Saikhan exhaled slowly. “Spirits. This goes higher than we thought.” 

Lin gave a humorless laugh. “It always does. Every lead I pull leads to something worse. Get me everything you can on Future Industries. Discreetly.” 

Lin, 10:15 p.m.

The hallway smelled faintly of old varnish and cooking oil. Lin barely noticed, she was listening for footsteps, hushed voices, anything out of place. She knocked. The lock clicked. The door cracked. Ayla’s face appeared, tired and drawn, but unhurt. Relief hit Lin so hard her knees nearly buckled.

“Lin?” Ayla stepped closer, frowning. “What’s wrong?”

“We need to talk,” Lin said, voice low and urgent. “Do you have a minute?”

“Okay, come in-”

“I don’t have time.” Lin stayed in the doorway, scanning the hall again. “The file you gave me, it was planted.”

Ayla’s eyes widened. “What?”

“They set you up. They wanted you to find it. You said it was in a weird place? Mixed with the wrong manifests?” Lin shook her head. “It was bait. And you weren’t their target, I was.”

Her face drained of color. “So they know? They know it went to you. The raid on Cabbage Corp- oh my god.” Lin nodded once. Ayla's voice cracked. “I swear I didn’t know, Lin. I thought it was real, I swear-”

“Hush.” Lin’s tone softened instantly, instinctively. She shoved down the urge to touch her face, to reassure her. “I know. I didn’t doubt you for a second.” A beat of silence, and something wordless passing between them. “But your cover’s blown. I don’t know what they’ve pieced together or how fast. I’m not risking it.”

Ayla leaned hard against the doorframe, knuckles white around the edge. “What do I do?”

“Keep your guard up,” Lin said. “You go to work, you go home. Nowhere else. Don’t talk to anyone you don’t trust. If someone approaches you, you leave. Immediately.”

Ayla nodded. “Okay.”

“I’ll reach out when I have more.”

Silence stretched between them before Ayla spoke. “You should go before someone sees you,” she said softly.

Lin hesitated a fraction too long. “Lock the door behind me,” she murmured. Ayla nodded, holding her gaze before she closed the door gently. Lin listened for the metal lock sliding into place, a tiny sound, but it anchored her enough to move again. It took everything in her to turn away from that door. To walk down the stairs. To walk back down onto the street, when everything in her wanted to go right back up that hallway. To knock again and say they’d figure it out, that it wasn’t her fault, that they’d fix this before it got worse. But she couldn’t. Not now. Not while they both had eyes on them; the Equalists watching Ayla, the Council watching her, and some unknown mastermind watching them both.

She swallowed the sick feeling and told herself she’d find a way to fix it. Because she had to.

1 day before

Lin, 12:00 p.m.

Lin followed Tenzin and Korra up the drive of Sato Manion, her boots crunching against the gravel as they walked from the airship dock. The view of the mountains from the estate nearly took her breath away. The estate was beautiful, outside of the city, and one of the most meticulously maintained pieces of property Lin had ever seen. When they entered the foyer, they were immediately led up to an office where Hiroshi Sato sat at an ornate desk. “Chief Beifong. Councilman Tenzin. Avatar Korra.” He smiled. “Lovely to see you all. What brings the city’s finest to my home on this lovely day?” 

Lin kept her tone polite but professional. “Mr. Sato, we just have a few follow up questions for you.“ 

Before he could respond, his daughter Asami swept into the room. “My father is innocent. Just because we’re not benders doesn't mean we support those awful equalists!“ 

Hiroshi looked surprised. “Equalists, is that what this is about? I can assure you, I have nothing to do with those radicals.“ 

Mako appeared in the doorway, jaw tight, and came to stand next to Korra. “Yeah, you don’t know what you’re talking about, Korra.” Spirits, Lin thought, this is becoming a circus. 

Korra, undeterred, continued. “I overheard you on the phone! You said the cabbage corp investigation bought you time, and you’re getting ready to strike! Explain that!“

Hiroshi laughed. “This is all just a misunderstanding! Resulting from the Avatar’s overactive imagination. My number one competitor was knocked out of the game. It’s providing me an opportunity to strike the market with a new line of Satomobiles. It’s just business. Nothing nefarious.” 

Lin and Tenzin exchanged a glance, unconvinced. Sure, that sounded well enough, but the timing made her stomach turn. “In order to put suspicions to rest,” Lin said carefully, “might we have a look at your factories and warehouses?” 

Asami scoffed, but Hiroshi held up his hand, magnanimous. “If you feel it's necessary, you’re welcome to search all of Future Industries.“ Here goes nothing. 

Lin, 7:00 p.m. 

Hours later, a thorough search turned up absolutely nothing. She knew she wouldn’t find anything. While she was busy chasing false leads, Hiroshi Sato had completely scrubbed his entire empire clean long before she got here. Korra walked up to where Lin and Tenzin were standing with exasperation. “I can’t believe we didn’t find anything.“

“It would appear Hiroshi is innocent.“ Lin said, but her voice lacked conviction. The whole thing was too clean. Just like Cabbage Corp. Every record neatly filed, every tool logged, every surface spotless. There was no warehouse on the planet that was that clean for a last minute inspection. He had to have known they would come looking. She had that same sinking feeling in her stomach that she was missing something obvious. Like with the gloves. 

Asami made her way over. “Okay, you did your search. Now you can all leave,” she said, throwing a pointed glare at Lin. 

Lin’s jaw flexed. She gave a curt nod. “Hmm.” 

While Mako and Korra stepped aside to argue about spirits knew what, Lin stopped paying attention and glanced back at the warehouse bay. It just didn’t make sense. That’s when she saw it; a worker quietly passing through the loading bay, brushing past Korra, slipping something small into her hand. By the time Lin’s instincts kicked in, he had already gone, climbing into a delivery truck that disappeared into the night. 

Korra made her way back to where Lin was standing and held the note up. “I think you guys should hear this.” She read off of the paper, “If you want to find the truth, meet me under the north end of the Silk Road Bridge at midnight.“ 

Lin’s stomach dropped. Another lead, or another trap. 

0 Days Before

Lin, 12:00 a.m. 

Lin spoke into her radio. “Saikhan, status?” 

His voice came through, distorted with static. “Airship’s holding position above the west span. You’ve got a clear perimeter.” 

“Stay alert,” she said. “If this goes south, I want a team ready to drop.” 

She signalled Korra and Tenzin to follow. They made their way under the bridge when the sound of a voice could be heard calling them over to one of the beams. 

“Over here. Listen.” A man whispered, the same man from the warehouse bay earlier.  “I joined the equalists because I believed in what Amon said. I thought he could make life better for us non-benders. But I didn't sign up for this… this war.“

Lin’s voice was sharp. “What do you have on Hiroshi Sato?“

“He manufactured those gloves, for the equalists.“

Korra’s eyes widened. “I knew it!“

The man looked over his shoulder. “And there are rumors he’s working on something even bigger. Some new kind of weapon.“

“We searched all of Future Industries and found nothing.“ 

“That’s because he has a secret factory“. 

“Where?” 

“It’s right underneath the Sato Mansion” Lin felt that growing sense of dread. Too perfect. Again. Too convenient. She needed to be prepared for anything. He could be lying, this could be another ploy. But what if it wasn’t? She wasn’t sure which was worse. 

She pulled her radio out. “Saikhan, prepare for breach.” 

Lin, 12:30 a.m. 

The airship hummed as it cut through cloudcover on the way to the Sato Estate. Inside, Lin stood on the far side of the airship, speaking quietly with Saikhan. Tenzin was at the forward rail, silent, and Korra stood near the middle looking out a window. Her officers were staged and ready at the exit. 

“This could go very wrong.” Saikhan said softly. “Hiroshi Sato is the richest man in the city. He can make this disappear in a dozen legal ways.” 

“I know,” Lin said, her jaw tight. “If this is a bust, it has to be clean. If it goes sideways, be ready to pull us out. You stay above waiting. If anything happens to me, I need you out here to take command.” 

His face was unreadable. “Understood.” 

She swallowed, and moved to the front of the airship to stand next to Tenzin. He spoke carefully while looking out at the passing buildings below them. “Raiding the Sato Mansion is a risky move with Tarrlok breathing down your neck. If we’re wrong-”

 “I know. I can kiss my job goodbye. But protecting Republic City is all I care about. We can’t let Amon get his hands on this new weapon.” 

The rest of the trip passed in silence. When they arrived, they hit the ground in a controlled raid. Teams fanned out, and Lin secured the estate quickly. When they entered the house, they were met with Asami and her two friends, but not Hiroshi. His failure to make an appearance was only causing Lin’s dread to grow. 

Asami’s face filled with panic and outrage. “What are you doing here?“ 

“We have reason to believe there’s a factory hidden below the mansion.“ 

“I think I would have noticed if there was a factory hidden underneath my house! The lies you people come up with just to persecute my father.“ She scoffed. 

“Where is your father?“ Tenzin asked quietly. 

“In his workshop behind the house.“ 

The workshop was smaller than Lin expected for someone like Hiroshi Sato. Officers swept through, clearing the space, as Asami called out, “Dad? Hello?“ She shouldn’t be here, if her father was mixed up in this-

“Chief, the estate’s been cleared. No one has left the workshop since we arrived.“ Then there’s no other possible way out of this.

“Perhaps we just couldn't see him leaving.“ Lin walked to the center of the room and retracted her boot sole, slamming it into the metal floor of the workshop. With internal dread she found herself looking at a map of a tunnel. A large one. Full of machinery, running so deep she couldn’t see where it ended.. “There’s a tunnel beneath the workshop. Running deep into the mountainside.“ 

“What? There’s no tunnel.“ 

Lin didn’t wait. She ripped the flooring up at a seam and the floor heaved. Hidden tram tracks were visible leading spirits know where. For the first time in her career, she found herself wishing she had been wrong. 

Bolin, who’d hitched along, whispered: “Do you think your dad knows about this tunnel?“ Lin ignored him. Were the Avatar’s friends always going to be here, when she was trying to conduct an investigation? 

Asami shook her head in disbelief. “I don't understand, there must be an explanation.“ 

Korra spoke softly to her. “Maybe you don't know everything about your father. I'm sorry.“ Spirits, this just keeps getting worse and worse. 

Lin sounded out orders. “Officers. Into the tunnel. Be cautious.” Mako, Bolin, and Asami moved to come with them. No. Absolutely not. Korra could come, because Lin had seen her skills at the championship. She knew she could handle whatever lay down at the end of the tunnel. But three untested teenagers? No. 

She snapped at them, more forceful than she meant to, given Asami’s world was probably tilting on its axis. No time to think about that now. “Uh-uh. You three stay here. Officer song, keep an eye on them.” 

The tram carried them down into the mountain, and deposited them in an airy, impossibly large warehouse bay given where it was located. Large banners displaying Amon’s face hung from the rafters. Of course. Everyone knows secret factories aren’t complete without decorative banners showing your allegiance. Massive machines lined the walls, and they entered the space with caution. Spirits, what the hell were they walking into? 

Lin felt the back of her neck prickle. “Not your average backyard workshop.“ 

She heard Korra beside her. “And I'm guessing those are the new weapons.“ 

“Hiroshi was lying alright, but where is he?“ Tenzin asked. 

A wall of metal shot up between them and the tram. Smooth, seamless, impossible to get around. Lin lunged for it and felt nothing to grip. It was like trying to bend air. She felt briefly disoriented. 

A voice echoed over a loud speaker, Hiroshi’s, perfectly composed. “I’m afraid you won't be able to metalbend that wall Chief Beifong“. Light flooded the room. “It’s solid platinum. My mecha-tanks are platinum as well.“ He approached, piloting one of the machines as Lin watched with horror. “Not even your renowned mother could bend a metal so pure.“

Korra started shouting, and Lin had to applaud her bravery. “Hiroshi I knew you were a lying, no good equalist. Come out here and-“

Hiroshi interrupted her from where he sat in the machine cockpit. “And do what, young Avatar? Face the wrath of your bending? No, I think I'll fight from inside here, where my odds are a little more… equal.“ 

Lin, with panic disguised as anger rising so fast she felt like she was going to explode, shouted, “That source was a setup! You lured us down here!“ It’s happening again, it’s happening again-

Hiroshi replied calmly “Guilty as charged,“ as he shot a coiled grappling hook at her.

Everything happened all at once. She didn’t think, she just sprung into action. She launched herself into the air with a spring loaded punch of earth and shot out her armor’s retractable blades. She slammed them into a viewing port on whatever machine was nearest, shattering it with a series of blows. She distantly heard the sound of some of her officers being electrocuted behind her, and began to turn, but a grappling hook shot out from somewhere nearby and snagged her. One second she was holding onto the mech and the next she was jerked forward, thrown through the air. She hit the ground with a sick thud. Everything went dark. 

The next thing she could sense was Mako. Mako? Where did he come from? He was shouting, “Let’s get out of here!” She felt like she was underwater. She couldn’t focus. Everything was on fire. Someone half drug her through a hole- a hole? Who made a hole? She was an earthbender, had she made it? The tram was moving. Where was she? What had happened? Alarms were sounding from somewhere in the distance. Tenzin at her side, pulling her radio from her hip, saying something into it. Someone was calling her name. She tried to focus, but her ears were ringing. Tenzin was telling her that her metalbenders were taken, they couldn’t get them out. That Asami had turned on her father, electrocuting him so they could get away. 

She was suddenly in the light, stumbling out of the workshop, the sound of airship propellers overhead. Saikhan. 

Inside the airship, she collapsed onto a bench, pain flaring white hot down her side. She closed her eyes and tried to center herself, taking a few minutes to do an internal assessment of the damage. Oh, this was bad. This was worse than she had imagined it would be, and she already went in expecting the worst. Apparently even Hell has a basement. She lay in silence for a few more minutes, struggling to piece the past hour together in her brain. 

Mako came and quietly gave her the briefing of what happened while they were all unconscious. Sato had been behind it all. He’d offered Asami a choice, join him or stand aside, and she had, with terrible bravery, used a shock glove against him to get them all out. Lin watched Asami off to the side, standing in stunned silence as she looked out the window. 

She watched Tenzin approach where she lay, stopping next to her. She looked away in shame. “My metalbenders are on their way to amon. And it's all my fault.” She had been the one to lead them down into that bay. The words tasted like ash. “Tarrlok’s right. I’ve failed as chief. First thing in the morning, I'm handing in my resignation.“ 

Tenzin replied quickly. “No! You can’t give up like this!“ 

Lin rolled onto her elbow and pushed herself into a sitting position with a lot of effort. The airship cabin tilted, everything tasted like iron. “I’m not giving up,” she ground out. “I’m going to find my officers, and take Amon down. But I'm going to do it my way. Outside the law.“ 

Tenzin met her gaze with steeled confidence, and nodded once. She let herself sink back against the bench, letting the weight of her decision sit inside her. Whatever it cost, she would pay it. 

Lin, 3:00 a.m. 

Back at the station, Lin struggled to reach her office. “I just need to sign it,” she said, gripping the railing as she climbed the stairs. Saikhan kept pace with her, one hand hovering near her in case she fell. The effort it took to get upstairs exhausted almost every last bit of strength she had left. 

Inside her office, Lin braced herself against the desk, rummaging through a drawer until she found the transition of title paperwork she had drawn up earlier that week. Her hands shook as she laid it out. Saikhan wordlessly fetched a pen and placed it beside her hand. She signed, her writing uneven, before she slid it to him. 

He read her face for a long moment before he sighed. “Lin,” he said quietly. “Please don’t do anything reckless. I’ll hold things together here, but I can’t do that if you do something you can’t come back from.” She exhaled, half-sigh half-shudder. “I’ll be careful. I’ll reach out when I have something to report.” 

He watched her for another moment. “Good hunting, Chief.” He quietly left the room, shutting the door behind him. 

Lin stared at the signature like it belonged to someone else.

The ink bled slightly at the end of her surname, her hand must’ve been shaking, and the sight of it made something in her chest twist sharply. That’s it, she thought numbly. 

Lin leaned back against the closed door, every bone in her body screaming. For a heartbeat, she felt something like relief, pure, hot, dizzying relief, flood through her.

She forced out a hoarse whisper, her voice frayed at the edges: “You need better locks.”

Ayla blinked before rushing over to her. “Lin, what happened?” 

Lin opened her mouth and tried to explain, but couldn’t make sense of anything. It was all blurring together. Her hand slipped from the door handle and she half collapsed, half slid down the door until she was sitting on the floor, knees drawn up, head leaning back against the wood panels. 

“It was a setup,” she murmured, eyes unfocused. “It was Future Industries the whole goddamn time.” 

Ayla dropped to her knees beside her. “What are you talking about? Spirits, Lin, you need a healer-” 

Lin shook her head faintly. “No. No hospitals.” 

“Lin, talk to me. What happened.” Her voice soft, fingers already running along the seams of Lin’s armor, checking for emergency release clasps. 

Lin closed her eyes. “Cabbage was a decoy. They planted everything. It’s Sato, he built it all. He’s working with Amon.” She was silent for a few moments. “I couldn’t stop it. My officers. They’re gone. It’s all burning down.” 

Ayla swallowed, steadying her hands. “Hey. Hey, look at me. You’re safe here. Okay? You’re safe. We’re going to get it figured out, we’ll make a plan.” 

Lin let out a low sound that might have been a laugh. “I’m not supposed to be here.” 

“Says who?” Ayla said quietly, wrapping an arm around her to keep her upright. She needed to move her, she needed to get her armor off, figure out what kind of injuries they were working with- 

Lin leaned forward, her temple resting against Ayla’s shoulder like it was instinct. Ayla reached up and gently brushed the hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “Next time,” she murmured, “please just knock first.” 

Lin’s lips twitched faintly into a ghost of a smile. “Wouldn’t have worked,” she whispered. “You’d have told me to go home.” 

If Ayla wasn’t so afraid, she might have laughed. She whispered back, “Really? Cracking a joke at a time like this?” But Lin didn’t answer, and Ayla realized she’d passed out completely.

Chapter Text

Lin’s weight was heavy against her shoulder, armor and exhaustion both taking a heavy toll. Ayla cursed under her breath, shifting to get a better grip. She hooked her arms under Lin’s shoulders and dragged her to her bed, her metal boots dragging uncooperatively against the floor, clipping a couple loose floorboards. She managed to ease her onto the mattress with some effort. Lin’s head lolled back onto the pillow, a faint groan escaping her throat. 

Ayla crouched beside her, panting. She needed light. Spirits, how had she not noticed they were in the dark this whole time? Her hand fumbled for the lamp switch, and the bulb flickered before filling the room with a dim yellow light. 

She looked at Lin again, and the sight made her stomach twist. A long cut ran above Lin’s eyebrow, clotted halfway with blood. Bruises were already blooming under the edges of her armor. Her knuckles were split and raw. 

“Okay,” Ayla murmured, mostly to herself. “Okay, let’s get this off of you.” 

Her hands moved automatically. She found the release clasps, but a few were dented in. Of course. She muttered a curse, grabbed a screwdriver, and pried them open one by one. The sound of the metal scraping made her teeth hurt. 

Piece by piece, she stripped away the armor until Lin was down to her undershirt. Her chest rose and fell shallowly, a good sign. Ayla hesitated, glancing lower. She didn’t know where care ended and intrusion began, so she compromised, just a sweep. Check for bleeding. Deformity. 

Her breath caught as she continued her examination. Bruises, deep, ugly ones, mottled the length of Lin’s ribs and shoulder. The edges of impact marks where the armor had taken the worst of it. No open wounds thank the spirits, but she probably had fractures. Fuck. Ayla pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. She wasn’t a healer. She wasn’t anything useful right now with how terrified she was. 

She forced herself to inhale. You can figure this out. Her hands were shaking as she went to fetch a bowl of water and a clean cloth. She wet it, then returned and began wiping the grime and blood from Lin’s face. She worked carefully, slow circles, her thumb brushing against the cut on her brow. 

Lin stirred faintly, “Don’t fuss,” she murmured, voice rough. 

“Not fussing,” Ayla whispered back, forcing her tone steady, but relief spilled over anyway. “You broke into my apartment and collapsed. I think I get to take care of you a little.” 

Lin’s lips twitched. “Still think your locks are terrible.” 

A laugh slipped out before she could stop it, shaky and too loud. “You’re delirious.” 

“Probably.” 

Ayla’s lips curved faintly, but the laugh that she let out caught halfway as a sob. “You picked a hell of a time to show up.” 

Lin’s only response was a quiet exhale, and Ayla sat for a moment, staring at her. The fear was still crawling under her skin, restless and hot. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears. This was bad. Too bad for her to handle alone. Shino. Oh my god, Shino. He was upstairs. He worked at the hospital. She had met him last month in the hallway and he had been kind. She moved without thinking and the next seconds blurred, her bare feet pounding against the stairwell, knocking on the door, his wife answering the door tying her robe. 

“Spirits, what-” 

“I’m so sorry,” Ayla blurted. “I need your husband. Please. Someone’s hurt, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t an emergency.” 

She took one look at her face and nodded. “Give me a second.” 

A few minutes later, he appeared, also half awake, pulling on a jacket. “What happened?” 

“It’ll make sense when you see her. I am so sorry.” 

By the time she led him back to her apartment, she was trembling from the adrenaline and relief all at once. When he saw Lin, his face went grim. “I see why you grabbed me.” 

“I know you know who she is,” Ayla said quickly, “But please, just help her if you can.” 

He nodded, already moving. “Get me water.” 

She obeyed without thinking, filling the bowl and setting it beside the bed where he was already drawing up a chair. The next hour stretched impossibly long. His voice was calm, steady, murmuring softly about what he was doing, like he was having a quiet, one sided conversation. He worked methodically, hands following practiced movements as he mended her. Ayla sat beside him, gripping her own knees to keep from shaking. 

When he finally straightened, he rubbed a hand over his face. “She’s stable. Mild concussion, a few cracked ribs, a fracture in her arm, shoulder strain. I’ve mended the worst of it. She’s going to be sore the next few days.” 

Ayla’s lungs finally remembered to work. She nodded mutely, thanking him, voice breaking somewhere in the middle. She blinked fast, the beginnings of tears threatening to spill over. He handed her a small patch of herbs, and a small, homemade salve that smelled like yarrow. “Mix the herbs with hot water in the morning and give it to her. It’ll help.”  

She took the herbs, nodding, and turned and grabbed a bottle of firewhiskey from her cabinet. She pressed it into his hands. “Please take it.” She hoped the gratitude she was unable to verbalize shone through her face. He let out a quiet laugh, nodded, and took the bottle, stepping back out into the hallway as Ayla thanked him profusely. 

She leaned against the door after she closed it, relief washing through her so potent she almost couldn’t handle it. Feeling unbelievably grateful. This is what it must feel like to be part of a community, she thought distantly. Having a support network to rely on. Trading favors. Helping each other out, no questions. This is what happens when you stick around a place longer than a few months. She hoped she could return the favor.  

Every muscle trembled from the adrenaline drop. She wanted to cry, or sleep, or both. Instead, she laughed once, because it felt too absurd not to, and she turned back toward the bed. Lin looked human again in the dim light. Her armor was gone, replaced by the rise and fall of her breathing, her face washed clean. The color had returned to her cheeks. 

Ayla moved quietly, lighting one candle on the nightstand and turning the rest of the lamps off. She sat on the edge of the bed for a while, just watching her. Lin’s hair had come loose completely, strands falling across her temple, the scar across her cheek catching the faint light from the window. Ayla reached out, fingers hovering before she let them brush a stray lock aside. She hesitated, then let her hand linger, ghosting along the curve of Lin’s cheek. Lin shifted slightly, instinctively leaning into the touch, her chin resting in Ayla’s palm. 

Her chest constricted, the feeling sharp and stupidly tender. She didn’t want to ache like this. It didn’t count. Lin was asleep, maybe dreaming. Reflex. Ayla’s throat burned anyway. Spirits, she wished it would count. She wanted to curl up beside her, bury her face in her shoulder, just exist there for one night. Wanted someone to tell her that this, the fear, the need, didn’t make her weak. She pressed the heel of her hand against her eyes, trying to stop the tears that were threatening to form. 

The soft city light flickered over Lin’s face, peaceful now, unguarded. Ayla sat there for a long time, just watching her, until she finally couldn’t hold herself upright anymore. She slipped into the bed, not close, but not far either. Just near enough so that she could feel the heat of Lin’s body without touching her. Close enough to pretend. 

~*~~*~~*~

The first thing she felt was pain. A dull, deep ache that radiated from somewhere behind her ribs and settled behind her eyes. The second thing she felt was warmth. The blanket was heavy across her legs, the air was thick with the scent of yarrow, chamomile, and something else faintly familiar, but she couldn’t place it. When she blinked against the light, it took her a moment to recognize where she was. Not her apartment, the walls were the wrong color. She shifted upright, slow, each movement tugging something that protested against her. The rustle of the blanket drew a sound from beside the bed, a soft sigh, the scrape of fabric on wood. 

Ayla was sitting cross legged on the floor, her head tilted against the edge of the mattress, half-asleep. There was a bowl of water on the nightstand, a clean cloth folded neatly behind it. A tin of something sat beside it. Her hair was tangled, face pale from exhaustion, but she looked peaceful. Lin stared at her for a long moment. The way the light caught the curve of her shoulder. The soft rise and fall of her breathing. 

Something in Lin’s chest tightened painfully. Ayla stirred, rubbing her face. “Lin?” her voice was rough with exhaustion. She blinked, and then jolted upright. “Don’t move too much. You shouldn’t even be sitting up.” 

Lin’s mouth curved faintly, automatic. “You can’t tell me what to do.” 

Ayla let out a strangled laugh that was mostly relief. “You broke into my apartment in the middle of the night and collapsed on my floor. I think that gives me some authority.” 

“Did I?” Lin tried to remember. It came back in fragments. The tram, the fight, the mechs, the airship. Then Ayla’s door. Then nothing. Shit. “Sorry I broke in.” 

“You’re not sorry,” Ayla said with a small laugh. She climbed up to sit beside her on the edge of the bed. “I asked my neighbor to come heal you last night. I don’t know how much you remember. He’ll be discreet, before you start worrying about that. You were in really bad shape.” 

“How long was I out?” 

“It’s almost three in the afternoon,” Ayla said softly. “I got up this morning and called out of work, and I’ve been putting herbal salve on your face every hour or so. You got here sometime between three and four.” 

Lin’s throat tightened. Gratitude pressed up against guilt until she couldn’t tell the difference. “I’m sorry,” she said, voice low. “I shouldn’t have dragged you into this. You’d have been better off if I’d just left you alone back at the restaurant.” 

Ayla shook her head. “Dont ever apologize to me for that, Lin. I mean it.” 

“No. I shouldn’t have asked so much of you.” 

“I think it was worth it,” Ayla said softly. “At least the truth is out now, and we’ll make a plan. It’s going to be okay.” 

Lin exhaled, the sound brittle, staring at her hands. “I resigned last night. Passed it to Saikhan. I need to get my metalbenders back.” 

“Okay. But for now, you need to heal. You’re no use to anyone if you can’t stand straight.” Lin gave a dry nod. She felt worse than she wanted to admit. “Come on.” Ayla stood and offered her hand. “Bath. You’ll feel better.” 

Lin hesitated, but the thought of sinking into hot water, even for five minutes, sounded like mercy. She let Ayla help her up. 

Ayla turned the tap on and tested the temperature, and leaned over to begin gathering various soaps from her low shelf. “I’m not looking, don’t worry,” she said, glancing away. 

Lin gave a dry laugh that came out more like a cough. “Didn’t think you would. I’m not exactly a sight.” 

She peeled herself out of her undershirt, wincing as it stuck to her skin, and slid out of her pants with slow effort. She climbed into the tub slowly, the heat stinging, and sank until the water reached her shoulders. 

She let her head fall back against the rim, eyes half closed. 

Ayla knelt beside her, silent, comb in hand. Lin expected her to talk, to fill the silence, to ask questions about what had happened the night before. Instead, Ayla dipped the comb into the water and began untangling her hair, patient and unhurried. 

The first touch of Ayla’s fingers in her hair nearly undid her. 

Lin had spent decades convincing herself that wanting softness was dangerous. That to need something was to make yourself vulnerable, and to be vulnerable was to break. She’d gotten so good at being alone. At not asking. At not wanting. She’d built her life on discipline, the art of restraint, until tenderness became something foreign, almost bordering on indecent. But the way Ayla’s hands moved made her realize how much she missed it. 

Ayla’s fingers brushed the back of her neck and Lin had to bite back a sound, not from pain, but from the sheer ache of wanting to lean into it. Her chest felt too small for the feeling pressing inside it. She shouldn’t want this. Couldn’t. Duty had carved the softness out of her years ago. 

When Ayla finally drained the dirty water and refilled it, she said softly, “Sit for a while. I’m going to grab groceries. I’ll be right back.” 

Lin could only nod. The door clicked shut behind her, and Lin let herself sink until the water reached her chin. Steam curled around her face. She pressed her palm flat against the porcelain and exhaled slowly. 

When Ayla returned a little while later, Lin could hear the faint sound of paper bags and the low hum of the radio. She looked up as Ayla appeared in the doorway, holding out a hand. Lin took it without hesitation this time. Her skin was warm, and she handed her a towel and turned discreetly away while she dressed in the clothes she had brought her. Lin’s movements were slow, the cotton of the clean shirt soft against her skin. By the time she stepped out of the bathroom, Ayla had lit the stove, a pot simmering, the window cracked open to the faint hum of traffic. She moved easily around the small kitchenette, humming under her breath, sunlight tracing the lines of her shoulders. 

Lin sank onto the edge of the bed, watching. 

It was ordinary. Domestic. So painfully gentle that Lin almost couldn’t look directly. She’d never realized how lonely her apartment was until now. 

Ayla walked over, holding out a cup. “Drink.” Lin took it, the warmth bleeding into her palms. 

She watched Ayla chop vegetables, hair loose, sleeves rolled to her elbows. For one small, selfish moment, Lin let herself imagine that this was her life. Coming home to someone who smelled like jasmine and cooked with the windows open. It felt impossibly soft compared to the horror she knew bled throughout the city. It didn’t make sense, that this moment, this warmth, could exist in the same world as the blood and pain from the past few days, months, years, decades. Then something hit her. The sharp, earthy, numbing scent of mountain peppercorns. Her eyebrows knitted together. “Is that-” 

Ayla looked up from the stove. “The dish you were telling me about. The one your mom used to make.” 

Lin’s breath caught. “You’re making it the southern way.” 

“Had to call my mom,” Ayla said with a small laugh. “She enlisted half her neighbors to help me figure it out. I hope it’s how you remember.” 

For a moment, Lin couldn’t speak. She’d spent years chasing this taste; not the food itself, but the feeling that came with it. The feeling of the memory buried inside it. She hadn’t realized how much she missed it until now, until she smelled mountain peppercorns in someone else’s kitchen. Someone who had listened. Who learned it quietly, simply because she knew it mattered. 

Something in her chest cracked. 

Because she knew she couldn’t keep it. Not with Amon out there. Not with her officers missing. Not with the city breaking apart under her watch. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to look away. 

~*~~*~~*~

The static from the radio crackled softly between songs, a lazy rhythm under the occasional hiss of the radiator. and Lin sat propped up in bed, back against the wall, eyes closed. Her hair was loose across her shoulders, a towel hanging forgotten over the chair nearby from her bath earlier. Across the room, Ayla moved through the small apartment rinsing dishes in the shallow sink. She hummed something off-key, a song Lin half recognized but couldn’t name. It felt domestic in a way that disarmed her. 

“You want a book?” Ayla called out over her shoulder, running a cloth over the counter. 

“Anything but mystery,” Lin murmured, eyes still closed. “I don’t want to work while I read.” 

Ayla laughed under her breath, and it pulled at something in Lin’s chest. “Fair.” She crossed the room and scanned the shelf, pulling down a worn paperback, the spine soft from rereading. “This one’s mostly swordfighting. Prince in disguise. Pretty good.” 

She tossed it across the room, and Lin opened her eyes just in time to catch it one-handed. 

“Good reflexes,” Ayla teased. 

The corner of Lin’s mouth twitched faintly before she turned her attention to the cover. 

She tried to read. She really did. But she couldn’t turn her brain off. 

“You’re not reading,” Ayla said from the kitchen, as if sensing it. 

Lin exhaled slowly through her nose. “No.” 

Ayla turned, leaning her hip against the counter, arms crossed. “Do you think you could try going back to sleep? Spirits know you could use it.” 

Lin opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again. The silence stretched between them until she finally asked, quietly, “Can you do me a favor?” 

Ayla’s expression softened. “Anything.” 

“There’s a bag of files in my office. Could you get them?” She needed to go over them. See what was staring at her the whole time. She had to know, so she wouldn’t make the same mistake again. “I just have to see what I missed.” 

Ayla crossed the room, crouching down beside the bed so Lin would have to look at her. “Lin.” Her voice was gentle, but firm. “You don’t have to fix everything tonight. You can’t.” 

“I can’t rest if I don’t understand it,” Lin responded. Her voice wasn’t sharp, she was too tired for that, but there was something final in it. “If I miss something again… I-” 

For a moment, neither of them moved. Then Ayla sighed, standing. “Okay,” she said softly. “I’ll go now. But you’re eating dinner when I get back.” 

Lin’s eyes flicked open, faint amusement tugging at one corner of her mouth. “You’re very bossy for someone who can’t make me.” 

Ayla tossed her a half smile as she grabbed her jacket from the hook by the door. “I don’t have to make you. I just have to wait you out.” 

That earned her a quiet, reluctant laugh. As Ayla slipped her shoes on, Lin’s voice followed her to the door. “Be careful on your way there.” 

Ayla paused with her hand on the knob. “Always am,” she said, softer than before. The door clicked shut behind her. The radio hummed again, filling the space she left behind. Lin stared at the book in her lap but didn’t open it. She would figure it out. She would find what she missed, and she would get them back. She had to. 

~*~~*~~*~

The station felt off without Lin there. Ayla kept her head down as she passed through the bullpen, ignoring stares from officers who didn’t know what to make of her showing up. She knocked softly on what used to be Lin’s door. Saikhan’s muffled voice called, “Come in.” 

He looked up when she stepped in, surprise flickering across his face. “What can I do for you?” 

“Lin sent me for some files. She said there’d be a bag?” 

He gestured toward the desk, Lin’s desk, still stacked with paperwork and the faint outline of where her coffee mug used to sit. “There. I was wondering who she’d send for those.” 

As Ayla crossed the room to grab the bag, Saikhan leaned back in the chair, studying her for a moment. “How is she?” 

Ayla hesitated, tightening her grip on the bag. “Recovering,” she said finally. “She’s… trying.” 

Something in her tone softened him, and Saikhan nodded once. “Good. I’m glad she had somewhere to go after all she’s been through.” A moment of silence stretched between them. Then, almost as an afterthought, he said, “You should get home before curfew. Tarrlok’s just imposed one for non-benders.” 

Ayla froze. “Curfew?” 

“Effective immediately. Council order.” 

Her pulse spiked. “Right. I’ll head back now.” 

The city outside was chaos. 

When she’d left her apartment, the streets had been crowded, but she had just assumed people were out for once, taking advantage of the brief break in the weather. Now it was pandemonium. 

There was a crowd gathered in the street she was trying to walk down, shouting as the power flickered out across entire blocks. The streetlights nearest her flickered out as she pushed through the crowd. 

Ayla ducked her head, trying to push through as people were yelling, clutching the bag to her chest. 

Tarrlok stood in the midst of it, his voice booming as he shouted, “For the safety of the city, you are all under arrest for violating emergency orders!” 

Ayla froze. For a second she thought she’d misheard, but then she saw it. Police lines advancing, metal bands coiling around groups of people, tightening until the screaming started. 

Panic burned in her chest, but she forced herself forward, weaving through the confusion until she broke free into quieter streets. By the time she reached her block, her lungs burned from running. 

Ayla burst into her apartment, breathless. “They’re arresting people,” she said, her voice sharp. She dropped the bag on the table with a heavy thud. The lights were out. Candles burned low on the counter. Lin sat at the table, sleeves rolled up, pen in hand, the edge of her expression tight with focus as she finished writing something down. 

Ayla blinked. “Wait, power’s out?” 

Lin looked up, nodding. “It went out twenty minutes ago,” she said, as if reporting a fact. She glanced at the bag. “You found it.” 

Ayla nodded, still catching her breath. “There’s a curfew. For non-benders. Tarrlok’s ordering arrests, he’s using police to round up anyone outside. I saw people get dragged off the street. They’re cutting the power because of the protests. I guess it hit here too.” 

Lin’s jaw clenched. She pushed herself up from the table, moving toward the bag. “Fuck’s sake-” 

“No. Stop.” Ayla stepped forward, palms raised, blocking her. “Tomorrow. You’ll look through them tomorrow. Please, Lin. You need to rest. We literally don’t even have power.” 

“I can’t just-” 

“For me,” Ayla said quietly. “Please.” 

The words hung in the dim light, and Lin froze. Her gaze flickered across Ayla’s face, her flushed cheeks. She looked exhausted. Finally, Lin exhaled, slow and deliberate. “All right,” she said, softer this time. Ayla let out a shaky breath. 

Ayla pulled out leftovers, and made Lin eat while she watched from the kitchen counter with her own bowl. She protested, of course, but didn’t put up a real fight. 

After dinner, Ayla laid out a blanket on the couch, smoothing it with more precision than necessary. “Lie down. I’ll take the couch.”

Lin gave her a look, sharp, tired, and absolutely brooking no argument. “Nonsense.” She nodded toward the bed. “There’s plenty of room.”

“I-”

“Don’t argue with me.”

There was no winning against that tone, not tonight. So Ayla swallowed and slipped beneath the blanket, keeping as much distance between them as the mattress allowed. The city hummed outside the cracked window. Somewhere a radiator clicked. The radio beside the bed put out faint static under the low murmur of some late-night program. Everything felt too quiet. 

Ayla lay rigid on her side, staring at the wall, trying to will her heart into something resembling a normal rhythm. It didn’t matter how exhausted she was, her body refused to settle. Not with Lin breathing inches behind her, having told her to lay here. 

Just breathe, she told herself. Sleep. Don't read into it. But she felt her. Every shift of the mattress. Every exhale. Every subtle change in weight as Lin sank deeper into sleep. It was torture, soft, warm, intimate torture, because she wanted to roll over and bury herself in that warmth and she absolutely could not.

Then the mattress dipped.

Ayla’s heart stuttered.

Lin shifted in her sleep, moving toward her. The heat radiating off her reached Ayla before her body did, a slow encroaching warmth that crawled under Ayla’s skin. And then her arm slid around her waist. A slow, instinctual, protective curl that pulled her closer until their bodies were touching. 

Ayla froze. Lin wasn’t awake. She had to remind herself of that as her breath caught in her throat. This was nothing. A comfort-seeking motion from someone bone-deep exhausted. But goddamn, it felt like the world tilting under her feet. Lin’s hand rested just under her ribs, warm and steady, fingers curling slightly as if confirming she was really there. Ayla’s lungs felt tight. Her pulse thudded against the inside of her skin.

Don’t move. Don’t read into it. Don’t want this. She wanted all of it. Slowly, praying she wouldn’t wake her, Ayla turned toward her so she could see her face, softened in sleep. And something in her cracked open at the sight.

She edged closer and tucked her head against the hollow of Lin’s throat. Lin’s arm tightened instinctively, drawing her in, chest pressed to chest. Her other arm curled around her head, her hand resting at the nape of her neck. A soft, unconscious sigh escaped Lin, warm against Ayla’s hair.

Ayla nearly broke.

If Lin were awake, this would mean something. She’d pull away. Ayla squeezed her eyes shut, chest tight enough to ache. If Lin were awake, Ayla wasn’t sure she’d survive finding out this was just something Lin had done in her sleep. So she let herself pretend, just for tonight, that it was real. That Lin reached for her because she wanted her, because she felt safe with her, because there was something here worth naming.

She breathed in her scent and her heart twisted so painfully it almost felt good. She pressed her forehead to Lin’s collarbone, letting herself melt into the warmth she’d been trying so hard not to want. Just for tonight. Just for now. Let me have this, even if it means nothing.

 ~*~~*~~*~

Ayla.

Real, physical want, sharp enough to make her dizzy. She hadn’t been tempted like this since, hell, she couldn’t even remember. Too long. Long enough that the simple heat of another person pressed against her felt devastating. Ayla shifted again, her breath ghosting over Lin’s throat, and Lin felt it, felt her lips part, just slightly, her pulse hammering in her ears. Oh, spirits, she wanted.

She swallowed hard. No. Absolutely not. Ayla trusted her, she was asleep. But the wanting didn’t go away. It just burned lower, deeper, coiling like something dangerous inside her.

And then the radio snapped to life, loud and jarring. “We interrupt your regularly scheduled broadcast for urgent breaking news. Last night, Equalists attacked City Hall, subduing Councilman Tarrlok and capturing Avatar Korra-”

The words sliced straight through her. Ayla stirred awake at the noise, blinking sleepily. Lin jerked her arm back like she’d been burned, the loss immediate and awful. 

Her first emotion, shamefully, was anger.

Not at Amon. Not at the kidnapping.

But at the timing.

At the way the universe never let her have one goddamn thing. And then the guilt hit. Hard. What the hell is wrong with me. People were in danger, Korra was in danger, and I’m angry because that had interrupted this? She forced her body upright, ignoring the stab of pain along her ribs, pulling air into her lungs until she could think again.

“I have to go,” she said, and to her shock, her voice was steady.

Ayla pushed herself upright, rubbing her eyes. “What happened?”

“Korra’s been taken,” Lin said, moving to the chair by the door where her armor lay. It had been washed. The clasps were roughly bent back into place manually. Something she could have fixed in moments with metalbending, but Ayla had taken the time to pry the pieces and bend them back into shape. When had she done this? She froze, hand hovering over one of the pieces. 

“You fixed this,” she said quietly.

Ayla rubbed her arms, still half-asleep. “You were out cold. I thought it’d save you some time.”

Lin swallowed hard against the pressure rising in her throat. “Thank you.”

She pulled on the armor piece by piece, wincing as metal settled against bruised skin. 

“You sure you’re okay to-”

She wanted that more fiercely than she had wanted anything in years. Instead, she said the only thing she could. “I’ll call you.” Ayla nodded, eyes searching her face. And Lin, because she was a coward in exactly the ways that mattered, turned away before she could stop herself and left.

~*~~*~~*~

For a long moment after the door clicked shut, the room didn’t feel real.

The sheets were still warm where Lin had been. The air still held her scent. The pillow was faintly indented from where her head had rested. And now the space was empty, hollow in a way that made Ayla’s throat tighten painfully.

They had been living in an in-between space. Too much to be casual, too dangerous to be anything else. For one night, she’d let herself imagine they could just stay there. In the interim. Her throat tightened. Hot tears burned in her eyes and she pressed the heels of her hands against them in frustration. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair. 

She should have expected this. She had expected it. Lin always left. That was who she was,  duty first, self last. Ayla knew this better than anyone. But knowing didn’t blunt the ache. It just made it sharper. 

Her breath shook as she sank into the warm dent in the mattress like she could pretend for thirty more seconds she wasn’t alone. One night. She’d gotten exactly one night where she’d felt… chosen. She curled onto her side and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. She had spent the whole night suspended in that fragile in-between space, hovering between sleep and waking, terrified that Lin would shift away. But she hadn’t. Even unconscious, Lin had held her close, warm and unguarded, her breathing slow against Ayla’s throat.

She stayed under the blanket until she could breathe again. Then she forced herself up, bare feet on cold floorboards, and carried Lin’s empty cup to the sink. The simple motion grounded her enough to function. Rinse. Soap. Dry. Put away.

It still felt like pretending.

Work passed in a blur. People spoke; she couldn’t remember the answers she gave. Kira asked twice if she was okay. She lied twice. Every background radio broadcast made her heart jump into her throat, waiting to hear Lin’s name, or something worse.

By the time her shift ended, she felt hollowed out.

The walk home felt longer than its distance, the city tense under curfew warnings, Equalist graffiti over posters, street lamps flickering like the whole place was breathing unevenly. She kept scanning the street without knowing why. Maybe looking for Lin’s silhouette. Maybe checking she was alone. Maybe both. Her apartment was silent when she unlocked the door. Too silent. She closed it behind her and stood there a moment, letting her forehead drop against the wood.

She should have felt relief that she didn’t have to infiltrate anything tonight, maybe ever again. No fights. No ledgers. No stolen manifests. No danger waiting in the dark. Instead she felt… lost.

She collapsed onto the couch, pulling her knees up, staring at nothing as the last weak sunlight filtered across the floorboards. Her chest ached with something she didn’t know how to name. The quiet pressed against her like a weight, filling the room until it felt like there wasn’t enough air. With nothing left to distract herself, the truth she’d avoided finally surfaced.

What had she really been doing all this for?

She told herself it was for justice. For fairness. For the city. For the people who were scared and powerless and unheard.

But that wasn’t why she kept going back. Why she took hits she didn’t have to take. Why she stole manifests. Why she risked everything again and again and again.

It wasn’t for the city.

It wasn’t even for herself.

It was for Lin.

Because the thought of Lin shouldering all of this alone, exhausted, bruised, carrying the entire weight of the city on her back with no one to lean on, was unbearable. And because somewhere along the line, protecting Lin had become the closest thing to purpose she had left.

Ayla pressed the heel of her palm against her sternum, as if she could physically push down the truth before it swallowed her whole.

I’d do it again, she thought. And she knew that she would. Over and over. As many times as it took.

~*~~*~~*~

The clouds hung low and heavy over the bay, the kind of gray that pressed on the water and made the world feel smaller. Lin stood alone in the courtyard of Air Temple Island, arms crossed, the wind tugging faintly at her hair. It had been a long day. An even longer night. But Korra was alive, shaken, exhausted, scraped raw by what she’d been put through, but alive. Safe. Here.

That should have settled the storm inside her. It didn’t.

Inside, the temple hummed with quiet movement. Across the bay, the Council prepared to reconvene to deal with Tarrlok; bloodbender, fraud, egomaniac. She had known he was rotten. She hadn’t expected the rot to run that deep. None of them had.

Lin forced herself inside, boots moving quietly over the wooden floors. In the office, she shut the door and leaned her weight against it for a single long breath before gathering herself. Duty first. Always duty first. 

Her hand found the telephone before her conscious mind caught up. She shouldn’t call, not now, not when she had a mountain of responsibilities stacked against her, but she couldn’t stop herself. She just needed to hear her voice, even once.

It rang twice. “Hello?” A man's voice. Not Ayla.

Her body tensed. “Get Ayla. In 307.” Footsteps, a muffled shout, a door closing.

Then-

“Lin?” Her knees almost gave. Breathless, slightly winded, like she’d run for the phone. The sound carved straight through her.

“Yeah,” Lin said quietly. “It’s me.”

“Oh spirits, thank god. Are you-”

“We found her,” Lin cut in, softer now. “Korra. Tarrlok took her. Apparently he’s a bloodbender.”

A sharp inhale on the other end. “What?”

“He’s out of the picture for now. But I need you to be careful. At least until we understand what else was moving behind him.”

“I will.”

Silence settled. Warm, weighted, full. Lin listened to the faint static, the soft hitch of Ayla’s breathing, and something in her loosened in a way she didn’t want to name.

“You sound tired,” Ayla murmured.

Lin let out a humorless breath. “You should see me.”

“I’d rather not if it means you’re bleeding again.”

“Not this time.” Lin hesitated, then added, “You did good work on the armor.”

A soft exhale. “Thank you.”

“Just-” Her jaw locked. She nearly said it: be safe, let me see you, but she forced the words down where they couldn’t betray her. “I’ll call when we have a plan.”

“Okay. I leave for work soon. Call me there or back here tonight. Be careful, Lin.”

Lin’s eyes drifted to the window as Tenzin rose into the sky, gliding toward the city. Another part of her, a selfish, weary, human part, ached to follow him. To board a ferry back across the bay, to climb three flights of stairs, to knock on a door that wasn’t hers and see a face she shouldn’t need as much as she did.

But that wasn’t her job. 

“I have to go,” she said softly. “And… thank you. For everything.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“I know,” Lin murmured. “That’s why I’m saying it.”

She hung up before she could second-guess herself. Her hand stayed on the receiver long after the line went dead.

She hated this part, the stillness, the distance, the helplessness. Knowing someone she cared about was out there, just beyond reach, and she couldn’t go to her. Couldn’t protect her. Couldn’t even see her. Every instinct she had screamed to move, to cross the bay, to find her. To choose her.

But this was her duty. Her responsibility. Her job was to guard Tenzin’s family. The irony of it all stung. The woman he’d left her for, the family he’d built, now under her protection. She’d thought she’d outgrown that particular ache, but right now it felt sharp under her ribs. Some cruel cosmic joke. 

Lin drew a slow breath, and clenched her jaw. She’d told herself for years she didn’t need attachments. That she’d traded having them for purpose. But that phone call, the sound of Ayla’s voice saying be careful, had made a liar out of her. She stepped to the window, stared out over the water, and imagined Ayla walking to work somewhere in that sprawling city. Her fingers brushed the bent metal clasps on her armor, carefully repaired by hand, patiently, quietly.

Then the city lit up.

A flash.
Then another.
A heartbeat later, the sound reached her, low, rolling, wrong. Smoke spread out across the skyline. 

“No,” Lin breathed.

Another airship rose over the skyline, cutting a black silhouette against the pale sky.

Her mind split in two.

One part catalogued the threat with brutal efficiency: secure the courtyard, protect the acolytes, guard Tenzin’s family, the last airbenders left in the world. The last traces of a history that couldn’t be lost. If anything happened to them, it would be the end of something sacred.

The other part of her was already racing through the streets of Republic City, lungs burning, searching smoke and chaos for a flash of dark hair and a familiar silhouette.

Lin forced herself to breathe. Duty first. It had always been duty first.

She turned away from the window. She told herself Ayla was smart. Capable. Resourceful. She could handle whatever was happening. She told herself she was making the right choice. And then she walked into the courtyard, hating herself for every step.

~*~~*~~*~

One moment, Ayla was halfway down 3rd street, the next, the sky split open. A shockwave hit her like a wall. The sound was enormous, the kind that hollowed out your chest from the inside. Glass shattered somewhere nearby. Ayla hit the ground hard, palms scraping against the concrete. Her ears rang; her vision blurred. Smoke rolled down the street, choking her. 

She tried to push herself up, but her knees buckled. Her head was still spinning when she saw two shadows cut through the smoke, masks glinting in the haze, moving toward her. Distantly, she could hear more bombs going off. What was happening? Who was bombing the city? Were we at war-

“You took something that wasn’t yours.” 

Her mouth was dry. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

The second one tilted his head. “Don’t lie. We left two files out that night. You only reported one.” 

Fuck. The warehouse. The test. “I don’t-” 

“We’ve been watching you. Following you.” The first one interrupted. “Think we wouldn’t notice when you started meeting with her? You think you can play both sides?” 

Ayla forced herself upright, bracing against the side of a streetlamp. “I’m not- I didn’t-” 

“You handed it straight to Beifong.” 

The second one stepped closer. “Because you don’t believe in the work we’re doing, you don’t belong in the new world Amon is building.” 

Ayla tried to fight but they were faster. The first man swung a hand and blue, violent light flashed. Pain tore through her chest like fire. Every muscle seized. The world flashed white. She heard herself gasp, the sound strangled, and then her body hit the ground hard. 

~*~~*~~*~

She woke to the ache first.

Not a bruise, not a cut, a deep, marrow-sick ache, the kind that radiated from bone and joint like she’d been dropped from a rooftop. Her eyes opened to dim amber light filtering through a barred window high above her. The room smelled of rust and damp stone. 

Ayla tried to sit up.

A bolt of pain tore down her spine so violently she folded forward, gasping like she’d been punched. Her hands shook. The cell swam. Concrete floor. Six beds bolted to the walls. Four women curled in shadows, hollow-eyed. No one met her stare.

An Equalist cell.

The walls were thick enough that even sound felt muted. Ayla pressed her palms against her eyes and forced herself to breathe. Her head throbbed. The sunlight had gone low and orange. Evening? She’d been out for hours. Maybe all day. She let out a shaky breath that felt closer to a sob. Twice. She’d been arrested twice in two weeks, first by the city, then by the people she’d been trying to spy on, both because of the same damn file. Then Ayla’s pulse shot up. Her chest tightened so sharply she could barely inhale.

Lin didn’t know.
Lin had no idea where she was.
Lin might think she’d run.
Or been killed.
Or worse, that she had betrayed her.

Panic swelled, huge and hot and suffocating. She pressed her palms to her face and exhaled shakily through her fingers, trying to get a grip. Her vision blurred. Please find me, she thought, stupidly. 

Hours crawled by. The light faded to nothing. Rain hammered the tiny window. The women around her stayed silent, curled inward, lost in their own nightmares. Ayla hugged her knees. Her breaths came too fast. Too thin. She couldn’t shut it off, the terror that Lin would never find her, that this would be the last place she ever saw. Then the sound of metal boots on concrete filled the empty space. Heavy. Familiar. Wrong. Ayla’s head snapped up, her pulse slamming. Not Lin’s familiar gait, she knew that instantly, but the rhythm, the weight? It was definitely Metalbender armor. What? 

Lin.

She looked like she’d been to hell and left to rot there. Like her soul had been ripped out of her. What the hell had happened? Why was she here? How had they gotten her? Where was Councilman Tenzin? Her hair was matted with rain, her arms bound in reinforced metal cuffs so tight they pressed deep indentations into her skin. 

The guards shoved open the cell across the hall and threw Lin inside. She hit the concrete with a sound that tore Ayla’s heart clean out. Lin didn’t move at first. A guard leaned down to remove her metal cuffs, and her head lifted, slow and disoriented, eyes tracking until they locked with Ayla’s. Lin froze. Shock, real, visceral shock, shattered across her face. Then horror. Then something that looked almost like grief.

“Get off me!” Lin exploded, the sound ripping through the hall raw and wild. She twisted violently, slamming her shoulder into the guard holding her until he stumbled. Metal cuffs rattled as she kicked out again, feral, frantic.

“Ayla!” she shouted, voice cracking. “Ayla, stay down! Don’t-”

The panic in her throat broke something in Ayla’s brain. She hadn’t realized she had moved until Lin had shouted at her. It didn’t feel like a choice. Her body acted without asking her permission, impulse, terror, devotion converging into something reckless. And then she did the stupidest, most instinctive thing she had done in her entire life. “Lin, go, get out of here!” Her own voice sounded distant, shredded with panic, as she reached inward. It wasn’t love, or reason, or even courage that made her reach for it. It was something uglier. Desperation sharpened into instinct. A last ditch attempt to protect her, even if it meant tearing herself apart. No matter the cost.

And her bending hit like a detonation. The air convulsed around her, then screamed. It ripped through the room in a violent surge, and the two guards were thrown backward into the wall. Her chest seized. Chi flared wild and out of control, tearing through her in sharp, frantic burning panic. She couldn’t hold it. Couldn’t breathe. Something snapped. Her control broke. The current vanished. Fuck-

They were on her in seconds. Hands grabbed her hair, slamming her face into concrete so hard her vision went white. A knee pinned her back, and her breath left her in a ragged push she couldn’t even hear. “Don’t you fucking touch her-” Lin’s voice tore through the chaos, breaking. She was still fighting, still trying to get to Ayla despite the cuffs, despite the guards forcing her down. She managed an inch. Then they slammed her back down, pinning her.

A new voice filled the hallway. Measured steps, unhurried. Amused. “Chief Beifong.” Amon’s silhouette filled the hall, his mask gleaming faintly in the dim light. “An honor to see you twice in one night.” Lin froze, chest heaving, eyes locked on him. His boots clicked against the floor. “I came here tonight expecting one prize, and found two.” He continued, amused. “What a rare day indeed.”

“Don’t,” Lin choked out, fighting the weight holding her down. “Don’t you-”

~*~~*~~*~

Ayla’s body hit the floor like something hollow, as if the life had been sucked out before gravity even caught her. It all blended into one nauseating, echoing blur. Lin’s lungs seized. Her throat burned like she’d swallowed fire, torn raw from screaming, screaming she didn’t even remember starting. She had thought she’d already reached hell tonight. Thought she’d taken every blow she could take. Thought the world had run out of ways to break her.

But watching this-

She tried to drag herself toward her, but the metal cuffs tore into her wrists, skin splitting under the strain. The guards held her down with force, boots grinding her into the floor. She could only tilt her head, fighting for air, staring through the blur of tears and sweat and blood. Ayla lay crumpled on her side, hair fanned like a halo on filthy concrete. Her fingers twitched, once, twice, a small, involuntary tremor of a body not yet understanding it had been cut off from itself. Lin’s vision tunneled. Amon stepped into her line of sight, blocking her from Ayla like a wall. His presence filled the hallway, not large, but consuming.

“You see, Chief Beifong,” he said softly, almost kindly. “You’re not alone in your suffering. You and your kind have oppressed the powerless for too long. Now you can both experience what equality truly feels like.”

Lin spat blood at his boots, chest heaving. “You call this equality?” He tilted his head, a gesture almost curious. The smile behind the mask was unmistakable.

“No,” he murmured. “I prefer to think of it as balance.” Something animal snapped in her. Her body lunged before thought could catch it, pure instinct, pure rage. Electricity slammed into her ribs, a crackling burst that stole her breath and ripped a raw sound from her throat. Her knees hit the ground again, vision spinning. She forced her head up anyway. Ayla was still on the floor. Still wasn’t moving.

“Get-” her voice fractured. Two guards wrenched her upright by her arms, hands bruising. Her feet barely touched the ground. She had no balance, no leverage, just raw desperation clawing through her. Ayla’s chest rose once, shallow and uneven. Lin’s pulse nearly broke her ribs. She fought again, slamming her shoulder into the guard holding her. He grunted, stumbling. Another shock arced down her spine, hard enough that her vision went white.

For a heartbeat she couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t see anything. Only the ringing in her skull. When the world came back into focus, Amon was turning away. She didn’t feel the pain. She didn’t feel anything but the sight searing itself into her mind: Ayla’s body just visible behind Amon’s retreating silhouette.

That image branded itself into her.

It didn’t matter what she wanted anymore. Didn’t matter what she felt. Didn’t matter how selfish she’d let herself be, letting herself care, letting herself want, letting herself imagine something outside of duty. Because everything she’d dared to want, every fragile inch of tenderness she’d let slip past her defenses, was lying on the ground, broken, and she hadn’t been able to stop it.

~*~~*~~*~

The first thing she registered was noise. 

Dripping water. Breathing. The scrape of metal somewhere down the hall. Every sound was too close, too sharp. Her pulse pounded behind her eyes like someone hammering from the outside. She lay still for a long time. The floor under her shoulder blades felt wrong. Not because of the material, but because she couldn’t feel it. 

Her stomach turned. 

She pressed her palms flat to the concrete, willing herself to sense even a trace of vibration. But there was nothing. Just silence. Her throat went dry. She pushed harder, as if sheer will could make it answer. Still nothing. The panic built fast, rising in her chest. She sat up too quickly, and the room spun, the light fracturing against her vision. Her body knew there was a floor beneath her, but her instincts screamed falling. 

That was when she realized she was still wearing her armor. 

It clung to her like a second skin, cold, constricting. Each inhale pressed metal to into her ribs. She clawed at the clasps, but her hands shook too hard. For a terrible second, she thought she was going to be trapped in it forever. Then, finally, one of the clasps slipped free. She froze. The hinge had been bent slightly out of place, not broken, not fixed, but bent back manually. By someone who didn’t have the tools but had tried to fix it anyway, after she had to pry it off of her. Recognition hit her like a blow. Her breath stuttered. The same fix she’d noticed that morning. Ayla’s hands had pried the bent metal hinges back into shape. 

Lin pressed her trembling fingers to the seam, tracing where Ayla’s had been. That tiny act of care was the only reason she could unfasten it now. She had used bending to put it on when she left. She swallowed hard and forced the rest of the armor off, piece by piece, until the weight hit the floor with a thud. The sound echoed strangely in the empty space, and for a moment she thought she might throw up. Without it, she didn’t feel lighter. She felt exposed. Untethered. 

The air pressed in from every side. She could hear everything, the drip of water, the rasp of her own breathing, the faint hum of machinery through the walls. Her senses, once anchored through her bending, had turned on her, overcompensating. It felt like drowning in noise, like the world had slipped out from under her and left her weightless. 

She pressed her hands to her sternum, gasping. No ground. No way to bleed off the tension as pressure built under her skin. Her bending had always been the language through which she understood everything. Vibration, resistance, gravity. Without it, she couldn’t orient herself. It wasn’t just that her sense was gone. It had taken her with it. 

She tried to breathe through the rising panic in her chest, and she thought of Ayla again. She saw her in flashes, hair loose, catching in the sun in her kitchen. The breeze had moved through the window and tousled her hair like it belonged there. Lin had wanted to believe that she did too. 

Ayla, who had fought for her. Who had been there, who had lost everything because she’d reached for her. 

Ayla, who had been an airbender. 

The realization struck so violently it left her dizzy. All those years she’d built her life around protecting the last of them, the last airbenders, and she hadn’t even known that the woman she’d been falling for was one. She had chosen to stay behind, chosen to protect Tenzin’s family instead of crossing the bay, convinced it was the noble thing to do. The logical choice. The right one. Now the irony curdled in her throat like poison. Ayla had lost her bending because she had chosen to protect her. She folded inward until her forehead touched her knees, shaking, and listened to the sound of her breath. She couldn’t tell where the guilt ended and the grief began. 

 ~*~~*~~*~

She woke up wrong. The world tilted before her eyes could even open. The air felt heavy. She tried to sit up and immediately regretted it. Then it all came back. The cell, the equalists, Amon-

Her throat closed. Lin. 

She twisted, looking for her, but the room was empty. No other bunks. No barred window. Just a concrete box and a single drain on the floor. A platform that barely passed as a bed. She was alone. For a moment she couldn’t breathe. She reached inward, on instinct, toward that thread. Her chi, the feeling of her buried bending that she’d been able to trace when she closed her eyes. It should have been there. It had always been there. Even when she had buried it, she could still feel it there, deep within her. 

But this time, there was nothing. She reached again, harder. The reflex was automatic, desperate. But the more she searched, the emptier she felt. Her whole body hollowed out. The absence made her stomach twist as nausea rolled through her. She clutched her stomach, doubling over. Every inhale scraped against her lungs. Her body wasn’t just empty, it felt like it was leaking. She could feel it in flashes, like blood running somewhere it shouldn’t, slow and cold. Her chi pathways weren’t gone, they were open, torn, seeping energy into nowhere. 

A low, broken sound escaped her throat. She remembered what it had felt like when he’d touched her. The slithering cold sliding down her spine. The sensation of being peeled from the inside out. She wanted to crawl out of her skin. 

Panic wasn’t helping. She knew that. She forced her breath to even out until the edges of her vision steadied, pressing the heel of her hand against her sternum. Breathe. Don’t break. 

Hours blurred. Maybe days. The light through the slot in the door didn’t change enough to tell. Meals came. She stopped trying to count. When the panic dulled to a low ache, she turned inward again. Tentatively. She began tracing her chi pathways the way she imagined she’d trace veins; carefully, slowly following each thread through her chest, her spine, her arms. 

The first day, she found nothing. 

The second, she found fractures. Jagged places where energy should have flowed but instead bled out into empty space. 

By the third, she could almost feel the texture of it. Shredded and cauterized at once. 

She didn’t stop. Every day she descended deeper. Every day, the dark inside her grew less terrifying, more familiar. When it became too much, when the hollowness started to pull her apart, she thought of Lin. The memory wasn’t sharp, it was warm. Lin’s hand on the small of her back, the steady weight of her breathing when they slept, the way she had leaned into her palm. Ayla imagined that solidity now, imagined leaning back into it, like bracing herself, and those memories became her anchor. 

When she reached into the void and felt herself start to drift, she imagined that weight, the steadiness of Lin’s hand, the solidness of her presence. It grounded her more than any meditation ever had. She followed that sensation like a path through the dark. She couldn’t find her bending. But she could find her. And for now, that was enough to keep her from coming apart completely. 

 ~*~~*~~*~

Time had stopped meaning anything. The only clock she had was the dim cycle of light that crept through the narrow slit of her cell window. Pale grey at dawn, amber by evening. Nine days of that rhythm. Nine days of nothing. The first few, she’d paced. Counted steps. Counted breaths. She’d tried to find her balance again, literal balance, planting her feet, shifting her weight, waiting for the faint feeling of something-

Nothing came. Just hollow quiet. Eventually she stopped trying. She was going to rot in here. 

She spent most of her hours sitting on the floor, her back against the wall, hands pressed flat to the concrete. Sometimes she imagined she could almost feel it, a ghost of the way things used to answer her. A vibration that wasn’t really there. She would hold her breath, wait, listen, and when it didn’t come, she’d let her palms fall to her knees again. What she felt wasn’t even panic anymore. It was the dull ache that followed panic. The kind that sat heavy behind her ribs and didn’t move. Her world had flattened, with every sound blessing together.

She’d lost her gravity.

Her body still knew what should exist; the pull of the earth beneath her, the solid certainty of weight, but her mind couldn’t reconcile it. Every movement felt slightly wrong, like she was moving half a second out of sync. She’d stopped talking to the guards after the second day. There was no point. She had no leverage, no threat, no rank. The first time she cried, it didn’t even register as crying. Just tremors that started and refused to stop. Her throat burned, but the sound didn’t come out. The motion of grief without the release of it.

She slept in fragments. Every time she woke, the silence hit her again, and she would sit with it, letting it consume her. 

And through it all: Ayla.

She thought of her constantly, but in pieces. The way trauma replays memory not as narrative, but as sensation. The warmth of her shoulder when she’d fallen asleep against it. The scent of jasmine oil. The way she looked in the afternoon light. The sound of her voice saying be careful before Lin left. It looped, again and again, until she wasn’t sure if she was remembering or inventing new angles of the same memory just to keep it alive. She told herself Ayla was dead. It was easier that way. The alternative, that she was somewhere out there, feeling like this, afraid, alone, was unbearable. She leaned her head back against the wall, vision blurring. 

~*~~*~~*~

Nine days. That was how long she had been sitting against the same wall, eyes closed, spine straight, palms resting loosely on her knees. Leaving only for the most necessary actions of eating, sleeping, and bodily functions. The cell had lost its shape. There was discipline in it that reminded her of the mat. The repetition. The way the body learns stillness through exhaustion. The meditation wasn’t peaceful. It was survival. The only thing keeping her from fracturing. 

She inhaled. Exhaled. Counted heartbeats. Let her awareness sink deeper. For days there had been nothing. Just the ruin; the burnt, hollow feel of her chi pathways when she brushed against them. But today something stirred. Faint at first, so faint she thought she was imagining it. A shimmer at the edge of her perception. Not bending energy, that was long gone. Something older. Smaller. Purer. 

Chi stripped of intention. 

She followed it. It was like chasing an echo of her own heartbeat down a hallway. She followed carefully, afraid it would vanish if she touched it too hard. She didn’t try to command it. She let it move. Each time she almost lost it, she reached for her grounding. Not gravity. Lin. When she reached the end of the hallway, it wasn’t the channel she had lost, that was gone, cauterized, but something beneath it. What the channel had once drawn from. She stood at the threshold, looking through it. 

Little by little, she stopped trying to fix what had been destroyed. Instead, she learned how to move differently within it. To circulate what was left, not outward, like bending demanded, but inward. To let the faint light flow through her, not as command, but presence. It wasn’t bending. It would never be bending again. But it was life. It was proof that she was more than what was taken. 

~*~~*~~*~

At first, she thought it was another hallucination. The noise came from far away. Boots pounding against concrete, metal clattering, voices shouting orders. Her mind, exhausted, supplied its own logic: dream. She’d had them before. Phantom rescue, phantom footsteps, phantom Ayla. 

But this one didn’t fade. 

It grew louder. Closer. The echo of men yelling commands, the sharp crack of a door being kicked open. She sat up, dizzy, pressing a hand to the wall to steady herself. A second later, the lock on her cell shrieked. Her breath caught. The door swung open so violently that it slammed into the wall. A soldier filled the doorway, metal plates gleaming with the United Forces insignia. “Chief Beifong?” he barked. 

She blinked against the brightness, unable to answer. Behind him came another voice, one that cut through the static like a knife. “Lin?” Her head snapped up. Saikhan. He was in uniform, helmet tucked under his arm, grime streaked across his face. He looked half-wrecked himself. But alive. “Spirits,” he breathed, moving toward her. “We found her!” She tried to stand, but her legs gave out halfway up. Saikhan reached her in two strides, catching her by the shoulders. “Easy, easy. You’re all right.” 

“What-” Her throat cracked on the first attempt. She swallowed hard. “How-”

“The United Forces hit every Equalist stronghold this morning. Amon’s gone. Done. We got word from one of the White Lotus scouts you might’ve been taken here.” His voice dropped, steadier now. “I wasn’t leaving until I saw you walk out of this place myself.” She looked past him. Soldiers were flooding the hallway, unlocking cell after cell. The air was filled with noise. Her pulse thundered in her ears. 

“Where is she?” Lin asked, voice cracking.  

Saikhan frowned. “Who?” 

Her voice broke. “She- she was here with me when-” 

He blinked, realization dawning. “They’ve already started releasing the non-combatants to the street for medical check. She’s probably outside.” That was all she needed. She didn’t wait for another word, she was already moving. Barefoot, stumbling at first, then running, the world narrowing. Her whole body screamed in protest but she didn’t care. The exit loomed ahead, light spilling through the open doors. 

The street was chaos. United Forces medics moved between lines of people. Civilians sat wrapped in blankets. Were these all benders? Were they all down here with her and she didn’t even know? The air reeked of smoke and disinfectant. Lin’s eyes swept frantically over the crowd until she saw her. 

Ayla stood near the corner of a supply truck, hair tangled, face streaked with dirt, holding a blanket over her shoulders. She was talking to a medic, or maybe trying to. 

Alive. 

Lin froze. The word hit so hard her knees nearly gave. Her chest constricted like her ribs were collapsing inward. For one awful heartbeat, relief and guilt collided, a single flash of how could I have left you before it drowned under everything else. She tried to speak, to call her name, but nothing came out. Ayla turned anyway. Maybe she just felt it. 

Her gaze caught Lin’s, and every line in her face crumpled. “Lin-” That was all she managed before the first sob hit. Lin moved first. She crossed the space between them in seconds, and then Ayla was in her arms, shaking so hard Lin’s own balance faltered. She didn’t care. She just held her, arms wrapped around her, hand cradling the back of her neck, face buried in her hair. 

“I’m so sorry,” Ayla choked out, “Lin, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry-” 

Lin pulled back just enough to see her face, her own eyes burning. “What on earth do you have to be sorry for?” 

“I tried- I thought-” 

Lin shook her head, thumb brushing away the tears streaking her cheeks. “You have nothing to apologize for.” Ayla’s next breath broke against her chest. Lin tightened her hold. For a long time, neither of them spoke. Relief hit her so hard it was almost pain. All the guilt, all the grief, the quiet self-loathing for every wrong choice, for every reason this woman had lost her bending, it all crashed into that one moment of overwhelming relief. The world blurred at the edges. Movement, shouting, the hiss of steam from nearby vehicles. But all she could feel was the weight of Ayla against her. 

Safe.  

The word kept repeating in her head, dumb and holy, until it ached. And Lin didn’t realize she was crying until she felt it against Ayla’s hair, silent, shaking. Because the universe shouldn’t have given her this moment back, but it had, and she didn’t know how to let go. 

Chapter Text

Lin had finally managed to get her breathing under control when the sound of Saikhan’s voice rang out from somewhere behind her. “Lin.” She turned, releasing Ayla, though her hand still curled reflexively around her arm as if some part of her hadn’t yet convinced herself that she was real. Saikhan was approaching through the chaos, carrying her armor in both hands. His expression softened when he saw her. “Glad you found her,” he said quietly. Lin nodded, still not trusting her voice. 

He shifted the weight of the armor. “The United Forces cleared the facility. Tenzin’s safe, he and his family were captured by Amon, but Korra got them out before he could do anything.” 

Lin’s head snapped up. “They’re all right?” 

“Shaken, but alive. The airships escorted them all back to Air Temple Island. The White Lotus has a perimeter. They’re expecting you, I already radioed ahead.” 

Lin’s gaze drifted back to Ayla, still close beside her. “I need to get to the docks.” 

“I can take you,” Saikhan said, already signaling to a nearby patrol driver. 

Lin steadied Ayla with a hand at her elbow. “You’re coming with me.” 

Ayla blinked, startled. “Lin- you don’t have to-” 

“I’m not leaving you here.” Her voice came out low, absolute. “Not after this.” There wasn’t room for argument. 

The ferry cut across the bay, the city a ruin behind them. Ayla stood at the railing, blanket pulled tight, wind tugging at her hair. Lin couldn’t stop looking at her. She had to keep checking, to see her, because some part of her still didn’t believe it. By the time they docked, she had forced her armor back on piece by piece. It felt wrong, but the absence of it felt worse. The steps up the island blazed gold in the setting sun, and voices carried from above. “Dad! Dad, it’s the Chief!” 

Lin turned to Ayla, her voice low. “Wait here. I’ll find Tenzin and then come get you.” Ayla nodded faintly. She stayed there, looking out at the bay as Lin climbed the steps and disappeared. The breeze off the bay felt so good against her skin after sitting in that cell for so long. For the first time since she’d been captured, the air didn’t smell stale. She sank onto the lowest step and just let herself exist for a moment, the shock of being rescued still wearing off. Lin returned a little while after, and touched her shoulder gently. “Come on.”  

Inside, the halls smelled of incense and clean air. An acolyte led them to two rooms across from one another at the end of a hall; simple, quiet, with the faint sound of the ocean filtering through the open windows. Each with a low bed, folded linens, and clean, minimal furniture. For a long moment, neither spoke. The quiet was heavy, too much to say but no words that could describe it. There wasn't really a way to describe it. “I think I want a shower.” Ayla said finally. 

For a second, Lin just stared at her. Then let out something halfway between a laugh and a cough, her voice rough. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s probably a good idea.” 

Ayla rummaged through the wardrobe in Lin’s room and found spare linen pants and shirts, both sets clean and soft. The relief of finally being able to peel herself out of her dirty clothes was almost suffocating. Ayla clutched hers to her chest and glanced toward the hallway. “Come on,” she murmured.

The bathing room was empty, and the tiles were warm against their feet. “I’ll go first.” Ayla said softly, setting her things down. Lin sank down beside the wall, back straight, hands twitching on her knees. She couldn’t feel the floor, the absence still felt wrong, so she kept her eyes on the door instead. 

Water started running, and steam filled the small room soon after. Lin let herself take several deep breaths, letting the smell of soap flood her senses. She told herself that it was fine, the island was safe. That she could close her eyes. She didn’t. There wasn't a way in hell that she could let her guard down, it felt completely impossible. When Ayla finished, she stepped out, towel draped around her shoulders, damp hair clinging to her temples. The shirt hung slightly loose on her, and her skin was flushed from the heat. For a second Lin thought she’d never seen anything more human. 

“All yours,” Ayla murmured, setting her towel down on the counter. Lin stood, hesitating slightly, and Ayla caught it. Her eyes followed the slight tremor in her hand when she reached for her armor. Something in her chest sank. “You don’t-” she stopped, the realization settling into place. “You lost yours too.” Lin froze. She didn’t turn, didn’t confirm it, didn’t deny it. The silence was enough. Ayla exhaled softly. “I’d really hoped you still had yours, somehow.” Lin’s shoulders tightened. “I’ll keep an eye out,” she said quietly, sliding down to sit where Lin had just been. “Promise.” 

Lin’s throat worked, but all she managed was, “I’ll be quick.” She didn't have words to describe the feeling of knowing Ayla had understood what she needed without her having to say it. She removed her armor piece by piece, the weight scraping against itself, then stepped behind the curtain. The first hit of hot water almost made her knees buckle. The steam clung to her face, heat soaking into bruises that had never properly healed. She scrubbed until her skin burned, until her nails were pink and raw. She wanted it gone, all of it. The grime, the smell of rust. She tipped her head back into the steam. For a moment she almost felt normal, like the weight of what had been taken wasn't screaming at her and had instead quieted to a dull roar. 

Then the water went cold. 

Not lukewarm, cold. 

The shock hit her spine like a knife. Her breath caught, and suddenly she was back there, the phantom sensation of something crawling down her back, invasive, wet, wrong. The horror of being emptied. She gasped and dropped to her knees, clutching her stomach, heaving. The world tilted. Her body wouldn’t listen. Air wouldn’t come. She distantly registered the curtain being ripped open. Ayla’s voice somewhere through the haze calling her name. Ayla turned the water off in one motion and crouched beside her, hands already on her shoulders. 

“Hey, look at me. It’s just water. The hot water ran out.” She said, her voice steady despite the panic in her eyes. Lin tried to nod but her body felt distant. Ayla reached for a towel, wrapped it around her, and helped her upright, unbothered by the water soaking into her own clothes. “Come on,” she murmured. “Let’s get out of here. Let me get you settled.” 

“I don’t want-” Her voice broke. “I can’t go back into that room-” She didn’t want to be alone. Inside. Couldn’t. And she didn't know how to ask for what she needed. 

“Then don’t.” Ayla’s tone left no room for argument. “Come with me. I have an idea.” 

Lin looked at her, confused through the static. “What-” 

“Do you trust me?” Lin managed a small nod. Of course she did. Ayla passed her the clean set of clothes and gathered their dirty clothes while she dressed. She slipped them into her doorway as they passed, and took Lin’s hand, leading her down the quiet hallway. Lin focused on the feeling of their joined palms, anything to keep herself here. 

The air outside was cold and sharp against Lin’s damp skin. The courtyard was empty, leaving only the soft rush of the bay and the muted soft yellow light of lanterns swinging in the breeze. Ayla led her past the meditation stones and down a narrow path that overlooked the water. “I don’t know where I’m going,” Ayla admitted. “I just thought you could use some fresh air.” She stopped when she reached a small clearing, grass damp under their bare feet, the bay spread out like dark glass below. “Here,” she said quietly, tugging Lin’s hand. “Sit with your legs crossed.” 

Lin hesitated. The thought of sitting still made her feel sick. Every muscle in her body ached with the memory of sitting in captivity because she had to, not because she chose to. “Ayla, I don’t-” 

“Just try,” she said softly. Lin exhaled through her nose and lowered herself onto the ground. She folded her legs, kept her spine straight, every motion mechanical. She heard the soft shift of fabric as Ayla sat down beside her. “Close your eyes,” Ayla murmured. “And breathe.” Lin obeyed. Once. twice. It didn’t help. 

Her heart refused to slow. Her mind kept clawing its way backward, to those iron cuffs, the sound of Ayla screaming her name, the sickening silence after. Her throat closed, her pulse spiked. “I can’t do this,” she said hoarsely. “It’s not working.” 

“Then don’t force it,” Ayla said.

“I can’t feel anything,” Lin snapped. The words came out sharper than she meant, her voice roughened by panic. “It’s just nothing. Empty.” Ayla didn’t answer right away. The sound that came instead was movement, fabric brushing the ground, and then warmth. The press of Ayla’s back settling against hers. 

“Then start with this.” She said softly. “Feel me. Just breathe with me.” Lin froze. The contact was too much, too close, too kind. Guilt surged up, raw and choking. She shouldn’t be this close to me. Not after what she lost because of me. Her hands curled into fists against her knees. She almost pulled away, but Ayla stayed where she was, solid, patient, unmoving. “Please,” she whispered. “For me.” Something in Lin’s chest twisted at that. Not at the word, but the plea.

So Lin tried. 

Once. Shallow. Then again. It caught halfway through and then broke apart. Her jaw locked. It’s useless. I can’t fix this. Hopelessness swelled through her, hot, acidic. “I don’t see the point,” she said quietly, voice breaking. “Meditation doesn’t bring anything back.” 

“Then don’t look for it,” Ayla said, her tone steady. Lin almost snapped at her, but the words died before they left her mouth. Because in the small pause between her breaths, Lin felt it. The faint rise and fall of Ayla’s shoulders against her back. Slow. Even. Real. So she tried again. 

One inhale. One exhale. 

Her breathing stuttered, faltered, and slowly began to fall into rhythm with Ayla’s. 

Inhale, exhale. 

Her shoulders shook. Her palms pressed into the earth, desperate for something to answer her, some vibration, some pulse. There was nothing. Just silence. Hopelessness surged again. She wanted to scream, to drive her fists into the ground, to feel it yield. But it wouldn’t. It stayed cold and mute beneath her palms. She bowed her head, shaking. Ayla’s voice came again, quiet and steady. “Stop fighting it. Just be here. With me.” Lin’s eyes burned. She hated how gentle Ayla was being after she had snapped at her. Hated that she clung to it like a lifeline. 

But she stayed. 

Another breath. Then another. Little by little, her body began to unclench. The tremor in her hands eased. The noise in her mind, the screaming of guilt, of failure, of loss, softened until she could hear only their shared breathing and the rustle of the leaves in the quiet breeze. Ayla’s rhythm became her anchor. A substitute for grounding she had always found in the earth. 

It was alien. Terrifying. Unbearably intimate. 

A different kind of grounding. Not built on control or resistance, but surrender. All her life, the earth had been her truth. Solid, obedient, dependable. Air had been everything she distrusted: weightless, changeable, impossible to hold. You couldn’t command air. You could only move with it. And yet here she was, finding steadiness in the one thing she’d never trusted to carry her. 

Her breath shuddered out. Maybe being grounded wasn’t about clinging to what stayed still. Maybe it was about trusting what moved and still came back, again and again. Bending had always been the language she understood the world through. Without it, she felt like she was floating in a void, unable to connect to anything solid. But the feeling of Ayla’s steady breathing against her back had become the first thing she’d truly felt again. 

She pressed her palms flat to the ground. The surface was still silent, empty, but as she exhaled, she swore she could feel something faint beneath it. Not vibration, not bending, just life. Communion. Grace in the face of failure. The quiet hum of the world continuing, despite everything. 

Ayla had given her a way back, unintentional, wordless. Not through strength or discipline, but through presence. Lin felt the tears on her cheeks before she realized she was crying. The kind that came from somewhere deeper than grief. 

She’d never believed in salvation. She believed in control, in penance. In paying the consequence for failure. But Ayla had slipped past all of that and quietly settled into the hollowed-out space she’d reserved for punishment. For the first time since she’d lost her bending, her body remembered what response felt like. And though it wasn’t bending, it was something. She opened her eyes. The stars above the bay blurred, smudged. The world hadn’t righted itself. But she could breathe in it again. And it was enough for her to keep going despite it all. 

~*~~*~~*~

For nine days, Ayla had been trying to keep herself from breaking apart. She didn’t understand why losing her bending had hurt this much. She’d spent years repressing it, sealing it off so tightly she barely let herself think of what she’d lost. She had told herself that not bending was freedom, that she didn’t need it to survive, that she was more than what she’d buried. But when Amon had taken it, something inside her had torn open anyway. It had felt like dying. And she hated herself for that grief. For missing a part of her she’d sworn she didn’t need. 

Stillness had never been her language. She’d survived by motion, by momentum, by fighting, by keeping her hands busy so her mind wouldn’t catch up. The moment she stopped moving, everything she’d tried to bury came rushing back. 

Lin was stillness incarnate. A quiet forged in endurance. A body that had carried too much and kept standing anyway. But even now, sitting beside her, she could sense the tension beneath it. The kind that came from holding too much for too long. Lin’s stillness wasn’t calm. It was containment. 

And she didn’t know how to help. And not knowing how to help made her feel useless. 

Ayla had told herself it didn’t matter that they came from opposite ends of the city, that they had come together because she had needed Ayla to enter places Lin couldn’t. And that she had been able to because she belonged to those places. She told herself it didn’t matter. But it did. There was no world they fit cleanly together. Those almost-moments, when she’d let herself think maybe, they had always lived in the space between their realities. A world where they could pretend, just for a little while, that they weren’t on opposite sides of a line. And now, here, that distance had never felt wider. Because she didn’t know how to help her. Didn’t know what she needed. 

When she couldn’t fix something, she gave. 

When she couldn’t give, she broke. 

And right now, she had nothing to offer. 

She thought the fresh air would help, but it hadn’t. She could feel Lin unraveling beside her, could feel it in the ragged cadence of her breath, the way her shoulders locked like she was holding something invisible. It hit Ayla like a physical ache, watching her fight something Ayla couldn’t touch. “Just try,” she had whispered, though even as she said it, she hated herself for how hollow it sounded. 

Lin’s reply had been jagged, making her flinch. The instinct to reach for her nearly overpowered everything else. But she stopped herself. She knew that tone, the defiance of someone who equated comfort with pity. You couldn’t fight your way into someone’s pain. You had to wait for them to open the door. She wanted to fix it, to reach out, to pull Lin into her arms, to promise she could make it better. But that wasn’t what Lin needed. Lin didn’t know how to need anyone. And Ayla… Ayla didn’t know how to be wanted without earning it. 

She swallowed hard, forcing herself to stay still. If she pushed, Lin would retreat. So instead, she had shifted closer, slow enough not to startle, and let her back settle against Lin’s. “Then start with this,” she had murmured. “Feel me.” For a heartbeat, nothing. Lin went completely rigid. Ayla’s chest tightened with the certainty that she’d overstepped. That she’d ruined it. That this was another place she didn’t belong. But she stayed anyway. Because she didn’t know how to do anything else. 

Breathe in, breathe out. 

She focused on keeping her breath even, steady, something Lin could lean into if she wanted. She told herself it didn’t matter if Lin didn’t respond, that giving comfort was still worth it, even if it went nowhere. But deep down, it mattered more than she wanted to admit. Because all she’d ever wanted was to matter. 

A minute passed. Then another. 

And then, barely perceptible at first, Lin’s breath began to sync with hers. Ayla’s throat went tight. Relief flooded her so fast it made her dizzy. Because Lin had let her in. It wasn’t much. It wasn’t words. Lin didn’t do words for things like this. But she’d stopped fighting her. 

It was permission. 

Her breath hitched, and she nearly laughed from the sheer weight of it. All that effort, all that trying to be calm and composed and strong, and all Lin had needed was for her to stay. Maybe giving wasn’t the same thing as losing. Maybe it was how you remembered yourself- in the act of loving someone else. And for the first time since it all fell apart, she didn’t feel like she was vanishing by giving. She felt steady, rooted, necessary. She breathed in again, slow and even, and let her head fall back a little, leaning back against Lin’s shoulder. Healing wasn’t something you found in isolation. It lived in reflection. 

~*~~*~~*~

They walked the quiet corridor in silence. The incense had burned down to embers, and the wooden boards were smooth under Lin’s bare feet. Every step echoed faintly in the quiet. She stopped outside her door, her hand hovering next to the handle. Across the hall, Ayla stood framed in her own doorway, moonlight backing her silhouette and turning her hair to silver. Lin hesitated. She should say goodnight. She should walk inside, close the door, and-

Instead, she crossed the hall and slid the door softly shut behind them. She didn’t even ask. “Come here,” she said quietly, and Ayla didn’t even question it. Lin caught her by the wrist and guided her to the bed, pulling her close, into her arms. They fit together without effort in the narrow space, Ayla’s knee fitting between Lin’s; her forehead found the curve of Lin’s collarbone. Lin’s arm slid around her waist, her other resting at the nape of her neck, thumb tracing slow, absent circles. 

For a while, neither spoke, until Lin broke the silence. “We leave for the South Pole in the morning,” she murmured. “Tenzin’s mother, Katara, wants to try to restore Korra’s bending. If she’s successful, there’s hope for ours as well.” 

“Do you think she’ll be able to?” 

“If anyone can, it’s her.” Lin said softly. “She’s the best there is.” There was a flicker in Ayla’s chest, something between hope and dread. She wasn’t sure she could live through losing it twice, once through grief and once through hope. 

Ayla hesitated. “Did you tell him I was-” 

Lin shook her head before she could finish. “No. Only that you lost your bending.” 

Ayla exhaled, relief and guilt twisting in her chest. “I should’ve told you,” she whispered. 

“Told me what?” 

“That I was a bender.” She hesitated, breath catching. “I didn’t want you to have to carry that. You were already carrying so many other things. I didn’t want to be another weight.” 

Lin’s chest tightened. “Don’t apologize for that.” 

“I didn’t want you to worry.” 

“I was already worried,” Lin said softly. “But not for the reasons you think.” Her throat worked as she swallowed, and when she spoke again, her voice lowered to something that cracked under its honesty. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “For being the reason you lost it.” 

Ayla shifted back enough to look at her. “Don’t. Don’t apologize. I made that choice-” 

“Stop, Ayla.” Lin’s voice was rougher now. “Don’t tell me it wasn’t my fault. Let me carry it. Please.” 

The word hit her somewhere deep; it was a word Lin almost never used. “You can’t carry everything forever,” she said softly. 

“I don’t know how not to.” It came out almost like a confession. 

“Then maybe let someone help you with the weight.” 

Lin’s breath caught, but she didn’t look away. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.” 

“I just wish I’d tried harder,” Ayla said softly. “Before all of this. Maybe if I’d been better at using my bending, been faster- maybe I could have protected you better.” 

Lin shook her head. “You did protect me.” 

“Not enough.” 

Lin cupped her face gently. “You don’t get to decide what’s enough,” she said, voice low. 

Ayla’s eyes glistened. “Then why does it still feel like I failed you?”

“You didn’t fail me,” Lin said quietly, “but the part of you that thinks love is measured by what you can do for someone won’t let you rest.” 

Ayla’s mouth parted in something that resembled a laugh but it came out more like a sob halfway through. “I don’t think I know how to rest.” 

Lin exhaled with something that vaguely resembled a laugh. “Neither do I.” 

The silence settled between them for a moment before Ayla broke it, her voice barely a whisper. “You held me like this once before, you know. When you were asleep.” 

Lin’s brows furrowed faintly. “Asleep?” 

“The night after you showed up at my door,” Ayla whispered. “You pulled me close in your sleep. You held me like this.” Her voice cracked. “That memory, it’s what I held onto in there. It kept me from losing it completely.” 

Lin’s hand stilled. “I wasn’t asleep,” she said softly. 

Ayla froze. “You weren’t?” 

“I knew what I was doing.” She could feel Ayla’s pulse increase where her fingers rested against her throat. She leaned forward, her forehead brushing Ayla’s. “Just like I know exactly what I’m doing now.” 

Lin shifted again, propping herself up on one elbow so she could see Ayla’s face fully. Their faces inches apart. “Every time I saw you after watching you in that fight, I had to stop myself from going after you when we parted. I told myself it was better that way. That I was doing my job, staying detached, keeping things clean. It was easier to believe than admit I was afraid of letting you in.” Her voice roughened, like she was forcing the words through. “I kept telling myself I was in control, that it was discipline, but it wasn’t. It was fear. Every shitty excuse I made, every reason I gave myself-” She let out a quiet, unsteady laugh. “Spirits, I’ve been such a coward.” She shook her head, breath catching. “I’m tired of fighting it. I’m done fighting it.” 

She drew a breath, steadier this time. Her thumb traced the line of Ayla’s jaw, pausing beneath her ear. “If this is what it looks like to stop fighting,” she murmured, “then I’ll stop.” She leaned in slowly, unbearably slowly, then pressed her lips to the spot just below it.

Ayla’s breath hitched, quiet, involuntary. Lin followed the path of Ayla's jaw, a trail of feather light kisses, each one deliberate. She paused at the corner of her mouth, close enough that she could feel her inhale. Ayla made the smallest sound- half-breath, half-plea, and something inside Lin broke open. 

She kissed her. 

Slow at first, reverent, like she was afraid the moment might be taken from her if she moved too fast. Then deeper, letting herself get lost in it. Intentional. Certain. Something that felt like she'd been holding it back for years. Ayla melted into it, her hands rising to cup Lin's face, pulling her closer, answering the kiss with equal desperation. Lin's hand settled more firmly at the base of her neck where it rested, her other moving from Ayla's face to her waist, pulling her closer than she already was. Lin kissed her again, and again, and again, each one more sure, more surrendered, more vulnerable than the last. 

By the time she pulled back for air, forehead pressed against Ayla's, neither of them could breathe right. The silence settled between them for a long moment, but neither of them moved. Lin exhaled, slower than she meant to. Ayla nudged her nose against Lin's, a soft, accidental brush. "Spirits help me," Lin murmured, voice raw, as she swallowed hard and leaned in to kiss her again. 

~*~~*~~*~

The morning light slipped in soft and golden, the kind that made the edges of the room blur in a warm haze. Ayla woke up slowly, and the first thing she felt was pressure, the weight of an arm around her waist. Not accidental. Not half-slipped away in sleep. On purpose. 

Ayla kept still, hardly even breathing. She didn’t want to disturb the moment, didn’t want to risk Lin moving away out of habit, even though she knew she was this close on purpose. Instead, she took in the details she hadn’t had the mental space to take in last night: the warmth where their legs tangled, the faint, steady drag of Lin’s breathing against the back of her shoulder, the shock of realizing this wasn’t a dream and that Lin had kissed her so thoroughly she forgot her own name. 

Lin shifted behind her, a low, gravelly exhale leaving her chest as she blinked against the light. “What time is it?” she murmured, voice still sleep-rough.

Ayla didn’t move, just turned her head a fraction. “Early,” she whispered. “The bells haven’t rung yet.”

Lin eased onto her back with a quiet groan, her arm still loosely draped over Ayla. “We should get up.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“Just… give me a minute.” Lin dragged a hand over her face, the motion slow. “That was better sleep than I’ve had in a long time.”

Ayla’s chest tightened at the admission. “Careful,” she teased. “That almost sounded sentimental.”

Lin didn’t open her eyes, but the corner of her mouth curved upward. “Don’t start.” Ayla turned over toward her, lifting a hand to brush a strand of hair off Lin’s forehead. The touch was soft, and she let herself linger as her fingers ghosted down her cheek. Lin didn’t stop her, if anything, she tilted subtly into the contact. Ayla's heart clenched. She liked Lin's hair this way, soft, undone, loose waves across her shoulders.

“You know," Lin said as Ayla ran her fingers through her hair, "last time we woke up like this, I was furious.”

Ayla’s eyebrows rose, amused. “Furious?”

“At being interrupted,” Lin said dryly. She opened her eyes, and the look she gave Ayla held a warmth that softened her edges. “The timing was… cruel.”

Heat curled low in Ayla’s stomach. She knew exactly what she meant. “That morning,” she murmured. Lin hummed in agreement. Ayla smiled faintly. “You’ve always had terrible timing.”

“Mm.” Lin didn’t disagree. Ayla let her thumb trace the hollow at Lin’s throat, feeling her pulse. Yesterday, she would have touched her gently because she was afraid of losing her. Today, she touched her because she didn’t have to fear it. Still, she whispered, “We should probably get up.”

“Probably,” Lin agreed, but she didn’t move to get out of bed. Instead she leaned toward Ayla, slow and deliberate, the decision clear in her eyes long before her lips reached hers. Ayla exhaled into the kiss as she slid her hand into Lin’s hair, fingers threading through the loose waves. Lin’s hand traced the length of Ayla’s side, pausing at her hip before sliding lower, pulling Ayla’s leg up and over her own with ease.

Ayla’s breath caught. Lin broke the kiss, barely, their lips still brushing. Her voice was low, rough around the edges. “That,” she murmured, “was what I was thinking about doing when we were interrupted.” A faint, helpless sound escaped Ayla. Then Lin pulled back a little, steadying her breathing. Reality creeping back in. “We really should get up,” she said, softer now.

“Right,” Ayla whispered. “The South Pole.” Her fingers tightened unconsciously where they rested. “What if Katara can’t restore it?”

Lin looked at her, really looked at her, and her expression softened into something close to fierce tenderness. “Then we’ll figure it out,” Lin said. “We’ll find another way. We’ll make another way.”

Ayla nodded, the words landing someplace long-starved. She didn’t fully believe it yet, not in the way Lin seemed to, but she believed Lin believed it, and somehow that steadied her. Lin’s thumb brushed her knuckles, a simple, instinctive touch, and Ayla felt her pulse settle. Not hope. Not yet. But the quiet certainty, finally, that she wouldn’t be facing any of this by herself.

~*~~*~~*~

The courtyard was already alive with motion when they stepped outside. Acolytes loaded supplies onto Councilman Tenzin’s sky bison, voices carried through the morning air. The wind stirred prayer flags strung between buildings, and gulls cried out from somewhere over the bay. 

Lin’s armor caught the pale light as she adjusted one of the clasps, her movements efficient as they walked across the open space. Beside her, Ayla still wore the loose linen clothes she had found in their room. The fabric was clean, soft- and foreign. She was just grateful that they weren’t traditional airbender clothes, because the irony of wearing those would have stung. She kept her hands tucked inside the sleeves, unsure where to put them, unsure how to be here. 

At the far end of the courtyard, Councilman Tenzin was overseeing final preparations. He looked the way Ayla had imagined he would in real life: calm, composed, the kind of person whose presence carried weight simply because of what he represented. Living in the city, she’d seen his face in the papers, heard him speak on the radio. He was more symbol than man, the son of the Avatar who had shaped the world she lived in. People didn’t meet figures like Tenzin, they voted for them, spoke of them. And now, somehow, he was walking toward her. Lin’s stride faltered by half a step, so small Ayla might have missed it if she weren’t watching her so closely. 

“Lin,” he greeted, inclining his head. “Good morning.” 

She nodded. “Tenzin.” His gaze shifted to Ayla. Before Lin could speak, he stepped forward, voice warm and sure. “And you must be Ayla,” he said. “Call me Tenzin. Lin told me you were working behind the scenes, and that you lost your bending protecting her.” Ayla froze for half a second, uncertain what to do with that kind of acknowledgement from someone as powerful as him. Her body moved before her mind caught up- shoulders straightening, head bowing enough to show respect. Because that’s what you did when one of the most powerful people in the city spoke to you directly. It felt vaguely reminiscent of when Lin had given her permission to call her by her name. “I did what anyone would have done,” she said softly. 

Tenzin smiled faintly. “Not everyone would have. You’re welcome here, Ayla. We’re grateful to have you join us.” The words landed heavier than she expected, gratitude from someone like him. Lin’s shoulders eased almost imperceptibly, and Ayla realized she’d been holding her breath. He gestured for them to follow as he led them toward the others gathered near the bison: his family, the Avatar, the pro-benders Ayla had only ever seen from a distance, and a young woman that looked vaguely familiar but she couldn’t place how she knew her. Tenzin’s tone shifted seamlessly into an introduction. “This is Ayla, a friend of Lin’s. They’ll both be joining us, for the same reason we’re going.” 

Korra looked up from where she was digging in her bag. Her face was drawn, her eyes rimmed with exhaustion, but when she saw them, something softened. “Tenzin told me what you both did.” She said quietly. “Thank you. It’s good to meet you.” She nodded at Ayla. 

Ayla blinked, startled by the directness. “Thank you, Avatar,” she said quickly, bowing her head. 

Korra’s mouth twitched, almost a smile. “Just Korra’s fine,” she said. The words were simple, but they carried a tired warmth. Ayla hesitated, then returned it. The smallest smile, half reverence, half disbelief. Somehow, that broke the stiffness in the air. 

Soon, they were climbing into the wide saddle. Oogi, Ayla reminded herself. She’d heard Tenzin’s children call his name. Tenzin took the front, his family settling near him at the front end of the saddle. The others followed, and Lin moved toward the back, her hand trailing along the edge as she settled. Without thinking, Ayla followed. They sat close, legs pressed together, the leather cool against her palms. When the bison lifted off, the lurch made Ayla’s stomach drop. Lin’s knee stayed pressed against hers. 

The sprawl of Republic City shrank into lines and color. She’d flown in an airship before as a child, once when her father took her up in one of the United Forces ships, but that was nothing like this. The air was sharp and thin, the wind cold on her face. The horizon stretched endlessly. It felt insane to be out in the open air like this, where she could lean over and be face to face with the ocean below. 

Conversation flowed quietly. Pema kept the children occupied, Bolin cracked a joke that even drew a laugh from Tenzin. Someone pointed out a flock of turkey ducks cutting across the wind. The effort to sound normal, despite the heavy energy hanging over them, hummed under the surface of everyone’s conversations. 

Ayla didn’t speak much. She kept her eyes on the horizon. This was all just so surreal. She felt like she had stumbled into the most unthinkable combination of people imaginable. If someone had told her a year ago that she would be flying on a sky bison with the Chief of Police, the Avatar, pro-bending athletes, and a councilman, she would have laughed them off- especially considering the fact that one of them knowingly had her knee pressed into Ayla’s thigh. 

Hours passed like that, carried by wind, white noise, and quiet conversation. Somewhere over the ice shelf, Ayla found herself watching Korra. She sat near the front, elbows on her knees, her gaze locked on the horizon. There was something in her posture, not defeat exactly, but something adjacent. 

Ayla had grown up with stories of the Avatar. Half myth, half god. Infallible. The bridge between worlds. The idea of her had always felt too large to touch. But here she was: human, a teenager, trying to hold her own loss together. It made something twist in Ayla’s chest. She understood that kind of hollow now. She couldn’t imagine what it must have felt like for her to lose that connection in the same violent way Ayla lad lost hers. It felt wrong. Unthinkable. And yet, here they all were, headed toward someone who might be able to make it right. Ayla’s fingers tightened against her knees. 

Lin’s hand brushed hers once. Barely a touch, invisible to anyone watching. Ayla turned, and Lin met her eyes, the faintest reassurance flickering in her expression. The wind caught her pinned hair, cold and bright. Ayla imagined what it would look like loose, swirling around her face, in a setting like this. Then the compound appeared in the distance, and Ayla took a deep breath. Hopefully they would have an answer soon. 

~*~~*~~*~

It hadn’t worked. Katara and Korra had been in there for hours, and it hadn’t worked. Katara stood for a long moment in the doorway before closing it again. The sound of the door sliding shut felt like a final thing. 

Ayla didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until it left her all at once. She’d told herself she wouldn’t hope. That she’d made peace with what she’d lost. But she’d hoped anyway, stupidly, desperately. And now she felt hollowed out all over again. Not sickeningly, but lonely, somehow. 

Lin rose slowly, every motion deliberate. For a moment Ayla thought she was going to say something, offer the kind of quiet, impossible comfort neither of them knew how to give, but Lin only met her eyes, unreadable, and turned toward the hall. Ayla watched her go. The sound of Lin’s door closing down the hallway hit like a crack. She sat there for a long time after the rest of the room emptied, until she couldn’t stand it anymore, and then she went after her. 

“Lin?” Nothing. She knocked once, softly. “Please.” Still nothing. The silence wasn’t rejection. The logical part of Ayla’s brain knew that. Lin just didn’t know how to let anyone in. But knowing that didn’t make it hurt less.

Ayla backed away slowly, throat tight, and went to her own room. The space was too clean. Too still. She curled onto the bed and stared out the window until the tears came. Quiet, frustrated tears that burned her eyes as they fell. She cried for her bending, for the loss she couldn’t stop reliving, and for the ache of wanting someone who didn’t know how to be held. She told herself it was just the trauma, the chemical residue of everything they’d survived. But knowing that didn’t stop her chest from aching like she was missing a limb. She wanted her here. 

She was still wiping her face when the door opened. Lin stood there, eyes tired and dark. She hesitated only a second before stepping inside and shutting the door behind her, sealing the room with dim, blue grey light from the window. 

Ayla sat up too fast, wiping at her face. “I- sorry, I didn’t mean to-” 

Lin shook her head. “Don’t.” Her voice was low, frayed. “You don’t have to apologize.” She stood by the door for a moment longer, unmoving, before crossing the room. She had removed her armor at some point between leaving the room earlier and arriving here. She looked hollowed out, not fragile, but stripped down to something raw. 

Ayla swallowed. “You just left so fast, I thought-” 

“I didn’t know what else to do.” Lin sounded defeated. “Being in there made it worse.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, elbows on her knees, running her hands over her face. “Katara did everything she could,” she said after a moment. “But it’s done. You lost your bending because of me, and I can’t undo it.” 

“Lin-”

“I had really hoped she could fix it,” Lin said, softer now. “For you.” 

“I didn’t-” 

“You did.” Lin’s voice was soft, not sharp, just honest. “You can call it whatever you want, but you stepped in. And I-” She shook her head once. “I still don’t know how to live with that guilt.” 

Ayla’s breath hitched. Her answer came out as a broken whisper, her heart pounding. “Please don’t shut me out.” Lin’s head snapped toward her, startled, like the words had physically pulled her out of whatever dark pit she was falling into. “Promise me you won’t shut me out, I can’t-” 

Lin shifted closer instantly, her hands curling around Ayla and pulling her to her chest. Her voice was rough when she spoke. “I don’t know how to do this,” she admitted, her face pressed into her hair. “But I want to try. I am trying.” Her thumb brushed Ayla’s cheek, tentative but steady. “I’m not going anywhere. I couldn't.” 

Ayla pulled back and searched her face, tears threatening to spill over. “We’ll figure it out.” 

Lin’s lips curved faintly, almost rueful. “You say that like it’s simple,” she murmured, her hand curled around the junction between Ayla’s neck and shoulder, lingering there. “But… yes. We will.” She sat back a little, exhaling through her nose. Her hand drifted down absently to unlatch her boots, slipping them off. Something solid to focus on while the room settled around them again. 

Ayla let out a breath. “I’m just scared that when we go back, everything will change. That this, whatever this is, was built on survival, and when things calm down, it’ll-” she trailed off, gesturing vaguely, she gave a small, watery laugh. “I don’t want what we are to just be a reaction to what we went through.” 

Lin’s eyes softened. “Pressure didn’t make this. It just… made it harder to ignore.”

Ayla’s heart stuttered. “What do you mean?” 

“Your kitchen.” Lin replied. “The light through the window. You, standing barefoot, stirring something on the stove, humming under your breath.” She huffed out a slow breath. “You handed me tea and I sat down and watched you as I drank it. And I didn’t want to leave.”  

Ayla let out a shaky laugh. “You’re serious.” 

“Completely.” Lin’s mouth curved. “I’ve spent my entire life keeping everyone at arms length. And then I was in your apartment, and suddenly that was the last thing I wanted to do.” 

“I could do that again.” Ayla said softly. “Cook for you.” 

“You have no idea how much I’d like that,” she murmured. The warmth in her tone surprised even her. 

Lin studied her face for a long moment, searching for something, permission, maybe, before murmuring “Come here.” She shifted, bracing one hand behind Ayla’s back and drawing her down with her. The movement was slow, careful. Ayla went easily, settling beside her, the mattress dipping with their combined weight. Lin exhaled, a low, unsteady sound, and gathered her closer, one arm looping around Ayla’s waist until their bodies aligned. Ayla fit herself against her instinctively, her head finding the hollow beneath Lin’s chin. 

“Better,” Lin said quietly, like it was an admission. 

Ayla smiled faintly against her collarbone. “At least it wasn’t that damn knife fight that made you fall for me. I don’t want to do that again,” she murmured, her voice muffled by Lin’s shirt. 

Lin huffed, something between a sigh and a laugh as she traced slow, lazy circles over Ayla’s back with her fingers. “Good, because I’m not letting you go back to that wretched place.” 

“Noted,” Ayla said, biting her lip to hide her smile. “You know what’s strange?” She gave a small, almost embarrassed laugh. “I feel like I barely know anything about you. Small things at least. If you like tea or coffee better in the morning. I could recognize your voice a mile away, I was ready to die for you, but I don’t know if you sleep on your side or your back.” 

Lin readjusted her arm under Ayla, shifting slightly. “Then ask,” she said simply.

Ayla blinked. “What?”

“Ask,” Lin repeated, voice gentler this time. “What do you want to know?” 

“Who’s your favorite pro-bending team?” 

That drew a quiet laugh from Lin. “That’s what you want to know?”

Ayla lifted a hand in mock indignation, laughing with her. “You said to ask! You told me once you used to like pro-bending, remember?”

Lin tilted her head, pretending to consider. “Used to be the Wolfbats.”

“Used to be?” Ayla asked with amusement. 

“Before they decided winning was easier than playing fair.” 

“Sounds like something you’d say in a press conference.” 

“Force of habit.” She paused, thinking. “If I had to pick another… The Harbor Sentinels.” 

“Never heard of them.” 

“They stopped competing years ago. Dockworkers. No sponsors, no nonsense. They held their own against teams with triple their funding.” 

“What happened to them?” 

“They got tired,” Lin replied. “And the league got flashier.” 

Ayla’s mouth curved. “You really do root for the working class, huh.” 

“I root for people who show up and do the damn job,” Lin said dryly, though there was warmth in her voice underneath. 

Ayla smiled, amused. “That’s not surprising.” 

“You asked.” Her hand, still resting at Ayla’s waist, gave the lightest squeeze. A moment of comfortable silence stretched between them before Ayla broke it, her tone lighter now, almost teasing. “Alright, your turn. Ask me something.” 

“Your favorite radio show,” she said. “I know you love them.” 

Ayla let out a quiet hum of thought, her voice softening into warmth. “Oh, that’s easy.” She mused. “The Western Wind Chronicles. Total shoot-’em-up nonsense. There’s this cowboy named Jaro who solves every problem by monologuing dramatically and then blowing something up.”

Lin made a quiet sound that could have been a laugh. “That tracks.”

“But lately I’ve been listening to another one- Signal from Nowhere. It’s a space odyssey”

“Space,” Lin murmured, the corner of her mouth lifting. “That’s ambitious.”

Ayla smiled and shifted up onto her elbow a little so she could see Lin’s face better as she continued talking softly. “Mhm. They have sound engineers who lean into the outer-space feel. I don’t know how they capture the feeling even though no one’s been.” She didn’t notice at first that Lin’s fingers had begun to move; slow, absent-minded at first, tracing the line where the fabric of her shirt met skin at her waist. Not searching, just following a familiar curve. “It’s about some pilot picking up radio transmissions from somewhere super far away.” 

“Go on.” Lin said quietly. 

Ayla faltered. “Uh-what?”

“With your stories,” Lin said, a hint of amusement in her voice. “Space cowboys, exploding things.” 

“That’s two different shows,” Ayla said, half-laughing despite herself. 

“Then I’ll need both summaries,” Lin said, deadpan. Her hand settled more deliberately now, fingertips hooking lightly into the waistband of Ayla’s pants, thumb resting against the warm skin just above her hip rather than wandering. 

“Right, the explosions.” Her words tripped over themselves as she tried to recover her train of thought. “They, uh, use this sound technique so you feel like you’re there, like you can almost-” She stopped when Lin’s thumb traced just beneath the hem of her shirt, slow and unhurried. Her breath caught, and for a moment she let it, that small, traitorous flicker of comfort, wanting to feel anything that wasn’t loss. Then guilt followed too quickly. She swallowed hard, trying to speak again, but the words wouldn’t come. 

“Lost your place?” Lin asked, her voice dipping lower. 

Ayla let out a soft huff that was almost a laugh. “You’re just trying to get my mind off it all.” 

Lin studied her for a moment. “Is it working?”

She hesitated, then admitted, “A little.” Silence settled again, then Ayla breathed out a sigh. “Are we really just lying here pretending we didn’t find out that our bending can’t be restored?”

Lin’s hand stilled immediately. She didn’t pull away, just let the silence settle for a moment. Then, softly, “Would you rather I stopped?”

Ayla adjusted and stared at the ceiling. “I don’t know.” Her voice cracked. “It just feels… strange. Like if I let myself laugh, I’m disrespecting what I lost. What we lost.” 

Lin exhaled slowly. “You’re not,” she said after a moment, her hand settling more firmly at Ayla’s hip. “We’re allowed to stop for a minute.” Ayla turned slightly, searching her face in the half-light. Lin’s gaze stayed on her. “It doesn’t mean it didn’t matter. It just means we’re still here.” 

Ayla looked at her for a long moment. “You really believe that?” 

Lin gave the smallest shrug. “I’m trying to.” A pause. “We already hit bottom once. After that, you just… keep going.” 

Ayla pressed her lips together into a line. “You mean back in the cells.” 

Lin nodded. “That first night.” Her voice roughened. “That was the worst of it.” She drew a breath, steady. “What’s left now is just… living with it.” 

Ayla thought about that. About the long hours she’d spent trying to rebuild her chi through meditation, how the silence had become less of a wound and more of a space. “It still hurts,” she admitted softly. 

“It will,” Lin said. “Probably always.” She paused. “But it doesn’t get everything” 

Ayla’s eyes flicked toward her. “What does?” 

"Whatever we manage to build from what’s left,” Lin said softly. 

Ayla swallowed hard, the knot in her chest loosening just a little. “You make it sound so simple.” 

“It isn’t,” Lin said, a hint of a smirk tugging at her mouth. “But it’s what we’ve got.” 

For a while, neither of them spoke. Lin’s fingers traced slow, lazy patterns along Ayla’s ribs. After a moment, Ayla’s stomach gave a quiet, traitorous growl. She huffed, hiding her face in her arm. “Do you think we could find something to eat? I just realized with everything that happened I haven’t eaten since that pitiful excuse for jail food yesterday. You probably haven’t either.” 

Lin’s mouth twitched. “You mean the congealed rice and mystery stew? A culinary masterpiece.” 

“That’s generous,” Ayla muttered into her sleeve. 

Lin exhaled through her nose, a ghost of a laugh. Then she eased out of the bed, rolling her shoulders as she did. “Stay here. I’ll find something and bring it back.” 

“You don’t have to-”

“I know.” Lin’s tone softened. “But I want to.” She left before Ayla could say anything else, the soft click of the door sounded out. Ayla stayed where she was, knees drawn up, arms folded over her face. The silence pressed down for a moment, then eased. She focused on her breathing, the steady rhythm of it, the way the room felt less hollow than it had earlier. When the door opened again, Lin stepped inside, carrying two steaming mugs of tea and a bowl filled with rice and vegetables. “It’s not much,” she said. “But it’s hot.” 

Ayla sat up, tucking her legs beneath her as Lin handed her a mug. They ate from the same bowl, passing it back and forth. The tea was earthy and slightly bitter, and warm enough to calm the chill. She took another sip and commented, “Glad to have something real to drink. I think the stuff in jail was half rust and half regret.” 

Lin gave a huff of laughter. “That’s because it probably was.” 

Ayla laughed softly, setting her mug aside. “You’ve got to stop making me laugh when I’m trying to drink.” 

“You started it.” 

For a few minutes, they just ate. Lin leaned back against the wall along the side of the bed, and after a while said, “tell me more about that ridiculous radio show of yours. The cowboy one.” 

“Okay,” Ayla leaned back as well, picking her mug back up as she settled against the headboard. “There’s this one episode where Jaro has to smuggle a stolen relic out of an Earth Kingdom border town that’s overrun with bandits-” 

“Let me guess,” Lin said dryly, “he monologues dramatically, then blows it up.” 

“Exactly, how ever did you manage to guess?” She asked, laughing. 

“Because I’ve been to towns like that. There was one that practically begged to be blown off the map.” 

Ayla swatted her arm, mock scandalized. “Lin, you can’t just say things like that.” 

“Why not? It’s a fictional explosion.” 

“That’s not the point!” 

“Then what is the point?” 

“That you just said a whole town should be blown up with the same tone you use for writing parking violations.” 

“Parking violations? Please. I had people for that.” 

Ayla laughed again, shaking her head. “You’re impossible.” 

“And yet,” Lin said, smirking faintly, “you’re still here.” 

Ayla huffed a quiet laugh and handed her the bowl. “Well, since I’ve definitely been fired from Jiang’s for not showing up the past couple weeks, you’ll have to tell me if you still plan on going without me there to flirt with you.”

Lin tilted her head. “Interesting. I remember you insinuating at one point that you weren’t flirting with me. You’re lucky I didn’t issue you a citation for falsifying a statement.” 

“Oh, that’s what would have done me in? Not the illegal fight ring? Not breaking into warehouses and stealing documents?” 

“Different department,” Lin said dryly. 

Before Ayla could answer, hurried footsteps echoed down the corridor outside. 

“Lin!” Tenzin’s voice, urgent. The door slid open without preamble, and Ayla was hit with overwhelming relief that they weren’t still laying down. He stood in the doorway, breath quick. “Come quickly,” he said. “Korra- she connected with Aang. He taught her how to restore bending.” 

For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. 

Lin set the mug down slowly. “She can-?” 

Tenzin nodded. “She can restore it, for both of you. Right now.”

Chapter Text

The courtyard was hushed under a grey sky. Ayla stood just beyond the ring of carved stone alongside everyone else. Korra waited at its center, and Lin went first. 

When she stepped up to kneel in front of her, Ayla’s chest tightened. Korra’s movements were calm, deliberate. She laid one hand on Lin’s shoulder, the other at her forehead, and then her eyes glowed. It wasn’t blinding, but it was unmistakable, a living light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. Ayla had never seen anything like it. She’d seen bending, sure. Pro-bending matches in crowded arenas, flashes of controlled, showy strikes under bright lights. She’d even seen her own bending, before Amon, small, contained, disjointed. But this, this was different. This was power in its oldest form, vast and alive. It felt like watching the line between human and spirit blur. 

And then Lin rose from where she had been kneeling. When she turned, their eyes met across the courtyard, just briefly, but Ayla felt it land in her like impact. There was something unguarded in Lin’s expression, some impossible blend of relief and disbelief and quiet awe. And then Lin extended her hands. The half ring of massive stones surrounding the space lifted cleanly from the ground, weightless. Ayla could feel it through her whole body, the sheer mass of it, and yet Lin’s movement was steady, graceful, effortless. She set them back down with the same ease. 

Ayla exhaled, barely aware she’d been holding her breath. She’d known, in an abstract way, that Lin Beifong was powerful. Everyone did. The stories were practically urban myth. But hearing the stories was nothing like this. Seeing it, seeing the ground move because Lin asked it to, was something else entirely. It felt intimate, almost private, like watching someone’s pulse through their skin. The same hands that had been in her hair that morning could also do something like that. 

It didn’t scare her. It should have, maybe. But it didn’t. It felt sacred. Not in the way of temples or prayers, but in the quiet awe of seeing something that shouldn’t exist and realizing it does anyway. It made her chest ache with something she couldn’t name. And then Korra gestured to her, and Ayla’s legs felt weightless as she climbed the steps. When she knelt, she met Korra’s eyes, which had dimmed by now, back to something human. “This might feel strange.” Korra said softly. “Don’t fight it.” 

Ayla nodded once and closed her eyes. The moment Korra’s hand touched her forehead, everything in Ayla went still. Her awareness dropped inward, not into silence, but into her body. She could feel it all as Korra’s energy moved into her: the familiar wreckage, the snarled currents of her chi at the edges of their fractures, the ache of old breaks that had scarred over. The memory of tracing her bleeding pathways after they were ripped open, of feeling the violent, tearing vacuum pushed to the front so suddenly it made her dizzy. 

Korra’s energy moved through her like water through cracked earth, slow at first, then flooding. It seeped into the cracks, pressing against the places that had always resisted. Something inside her wanted to pull back, to keep it small, contained, like holding an injured arm close to your body. The feeling wasn’t light or weightless, it was dense, and the current kept moving, persistent, and eventually she let it. Her own energy rose to meet it, twisting and braiding with Korra’s through places that had always resisted but now began to yield. 

Heat bloomed low behind her ribs, a deep, living warmth that spread outward along her spine, up through her shoulders, down through her arms. She felt it in the bones of her hands, the soles of her feet, the hollow of her throat. Every place that had once felt severed, leaking, now thrummed, as if invisible strings were being pulled tight and tuned back into resonance. The cracks didn’t close so much as fill. Golden thread, familiar and foreign all at once, pulled through her like sinew, reknitting through her muscle and bone. Then came the release, sudden, breathtaking. The pressure that had lived beneath her sternum for years broke open, and something bright rushed through her veins. Not light, but current, alive and moving. Her pulse echoed in her ears as she opened her eyes. Gratitude was too small of a word. “Thank you,” she managed, voice rough. “I don’t know what to say.” 

Korra smiled faintly. “Happy to.” Ayla stood. Inside her, the energy moved freely, no longer snarled or broken, but living. She hadn’t felt this way since the day she’d first unlocked her bending, almost twenty years ago. She turned slightly, instinctively looking toward Lin, who was already watching her. That same unguarded awe from before lingered at the edge of her expression. The shock of feeling this way was almost completely overwhelming, and she let herself sink into it for a second before Korra broke the silence. She flexed her hands absently, thoughtful. “What kind of bender did you say you were again?” 

Ayla blinked, pulled out of her thoughts. “Oh, I, uh- didn’t.” 

“Well, what kind are you?” Korra’s tone was puzzled, but kind. “I could’ve sworn I felt an air signature. But that’s not possible.” 

The air vanished from Ayla’s lungs. Of course the Avatar could tell. Of course she could. Shit. I wanted more time, I thought- 

Tenzin’s voice cut in, cautious.  “Lin mentioned you were from the Fire Nation?” 

“My parents are from the Earth Kingdom,” Ayla managed, pulse hammering. “I just grew up in the Fire Nation mostly.” 

“Her energy definitely didn’t feel like Lin’s,” Korra murmured. 

Tenzin gave a quiet chuckle. “Few people’s do. Lin is an energetic force of her own.” 

Lin gave him a flat look. “Im standing right here.” 

Korra’s gaze stayed on Ayla, more focused now, thoughtful. “No, I mean it. It was an air signature. I’d bet on it.” She stepped forward, her expression curious. Ayla’s heart stuttered. She couldn’t lie to the Avatar, not about this. She had wanted time, space to understand it herself before deciding what to do about it. Before it became real. Acknowledging it in front of so many people felt too vulnerable, she hadn’t planned for it to be like this-

“I-” 

Lin’s voice cut in, sharp and immediate. “Korra, drop it,” she said as she ascended the steps to where they were standing.  

Tenzin’s head turned. “Lin! What do you-?”

“One way to find out!” Bolin interrupted brightly, already pulling a chunk of rock from the ground. 

“Wait-”

Too late. He sent the boulder arcing toward her. Ayla’s gasp caught halfway through her throat as the rock was flung aside by Lin in a single sweep. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Lin yelled. 

Bolin flinched, throwing his hands up. “Sorry! Sorry, Chief!”

“You’re lucky I don't bury you under that rock!”

Meelo cheered from the steps. “Do it!”

But Korra and Tenzin weren’t looking at Bolin anymore. Their eyes were on Ayla. 

Tenzin stepped forward, voice quiet but edged with awe. “You must really be an airbender.”

Bolin leaned over to Mako and said, “I told you she had the airbender vibe,” earning a glare from Lin that made him snap upright again. And just like that, the tension emptied. Ayla didn’t laugh, but she felt the pull of it. Absurd, but human. Twenty years of hiding, and here she was, surrounded by the most unthinkable combination of people, in a place she never imagined she’d stand, with nowhere left to hide. It should have been terrifying. Instead, it felt like relief, sharp and strange. The weight of carrying this secret, of trying to decide when or if she’d ever name it, had been so heavy. Now that it was out, torn into the open by accident, all she could think was how good it felt not to have to carry it anymore.

When she finally looked up, Tenzin was still watching her. His expression wasn’t stern or even curious anymore. It was something else. Something softer, heavier. Awe, yes, but also gratitude. She realized with a start that this changed everything for him. The survival of his culture wasn’t resting solely on his and his children’s shoulders anymore. He looked as though he wanted to say something and couldn’t quite find the words. She tried to meet that look, awkward and apologetic all at once. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to make a scene.” 

When he did, his voice was steady but quiet. “You don’t need to apologize,” he said. “You didn’t make a scene, you gave me something I didn’t think I would see again in my lifetime.” Tenzin’s gaze flicked to the sky and back. “My entire life, I believed the weight of rebuilding an entire nation would fall to my children. To Korra and me alone. But you…” He hesitated, searching for the right phrasing. “You’ve just shown me that maybe the Air Nation was never meant to rebuild solely through us, and that maybe there are forces at work outside what any of us can understand.” 

The words hit harder than she expected. Not praise, not expectation, just quiet relief that carried decades of loneliness behind it. Ayla’s throat tightened. “I’ll explain everything,” she managed. “I swear. I just-” she exhaled. “I wanted to understand it myself first.”

Tenzin nodded once, gentle now. “Take the time you need,” he said. “There will be time for questions later.”

She nodded, unable to find anything better to say than, “Thank you.” She looked at Lin, who stood beside her, and she felt herself breathe a little easier. We’ll figure it out, she thought. 

The group began to drift back toward the compound for dinner. Ikki darted ahead of her siblings and fell into step beside Ayla. “If you’re an airbender,” she said in one rapid breath, “does that mean you’re going to come live on the island with us? Because we can give you a glider and have the best fruit pies, and I can show you how to spin your staff in a circle-” 

Jinora butted in, “Maybe not Ikki, you almost hit me last time-” 

“I didn’t almost-” Ikki began, but Tenzin intervened. 

“Now Ikki,” he said, patient, “I’m sure Ayla has her own home in the city.” 

Ikki frowned up at Ayla, clearly unimpressed by this logic. “You could still visit,” she said pointedly, tugging on Ayla’s sleeve. “It’s really nice there. We can meditate together!”

Ayla smiled. “I would like that,” she said. “Actually, I’d like to talk to your dad about a visit. If that’s alright.” Tenzin blinked, turning toward her with something like relief. “This is all really new,” Ayla admitted, lowering her voice slightly as Ikki bounded off ahead. “I wasn’t hiding it to be cruel, I understand what it means to you to find out something like this. I just wanted to understand it myself first. I’ve spent most of my life repressing it.” 

Tenzin’s expression softened. “You don’t need to explain. I imagine it must be overwhelming.” His tone gentled further. “But I would be honored to teach you, when you’re ready. In fact, I’ll be working with Korra, since she’s just unlocked her airbending recently. You could join her sessions.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t train with the Avatar,” Ayla said quickly, almost laughing. “That would be-” 

“Nonsense,” Tenzin replied, waving one hand in quiet dismissal. “Lin tells me you’re quite the capable fighter. You already have discipline, you just need the right guidance to direct it.”

Ayla blinked, glancing over her shoulder. Lin was a few paces behind, hands in her coat pockets, gaze forward, face unreadable. “She said that?” 

“I did,” Lin said dryly, not breaking stride. “Don’t sound so surprised.”

Tenzin’s faint smile returned. “It’s settled, then. We’ll talk later.”

Ayla nodded, still processing. “Alright.”

As they approached the compound steps, the sound of laughter carried from inside- bowls clinking, voices overlapping. Ayla slowed slightly, letting the others move ahead until Lin caught up beside her. “You alright?” Lin asked quietly, her voice softer than Ayla had ever heard it in public.

Ayla huffed a quiet laugh. “That was not quite how I imagined that going. How does Tenzin know so much about me, anyway?”

“I filled him in on the essentials when we arrived at the island yesterday,” Lin said. The corner of her mouth twitched. “He asked questions. I answered most of them.”

“Oh, right.” Ayla rubbed the back of her neck. “Honestly I think I was still in a bit of shock. Still am, if I’m being honest.” She hesitated, glancing toward the lights spilling from the open doorway. “It’s been… a lot. Being around people like this, Korra, Katara, Tenzin, all of them. I grew up hearing their names like they were myths, and now I’m just… about to eat dinner with them.” 

Lin watched her. “You’re holding your own.” And then her mouth curved, dry amusement flickering through her tone. “Don’t let the robes fool you. Tenzin is less terrifying once you realize he sighs that much at everyone.” 

That made Ayla laugh, really laugh. “It’s weird, though. After everything, losing my bending, thinking it’s permanent, I figured getting it back would make me feel like a stranger again. But now…” She trailed off, searching for the right words. “Now I actually feel a little more like myself. Which doesn’t make any sense.” 

“It makes perfect sense.” Lin replied. 

Ayla let out a slow breath. “It feels good. Which is… kind of terrifying, honestly. I keep waiting for the floor to drop out again.” 

Lin glanced sideways at her. “That’s what happens when you spend long enough expecting to.” 

Ayla laughed. “Spoken like someone who knows the feeling. I’m trying to let myself be happy about it. It just feels strange.” 

Lin’s mouth curved faintly. “All the worthwhile things feel strange at first.” For a few moments, neither spoke. The sky above was tilting toward evening, and the cold air was carrying the distant sound of laughter from inside. It smelled faintly of wood smoke. When the wind shifted, Ayla caught the echo of Korra’s voice, loud, animated, and the warmth of it pulled something loose in her chest. By the time they stepped into the room, steam curled from bowls of rice and vegetables, the aroma of miso and ginger filling the air. Everyone found a place. Lin sat near one end, Ayla beside her, the others filling the large table. For a moment, only the quiet sounds of eating filled the air. Then Bolin, unable to contain himself, leaned forward, elbows braced on the table.

“So,” he said, voice far too casual, “turns out Ayla’s a secret airbender and Korra can energy bend after connecting with Avatar Aang in the spirit plane. Just your average dinner conversation.” He turned to Ayla. “How do you even know Lin, anyway?”

Ayla looked at Lin, who gave her a look that could only mean don’t you dare.

She smiled, biting her lip. Oh, fuck it all. “Oh, that’s easy,” she said, turning back to the table. “She found me in a fight ring and decided I’d make a good spy.”

Korra’s head snapped up. “Wait-what?”

Tenzin’s voice overlapped immediately. “Lin, what were you doing in a fight ring?”

Bolin leaned so far forward his chopsticks clattered onto the table. “Hold on. You can fight? Like, actually fight?”

Ayla tried not to laugh. “Non-bending only.”

Bolin groaned dramatically. “Agh, not as cool.”

Asami smirked, reaching for the pot of tea. “Speak for yourself. That’s way cooler.”

Bolin’s eyes narrowed. “Wait, were you an equalist?”

“What?” Ayla said, laughing. “I was literally in one of Amon’s prisons with Lin. That's why I'm even here right now.”

Tenzin pressed his fingers to his temple, sighing. “Lin, please tell me this isn’t another ‘methods that were technically off the books’ situation-”

Korra, eyes wide, pointed her chopsticks across the table. “You’ve got to take me there.”

Tenzin whipped back around to Korra. “Absolutely not.”

Mako muttered, “Why am I not surprised you want to go to a fight ring.”

“Because it sounds awesome!” Bolin said. “Did you win money?”

Ayla gave a small shrug. “Yeah.”

“How much?” Bolin pressed. “Did you ever get hurt?”

Ayla bit her lip to hide her grin. “Yeah, I think the worst was after pile-on night. But those are always brutal.”

Bolin blinked. “Pile-on night?”

Mako frowned. “Bolin, you couldn’t survive whatever the hell that is.”

“Hey!” Bolin pointed his chopsticks indignantly. “I could survive… probably!”

Korra, eyes wide, said, “I absolutely want to know.”

“It’s not a free-for-all,” Ayla said. “It’s one-on-one matches, but whoever wins keeps fighting the next challenger until they go down. Last person standing takes the pot.”

Asami snorted into her tea. “Charming.”

Bolin’s eyes went huge. “That’s incredible.”

“It’s illegal,” Tenzin said sharply.

“Technically,” Lin corrected, “No one ever filed a permit, but-”

“Lin,” Tenzin said warningly.

Korra jumped in. “Ayla-” 

Tenzin looked back at her, exasperated. “What did I just say-” 

Lin’s mouth curved. “Relax. Korra could survive. You, on the other hand-” she tilted her chin at Tenzin, “probably couldn’t.” 

Tenzin sighed, long-suffering. “You’re all impossible.” 

Bolin squinted and pointed a chopstick at Lin. “Wait, circle back, why were you there again?” 

“I turned in a tip about some explosives to her instead of Councilman Tarrlok,” Ayla interjected. “She was there checking it out.” 

Tenzin exhaled, half a sigh, half relief. “Smart choice.” Tenzin turned to Lin. “ So this is where your intelligence reports came from?”

“Yes,” Lin said, reaching for a bowl of rice. “And the other half came from her stealing their shipment ledgers.”

Ayla tried to hide her grin behind her cup. She still couldn’t believe she’d done all of that. The thought made her want to laugh, it all still felt so insane. 

Korra tilted her head thoughtfully. “You know, if you’re really an airbender now… we could spar.”

Ayla blinked. “Spar?”

“Yeah!” Korra said, eyes bright. “Tenzin’s great and all, but he doesn’t hit people.”

“I do not hit people because airbending is about redirection,” Tenzin said firmly.

“Exactly,” Korra said, waving a hand. “Ayla gets it.” 

Ayla hesitated, a flicker of uncertainty crossing her face. “I’ve never fought with bending before. In fact I’ve barely used my bending at all.” 

Korra grinned. “It’s not much different than fighting without it. Just a little more involved. You’ll pick it up fast.”

Ayla felt the weight of a dozen eyes on her and forced a smile. “Right. Yeah, alright.”

“Perfect,” Korra said, beaming. “Tomorrow then.”

“Spirits help us all,” Tenzin muttered under his breath.

Ayla laughed, but her stomach was starting to twist. Spirits help her indeed, because tomorrow she was going to spar with the Avatar. She glanced at Lin, who looked maddeningly calm, as if she hadn’t just watched Ayla agree to fight the most powerful bender alive. Lin caught her eye, one brow raised, the faintest hint of a smirk that said you’ll live. Maybe she would. Could. Or maybe I should ask Lin to bend me into a hole now that she can again. Fuck. 

~*~~*~~*~

After dinner, Ayla quietly slipped into Lin’s room and found her adjusting the pins in her hair. The lamplight was soft, catching on the silver strands. For a second Ayla just watched her, the familiar line of her shoulders, the precise way her fingers moved. Ayla lingered in the doorway for a second before speaking. “Sorry I told them about the ring.”

Lin caught her reflection in the mirror and arched an eyebrow. “You didn’t want to tell them you met me in a bar instead?”

Ayla cracked a grin, stepping further inside. “Tempting, but this way I actually sounded interesting. I wanted a way to get my foot in the door.”

“That’s one word for it,” Lin said dryly, turning to face her. “You agreed to spar with Korra.”

“I know.” Ayla sighed, rubbing the back of her neck. “What the hell was I supposed to do? Say no to the Avatar?”

“Yes,” Lin said without hesitation. “That’s exactly what you were supposed to do.”

Ayla huffed a laugh, part amusement, part disbelief. “I panicked, okay? I said yes before my brain caught up.” She dropped onto the edge of the bed, elbows on her knees. “Spirits, what am I thinking?”

Lin crossed her arms, studying her. “You tell me.”

“I don’t even know,” Ayla admitted, a nervous laugh escaping her. “I’ve barely used my bending, Lin. The last two times I tried-” She stopped, the sound catching in her throat.

Lin’s attention sharpened. “What happened?”

Ayla shook her head quickly. “It’s not- I just-” But the words wouldn’t organize. The humor drained from her face. Her pulse had started to climb without warning. “One of the times, I-” She swallowed hard. “I couldn’t get air. I almost suffocated myself.” Her fingers dug into her knees. “And the other…” Her voice wavered. “The other time was when I lost control. Trying to save you.”

Lin froze. The change was subtle, a shift in her stance, a flicker in her expression, but it was there. “You almost what?”

Ayla’s jaw tightened. “It wasn’t on purpose,” she said, her voice barely audible now. “It felt like my lungs turned inside out. Everything spun and went white. I thought I was going to die until I managed to get it under control.” Ayla’s words tripped over each other, unraveling faster the harder she tried to keep them in order. “I don’t even know why I agreed to spar tomorrow. I can’t- I can’t do this. I’m going to lose control, or freeze, or-” She broke off, voice cracking. What am I doing. This is bad. So bad. This could go so wrong in so many ways. And underneath all of that, a smaller, sharper fear: What if she sees me like this and decides it’s too much?

“Hey.” The sound of Lin’s voice cut through, low and steady, but Ayla didn’t look up. Couldn't. She heard the quiet scrape of Lin’s boots against the floorboards, the sound of her moving closer before she knelt in the space right in front of her. “Look at me,” Lin said, voice firm.

Ayla shook her head. “I can’t-”

“Yes, you can.” Lin’s tone softened. She reached out, slow enough that Ayla could see the movement coming. Her hand found the side of Ayla’s neck, fingers curving gently along the line where her jaw met her throat. Her thumb brushed once against her cheekbone. “Breathe,” Lin said quietly. Ayla’s pulse jumped beneath the touch, but not from panic this time. Gods. She hadn’t realized how long it had been since someone had steadied her instead of handled her, since anyone had met her spiraling and chosen to stay. The calm in Lin’s voice wrapped around her like gravity, familiar and inescapable. She did breathe, or tried to. The first inhale shuddered. Lin stayed where she was, close enough that Ayla could feel the warmth radiating from her, but not crowding her. “You don’t have to do this tomorrow,” Lin said. “Not for Korra. Not for anyone.”

That broke something in Ayla’s chest. “I want to,” she said. “I need to. It’s different now. Whatever Korra did, the blockages, the seeps, all of it, it’s gone. Healed. It didn’t just fix my bending, it fixed me. I want to see what that means.” Lin’s hand stayed where it was, steady. The pads of her fingers pressed lightly against Ayla’s pulse, like she was measuring it. It felt strangely intimate, being read like that. 

“What do you need from me?” Lin asked after a moment, and Ayla looked at her, surprised. Her first instinct, the one that wanted to say I don’t need anything, fizzled out under the weight of Lin’s attention.

“Just… be here,” she said. “If it goes wrong, pull me back.”

Lin nodded once. “Alright.” She stayed kneeling for a few breaths longer, long enough for Ayla’s pulse to slow under her touch. Then she released her, her hand sliding away, fingertips lingering at her collarbone before she stood.

Ayla exhaled and scrubbed a hand over her face. “Sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean to-”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Lin said, and the space between them steadied. Ayla let out another shaky breath, the tension finally starting to slip from her shoulders. She shifted off the bed, legs folding beneath her until she was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Lin watched for a moment, then lowered herself down too, back braced against the side of the bed. She didn’t close the distance but pulled her legs in and sat a few feet from her. Not hovering, not too far. Exactly where Ayla needed her to be.

She shut her eyes and tried to find the quiet. It should have felt like relief. Instead, it felt like standing on the edge of something she couldn’t see the bottom of. Inside, everything felt different. The wreckage she used to trace was still there, but altered. No longer fractured, just sealed. Not gone, just changed. Smooth, scarred, familiar in a way that almost frightened her. The space that had once felt like absence now hummed with life. It was strange, dizzying, like feeling a phantom limb return. 

She had thought she had a lifetime of slow work ahead before she lost her bending, then she thought she would never have it again, and now she was sitting here, feeling… like this. She followed the flow through her body. It moved cleaner now, stronger, almost too strong. What used to be thin threads of current now felt like someone had rebuilt the structure beneath her skin in a lattice. They thrummed with energy, interwoven, through what felt like every part of her. Maybe this is what it would have been like if I’d just kept practicing instead of burying it.  It wasn’t that she didn’t trust it. She didn’t trust herself.

Her throat tightened. She wanted to reach for it, to see if it would answer her, but her hands stayed still in her lap. The memory hit too fast: the air collapsing, the world spinning white, the helpless burn of panic closing in on itself. She couldn’t separate the idea of bending from that memory. She associated bending with fear, and even Korra’s act of healing didn't make that part of her brain go away. 

Ayla clenched her jaw. She hated that fear still lived there. Her chest ached with it, the uselessness of being afraid of something that was hers. She was afraid of herself. Of the fact that she felt she couldn’t trust herself. She pressed her palms flat against the floor, grounding herself in the solid weight of it. “I don’t understand why I’m still afraid,” she said finally, her voice quieter now. “It’s supposed to be a part of me. It feels like it is again, like I’ve been sewn back together, but I still can’t trust myself to not lose control.” She gave a short, humorless laugh, shaking her head. “What kind of bender is afraid of her own bending?”

Lin didn’t answer right away. She stayed where she was, sitting against the bedframe, one knee drawn up, forearm resting loosely across it. Her eyes never left Ayla. There was something unguarded in the way she watched her. Ayla could feel it, even without looking directly at her. When she finally spoke, her voice was low. “Power isn’t something you master once,” Lin said. “Some days you work with it. Some days you fight it.” Her tone softened. “You’re allowed to be afraid of it.” 

Ayla’s throat tightened again. “But it feels like I shouldn’t be.”

“You were hurt by it,” Lin said quietly. “You don’t unlearn that overnight.” Ayla held her gaze for a moment before closing her eyes. 

She would try again.

She exhaled another time, and lifted her hand. It was a slow, deliberate motion. She half-expected the same rush of panic, but this time it didn’t fight her. The air stirred. Barely a ripple, a faint pressure brushing her skin, but it was there. Not forced, not violent. Responsive. It wasn’t the wild, burning power she remembered from the cell, from her apartment. Something warm threaded in her chest, trickling down her arm and weaving through her veins. Not something she saw, but something she felt. She stared at her hand like it belonged to someone else. “Is this how it’s supposed to feel, all the time?” she asked quietly. “Like it listens to you?”

“Ayla,” Lin said, voice low. “What happened to your bending before Amon took it?”

She hesitated. “I buried it. For years,” she said quietly. “Until it started tearing holes in me.” She set her hand down on her knee, shaking her head, words coming easier. “I had just started to try and start repairing my pathways, working through old blockages, when it happened. That was the bitter irony of it all, right when I was finally being honest with myself about who I was, it got ripped away.” She looked down. “Before Amon took it, I thought it would take me a decade to get here, to feel like this. And now, suddenly, here I am.” 

She lifted her arm again and made a low, clean arc through the air. The current followed her movement without resistance, a soft pull that caught Lin’s hair and moved it across her cheek. Lin didn’t flinch, she just held her gaze, steady, unblinking, the kind of focus that could take apart a person if it wanted to. But it didn’t. It just stayed. And Ayla realized that what steadied her more than the air itself was that look, like Lin believed she could do this before she had. 

“It feels like…” she began, faltering, searching for the word, “like stirring water.”

Lin’s voice came quiet from across the space between them. “That’s how it’s supposed to feel.” Her eyes were soft, expression unreadable except for the smallest curve at the corner of her mouth. The air shifted again, a lazy circle between them. It tugged faintly at Lin’s hair. 

“I don’t even have to think about it,” Ayla murmured. “When I tried before, it was all effort and nothing back. It didn’t listen to me, not like this. I was so disconnected.” She swallowed, shaking her head. “It almost doesn’t feel fair. I didn’t earn this. It feels like I don’t deserve it, even though it’s been a part of me the whole time.” She exhaled. “I know I’m not making any sense.” 

Lin’s voice was quiet. “You don’t have to earn something that was already yours,” she said. “You just have to stop punishing yourself for having it.” 

She didn’t mean to, but tears stung her eyes anyway. She wiped at them with the heel of her palm, half-frustrated, half-relieved. “Spirits,” she murmured, dragging a hand through her hair. “I can’t believe this is real.” Ayla exhaled and turned her wrist again. The air responded, a soft stirring, gathering around her fingertips, curling around them. For a heartbeat she just looked at it, that faint shimmer of motion, the tangible proof of everything she thought she’d lost. Then she looked up, and Lin’s gaze met hers. Ayla twisted her hand gently. The current shifted, brushing Lin’s sleeve. Lin’s breath caught. She could feel it, the faint pressure of air against her skin, the living movement of it. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to cry or laugh or scream.” 

Lin was quiet for a moment. Then softly, she said, “You can do all three if you need to. It’s just you and me in here.” That landed deeper than Ayla expected. Just you and me in here. Not alone with this anymore. 

“Is this how you feel all the time? Before, I could barely feel it. I had to concentrate just to find the connection. This just feels so… wild.” 

“I think it’s different for everyone,” she said quietly. “For me, it’s about weight. The pull of gravity, the pressure it leaves in the soles of your feet. I can feel the smallest changes, a shift in the floor, the vibration of something moving deep under the surface.” She ran her fingertips along the wood beside her, almost absentmindedly. “It’s never still. Even now, over the ice, the ground deep below it hums differently. You start to feel it as another sense. Not necessarily like sight or hearing, something else. It’s constant. And when it first comes back after being gone…” She let out a quiet breath. “It can be loud.” 

“Loud,” Ayla repeated. “Yeah. That’s what it feels like. Like I’m hyper aware of it.” 

“It gets quieter,” Lin said. “Not because it fades, but because you learn to listen without flinching.” 

Lin’s face was mostly in shadow, and Ayla gently pushed a current of air between them again. It was such a small thing, but the action felt so intimate her chest ached. I’m sitting on the floor making the air between us move and she’s just… letting me. “So it’ll stop feeling like this? Like it’s too much?” 

Lin’s answer came slow. “No,” she said. “But it’ll start feeling like you can carry it.” 

Ayla laughed once, quiet and uneven. The fear didn’t completely vanish, but it loosened. She had made it through the worst part, the initial unknown. Spirits, this was ridiculous, sitting here, shaking, barely holding it together, and Lin was looking at her like that. With a softness she’d never thought would ever trace the lines of her face. For a while, neither of them moved. Ayla finally let out a shaky breath and rubbed her palms over her knees. “You make it sound so simple.” 

“It isn’t,” Lin said. “But you make it look easy.” 

That earned another tired laugh from Ayla. “I’m about two seconds away from passing out on your floor, actually.” 

Lin’s expression eased, a flicker of warmth in her eyes. “Then maybe start with something easier than fighting the Avatar tomorrow.” 

“Too late,” Ayla said, the ghost of a smile tugging at her mouth. “She’s got that look in her eye. If I try to back out, she’ll drag me out there herself.” 

“I’d pay to see that,” Lin said dryly. 

Ayla glanced back at her. “Actually, you think you could help me figure out how to spar with bending?”

Lin tilted her head, a trace of amusement warming her expression. "Ayla, with all due respect, I'd do anything for you." 

That stopped Ayla in her tracks. For a second, all she could do was stare. Don't do that, she thought, helpless. Don't say things like that if you don't want me to fall even harder than I already have. "You can't just say things like that with a straight face." She managed. 

Lin's mouth twitched. "Apparently I can." 

“So you’ll help me?” A faint half-smile tugged at her mouth. “So I don’t make a complete ass of myself in front of the Avatar tomorrow? Just a partial one?”

Lin huffed a quiet sound that might have been a laugh. “They’ve got an indoor sparring gym here. I’m sure we could use it.”

Ayla stood, still barefoot, reaching for her shoes. “You sure you’re up for this?”

“I should be asking you that.”

“No,” Ayla admitted, tying one lace and then the other. “But when have I ever made good decisions about fights I’m not ready for?”

“Don’t remind me,” Lin muttered, but there was no heat behind it.

“You really think sparring’s a good idea?” Ayla asked after a moment.

“No.” Lin’s tone was soft, but steady. “But I think it’s the right one.” She brushed past her on the way to the door, fingers grazing Ayla’s elbow.  “Come on,” she said. “Before one of us rethinks this.”

“You mean you,” Ayla teased.

Lin didn’t turn around, but there was humor laced through her voice. “Keep talking, and I’ll change my mind.”

~*~~*~~*~

The sparring gym was dim and echoing, the floor cold under their bare feet. The only light came from a few lanterns along the wall, throwing long shadows across the mats. Ayla stripped off her outer shirt, left in just her undershirt, and Lin unclasped her armor with practiced efficiency, setting each plate aside in a neat, deliberate stack. “You ever take that off when you’re not sparring?” Ayla asked, trying for casual, though her pulse was already starting to climb.

“Feels strange without it,” Lin said, rolling her shoulders. “After this long, it’s less armor and more… clothes.”

Ayla’s gaze caught briefly on the definition in her arms, the easy control in every movement. Something about the quiet routine of her now, unclasping, unhurried, utterly in control, hit harder than any blow. Spirits, she moved like she’d wrestled gravity into obedience. She huffed out a breath, trying to hide her grin. “I’m about to get my ass kicked, aren’t I? Spirits help me.”

“They won’t,” Lin said, deadpan, but there was warmth under it. “But I will.” Ayla’s pulse jumped. Great. Absolutely in trouble. And yet, the way Lin said it didn’t sound like a threat, it sounded like a promise. A steady, terrifyingly personal one.

“Let’s start with control,” Lin said, walking to the center of the mat. “You’ve got power. You just don’t trust it yet. Try some bigger strikes. Not the little flourishes from earlier.”

Ayla nodded, braced, and shoved.

Too hard.

The gust punched out of her like a misfired cannon. It caught her square in the chest and knocked her flat on her back. The mat slammed into her shoulder blades, and she lay there for a second stunned, winded, then started laughing, breathless. Lin’s mouth twitched, though her arms stayed crossed. “Again.”

“Fuck,” Ayla groaned, rolling up. “Okay, okay, hold on.”

She tried again. This time the strike veered right and crashed into the far wall, rattling a rack of practice staves. A third attempt back drafted, snapping her hair into her face and making her cough. “Rein it in,” Lin said. “You’re pushing like it owes you money. Air doesn’t need convincing. It needs direction.”

“It feels loose,” Ayla said, shaking her arms out. “Like there’s too much of it and none of it wants to listen.”

“Then give it a shape to follow.”

Ayla narrowed her eyes. She wanted to laugh, to make a joke, but the intensity in Lin’s gaze stopped her. It wasn’t impatience, it was belief. Lin believed she could do this, and somehow that was more unnerving than failure. She drew the movement smaller, tried to hook the air like a rope and send it forward. It came out as a messy, whipping arc that cracked across her own ankle. She swore under her breath. “Fantastic. I’m assaulting myself now.”

“Impressive range,” Lin said dryly. “Terrible aim.”

“Shut up,” Ayla said, grinning despite herself.

Lin circled her as Ayla tried again, watching the way her shoulders tensed before every attempt. “You’re leading with your upper body,” Lin said. “Bending starts from the center.”

“Okay,” Ayla said, brow creasing. She tried again, shoulders first, arm chasing the motion. The gust stuttered, clipped wide, and she had to take two quick steps to keep from stumbling.

“This feels clunky,” she muttered. “Like I’m arguing with myself. Sitting on the floor swirling it around my fingers was easier.”

“You were safe on the floor,” Lin said. “Now you’re asking it to hit something. That’s different.”

She stepped closer, slow and unhurried, until she was close behind her. Her hands found Ayla’s hips. “Anchor here,” Lin said quietly. “Not your shoulders. Let the movement start from your backbone.” Ayla’s breath hitched, but she followed the adjustment, feeling the line of her body from heel to hip to shoulder, and turned her wrist, pushing out from that anchor instead of from her arms. The air came cleaner this time. Not perfect, the blast drifted left, but it didn’t kick back into her. It actually went.

“There,” Lin murmured, approval barely veiled. “That’s closer.”

Her hands lingered for half a second too long, fingertips brushing skin where Ayla’s shirt had shifted. The world narrowed to Lin’s voice, her hands. It wasn’t just the touch itself that undid her, it was the care behind it, the quiet certainty that if something went wrong Lin would pull her out. Then she stepped back, giving her space again. Ayla almost reached back for her before she caught herself. Spirits, pull it together. “It’d be easier if I could see it,” Ayla said, flexing her hands. 

“Which is why I bend rock,” Lin said dryly. “At least it announces itself.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ayla muttered. “Again, I know.”

They ran it again. And again. And again. Most of them were ugly. Some blasts went wide, one jolted straight up and stirred the rafters, and another died only a foot from her hand. Ayla’s shoulders burned, sweat gathered at her temple. “You’re still pausing at the top,” Lin said. “The hit lives in that first decision, not the hesitation after.”

“I’m trying to find the balance,” Ayla said, exhaling. “My body wants to hit. My bending doesn’t.”

“That’s because you’re treating them like they’re separate,” Lin said. “They’re not.”

Ayla ran a hand down her face. “Easy for you to say. You’ve had, what, fifty years to figure it out?”

Lin raised a brow. “Fifty? Spirits. I must look worse than I thought.”

“You’re impossible,” Ayla said, laughing. 

“Accurate,” Lin said. “Let's try something else. Hand-to-hand, no bending.”

Ayla blinked. “Thought that wasn’t the point.”

“It is,” Lin said, stepping closer. “You want to fold bending into what you already know? Then remember what it feels like to fight without it first.” She dropped into stance, bare feet solid on the mat. Ayla mirrored her.

Ayla feinted left, snapped a quick jab. Lin parried easily and tapped her shoulder. “Too slow.” They reset. Ayla ducked low, swept a leg. Lin stepped over it by inches, caught her wrist, redirected the momentum, and let go before it turned into a throw. “Better.” The rhythm built: strike, block, pivot, redirect. No bending, just contact and weight and timing. 

After a few exchanges, Ayla stepped back, breathing hard. “You’re not even winded.”

“That’s because I’m not pulling my hits,” Lin said calmly. “You keep stopping halfway through the strike.”

“I’m not-”

“You are,” Lin cut in. “Ever since you felt that first clean hit, you’re second-guessing the follow-through. Now that you know you can extend it with bending, you’re stuck between the two.”

Ayla shoved hair out of her face. “Alright. Again.”

Lin moved suddenly-quicker than before, closing the distance with a sharp step. Instinct fired before thought did. Ayla threw her hand up; a compact burst of air jumped with it, lifting the edge of Lin’s hair. Lin stopped, blinking once. “That,” she said. “Do that again.”

“Knock your hair around?” Ayla asked, wary.

“That was the first time you didn’t fight your own bending,” Lin said. “You just used it.” Ayla tried again. This time she threaded the gust through the palm of her strike. It wasn’t strong, but it had weight. Lin’s balance shifted a fraction before she corrected. Lin’s mouth curved, small and real. “Good. You’re starting to fight like yourself.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Sure it does,” Lin said. “You don’t fight like an airbender. You fight like someone who’s had to use her hands. So let the air do that with you.”

Ayla considered it, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “You mean make it… solid?”

“Make it loyal,” Lin said. “It’ll hit if you tell it where to go.” Something loosened in Ayla’s chest. She tried again, slower this time, focusing on the line of the strike instead of the idea of “air.” Her body coiled, drove forward; the gust rode the motion instead of lagging behind it. It clipped Lin’s shoulder with a small, dense smack. Lin exhaled, a low impressed sound. “Better.”

Ayla’s grin flashed, quick and disbelieving. “You felt that?”

“I did.” They went again. Lin feinted, Ayla countered automatically, a short controlled burst flaring low around her arm. It didn’t throw Lin, but it pressed against her, tight to the body. “Good,” Lin said quietly. “You’re keeping it closer. That’s where you’re strong.”

“It’s starting to feel… less like bending,” Ayla said, “and more like the beginning of muscle memory.”

“That’s because you’re finally listening to it.” Lin stepped in, nudged Ayla’s elbow into a better angle with her hand. “Right now you’re still trying to manage every inch. Feel the weight. The motion will follow.” Lin’s hand was warm, steady, unexpectedly gentle for someone who could tear apart metal with her bare hands, and Ayla shook her head to clear that particular thought before she lost her focus. “You tense when you anticipate the hit,” Lin said, voice low. “That’s when you lose balance.”

“I don’t like being surprised.” 

“You seemed fine this morning.”

Ayla blinked, then laughed despite herself. “That was… different.”

“Mm,” Lin said, unimpressed.

“Not fair,” Ayla laughed, and threw a small burst at her that Lin dodged without effort. They moved through another combination. This time Ayla’s strikes cut forward instead of glancing off. They ran it faster, with Lin reading Ayla’s timing, making her adjust, making her think.

Lin caught Ayla’s wrist on a downswing and redirected, turning her just enough to send her slightly off-balance without dropping her. “Your stance is better,” Lin said. “But you’re still bracing too early.”

“It feels safer if I do,” Ayla said between breaths. “It still feels weird. Physical hits I can anticipate, but having to wrap my mind around anticipating bending blows is just psyching me out, even though you aren’t even using yours.”

“You don’t have to trust it yet,” Lin said. “Just stop trying to control it before it even exists. Let it show up. Then decide what to do with it.”

Ayla ground her teeth. Tried again. This time she let herself move first and worry second. Her strike came in low and fast; a compressed gust rode the motion and clipped Lin’s ribs hard enough to make her exhale. “That,” Lin said, rubbing her side once. “Was a good hit.”

“You’re just saying that because you felt it.”

“That’s exactly why it was a good hit,” Lin said dryly. 

Ayla’s grin widened, sweat dripping down her temple. “Progress, then.”

Lin watched her a beat longer, eyes steady, something warm settling in their edges. “You’re learning to give your air weight,” she said. “That’s not nothing.”

Ayla wiped her brow with the back of her hand. “It just feels… more natural this way. All the spinning and sweeping makes me feel like a target. This feels like something I can actually use.”

Lin tilted her head. “Tenzin’s going to hate it.”

Ayla huffed a laugh. “Spirits, you think?”

“You’ve corrupted decades of Air Nomad philosophy in one night,” Lin said. “He’ll have a lecture prepared by morning.”

“That’s an achievement, right?”

“I’ll decide after I recover from the paperwork,” Lin said. “Come here. Pull the air up, then shove it low. Think density. Stack it before you release it.” She walked through the motion once, no bending, just form: draw up, compress, drive down. Ayla mirrored her. The first attempt skittered off to the side. The second faltered. The third landed with a dense thump that pushed against Lin’s shin.

Lin’s mouth curved into a small, satisfied smirk. “Use that tomorrow,” she said. “I want to see Tenzin’s face.”

Ayla laughed, breathless. “Deal.” She looked at Lin across the mat, both of them breathless and shining with sweat, and thought she’d never seen anything more alive. If this was what fighting beside Lin felt like, she could understand why people followed her into spirits-know-what throughout the city. 

The silence stretched for a few moments. “Thank you,” she said finally.

Lin glanced down at her. “For what?”

“For not going easy on me.”

“You’d have hated it if I did,” Lin said.

“And for… all of this.” Ayla hesitated, then smiled. “Helping me not die in front of the Avatar.”

“Korra’s still going to knock you down tomorrow,” she said wryly. “But you won’t embarrass yourself.”

Ayla huffed a laugh. “Partial ass, then?”

“Partial,” Lin agreed, the corner of her mouth lifting.

Ayla crouched to grab her discarded shirt, using the hem to wipe the sweat from her face. Sweat cooled against her skin in the draft from the high windows. Now that they’d stopped moving, the aches started to announce themselves one by one; shoulders, ribs, bruises blooming under the surface. Old familiar soreness, wrapped around something entirely new. When she straightened, Lin was still watching her. 

Heat prickled at the back of her neck. She hid it by slinging the towel over her shoulder and reaching for her water. Spirits, she thought, helpless and a little unmoored, I’m in so much trouble. She laughed under her breath, still catching up to the fact that she had just managed to use airbending in a way that was actually manageable. Lin was already gathering her armor, sliding each piece back into its place. “You always that composed after a fight?” Ayla asked, voice a little hoarse.

Lin glanced up, the faintest smile ghosting across her mouth. “Not always.” She crossed the room and offered Ayla a towel she’d pulled from the shelf near the wall, her lips tugging into a half smile. “Here.”

“Thanks.” Their fingers brushed when Ayla took it. Warm skin, calloused edges. The contact barely lasted a second, but Lin’s gaze lingered on her hands as Ayla used the towel to wipe her neck and forearms.

When Ayla finished, she draped the towel over her shoulder, looking over at Lin, who met her gaze. “You did well,” she said finally. “You were scared, and you did it anyway.” Ayla blinked at the quiet praise. Lin finished securing the last clasp, and Ayla leaned against the wall, towel still draped over one shoulder, watching her with a look that was equal parts exhaustion and something softer. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” They walked quietly back to the guest rooms on the other side of the compound, and without really thinking about it, Ayla slipped in through Lin’s door behind her.

She hovered just inside, rubbing the back of her neck. “Do you, uh… want me to-” she motioned vaguely toward the hallway, “head to my room? Or…?”

Lin turned, gave her a flat, unimpressed look. “No. You’re staying.”

“Right,” Ayla said quickly. “Just making sure things didn’t change.”

“They didn’t,” Lin said. “Get in the bed before I change them.” Relief loosened something in Ayla’s chest. She didn’t overthink it, just hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her pants, tugged them off, and slid under the covers in her undershirt and shorts like this was the most obvious thing in the world. Lin watched her for a beat, then shook her head, amused, and started unfastening her belt. “You’re very casual about making yourself at home.”

“You told me to get in the bed,” Ayla mumbled into the pillow. She tried not to stare, and failed completely. There was something hypnotic about the unhurried way Lin moved, the quiet precision that never seemed to leave her, even now, standing half in shadow, pulling her hair loose. Ayla had never seen anyone else look beautiful like this. Not this late, not this tired. And yet, here Lin was, without even trying.

“Oh? I didn’t realize that came with commentary.”

“Everything comes with commentary.”

Lin huffed, setting her belt and bracers neatly on the chair. “Spirits help me,” she muttered, working the clasps of her armor loose and stacking the plates on the floor in a tidy pile.

“They won’t,” Ayla said into the pillow. “I asked earlier.” That dragged a quiet laugh out of Lin. She crossed the room, switched off the lamp, and sat on the edge of the mattress to pull off her boots. The springs dipped when she lay down beside Ayla, flat on her back for a moment, staring up at the dark ceiling beams. The dark made everything sound closer. Ayla’s voice broke the silence first, voice soft in the dark. “Just so I don’t overthink this, what are we doing, exactly?”

“Sleeping,” Lin said. “It’s almost three in the morning.”

“I know that,” Ayla said, huffing a small laugh. “I meant-”

“I know what you meant,” Lin cut in, gentler this time. She reached out, fingertips tracing a line between Ayla’s shoulder blades through the thin fabric of her shirt. “When we get back to the city, we’ll go there. I’m not starting something here.”

“Because we’re at the South Pole?” Ayla asked, half-teasing.

“Because this isn’t the place,” Lin said. There was a pause, fabric rustling as she shifted closer. Her breath warmed Ayla’s ear when she added, lower, “I am not making the first time I touch you be with the damn Fire Ferrets on the other side of a paper-thin wall.”

Ayla made a sound that might have been a word or a strangled groan. “That’s… fair,” she managed, already slipping toward exhaustion. But exhaustion didn’t dull the ache of it, the nearness, the promise buried under Lin’s restraint. She could feel her breath on her neck, enough to make her entire body remember the space between wanting and waiting.

Lin watched her for a moment, eyes adjusting to the dim, Ayla curled on her side, hair mussed from the pillow. Lin reached for the blanket, tugged it a little higher, then shifted onto her side as well.

She inched closer, slow enough Ayla could have pulled away. She didn’t. Lin fit herself along Ayla’s back, one arm sliding around her waist, hand resting light against her stomach. Ayla exhaled, a soft, unguarded sound, and immediately relaxed into the hold like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Okay?” Lin asked quietly.

“Mhm,” Ayla mumbled, already half asleep. Lin could feel the steady rise and fall of her breathing against her chest, the quiet warmth of her skin through her shirt. For a long time she didn’t move. She just let herself memorize the weight of it,  this impossible, ordinary thing. She let her eyes close, breathing in the faint scent of soap in Ayla’s hair. The tension that had lived in her shoulders for months eased by degrees. For the first time in longer than she could remember, asleep-with-someone didn’t feel like a vulnerability she was afraid to allow, it felt like a choice she’d made. Sleep came easier than it had any right to.

~*~~*~~*~

​​The morning air in the gym was cool and sharp. Mats spread across the floor, sunlight slanting through the high windows. Ayla flexed her taped hands and tried to ignore how many people were watching. It seemed everyone wanted to come watch her get her ass kicked. 

“First round, no bending,” Korra said, rolling her shoulders. “I want to see what you can do.” Ayla nodded once, adjusting her wrist tape, trying not to look at Lin. Her heart was already pounding. She could do this. She’d done worse, in worse rooms, against worse people. Still, every move felt like something she wanted to prove, not just to Korra, not to everyone else in the room, but to Lin, who was standing at the edge of it and had taught her not to be afraid of her own abilities. 

“Don’t hold back,” Korra added, already sliding into stance. Ayla smiled faintly and dropped down as well. They circled. Then Korra lunged first, fast and clean, a textbook jab followed by a sweeping kick. Ayla deflected the jab, pivoted off the line, and answered with a hook that barely grazed Korra’s jaw. 

Korra grinned, “Alright,” and came back harder, changing levels mid strike. Feint high, elbow low. Ayla blocked with her forearm, twisted, and shot in close, driving a knee toward Korra’s ribs. Korra caught it mid-motion, shoved her backward with raw strength, and then spun through with a back kick that landed square on Ayla’s shoulder. 

Ayla hit the mat, rolled, and came up fast. Her shoulder burned, but she ignored it- jab, jab, low kick, elbow. Korra blocked the first three but the elbow caught her across the bicep. She hissed through her teeth and answered with a driving shoulder check that sent Ayla stumbling back. 

They broke apart, both breathing harder now. Korra reset her stance, eyes bright. A double jab to Ayla’s cheek, then a low leg kick, Ayla checked it with her shin, caught Korra’s wrist, and twisted. For half a breath it worked, Korra’s balance faltered for a half second. Ayla seized the chance, swept her front leg, and miraculously caught Korra off her center. She hit the mat with a thud that made Bolin gasp. “She dropped Korra!” 

Korra blinked up at the ceiling, then grinned. “Nice.” She rolled backward, using the momentum to kick up in one fluid motion. “My turn.” 

She surged forward, dropping into a spinning hook kick that forced Ayla to duck. Korra flowed straight into a back-sweep, her leg scything low. Ayla tried to clear but got caught mid-air. The world tilted, and Ayla went flying, hit the mat on her back, and slid a full foot before she stopped. “Ow,” she managed, half-laughing, half-groaning as she heaved herself up. 

Korra didn’t give her time to think. She stepped in again, lightning quick, elbow, knee, pivot, grab. Ayla blocked one, two, then Korra twisted, caught her wrist, and used the motion to flip her cleanly over the hip. Ayla hit hard, breath knocked out of her. She rolled onto her side, coughed once, and pushed up to her knees. 

Korra was already crouched, hand extended. “Pinned,” she said, grinning. 

Ayla wheezed a laugh. “Spirits, I’m going to feel this tomorrow.” 

Korra laughed as Ayla took her hand, hauling herself upright and shaking out her arms. 

They broke for water, sweat slick on both of them. After a while, Korra straightened, rolling her shoulders. "Round two," she said. "Airbending's fair game."

Ayla capped her bottle and groaned softly, "Great. Now you can hit harder."

Korra smirked. "I've only had airbending for a couple of days. We're basically on the same level."

"Yeah and you’re also the Avatar," Ayla said dryly, giving her a look. 

Korra grinned. “Exactly. No pressure.” 

They circled again, and Korra moved first. She thrust her palms forward, sending a wall of air that roared across the space. Ayla ducked low, slid sideways, and felt the gust pass clean over her shoulder.

She came up in motion, drove a short burst forward-the air compressed tight around her palm like a blunt strike. It caught Korra mid-torso with a sharp thump.

Korra staggered half a step, steadying herself, eyes bright. "Alright,” she said, rubbing her ribs. “That's something."

Ayla laughed, still half-incredulous that she had landed a hit. "You said don't hold back."

"I did." Korra's grin was wolfish. "So I won't." The next exchange was fast, Korra pressed forward, bursts snapping off her hands like percussion. Ayla blocked with half-formed shields, deflecting edges rather than meeting them head-on. Korra used the rhythm to close distance, jab, elbow, pivot, sweep. Ayla ducked under the elbow, caught Korra's wrist, twisted, and threw a burst of air point-blank. The hit drove Korra back a step.

“You do not fight like Tenzin,” Korra said, panting, delighted, as she sent a whip of air from the side that hit like a backhanded slap, spinning Ayla halfway around. Ayla landed on her feet, sliding, then fired a counterstrike low across the mat. The gust skimmed Korra's ankles, knocking her knees out from under her. Korra caught herself on her hands, laughing even as she rolled back to her feet. "Rude!"

She retaliated with a wide horizontal gust- sloppy but strong. Ayla dropped under it, came up in a pivot, and drove a compact, dense burst straight into Korra's center mass- an earth-style hit, sharp and anchored. The sound cracked through the space. Korra stumbled back two full steps, eyes wide in surprise.

"Spirits," Korra said, rubbing her ribs. "That felt like earthbending."

Ayla glanced over her shoulder toward Lin and smirked. "Weird. No idea where l'd pick that up." Korra caught the look, grinned, and blasted her with a sudden burst of air that sent her sprawling. Ayla hit the mat hard, laughing through a groan.

Tenzin blinked from the wall, expression incredulous. "Lin... did you teach her that?"

Lin, arms crossed, didn't even look at him. "I don't know what you're talking about." A faint smirk tugged at her mouth.

Korra advanced again, both of them grinning now. The floor echoed with the rush of air and the thud of bare feet. Ayla dodged two blasts, deflected the third, then snapped forward with another tight burst that clipped Korra's shoulder.

"Not bad!" Korra called.

"Still standing!" Ayla yelled back, laughing.

"Not for long." Korra dropped low, spun through a capoeira-style sweep that drove a spiral of air across the floor. Ayla jumped it, barely, twisting in midair to answer with a downward hail-mary strike, aimless. The two currents collided mid-space, sending Ayla sprawling from the updraft, sliding against the mat and scrambling to regain her footing. 

Korra feinted right, stepped left, and threw an overhand arc of air that came in high. Ayla crossed her arms, caught the edge, but Korra used the recoil to pivot and slam a second gust from behind, sending Ayla flying. She hit the mat hard, air knocked out of her, limbs sprawled. For a moment all she could do was blink at the ceiling and cough. The sound of Lin’s laugh, low, rare, carried over the chaos. Spirits, she thought, I’d do this all over again just to hear that.

Korra was already there, breath ragged, hair half-loose, grin bright. “You okay?”

Ayla wheezed a laugh. "Define okay."

"You didn't die. That counts."

Korra offered a hand. Ayla took it, grip firm despite her trembling muscles, and let her haul her up. 

Ayla was still catching her breath when Tenzin finally spoke.
“That,” he said slowly, “was… something.”

Korra grinned, wiping sweat from her brow. “You can say it. It was awesome.”

“I was going to say concerning,” Tenzin corrected, looking between them. “Ayla, you told us you had never sparred with airbending before.”

Ayla, still bent slightly at the waist, hands braced on her knees, managed a crooked smile. “Technically, I hadn’t.”

“Technically,” Tenzin repeated, his tone already weary. “Then what exactly was that?”

Ayla wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I might have… asked Lin to help me learn last night.”

Tenzin blinked. “Lin. You asked Lin.”

Ayla’s head tipped slightly toward her without meaning to. She caught Lin’s expression, that unbothered little tilt of her mouth, and something in her chest pulled tight. Of course she had. 

Korra laughed outright. “That explains so much. You fight like you’re trying to punch air into submission.”

“I didn’t want to make a complete ass of myself in front of the Avatar,” Ayla said, breath still ragged but grinning anyway.

Korra held up her hands. “Too late. But in a cool way.”

“So,” Tenzin said, every word clipped with restraint, “instead of coming to the only Airbending Master in the world,” he pinched the bridge of his nose, “you went to an earthbender for airbending instruction.” He exhaled slowly. “Of course.”

Lin crossed her arms, utterly unbothered. “She asked for help fighting, not enlightenment.”

Tenzin turned toward her, exasperated. “And you agreed?”

“Seemed like a good opportunity to teach her a few tricks,” Lin said, voice even. “Clearly, it was effective.”

Tenzin raised an eyebrow. “You mean teaching her how to weaponize air like an earthbender?”

“Semantics,” Lin replied without missing a beat.

Korra snorted as Tenzin closed his eyes and muttered something suspiciously prayer-like under his breath.
Bolin, trying to hide a grin, whispered to Mako as he mimed a prayer, “In through the nose, out through the chaos.”

“I heard that,” Tenzin said sharply, without opening his eyes.

Korra clapped Ayla on the shoulder, still grinning. “This was fun. Like, really fun. This afternoon, want to run through some forms? I’m still figuring out half of them myself.”

Ayla hesitated only a second before nodding. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

Tenzin sighed again, long-suffering but not truly upset. “If you two are going to destroy the training hall, at least do it with proper breathing technique.”

He turned toward Lin. “And you. No more cross-element instruction without supervision.”

Lin raised one brow. “You planning to supervise me now?”

Tenzin paused, decided he was too tired to argue, and walked off muttering, “Spirits give me strength.”

Korra watched him go. “He loves it when we do that.”

“Sure he does,” Mako said dryly.

The group began to disperse, but Lin stayed where she was, near the edge of the mat, arms still loosely crossed. Her gaze followed Ayla as she rolled her shoulder out and bent to stretch, the sunlight catching in the sheen of sweat on her skin. 

Ayla felt the look before she saw it, that prickle at the back of her neck that wasn’t nerves but awareness. She glanced up and, for a moment, everything else fell away: the mat, the noise, even the ache in her shoulder. It was just Lin, and that unreadable warmth in her eyes that always made her stomach do something traitorous. She straightened, wiping her face with a towel. “So,” she said, half-smiling. “How bad was it?”

Lin’s mouth quirked slightly. “You kept your footing. That’s what saved you on the last exchange.” A moment of silence passed, quiet, unhurried. The room had emptied, and Lin made no move to step back. She reached out instead, brushing her thumb along a smudge of dust on Ayla’s jaw. The touch was nothing, barely there, but Ayla swore it lit through her like fire. Lin’s thumb lingered for the smallest second too long, and Ayla almost leaned into it before she caught herself. “Good work,” Lin murmured. “You should be proud of that.”

~*~~*~~*~

They moved to the outdoor sparring yard by the afternoon. The air was bright and cold, late light catching on the worn stones. Korra and Ayla stood at the center, both already sweating, hair stuck to their necks. Korra moved, running through an airbending form, sweeping, circular, effortless motion. Ayla mirrored her as best she could. Her movements were tighter, sharper, less about grace and more about function. 

From the edge of the courtyard, Lin and Tenzin stood side by side, watching. Tenzin’s hands were folded neatly behind his back; Lin’s were shoved into her coat pockets as she leaned against the railing, posture casual but gaze fixed.

Korra called out over her shoulder, “Loosen your stance, Ayla! You’re rooted like a tree!”

Ayla shot back, “Trees don’t fall over, Avatar!” and punctuated it with a dense burst of air that cracked against Korra’s shoulder like a blunt strike.

Korra stumbled, then burst out laughing. “That’s not airbending! That’s- I don’t even know what that was!”

Lin’s mouth curved faintly. The corner of her chest warmed in spite of herself. Spirits, that attitude- sharp, alive, unflinching. The same stubbornness she had seen watching Ayla fight a month ago, now aimed at the Avatar without hesitation.

Beside her, Tenzin sighed. “That was earthbending. Through air.”

“Maybe she’s innovating,” Lin said mildly.

“Maybe you’re encouraging bad habits,” he muttered, though there was no real bite to it.

Korra tried again, faster this time, a clean sweep that sent dust spiraling up from the ground. Ayla met it head-on, deflecting. Their laughter carried across the yard, light and unguarded in a way Lin hadn’t heard in years. For a while, neither spoke. They just watched. Ayla moved differently now, still rough, still unrefined, but her confidence had weight. Each movement was deliberate. Lin could see every correction she’d made, every adjustment from the night before. The stance, the timing, the discipline... it was her influence, reflected back through someone else.

And spirits, it was beautiful to watch.

Ayla wasn’t graceful in the way airbenders usually were. She was efficient, contained. Her strikes weren’t about flow but about intent. She fought like she meant every motion. Like she’d learned to trust her own body again. And maybe that’s what undid Lin the most, watching someone reclaim trust in themselves, one movement at a time. Lin’s chest tightened with pride that almost felt like awe. Watching her now, strong and certain under the light, she looked less like someone recovering from loss and more like someone discovering what she was made of. Lin hadn’t realized how much she’d needed to see that. She could have watched her all day.

Finally, Tenzin said quietly, “You did teach her to fight like you.”

“I taught her to stop fighting her bending,” Lin said without looking at him. “This is just how she moves. The form fits her.”

Tenzin tilted his head. “You really found her in a fight ring, didn’t you?”

“I did,” Lin said simply. “I watched one of her matches.”

“And that didn’t… concern you?”

Lin shrugged, gaze still on the courtyard. “She was good. It concerned me more that no one else seemed to notice how good she was.” That first night came back to her in flashes, the crowd, the way Ayla had walked off from the ring. She’d known then that she was dangerous in the way broken things are- sharp, unrepentant, still trying to find what they could be used for. And Lin, who’d spent a lifetime controlling things, had wanted, for once, to see what would happen if she didn’t intervene. If she just… stayed and watched. A long pause settled between them. The air hummed faintly with movement below, Korra’s voice calling form corrections, Ayla laughing at something that clearly didn’t go as planned.

Then Tenzin said quietly, “I owe you an apology.”

Lin’s head turned slightly, her expression guarded. “For what this time?”

Tenzin hesitated, hands clasped a little tighter behind his back. “For bursting into the room yesterday. I was so focused on finding you to tell you the good news that I didn’t think. I did knock on yours first,” he said, almost sheepishly. “When you didn’t answer, I assumed…”

“That I was in Ayla’s,” Lin finished dryly.

“Yes.”

She almost smiled because the irony wasn’t lost on her. She’d broken into Ayla’s apartment just a few weeks ago. Maybe they were even now. “How’d you know where I’d be?” 

“I’ve known you your entire life,” he said quietly. “When you weren’t in your room, I had a hunch.”

“That’s a convenient excuse.” 

“I assumed,” Tenzin continued, “that if Ayla gave up her bending protecting you, there was a chance you possibly enjoyed her company.” There was a trace of humor in his voice. 

Lin exhaled through her nose. “Don’t start.”

He gave a small smile. “I wasn’t accusing. Just observing.”

Across the yard, Korra shouted, “Watch your left!” followed by a grunt and another burst of laughter.

Lin’s mouth twitched. “She’s going to be sore tomorrow.”

“She’s lucky you were there to help her,” Tenzin said.

“That’s debatable.”

“Not from where I’m standing.” He hesitated. “She seems good for you.”

Lin’s eyes flicked toward him, her posture tightening. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Tenzin said quickly, lifting his hands. “Just that… I haven’t seen you have a friend in a long time. At least not one who seems to understand you. “You seem… lighter. Present. Maybe even-” he faltered, searching for the word, “happy. Or your version of it.”

Lin let out a low sigh. “Don’t start psychoanalyzing me, Tenzin.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said softly. But there was warmth in it, too.

Below, Ayla drove a low strike that nearly knocked Korra off balance. The surprised grin that flashed across her face made something inside Lin tighten. There it was again, pride, relief, and something dangerously close to affection. She’d taught Ayla that movement, the weight shift, the grounded intent, and now it was alive out there, hers. Lin had never seen her own lessons reflected back as joy before. It was disarming. Korra shouted something that ended in laughter, and Tenzin shook his head. “I don’t know whether to lecture them or thank them for not leveling the compound.”

“Do both,” Lin said. “You’ll feel better.”

He chuckled. “You know me too well.”

“I should,” she said. “You’ve been predictable since you were twelve.”

“And you’ve been impossible since you were ten.”

In the courtyard, Korra called, “Okay, one more round!” and Ayla groaned audibly before dropping back into stance.

Tenzin folded his arms. “You realize I’m going to have to un-teach half of what she’s learned from you.”

“Good luck with that.”

He laughed under his breath, then added after a moment, “It’s good to see you like this, Lin.”

“Like what?”

He glanced at her sidelong. “Not carrying the world for once.”

Lin didn’t answer right away. Her eyes stayed on Ayla, sweat shining on her arms, focus etched in every movement. “Don’t get used to it,” she said finally.

“I won’t,” Tenzin said. “But I’ll still be glad for it.”

The match below slowed. Korra said something Lin didn’t catch, and Ayla laughed, bright and easy and alive. Lin leaned back against the railing, the sound settling in her chest like warmth. Spirits help her, she was gone for this woman. And for once, she didn’t want to fix it.

~*~~*~~*~

By the time Ayla arrived to dinner after her shower, the table was already a storm of sound. Plates clattered, Meelo was standing on his bench trying to balance a dinner roll on his forehead, and Korra was mid-story, hands carving through the air in wild reenactment. Katara sat at the head of the table, wrapped in a soft shawl, smiling faintly at the chaos unfolding around her. “You know,” Bolin was saying between mouthfuls, “I think my favorite part was when Ayla went full street brawl on Korra. Like, you don’t see that every day.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Ayla said, sliding into a seat across from Lin. Her hair was still damp, curling at the ends. The steam from her tea fogged the edge of her vision for a second, and when she looked up, Lin was watching her, not openly, just a flick of attention that lingered half a heartbeat too long. It shouldn’t have done anything to her pulse, but it did.

Korra snorted. “You threw me.”

“That was gravity,” Ayla said dryly.

“That was technique,” Lin corrected from the end of the table, pouring herself tea. “Don’t undersell it.”

Ayla tried not to smile. Tried harder to not look directly at her. 

Tenzin groaned, setting down his chopsticks. “Please don’t encourage her to throw Korra.”

“She didn’t need encouragement,” Lin said mildly. “She did that on her own.”

Katara chuckled softly from her seat. “Oh, let them have fun, Tenzin. I’ve raised enough benders to know it’s good for them to knock each other around once in a while.”

“See?” Korra said, pointing her chopsticks triumphantly. “Katara agrees with me.”

Tenzin pressed his fingers to his temple, resigned. “We are one meal away from an international incident.”

“Oh, please,” Lin muttered. “You say that every time.”

“Because it’s always true,” Tenzin said, exasperated.

Bolin was already leaning forward again, elbows on the table. “But seriously, Ayla, when you hit Korra with that air strike that felt like a rock-”

“Airbending is about freedom and redirection, not concussive force!” Tenzin cut in.

Lin took a sip of tea. “Worked, didn’t it?”

That earned her a scandalized look from Tenzin. Korra responded, laughing, “See? She gets it!”

“Spirits save me,” Tenzin muttered, looking skyward for all of three seconds, before Meelo launched a pea across the table using airbending and Bolin applauded.

“Meelo!” Pema groaned. “No bending at the table!”

“Dad does it!” Meelo protested.

“I do not,” Tenzin said sharply.

“Yes you do,” Ikki chimed in. “You used airbending to move the teapot that one time because you didn’t want to get up.”

The table broke into laughter again, overlapping and warm. Ayla smiled faintly, glancing around the table. The noise, the clatter, the warmth of it all, it was disorienting and comforting in equal measure. 

And the strangest part was realizing that Lin, quiet at the end of the table, was part of it too, as much as she’d probably protest her association. And Ayla wanted, more than she’d admit, to stay here, remain in it, as long as she could. 

As the noise settled, Tenzin cleared his throat and set down his chopsticks. “Ayla,” he said, “when would you like to start training at the island?”

Ayla blinked, caught mid-sip of water. “Oh, uh, this week? Maybe once or twice a week to start?”

“Good,” Tenzin said, nodding. “We’ll take it slow. Mornings are best; Korra usually trains with me after breakfast.”

The rest of the dinner blurred into soft conversation until the clatter of plates faded, chairs scraped back, and the household began to disperse into smaller groups. As Ayla stood, she glanced across the table, Lin was still seated, finishing her tea, profile lit by the low lantern glow. Their eyes met for a heartbeat. Lin didn’t say anything, just gave the smallest nod, but it said enough. Ayla turned and quietly left the room. 

Lin stood to leave when Tenzin caught her arm. “A moment?”

She followed him to the hallway outside, and Tenzin waited until the doors had closed behind them to begin speaking. “Saikhan told me to talk you into coming back.”

Lin blinked. “He what?”

“He said he liked being second better. Apparently, he wants his boss back. So does the force.”

Lin gave a short, incredulous laugh. “That man’s allergic to stress.”

“Then you’d be doing him a favor.” Tenzin’s expression softened. “With Tarrlok gone, I could get the reappointment through before the election. You belong in that post.”

“Election?”

“Oh, right.” He paused. “You might have still been in prison.”

Lin gave him a flat look. “You don’t say.”

“We’ve decided to disband the council,” Tenzin said. “Replace it with a democratically elected president. It’s… an attempt to ease tensions among non-benders. There was resistance to keeping the council after the events of the past year, and, well, this seemed the best way forward.”

Lin frowned. “So you won’t be on the council anymore?”

“No,” he said, and the relief in his voice was clear. “Honestly, I’m glad. It’ll give me more time to focus on training Korra and being with my family.” He paused, then looked at her, quiet and sincere. “So you’ll talk to Saikhan? At least think about it?”

Lin hesitated. The words landed heavier than she expected. “I’ll… talk to him when I get back.”

Tenzin nodded, satisfied. Then came a crash that sounded out through the door. “Go supervise your children before they burn down the building.”

He chuckled. “Of course.” When he left, the corridor suddenly felt too quiet. Inside, her thoughts churned, sharp, guilty, unresolved. She still didn’t know if she deserved her position back after the lines she crossed. The thought came uninvited, of how she’d been furious with her mother for years for what she’d done to protect Su, for blurring the line between right and wrong. And now, she’d done the same for Ayla. She was a hypocrite. She thought about her mother, of the arguments, the resentment, the years she’d spent swearing she’d never make the same choices. And yet here she was. After protecting someone she cared about in all the ways she once claimed were wrong. It wasn’t the same. But it wasn’t entirely different, either.

Same line. Same compromise. Different reasons. And she could admit that now. Not out loud, maybe never out loud, but she could admit it to herself. She wasn’t proud of it, but she understood it in an ugly way that she hated made sense. 

And she wanted her position back. Not for the title or the authority that came with being in charge, but for the version of herself that still needed to belong to something. She didn’t know who she was without it, the thought of returning to the city to start over felt impossible. So she’d take it back. But do it the right way this time, and keep it clean. 

And now there was another conversation she needed to have. Because if Ayla was going to train with Tenzin… there were things she needed to know. Lin exhaled. Spirits help her, she hated conversations like that. But she wasn’t going to wait to have this one. 

Ayla was sitting cross-legged on the bed when Lin stepped in, the door clicking softly shut behind her.

“Hey,” Ayla said, looking up. “Everything okay?’ She furrowed her brows. “You look… off.” Lin stopped just inside the room. For once, she didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands. They crossed over her chest, then dropped, fingers flexing once at her sides.

“I don’t know how to have this conversation,” she said.

Ayla’s brows went up. “You… sound like you’re about to arrest me.”

That pulled a quiet huff of laughter out of Lin. “It’s not that.” She took a few steps closer, then stopped again, as if pacing out a perimeter she wasn’t sure she wanted to cross. “You’re going to be training with Tenzin soon,” she said. “So there’s something I should tell you before that.”

Concern flickered across Ayla’s face. “Okay.”

Lin exhaled, measured. “I’m assuming you don’t know that before Tenzin married Pema… we were together. For a long time.”

Ayla blinked, startled, then nodded slowly. “No, I didn’t know,” she said honestly. “But it makes sense. You grew up together, right? Your parents were best friends.”

“Yes.” Lin’s voice had gone very quiet. “I just didn’t want you to think I was keeping something from you. In case it came up and you heard it from someone else.”

“I wouldn’t,” Ayla said, steady. “I don’t. But… thank you for telling me.” Her chest pulled tight with the weight of what Lin was handing her. This was history. Fault lines. Lin trusted her with them anyway.

Lin nodded once, then sat on the edge of the bed, leaving a deliberate bit of space between them. “Still,” she said. “You deserve to know.”

Ayla studied her profile for a moment. “Am I allowed to ask what happened?”

Lin let out a slow breath. “When Aang died, Tenzin took it hard. Understandably.” Her hands laced together loosely, knuckles pale. “He was the only airbender left. He wanted to make sure there’d be more after him. I didn’t want children. I wanted my career. I was rising in the force, barely home, barely human some days.” She stared at the floor. “Pema was an acolyte. She could give him what I couldn’t. Comfort. Vulnerability. Airbending children.” Her mouth tightened. “He grieved with her. I didn’t stop him. I didn’t know how.”

Ayla’s expression softened, but she didn’t rush in with comfort. “You were grieving too,” she said quietly.

Lin’s voice dropped. “Aang was the closest thing I had to a father. Mine was never around; I never even found out who he was.” She rubbed the back of her neck, visibly uncomfortable but forcing herself to keep going. “So, no. I don’t blame Tenzin anymore. But I did. For a long time. And I buried everything under work until there was nothing left of me to give anyone.”

“That’s… a lot to carry,” Ayla said after a moment. “I’m sorry you had to.”

Lin shrugged once, small. “It was a long time ago.”

“That doesn’t make it lighter,” Ayla said. “Just older.”

Lin glanced over at her, the corner of her mouth shifting. “You’re infuriatingly reasonable, you know that?”

Ayla gave a quiet half-smile. “Someone’s got to balance you out.” She meant it as a joke, but it was also true: for all of Lin’s ability to hold it together, there was something fragile in this that she’d never show anyone else. And Ayla wanted, very badly, to be the person who could hold that without dropping it.

That earned the faintest sound of amusement from Lin, not quite a laugh, but something close. She sighed. “That’s why I’m telling you now. I wasn’t good at letting people in then. I’m not magically better at it now.” Her gaze dropped to Ayla’s hands. “But I don’t want to repeat what I did back then. So you’ll have to forgive the poor execution.”

Ayla’s throat tightened. “You’re doing fine,” she said. “Really.”

Lin gave a quiet, disbelieving huff. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“I’m serious.” Ayla nudged her knee gently against Lin’s. “You’re telling me things instead of shutting down and changing the subject. That counts.”

Lin’s eyes flicked down at the contact, as if surprised by how easily Ayla touched her now, like they’d been doing this for years instead of days. It sent a small, unexpected rush of warmth through Ayla’s chest. Lin let out a breath that almost qualified as a laugh. “Don’t make a habit of forgiving me this easily.”

“You haven’t done anything you need to be forgiven for.” Silence settled for a moment. “Is that how you lost your bending?” Ayla asked quietly. “After you called me from the island?”

Lin’s shoulders eased a fraction; this part was easier. “We were trying to get away, but a couple airships were gaining on Oogi. I launched myself onto one of them. Tore open the hull, incapacitated it, then jumped to the next. We were running out of distance, so I took out as many as I could before they got me. Which turned out to be one.”

Ayla let out a low, impressed laugh. “Holy hells, Lin.”

Lin shrugged, tone dry. “I’ve had worse ideas.”

“That sounds terrifyingly impressive,” Ayla said. “And you think I’m reckless.”

“Fair point,” Lin conceded.

They fell quiet again. “We’re leaving tomorrow,” Ayla said eventually. She picked at a loose thread on her sleeve. “Back to the city. Back to-” she hesitated, “whatever normal is supposed to be now.” The thought sat heavy and strange. This room, this suspended pocket of time where Lin was hers in a way that didn’t have a name yet. 

Lin leaned back against the headboard. “Tenzin said Saikhan pulled him aside. Apparently I’m due for a meeting about reinstatement.”

“You’re going back?”

“I’ll talk to them,” Lin said. 

Ayla was quiet for a moment, weighing her words. “Good,” she said finally. “They need you back.” Then, softer, she said, “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little worried about what that looks like, though.”

Lin’s head turned. “Worried?”

“You work yourself into the ground,” Ayla said. “I’ve seen it. You finally let yourself stop for five minutes, and now you’re walking straight back into that. And I’m… apparently about to sign up for getting knocked around by the Avatar twice a week.”

Lin studied her, really studied her. “You think I’m going to disappear.”

“I think it would be easy for you to,” she said. “And I’m not asking you not to love your job. I just…” She exhaled through her nose. “I just want to know what I’m walking into. For both of us.” There it was, laid bare as she could make it without sounding pathetic. I want you in my life, and I’m afraid of change for the first time since I can remember. She didn’t know how else to say it, so she left it there.

Lin went very still. She exhaled slowly, the tension in her shoulders shifting into something more deliberate. “I won’t disappear,” she said. “I’ll make time. Intentionally. Choosing to. Because it’s worth it.”

Ayla watched her, searching. “You mean that?”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

Something in Ayla just… unclenched. It was such a simple statement, but coming from Lin, who hoarded her words like they cost her something, it landed with the weight of a promise. Spirits, Ayla thought, a little dazed. She let out a small, uneven laugh, and leaned back against the headboard beside her, shoulders brushing. “I’m going to start training with Korra and Tenzin when we’re back,” she said. “Try to make sense of all this airbending.” She paused. “I’m still going to make a fool of myself.”

“Probably,” Lin agreed.

Ayla laughed, giving her a look. “You’re supposed to tell me I won’t.”

“That would be lying,” Lin said, humor lacing her tone. “But you’ll learn. And when you do, you’ll be proficient enough to not make a fool of yourself.”

Ayla’s mouth tugged into a smile. “You think so?”

“I know so.” 

“Keep sparring with me?” Ayla asked quietly. “When we’re back. If you’re not too busy being the terrifying Chief of Police again.”

“Sure, but not at three in the morning.” 

“No promises.”

Lin’s eyes softened at the way Ayla’s voice dipped, humor edged with something heavier. “We’ll figure it out,” she said. “The job. Training. This.” Her hand moved, lightly tracing down Ayla’s thigh. “It doesn’t have to fall apart just because we leave here.”

Ayla nodded, looking down at her hands, then back at Lin. “I’ve really liked this,” she said softly. “The last few days. I don’t expect life to stay this simple, but… I don’t want to lose it either.”

“Getting broken out of jail, flying to the South Pole, having our bending restored; That’s the complicated part.” She gave a faint smile. “If we can survive this, we can figure out what comes next.”

Ayla huffed a quiet laugh. “You’re dangerously optimistic.”

“Don’t tell anyone.”

Ayla watched her for another long stretch of quiet, taking in the line of her profile, the way the lamplight softened the angles of her face. For so long, she’d thought of Lin as sharp, relentless. Now all she could see was the woman who had just handed her every old wound and trusted her not to drop them. Eventually, though, she pushed herself off the headboard. “I should get ready for bed before I fall asleep sitting up,” she murmured, slipping off the mattress.

The next few minutes were easy, almost domestic. It’s strange how normal it felt, Ayla mused. Like they’d already done this a hundred times. She washed her face at the small basin, wringing water from the ends of her hair that had fallen in. Lin removed her armor and folded her things in neat stacks on the chair. They moved around each other without thinking, trading spaces with small shifts. Every so often, Ayla caught Lin’s gaze skimming over her, then lingering in a way that wasn’t about assessment at all. The realization sent a warm, ridiculous little rush through her. Lin Beifong, of all people, watching her like she was something worth looking at.

By the time Lin dimmed the lamp, Ayla had crawled under the blanket in her undershirt and shorts, lying on her side, facing Lin. Lin sat on the edge of the bed, removing her boots one at a time before finally easing down onto her back beside her. For a while, neither of them spoke. Then Lin said quietly into the half-dark, “You looked good out there today.”

Ayla let out a soft laugh, shaking her head against the pillow. “I got my ass kicked.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Lin said. Her voice was low, steady. “And you know it. You were focused. You adjusted. You fought smart. And you looked good doing it.”

“It didn’t feel like that,” Ayla said, smiling faintly. “It felt like getting thrown around by the Avatar and trying not to eat floor.”

“You underestimate yourself,” Lin murmured. “But don’t worry. I see what you don’t.”

Ayla turned her head, eyes adjusting enough to make out Lin’s profile in the dim light as heat curled under her ribs. It wasn’t just the words, it was the way Lin said them, like she was stating a fact. She huffed out a breath that might’ve been a laugh. “Guess that’s what I get for having a good teacher.”

“You didn’t need me to teach you how to fight,” Lin said. “You just needed someone in your corner while you figured out what to do with the rest.”

“I needed someone to keep me from getting killed by the Avatar,” Ayla countered.

“That part,” Lin said, humor laced through her tone, “I’ll take credit for.”

Ayla smiled faintly. “I’m glad it was you.”

Lin was quiet for a beat before replying. “I’m glad you asked,” she said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to teach anyone anything.”

“You make it sound like I was doing you a favor,” Ayla murmured.

“In a way,” Lin said. Her hand found Ayla’s temple in the dark, fingers brushing a strand of hair back behind her ear. Her touch lingered this time, warm, resting just at the curve of Ayla’s cheekbone. Her breath hitched. All the joking, all the sparring, all the shared glances over the last couple days narrowed down to the feeling of Lin’s hand on her face. For a long moment, neither of them moved. Then Lin shifted closer, closing the last bit of space, and kissed her. Slow, deliberate, nothing hurried about it. Her hand trailed down the side of her body, fingers ghosting along the hem of Ayla’s shorts before tracing the line of her back beneath her shirt. Her other threaded through Ayla’s hair, pulling her closer. Ayla’s hand came up instinctively to Lin’s shoulder, fingers curling in the fabric there. When Lin pulled back, she kept her hand where it was, thumb brushing an idle line along the seam. “You shouldn’t be proud of me yet,” Ayla murmured. “I still have no idea what I’m doing.”

Lin’s voice was quiet, almost fond. “You’re doing fine,” she said. Ayla shifted closer until their foreheads almost touched and kissed her again, moving to position her thigh comfortably between Lin’s, who adjusted so Ayla settled more firmly between her legs. She threaded her fingers through Lin’s hair as she deepened the kiss, Lin’s hands circling her and firmly trailing up her back. “You sure do a good job of flustering me without even trying,” Ayla whispered, breathless when she pulled back for air. 

Lin tilted her head, eyes glinting faintly in the dim light. “Oh, believe me,” she said, her voice low enough that it sent a shiver down Ayla’s spine, “I’m trying.”

~*~~*~~*~

The room was dim, the light thin and pale. Somewhere outside, the muted crash of distant waves filtered up from the cliffs. A gull called once. Ayla shifted a little, and Lin’s arm tightened automatically, pulling her in closer by an inch. “Don’t,” she muttered, voice rough with sleep. “It’s warm.”

Ayla bit back a smile, eyes still half closed. “You realize you’re the one making it warm, right?” Lin made a small noise that might have been agreement or protest. Her breath brushed against the back of Ayla’s neck, slow and even. For a long moment, Ayla just let herself be held. Just the simple, ridiculous fact that Lin Beifong was wrapped around her like this was the most natural thing in the world. She shifted again, slower this time, rolling halfway onto her back so she could see her.

Lin cracked one eye open but didn’t move her arm, just watched in that unguarded, half-awake way people only managed first thing in the morning. Eventually, reality nudged in, though, with muffled voices somewhere down the hall, the faint clatter of dishes from the kitchen down the hall, one of Tenzin’s children’s distant shout. The compound waking up. Ayla sighed. “We should probably get up before Meelo kicks the door in.”

Lin hummed a low sound, but didn’t move her arm. “He knows better.”

“Does he, though?”

“…No.” 

Ayla shifted carefully, turning the rest of the way onto her back. “Big day,” she murmured, staring at the ceiling beams. “Journey back, city, jobs, training, pretending we know what we’re doing.”

“We’re very good at pretending,” Lin said.

“Speak for yourself,” Ayla replied. “I’m just making it up as I go and hoping no one notices.”

Lin turned onto her side, propping herself up on one elbow to look down at her. “You’re doing better than you think,” she said. “You handled Korra. You handled Tenzin. You handled getting your bending back without setting anyone on fire.”

“I’m an airbender,” Ayla pointed out with amusement. “I’d be worried if I set anyone on fire.”

Lin’s mouth curved. “Semantics. You handled it.”

A comfortable silence settled. Morning light was sliding higher across the wall now, turning the edges of Lin’s hair gold. “Come on,” Lin said eventually, patting the mattress once before pushing herself upright. 

“Alright,” Ayla muttered, sitting up too, hair a mess, blanket pooled around her waist. They moved through the small space with the same unspoken coordination as the night before: Lin digging her shirt out of the neatly folded pile, Ayla hunting down where she’d kicked her pants. Lin crossed behind her to get to the basin, and Ayla shifted without thinking, giving her room. All small, ordinary things that somehow felt bigger than the grand gestures had.

At the basin, Lin cupped cold water into her hands and splashed her face. Ayla watched her for a second, the way she braced her palms against the edge afterward, head bowed, shoulders bare, and felt that same quiet, stubborn affection unfurl again.

“You know,” Ayla said, tugging her shirt over her head, “I still can’t quite believe you’re coming back to the city with me and not just… vanishing into the work.”

Lin met her gaze in the mirror, her expression softening. “You don’t have to doubt that.” 

“I know,” Ayla said. “I just-” She shrugged, searching for the right words. “I’m still getting used to the idea that when you say things like that, you mean me.”

Lin’s eyes softened. “You’ll get used to it,” she said. “If I have anything to say about it.”

There it was again, that steady, matter-of-fact conviction that made Ayla feel all sorts of things. 

They finished dressing in companionable quiet.  “Come on, then,” Lin said, moving toward the door. “Before Bolin eats all the good food.” 

Chapter Text

The wind was sharp and clean, it roared past in a steady rush as Oogi lifted higher into the air. Below them, the buildings scattered over the ice sheet shrank into a mosaic of white and blue. “I’m saying,” Meelo shouted, pointing toward a passing cloud. “That one looks like Dad’s beard if it was square!”

Ikki groaned. “Beards aren’t square!”

“This one is!”

Bolin squinted. “No, I can kinda see it.”

Mako gave him a flat look. “You’re full of shit.”

“Language!” Tenzin barked automatically, steering Oogi with one hand and muttering something about chaos being hereditary. Ayla smiled faintly, leaning forward against the wind. Her hair whipped around her face, but she didn’t mind it this time. Oogi tilted slightly, and Lin’s knee pressed into her thigh for balance. The journey passed by quickly, the ocean stretched endless and glittering, eventually fading into gold as they rounded the bluffs south of the city. Ayla followed the curve of the horizon until the faint shadow of the city appeared, gray-blue against the late afternoon light. Home. Whatever that meant now. By the time they descended, the bay caught the last of the sun in wide copper bands. Tenzin twisted in his seat, his voice raised over the wind. “Where should I drop you two?”

Lin’s hands were braced against the side of the harness. “By the docks,” she said. “We’ll walk from there.”

Tenzin nodded, guiding Oogi lower. The bison’s paws hit the docks with a heavy, rhythmic thud. As Ayla and Lin climbed down, Korra called over the edge of the saddle, “Can’t wait to kick your ass again this week, Ayla!” Ayla laughed, waving as Oogi took off, wind whipping her hair into her face again. 

Lin stood beside her, hands in her coat pockets, eyes fixed on the skyline. “You’re already thinking about work, aren’t you?” Ayla asked, voice laced with humor.

Lin didn’t look away from the horizon. “I was thinking about going by the station. Talk to Saikhan, get it over with. I won’t focus on anything else until it’s done.”

“Go,” Ayla said easily. “You could come for dinner later if you wanted, that would give me time to grab groceries and clean up beforehand. Spirits know what kind of shape my kitchen's in after all this.”

That earned her the faintest flicker of relief across Lin’s face. “I’ll be there,” she said. “Let me get this handled first.” Ayla nodded as Lin reached out, brushed her fingers lightly along Ayla’s arm, then turned toward the road leading uptown. Ayla headed the other way. The markets by the docks gave way to narrower streets, the smell of fried dumplings and saltwater mixing with city grit. The metal grate door to her building was still jammed in the same spot it had always been; she shoved it open with her shoulder and climbed the narrow stairs. The steps creaked like always. At the top landing, she stopped, stomach dropping. 

No key.

Somewhere between getting arrested and thrown in a cell, it had vanished, and she hadn't thought about it until this very moment. She considered waiting for Lin, she could wait, Lin could just metalbend the lock. Had metalbent the lock, Ayla thought with amusement. But she’d be sitting out here for hours, maybe. They hadn’t set a time. And what, admit she was locked out of her own apartment? Yeah, no. Fuck it. Ayla took one step back and kicked. The lock splintered on the second hit, and the door swung inward with a groan. Well, she thought. Still got it.

The door hung slightly crooked where she’d kicked it in, and the apartment smelled faintly of stale air and dust. She propped the door open, unlatched every window, and let the breeze pour through. Cool air swept in, tugging at the curtains. She stood in the center of the room for a moment, taking it in. It all looked exactly the same, and completely foreign at the same time if that was even possible. Her gaze caught on the bed. Crumpled sheets, blanket half-off, a small dent in the pillow where her head had last rested. The last morning she’d woken here, there had been a knock on the door, a call from Lin, and everything that had followed.

And now Lin will be here and we'll- she thought, and immediately shut the thought down. She stripped the bedding and quickly replaced it with fresh linens. She tried not to picture Lin, here, on top of her, her hand-. She failed by the second corner. She huffed a laugh under her breath and shook her hands out. No, not now. Next problem.

Money. Rent was due a few days ago. Hopefully being imprisoned will get me some leeway there. She crouched in front of her wardrobe, pried up the loose board, and pulled out a folded envelope. Beneath the envelope was that stack of notebooks, the chi-mapping documents from the warehouse, edges worn. She touched one absent-mindedly, felt the weight of it, then set it back. Later. She counted the bills quickly. Rent first, groceries next. She could think about employment later. Or lack thereof. One thing at a time. Keep up your momentum, Ayla. Knock it all out before she gets here. She slid the money into a fresh envelope, scrawled her name across the front, and shoved the loose board back into place. Then she peeled off the borrowed clothes and tugged on her old shirt and trousers. The familiar fabric grounded her, creases in the elbows, familiar threadbare cuffs. Spirits it feels good to wear my own clothes.

Alright, she thought. Rent, trash, groceries. Once she started, she didn’t stop.  

She dropped the rent in the manager’s lockbox downstairs and thought a quick prayer for forgiveness at the tardiness, emptied her trash in the alley, and bought groceries from the corner shop. The rhythm of small tasks steadied her, it felt good to move without thinking. By the time she climbed the stairs again, arms full of paper bags, her heart was hammering with the kind of restless energy she used to burn off in fights. She unloaded the groceries in tidy rows, wiped down the counter, and stared at the clock. Too early to start dinner. Too late to find something else to do. She looked around the apartment, every surface clean, every window open, and still couldn’t make herself sit down. The quiet pressed at her, unfamiliar. The only thing left on her mental to-do list was to call Kira and let her know she was alive. Get official confirmation I've been fired. She stepped into the hallway, picked up the phone receiver, and dialed. She picked up after the third ring. 

“Hello?”

“Hey, Kira. It’s me.”

A pause. Then, a yell that could probably be heard down the hall: “AYLA? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOU?”

Ayla winced. “Long story.”

“I tried calling, I came by, I thought you vanished!”

“Yeah,” Ayla said dryly. “Got tossed in an Equalist prison. Kind of hard to answer calls from there.” She said with a laugh. 

“…you what?”

“During the coup. I’m fine. Mostly. I just got back.”

Kira’s voice softened immediately. “You’re really okay?”

“Yeah. Tired, but fine. And unemployed yeah?”

“Oh, uh, about that…”

Ayla laughed before she could help it. “I’m fired, aren’t I?”

“They had to fill your spot,” Kira admitted. “I’ll talk to the manager, see if there’s a chance you could come back.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ayla said. “I think I might try something else. Maybe something in the relief work around town. I’ll figure it out.” They talked a few more minutes, made plans to meet for lunch next week. When the call ended, Ayla leaned her head against the wall, the quiet of the apartment hallway pressing close around her. Lin would be here soon. Dinner, technically. But they both knew it meant more than that. They hadn’t said it, didn’t need to. It was there, in the way Lin had touched her arm. Ayla huffed a quiet laugh. Lin Beifong. Coming to her apartment. And she’d just kicked her own door in.

Smooth, Ayla. Real smooth.

But she was still smiling when she went back inside, straightening a picture on the wall and picking up the stack of books from the floor. Not because Lin would care, but because it gave her something to do with her hands while she waited. 

~*~~*~~*~

The precinct hadn’t changed. The low noise from typewriters and clipped voices filled the air in a rhythm she could almost relax into. Lin walked through, nodding to the officer at the front desk. The scuff of her boots against the tile sounded sharper than she remembered, and she couldn’t tell if that was the building or her. When she reached Saikhan’s office, he was already standing, straightening the papers on his desk with the meticulousness of someone trying not to look relieved. “Lin,” he said. “It’s so good to see you.”

“Likewise,” she replied, and she meant it. 

“You’ve been missed. Spirits know I’m glad to have you back.”

She walked over to the desk and leaned the side of her leg against the edge. “How bad is it?”

Saikhan hesitated, then sighed, sinking back into his chair. “Depends who you ask. Officially, things are stabilizing. Unofficially,” He gestured vaguely toward the window. “The city’s jumpy. Non-benders feel like they were conned. Benders still feel like they’re next. Everyone’s waiting for the next explosion.”

“Any credible threats?”

“Not exactly. A lot of noise, false alarms, calls about ‘unseen movement,’ strange noises, shadows that don’t belong to anyone.” He shook his head. “Most of it’s nerves, post-crisis panic. Still, I’d rather take those calls than ignore them.”

Lin’s mouth tightened. “People usually don’t imagine fear without an underlying reason.”

“True enough,” he said. “We’ll keep eyes open.” He opened a drawer, pulled out a folder, and set it on the desk. “I drafted the reinstatement papers. Figured you’d want them ready.”

Lin scanned the top sheet, then took the pen and signed with her usual efficient precision. Saikhan took the folder back and closed it. “Welcome back,” he said, and for all his dry professionalism, there was real relief there.

Lin nodded. “I’ll be in tomorrow.”

He smiled faintly. “Wouldn’t expect anything less.”

She turned to leave, and as she reached the doorway, he said, “You know, the place hasn’t felt quite the same without you.”

Lin paused just long enough to glance over her shoulder. “Then it’s about to feel worse. I intend to pick right back up where I left off.”

Saikhan huffed a laugh. “I’ll alert the others.”

Outside, the air was thick with late light, the sky burning orange over the rooftops as she started walking, boots steady on the pavement, hands in her pockets. Her task for the evening was done; the next thing on her list wasn’t written down anywhere. By the time she reached the main road, her mind was already ahead of her, at the small apartment a little further downtown. The inevitability of what would happen when she knocked on that door. Lin climbed the narrow steps, the stairwell dim. The sound of her own boots echoed off the walls. When she reached the landing, she slowed. There was a sliver of light beneath Ayla’s door, a faint hum of music playing from the radio inside. She raised a hand to knock, then she noticed the doorframe. Splintered wood around the latch. The lock bent out of alignment. Her heart kicked. “Ayla?” No answer. The air in her chest tightened, and she pushed the door open, braced for anything.

Ayla jumped from where she stood by the counter, a kitchen knife in hand and a half-chopped bundle of scallions on the board. “Spirits, Lin! You scared me!”

Lin’s eyes swept the room, clear, quiet, nothing out of place except the busted door. “What happened to your door?”

“I, uh,” Ayla’s expression tilted toward sheepish. “Didn’t have my key.”

“So you broke in.”

“Well,” Ayla said, gesturing toward the door with the knife. “Yeah. I figured I’d save you the trouble this time.” 

A beat of silence. Lin exhaled through her nose, long-suffering, but the corner of her mouth twitched. “You realize last time, I didn’t actually break the door.” She crouched by the frame, running her fingers along the damage. “You hit it from the wrong angle.”

“I hit it from the only angle available!”

“Mm.” Lin pushed her fingers against the metal piece, moulding it roughly back into shape with her bending. “You’re lucky it didn’t split the wood straight through.”

“Add that to my growing list of luck lately,” Ayla said, still chopping, amused.

Lin stood, brushing dust from her hands. “It’ll hold for now. Don’t lean on it.”

"I'll try not to," Ayla laughed. “How’d it go then? Did you get reinstated?” Lin looked at her then, sleeves rolled up, the faint green of the vegetables spread across her counter. The soft hum of the radio she had turned low. Two mismatched bowls set out next to the kettle. 

“Mhm.” Lin’s voice was low as she shrugged off her coat. “Signed the papers.” She slowly unclasped her boots and slid them off as well, leaving them by the door. "I go back tomorrow."

“Good, I got things for dinner if you want-” She didn’t get to finish. Lin had stepped closer, feet quiet on the floor, until she was close behind her. Lin’s hands brushed her arms, trailing down to her waist, steady and unhurried.

“Looking forward to it,” Lin murmured close to her ear. “But there’s something I need to take care of first.”

Ayla’s pulse stuttered. “And what’s that?” Lin pressed her lips to her neck, softly exhaling as she did so. The knife slipped a fraction in her hand, and she laughed, startled. “Hold on, I’m holding a knife.”

“Stop holding one then,” Lin said softly. 

Ayla set it down, slowly, then turned. Lin’s eyes met hers before she closed the space between them. The next moments blurred, Lin pushing her back against the counter, her hand finding the back of Ayla’s neck. Ayla made a small sound against her mouth, half surprise, half relief, and Lin deepened the kiss just enough to make her lean into it. “You’re still in your armor,” Ayla murmured, her voice caught somewhere between a laugh and a whisper.

“Then fix it,” Lin said, her tone low against her skin. Ayla laughed again, quiet, unsteady, and fumbled at the clasps. Lin’s hands joined hers, efficient, practiced, metal hitting the floor in soft, rhythmic thuds. When the last piece came free, Lin’s palms found her waist again. Ayla’s pulse thudded. Her hands moved almost without thought, reaching up to where Lin’s hair was still pinned. She loosened one, then another, until the strands fell free in soft waves over Lin’s shoulders. For a second she just watched it spill loose, then slid her fingers through it. Lin tilted into the touch, barely, but enough for Ayla to feel it. The breath she’d been holding came out uneven. “Lin,” she started, her voice quieter than she meant, “can we-”

“Yes,” Lin murmured, before the question even finished. She kissed her again, slower this time, pulling gently at Ayla's hips. When Lin took a step backward, Ayla followed without thinking. Somehow, the movement carried them across the small room, Lin guiding, Ayla following. The edge of the table caught Lin’s hip, the wooden chair next to it scraping faintly across the floor. When the back of Ayla’s knees brushed the edge of the bed, Lin finally stopped. She lifted a hand to Ayla’s jaw, tracing the line of it with her thumb, and Ayla pulled her shirt over her head. Lin dragged her hand down the side of Ayla’s ribs, the edges of her fingers brushing against the swell of her exposed breast. She moved slowly, pressing kisses down Ayla’s jaw, her neck, her collarbone, her sternum. Oh, she would take her time with this.

Ayla’s hands found the hem of Lin’s undershirt, and Lin reached behind her head, pulling it off in one motion. For a moment, neither moved. There was something about intentionally and almost ritualistically stripping bare in silence, knowing exactly what was coming next, that undid her completely. She watched Ayla’s face as she slowly, deliberately, undid the clasps at her waist and slid the fabric over her hips. Ayla stepped out of hers, laughing softly, murmuring something about it being only fair, but Lin wasn't paying attention. Her focus was on Ayla, on the way her hair was slightly mused from where her hands had just been. Ayla lowered herself down onto the bed, and Lin followed her down instinctually. She kissed her again, slowly. Conveying exactly what she intended to follow through with as she ran her hand up the skin of Ayla's thigh, savoring the warmth that came from feeling their bare legs tangled. After a while, she broke the silence, her hand stilling where it rested against the small of her waist. "Ayla," she whispered, her voice rough. "Can I please touch you?" 

"Yes," came the whispered response against her lips, and it was all Lin needed. She traced a path with her fingers until she settled between her legs, slowly, using the movement of her hips to drive pressure as she moved her hand. Ayla’s hands dragged along her back. Lin thought, distantly, that she’d never realized how much she wanted to be the reason someone looked at her like that. It wasn’t control she wanted, it was closeness. To feel her alive beneath her hands, real, hers, in the simplest and most human sense of the word. Ayla’s breath hitched again, and Lin almost smiled, the kind of quiet, private satisfaction that came from knowing she was the only one who got to see her like this.

If proof of atonement had a face, Lin thought, it would be this one. Ayla's, in the half-light, eyes closed, brow creased as Lin touched her. She kept her eyes on her face as they moved together, face close enough to feel her breathing become less and less even and when Ayla shuddered around her, Lin leaned in and pressed her lips to that spot just below her ear. Ayla’s hand came to rest on the back of Lin’s neck, threading her fingers through her hair. 

Ayla thought she’d never seen anything lovelier than Lin like this, her hair mussed, her cheeks faintly flushed, the composed exterior softened into something human. That Lin had let her in. Trusted her enough to be seen like this. The feeling of that trust undid her more completely than touch ever could. 

Lin kissed her again, and Ayla let herself get lost in it before she adjusted, shifting slightly. She trailed her hand across Lin's ribs, the narrowing of her waist, the soft swell of her hip, her leg where it was still bent slightly on top of her. "Tell me what you like," Ayla whispered into the kiss, "so I can do it for you." Lin responded by threading her hand into Ayla's hair, supporting her head as she deepened the kiss. Ayla shifted, bending her leg slightly for better leverage. 

She ghosted her fingers up the inside of Lin’s thigh and felt more than saw her shiver at the touch, and she wondered how long it had been since Lin had let someone touch her like this. The selfish pleasure of knowing she was the one that got to coiled inside her as she slipped her hand between her legs. It wasn’t surrender in the way the world used the word. It was something rarer. Lin choosing to let herself be known, to be here. This woman, who never lost control, who lived by order and precision, giving herself over to her. It made Ayla’s chest ache with something beyond longing, something she didn’t have a name for. She curled her fingers oh so slightly inside of her and relished in Lin's response, a low sound in her ear.

It wasn’t the closeness itself that undid her.  

It was that Lin let her.

~*~~*~~*~

When Ayla woke, the light through the window was the soft gray of early dawn. Then she felt it, warmth of bare skin against hers. Lin’s arm, solid and steady, holding her close. Her breath slow against the back of Ayla’s neck. For a long moment, she just lay still. The air was cool, but the heat between them felt almost protective. She turned slightly, careful not to wake her, but Lin stirred anyway. She blinked herself awake, the lines of her face soft in the muted light. Her hair was flattened on one side, a few loose strands across her cheek. “Morning,” Ayla murmured.

“Mm,” Lin said, voice low, rough from sleep. “Barely.” Ayla turned the rest of the way onto her back, their knees brushing beneath the blanket. Lin’s hand stayed where it was, fingertips tracing along the curve of her waist. Neither spoke for a while. Then Lin shifted, pressing a soft kiss to Ayla’s shoulder before sitting up. The blanket fell away, letting in a rush of cool air that made Ayla groan and burrow deeper under the covers. From the kitchen came the click of the stove and the low hiss of gas. Then the rattle of mugs,  the soft murmur of the radio coming to life. Ayla smiled against the pillow.

When she finally pushed herself up, Lin was moving around her kitchen with quiet efficiency, wearing Ayla’s shirt from the night before. She looked impossibly out of place and perfectly right at the same time. The smell of coffee filled the air. Lin turned, caught Ayla watching her, and the corner of her lip curved upward as she walked back over to where Ayla was now sitting in the bed, holding out a mug. “Didn’t know how you take it, so I guessed.”

Ayla took it, fingers brushing Lin’s. "You guessed right."

“I’ll be back at the station today,” Lin said quietly, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “First full day. I’ll have to get things in order. It’s going to be a late night.”

Ayla nodded. “Sounds like it.”

“So I was thinking,” Lin continued, her tone softening, “we could plan for dinner tomorrow, if that works. I’ll pick something up on my way over.”

Ayla smiled, setting her mug down. “That sounds great,” she said. “I’ll be looking forward to it. I'm training with Tenzin this morning, and afterwards I'm going to see about finding a job. Hopefully I'll have something to report by the time you come over.”

Lin’s eyes softened. “You’ll find something. You always do.”

~*~~*~~*~

The docks were still damp from the morning tide when Ayla stepped off the ferry. Her shoulders ached pleasantly. The forms Tenzin had shown her still played through her muscles, weight forward, shift, draw back. Every motion had felt slightly foreign, like her body knew the shapes but not the rhythm. She hadn’t been graceful, not even close. But it had felt good. Unfamiliar, but welcome. She was already looking forward to the next session.

She crossed into the busier streets, the crowd thick with the rhythm of ordinary life. Someone handed her a flyer without looking up. The paper was thick, edges still warm from the press. “Restore balance through knowledge. Restore your chi.” Ayla frowned and glanced closer. Below the slogan was a clean, minimalist seal, Helion Foundation for Recovery and Renewal.

She’d heard the name before and glanced back down at the flyer. Apparently Helion was funding an open-access medical study on post coup chi imbalance, a project meant to find measurable ways to restore equilibrium in the body. Philanthropy, she thought. Rebuilding after Amon. Clinics, education drives, relief work for both benders and nonbenders. One of the bigger biotech companies, if she remembered right. Probably outreach to help people heal from the fear and chaos of it all. She looked at the slogan again: Restore your chi.

The city was unbalanced. That much was obvious just walking its streets. Benders still wary and defensive, nonbenders still raw with disillusionment. Maybe it made sense that someone would try to fix it through science, or whatever passed for it these days. By the time she reached her building, the idea had already taken root. Maybe she could apply to work for them. She’d spent so long wishing for a way to help, and losing her job had left her with the opportunity.

Inside, the apartment was quiet. She set the flyer on the table and stood there for a long moment, staring at it. Then she turned toward the window. The air drifted faintly in from the street. Restore your chi. She thought about that some more, about the work she’d done in that cell when she had nothing else left. About what Korra had done, reopening the channels she’d thought were gone for good. They still felt strange, like new skin healing over. She lowered herself to the floor, to the open spot under the window. The cushion dipped beneath her weight. The first few breaths came too fast, shallow and uneven. She slowed them, letting the air drag through her chest until it steadied. Her shoulders loosened. She closed her eyes.

She mapped herself, the way she always had. Tracing the pulse at her wrist. Following it up her arm, through her shoulder, to where it branched behind her sternum. The channels were clear now, smooth and humming, full in a way that almost frightened her. It was grounding, almost addictive. A ritual that gave her shape when the world outside felt uncertain. The act of finding herself again, piece by piece, was becoming less about discipline and more about the feeling of relief that she had when she reached inward. 

Nine days in that cell. Nine days scraping at the walls of herself, searching for anything left intact. And then that day she had found it, buried deep in the dark, not thought, but something older. A reservoir under everything. Energy stripped of form. She searched for it again now, instinctively.

At first, there was only her breathing. The quiet pulse in her ears. The warmth beneath her palms. She tried to follow the familiar path she’d traced through the wreckage before, except now it was healed, paved over in places she didn’t yet recognize. Grateful, yes, but still learning the map of it. She drifted deeper, gently testing the newness of the healed fractures.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she felt it, a shift, a pull inward. A hollowing. The air around her chest seemed to thin. The edges of her awareness began to blur, as if her shape was loosening, bleeding outward. And then beyond it, a weird pressure, almost, buried deep inside her. Her pulse faltered. It didn’t hurt, it just felt wrong. Not threatening, exactly, but alien. She exhaled sharply, opening her eyes.

The apartment looked the same, late morning light scattered across the floorboards, but her skin felt off. She pressed her palms flat to the floor to ground herself. The wood was cool beneath her hands, solid, real. Her breath came steadier by degrees. Whatever that was, she didn’t want to think about it. She pushed herself to her feet, shaking her arms out, and headed for the bathroom. The sound of running water filled the apartment, and she stepped under the current, drawing a deep breath to steady herself. 

~*~~*~~*~

The smell of takeout drifted through the apartment, sesame and chili settling into the air. Lin sat at her kitchen table, shoulders relaxed, looking entirely at home. A few months ago, Ayla would’ve been on the other side of the bar ringing up Lin’s order. Now Lin was here, at her table, bringing dinner like it was the most natural thing in the world. It still felt a little surreal. Ayla leaned against the counter, bowl in hand. “I applied to work for the Helion Foundation today,” she said, lifting a dumpling with her chopsticks. “Apparently they’re looking for assistants to help coordinate post-Amon relief efforts.”

Lin glanced up from her food. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Ayla said, gesturing vaguely with her chopsticks. “I went in and spoke with them today. They’re apparently doing a lot with emotional and spiritual recovery, helping citizens who lost homes or businesses during the bombings. The job’s basically organizing donations, making sure the funds reach people who need them.” She shrugged. “I think the idea is that covering people’s practical needs makes it easier to heal their chi.”

Lin’s brow furrowed slightly. “Helion,” she repeated. “They’ve had their name on half the donation lists this month.”

“Guess they’re trying to do some good,” Ayla said, shrugging.

“Maybe,” Lin murmured. “It tracks, they do a lot of medical research. Healing chi after all this mess would fit right into their wheelhouse.”

Ayla hummed in agreement. “Anyway, I figured it was worth a try. Beats fighting.”

Lin’s mouth curved faintly. “Marginally.”

Ayla grinned. “Besides, I doubt you'd let me go back anyway.”

“I maintain that was a perfectly rational response.”

“Sure you do.” Ayla popped another dumpling into her mouth. “I don’t even know if I’d be able to figure out the new location after that raid.”

“Good,” Lin said dryly, not looking up.

“I went back for another training session with Tenzin this morning, and I spent almost all morning on one form. Tenzin said it’s the first time I’ve actually looked like I meant to do what I did.”

Lin arched an eyebrow. “Impressive. I assume the courtyard survived?”

“Barely," Ayla said, laughing. “I’m getting better, though. I even managed a proper redirection sequence today.”

“That’s the one where you-” Lin made a vague circular gesture with her chopsticks.

“Mhm. It’s still weird, though,” Ayla admitted. “I’ve been fighting without bending for so long that actually controlling something feels unnatural.”

Lin gave a small hum of agreement. “Control’s a double-edged thing. Most people think it’s about force. It’s really about timing.”

Ayla smiled faintly. “Speaking of timing, when do you think we could practice again?”

Lin’s gaze flicked up. “Anytime. You have a place in mind?”

“Well, clearly not the station sparring gym,” Ayla said, feigning innocence. “Considering I’ve technically been in the jail there.”

Lin raised an eyebrow. “Technically?”

“Okay, fine. Fully arrested.”

“Better.”

“And definitely not Air Temple Island,” Ayla continued. “Tenzin would have an aneurysm if I started throwing punches up there.”

“Among other things,” Lin said dryly, and Ayla laughed. 

She set her bowl down. “The roof’s flat and open. No neighbors close enough to complain.”

Lin leaned back slightly, considering. “Let’s see it.” They climbed the narrow stairwell, their footsteps echoing softly. The rooftop opened into cool air and the sweep of the city, lanterns strung along the distant docks, the faint glow of the bridge arching. Lin stepped out beside her, surveying the space. The rooftop was roughly square, edged with short brick walls, flowerpots clustered near the vents.

“It’ll work,” Lin said, pacing a slow circle, mentally mapping distances. “Good footing. Enough room to move without breaking your neck.”

Ayla smirked. “So what, this'll just be a reversal of last month? You visiting me at my office now?”

“More or less.” Lin turned toward her, the corner of her mouth curving. “Except I think I’ll prefer this arrangement.”

“Oh?”

Instead of answering, Lin nodded toward the open space. “Show me what Tenzin’s been drilling into you.” Ayla exhaled and stepped into stance. The movement was fluid, an arc of motion that caught the faint wind curling across the rooftop. “I want to try it against you, just to see what it feels like,” she said. “Are you up for some sparring right now?” Lin didn’t answer, she just moved. A quick shift of weight, a step forward, and Ayla yelped, stumbling backward as Lin’s feint caught her completely off guard.

“Wait, wait!” Ayla laughed, regaining her balance. “Let me actually-”

Lin struck again.

“Lin!” She was laughing too hard to form the defense, tripping through a half-hearted airbending sequence that went nowhere. Lin stepped back, barely suppressing a grin. “Okay,” Ayla said, still laughing. “Okay, again. This time for real.”

Lin raised an eyebrow. “We’ll see.” Ayla centered herself, breath drawing deep. When Lin came forward again, Ayla shifted, twisting into motion, a rush of air cutting the distance. Lin narrowly dodged, her hair whipping in the current. “That’s better,” Lin said, and swept her leg in response.

Ayla leapt aside, landing light, breathless. “Oh, so we’re not holding back now?”

“You were laughing,” Lin said, stepping forward again with a barely suppressed grin. “Thought I’d give you something to take seriously.” Ayla barely had time to brace before Lin feinted left, caught her mid-turn, and they both went down hard. Lin’s knee pinned her thigh, one hand braced beside her head.

“That’s cheating,” Ayla said, laughing as she caught her breath, groaning at the impact. 

“Maybe,” Lin replied, leaning closer. “But I’m winning.”

Ayla’s grin widened, still breathless. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”

“Possibly.” Lin’s tone was mild, but her eyes betrayed her. She shifted her weight back, offered a hand down. Ayla took it, her palm slipping slightly against Lin’s calloused one as Lin pulled her up. Their balance wavered for a heartbeat, too close, the warmth of Lin’s hand steadying her shoulder even after she’d regained her footing. Her hand lingered a moment longer before she let go. “Come on, it’s getting late.” 

Neither spoke until they stepped back inside her apartment. “You want tea?” Ayla asked, moving toward the stove.

“Sure,” Lin said. She didn’t sit, she wandered. Her gaze skimmed the plants by the window, the cracked terra-cotta pot with a small green shoot, then drifted to the bookshelf. The spines were a chaotic assortment, fantasy novels with cracked bindings, a worn collection of Fire Nation folktales, an old history of the Hundred Year War shoved in sideways because it didn’t fit. A smooth river stone served as a paperweight. Lin’s fingers paused on a dog-eared paperback with a too-bright cover. She tilted her head, reading the title aloud, her voice so dry it almost cracked: “The Dragon Prince’s Forbidden Kiss?”

“Don’t judge me,” Ayla laughed from the counter. 

“I wouldn’t dare,” Lin replied, but the faint, traitorous curve at the corner of her mouth suggested otherwise. 

“It’s my friend Kira’s fault. She keeps lending them to me so we can make fun of them together. Check the margins.” She opened the cover. The margins were chaos. Ayla’s messy handwriting scrawled everywhere, and smaller, neater handwriting Lin assumed belonged to Kira. Near the top of a page, Ayla had written with the confidence of someone who had fully committed to the bit, 'This line could kill a man instantly.' Lin blinked, and to her own surprise, laughed. She flipped the page.

Lyari stepped closer, her eyes reflecting not just the moonlight, but the moon itself, a perfect, shimmering circle in her irises.
“Do you feel it?” she whispered. “The moon’s power awakening us.”
Below the cliff, the tides reversed direction in reverent obedience.

Lin stared. Then glanced at the margin, where Ayla had scribbled 'The moon does NOT work like that.' She huffed another laugh, small, disbelieving, undeniably fond. “That’s-” She flipped ahead further. “Hmm.”

“What?”

“This doesn’t even make sense,” Lin said, half-amused, half-scandalized. “Anatomically.”

Ayla dried her hands and came over. “What doesn’t?”

Lin handed her the book, pointing. “Here. He’s got one hand here, another there, that’s at least three arms’ worth of effort.”

Ayla tried to picture it, already laughing. “No, it works! Look-”
She set the book on the table and attempted to demonstrate, elbow catching the chair, nearly losing her balance. Lin watched the attempt with a flat look that didn’t hide the gleam in her eyes. “That’s your defense?”

“Hey! I didn’t write it!” Ayla laughed, abandoning the attempt and returning to washing the mugs in the sink. Lin finally sat, the book still open beside her, realizing Ayla had turned the radio volume up as she pulled the tea out of the cabinet. Static shifted until a gravel-voiced narrator filled the room:

“So there I was, knee-deep in dust, tryin’ to wrangle a herd of ostrich horses that didn’t seem too keen on listenin’. Turns out, I’d been hollerin’ in the wrong dialect…”

Ayla hummed along to the soft tune drifting from the radio, the corners of her mouth lifting without her even noticing. Lin watched her, noticing the shift in Ayla’s shoulders, the way tension melted out of her spine, the way her face softened. A ritual, Lin realized. Something worn smooth by repetition. By comfort. It wasn’t just a radio show, it was something Ayla used to anchor her space. Something Lin had been let into. But then the radio crackled with a sudden explosion. Lin jerked slightly, the reflex sharp before she could school it down. Ayla didn’t even blink.

“Seems patience still don’t fix faulty dynamite,” the narrator drawled, utterly unfazed. Lin stared at the radio, incredulous. “What-” The theme music swelled again, harmonica over low strings. Ayla tipped an imaginary hat with a ridiculously dramatic flourish towards Lin as she mimed the closing phrase: “See you down the trail!”

Lin’s lips twitched, the involuntary kind, the ones she couldn’t quite stop around her. Something warm settled behind her ribs. A feeling she’d spent years convincing herself she didn’t need. And yet here she was, sitting in a tiny apartment full of cracked-spine paperbacks and crooked picture frames and tea that had steeped five minutes too long, wanting, with a sharp, almost selfish ache, to keep this. To hoard it. To memorize the shape of Ayla’s smile during a radio monologue. To collect these small, ridiculous domestic moments. How long had it been since she’d wanted anything gentle? “You weren’t kidding about the explosions,” Lin murmured, trying to sound dry, trying to hide the softness building under her ribs.

“Best part,” Ayla said, settling across from her with her mug. The lamplight pooled in the space between them, warm on Ayla’s hands. 

Lin watched her, really watched her, and felt something shift quietly in her chest. Something she couldn’t name, something she didn’t dare. She wasn’t used to wanting moments to stretch out longer than necessary. They sat in companionable silence, the faint hiss of the radio between broadcasts filling the room. Then Ayla lifted her head. “Can I ask you something?”

Lin glanced over, allowing the smallest curve of humor into her voice. “You just did.”

“I mean about training,” Ayla huffed. 

Lin set her mug down, straightening just slightly. “Go on.”

“I want to spar with you,” Ayla said. “For real this time. With bending. Instead of air versus you without it. I changed my mind from earlier, I want to start learning that now.”

Lin studied her. “Are you sure you want that?” she asked quietly, with a trace of humor.

Ayla nodded. “Yeah.” A beat, then a grin. “Just… maybe not metal. I like my body fully intact.”

Lin couldn’t help the brief, genuine huff of laughter. “We’ll start small,” she said. “I’ll find us a place.”

Ayla’s grin widened. “So that’s a yes?”

“It’s a yes.” 

~*~~*~~*~

By the time Lin got to the precinct the next morning, the sun had burned through the fog that had hung over the bay all morning. Inside the station was familiar chaos. Comforting, almost. She was grateful for it. She dropped a stack of reports on her desk, shrugged out of her coat, and poured herself the worst cup of coffee in Republic City. The smell of burnt grounds filled the air. It was scalding, acidic, and she drank it anyway. Routine. That was how she kept control. 

Then there came a call from a tenant near the southern waterfront, reporting “unusual noises through the walls.” Normally, Lin would’ve delegated it, sent emergency medical services for what was likely a mental health episode. But when dispatch said three other tenants had called in about the walls singing, something in her gut told her to take it herself.

The building was an old tenement, copper wiring tacked along the baseboards, creaking under its own age. The hallway smelled like dust and old varnish. The woman who met her at the stairwell wrung her hands in the dim light. “It started a few hours ago,” she said. “I thought it was the radiator, but then it started-” she faltered, “following me. Every room I went into, it changed pitch.”

Lin nodded once. “Where’s your power junction?”

“Basement. But-” The woman’s voice dropped to a whisper. “The lights down there breathe.”

Lin sighed softly. “Breathing lights. Great.” Her tone was dry, but her pulse ticked a little higher anyway. She left one of her officers with the woman and went down alone. The further she descended, the thicker the air became; a damp, humming pressure that crawled under her skin. She could feel it before she heard it. That low, steady vibration, not quite mechanical, not quite alive.

She paused at the bottom of the stairs, one hand braced against the wall.  

Her heartbeat synced with it for a second, then stuttered out of rhythm.

Residual anxiety, she told herself. Post-Amon nonsense. You got your bending back. You’re fine.  

She hated how unconvincing it sounded in her own head.

The basement light flickered when she opened the door. Her flashlight beam caught steam rising from the radiator pipes and something else. Faint, pale lines traced into the brick, pulsing in and out like veins. Not steady. Not still. Pulsing. 

She moved closer. The markings weren’t chalk or paint. They were in the wall, etched shallow. The longer she stared, the more deliberate they looked: curves, intersecting lines, symmetry. Not art. Not graffiti. Pattern.

She blinked hard. It’s just condensation, she thought. Heat differentials on the brick.

Then the hum deepened, rising from the floor.  

Her flashlight flickered once, twice. 

Lin took a step back, spine rigid. “Okay,” she said softly to the empty room. “Enough of that.”

The pattern rippled like ink being sucked backward into stone.  

The hum flattened to silence.  

And just like that, it was gone.

She stood still for a moment, waiting for the adrenaline to subside, breathing slow through her nose. Her hands were still trembling. She hated that.

Residual paranoia, she thought, like naming it made it smaller. That’s all.

She flicked her flashlight off, jaw tight. There’s an explanation for everything.

Later that day, Lin sat at her desk with the blinds half-drawn, the skyline cutting thin white lines across her paperwork. The faint vibration from the rail lines outside made her coffee ripple, just enough to irritate her.

She had already rewritten the report twice.

          Incident 84-C: Electrical malfunction: South Wharf Residential.  

          Cause: Possible heat fluctuation in outdated wiring system.  

          Status: No injuries.  

          Recommendation: City inspection requested.

She stared at the words until they blurred. “Electrical malfunction.” It sounded clean. Harmless. She tried to believe it. A knock at the frame pulled her attention up.  Saikhan stood in the doorway, coffee in one hand, an evidence form in the other. He made his way into the room, glancing down at the open report. “South Wharf? That the humming building everyone was panicking about?”

Lin nodded once. “Old wiring, poor insulation, probably a short. The walls were sweating from the heat differentials, looked like it was glowing in places.” She shrugged. “People see what they expect to see.”

Saikhan made a soft noise, somewhere between agreement and concern. “You sure that’s all it was?”

“Pretty sure.”

“You sound unconvinced.”

She let out a breath, rubbing her temple. “It was strange, I’ll admit that. But I’ve been on edge lately. Ever since…” she trailed off. She didn’t need to finish. He knew what she meant. Ever since Amon. “Anyway. I probably just overreacted.”

Saikhan shifted his weight, glancing toward the window. “My neighbor’s been saying the same thing. Not about humming walls, thank the spirits, but about… energy. Says the spirits are angry. That we need to ‘repent’ or something.”

Lin huffed. “Your neighbor also thinks the moon controls street crime.”

“Fair point,” he said, smirking. “But honestly, I think people are just jumpy. Post-coup nerves. The city’s still half shell-shocked, waiting for something else to go wrong.”

“Yeah,” Lin said quietly. “Feels like that.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The only sound was the faint hum of the ventilation and the shuffling of papers. Then Saikhan gave her a pointed look.

“Still,” he said, “maybe you should take a night off. You’ve been in here every day this week.”

“I’m fine.”

He sighed, shaking his head, and headed for the door. “You really think it was just bad wiring?”

Lin hesitated. Her mind flashed back to the basement, to the walls pulsing, to the way her heartbeat had synced to that impossible hum. She swallowed hard. “Yes,” she said finally. “I think it was just bad wiring.”

Saikhan nodded, satisfied. “Good. Then let’s both pretend that’s true.” He left, closing the door softly behind him. Lin stared at the shelf of files for a moment before sighing and pulling a different stack of papers towards her. 

~*~~*~~*~

Morning sunlight had spilled through her window, pale and soft against the walls. She’d spent the first few hours making coffee, hanging her laundry out to dry, and filling out more job applications,  half-heartedly, if she was honest. Most of the postings blurred together after a while. The Helion Foundation still hovered in her thoughts, their flyer on her kitchen counter. 

By early afternoon she’d moved to the center of the room and worked through her airbending forms. Slow, deliberate repetitions, step, shift, draw back. The kind that didn’t require bending, just breathing through it. By the time the light began to fade, she felt steady again. Her apartment was quiet when she sat down, the faint hum of evening traffic muffled through the open window. She folded her legs under her, palms resting lightly on her thighs, and exhaled. The familiar rhythm came easily now, pulse, wrist to elbow, up through the soft web of nerves in her shoulder, then across her chest, where the current split and curved. Everything felt smooth. 

But beneath that pulse was something else. A low hum, faint, almost like resonance? She couldn't quite place it. The same one she’d felt before, when the air around her had seemed to hollow out. She hesitated, thumb pressing into her sternum, then decided to follow it this time. The tracing changed direction. Instead of mapping the lines she knew, she sank deeper, toward the vibration itself. The current thickened, impossibly. Her skin prickled. She couldn’t tell if she was moving deeper into herself or farther away.

And then she found it. The pressure, pliant and alive. Like touching the surface of water and feeling the tension hold. She reached, not physically, but through that same awareness, and a feeling moved through her, small but sharp enough to jolt her slightly. It wasn’t just energy, it was something else, but she had no idea what. Her heart stuttered once in her chest. The realization unsettled her, that something inside her wasn’t entirely hers, something that she didn't recognize. For a moment she wondered if it was a trace of Korra’s healing, something left behind. The thought made her stomach twist. It didn’t feel like someone else's energy, but the unfamiliarity of it still left her feeling unsettled. Maybe this is what healed airbending feels like? 

She opened her eyes. The air in the apartment felt heavier than before. The shadows had lengthened, soft and violet against the floorboards. She exhaled and traced the grain of the wood with her eyes until her pulse slowed again. When she couldn’t shake the unease, she pushed herself up and started moving, working through the same airbending forms, slower this time, grounding herself in movement to try and help calm her body. 

She’d just finished and was lying sprawled across the couch when the hallway phone rang. Ayla groaned and rolled upright, padding barefoot across the floorboards to answer. She’d already picked up twice that evening, both calls meant for other tenants, and the half-scribbled message she’d taken down for someone else still lay on the small table by the door. “Hello?”

“Ayla?”

She blinked, surprised. “Lin?”

There was the faint scratch of paper on the other end, then Lin’s voice, low, steady. “I have to work late tonight,” Lin said. “I’m bringing some of it home.” A pause, quiet enough that Ayla could hear her exhale. “Would you like to come over while I work?” The offer sounded casual, but Ayla heard the improv in it, her genuine effort to hold true to her promise of making time. 

“I’d love to,” Ayla said, smiling into the receiver. “What time?”

“Eight?”

“Alright,” Ayla said. “I’ll see you then.” Lin gave her the address and when the line clicked quiet again, she stood there a moment, the phone still in her hand. The thought of seeing Lin, of stepping into her space for the first time, stirred something warm in her chest. 

Later that evening, Ayla walked to Lin’s building. It was older, brick-faced and well-kept, far quieter than her own. She climbed to the second floor, hesitated for a heartbeat at the polished door, then knocked. The door opened a moment later. Lin had already removed her armor, and stood there in a dark shirt, sleeves rolled to her elbows, and soft gray trousers. Her hair was loose, falling in uneven waves over her shoulders. Barefoot on the wood floors, she looked disarmingly human. 

Lin stepped back to let her in. The apartment was exactly what Ayla expected, minimalist, ordered, warm in its restraint. Pale wood floors, clean lines, tall windows glowing with faint streetlight. It smelled faintly like cedar and black tea. But once Ayla stepped in further, the details shifted her understanding. A small framed photograph on the bookshelf, a ceramic bowl by the door. A cushion on the couch worn just enough to suggest someone sat in the same place every night. And the desk, a landscape of half-sorted case files and handwritten notes, Lin’s precise handwriting marching in straight diagonals across every margin. A single mug ring, perfectly centered on one folder. 

“Thank you for inviting me over,” Ayla said softly.

Lin nodded, already in the kitchen, filling the kettle.

Ayla drifted toward the bookshelf. She let her fingers skim the spines: manuals, legal codes, structural engineering texts, maps. Books meant to be used, not just displayed. Topography of Republic City. Seismic Reinforcement in Modern Architecture. Post–Hundred Year War Governance in United Republic Territories. And then, a worn copy of The Tale of the Painted Lady, its spine creased in a way that said Lin had read it more than once, Ayla noticed with quiet warmth.  

Curiosity won out, and she slid Seismic Reinforcement in Modern Architecture free and flipped it open. The margins were packed with Lin’s handwriting: clean angles, precise notes, small corrections where she’d amended the author’s calculations. Arguments. Ayla felt heat stir under her ribs. Or course. Lin didn’t read to absorb. She read to understand. To challenge. To master. 

Then a folded sheet slipped out. A graphite sketch, meticulous down to the millimeter. Pressure-point diagrams for metalbending anchors. Load paths. Directional stress arrows. Notes in shorthand: Check lateral load; corridor unstable. Ayla blinked, heart tugging upward in her throat. Holy hells. This was attraction in its purest form, the aching admiration for someone who didn’t just know things, but earned every single inch of their competence. 

She tucked the sketch back carefully, and curiosity tugged her forward. She turned to another section of the book, halfway through the chapter on supports, and another folded sheet slipped free. This one wasn’t a layout, it was the close study of a single structural joint. Tight pencil work layering stress fractures again and again, darker each time, as though she were solving tension with sheer will. And in the corner, smaller script: Redirect force early or it compounds.

Ayla stared at that longer than she meant to, at the discipline, the relentlessness, the way Lin didn’t just solve problems, she refused to let them remain unsolved. Of course she’s like this, Ayla thought, her pulse quickening. Of course she learns the world by understanding how it breaks.

Footsteps approached, and then a mug appeared beside her. “Interesting choice for a light evening read,” Lin said, amused. Ayla looked down at the technical drawing on the page, then up at her.

“Why do you have books like this?” she asked. “You don’t design buildings.”

Lin lifted a shoulder, folding her arms loosely. “No. But I need to understand how they behave.” She tilted her head slightly toward the text. “Metalbending isn’t just moving metal. It’s load, tension, stress distribution, fault lines. If someone’s trapped under a collapsed structure, I need to know where it’ll hold and where it won’t.” Her mouth curved in a tiny, wry line. “And authors of engineering manuals are often… incorrect.”

Ayla laughed softly. “So you argue with them in the margins?”

“I make corrections,” Lin corrected, deadpan.

“I’m not surprised you’d critique the author’s math,” Ayla said, closing the book with a small smile. She was standing close, the light catching at the silver in her hair. Lin reached out, her fingers brushing along Ayla’s shoulder, trailing up the line of her back until her hand found the nape of her neck. Then she leaned in and kissed her. Soft, steady, claiming. When she drew back, her breath still ghosted against Ayla’s mouth. “Thank you for the tea,” Ayla whispered, a little breathless.

“You’re welcome,” Lin murmured, the corner of her mouth curving slightly before she stepped back, fingers brushing once more at her shoulder as she passed. Ayla looked back down at the book she was still holding, struck again by that deep, magnetic competence. Lin’s way of mastering anything she took on, not out of ego, but responsibility. Care. And she thought, not for the first time: I cannot believe I get to know her like this. She carefully placed it back on the shelf and turned, mug warm in her hands, crossing to the couch. She curled up in the corner, legs tucked beneath her. Steam curled up from her cup. 

Across the room, Lin had already settled at her desk again, pen moving methodically across a report, neat stacks beginning to form amid the chaos. Ayla took a sip, watching her, the steady posture, the half-loosened sleeves, the calm precision that she found herself drawn to again and again. She wondered how many nights had looked like this for Lin, the quiet discipline of the life she'd built. It made her want to sit still, just to watch. 

“What’re you working on?” she asked after a moment, voice softer than she meant it to be.

Lin didn’t look up as she continued working. “Incident reports. There’s been an uptick since Amon’s fall, odd calls, disturbances that don’t lead anywhere. Half the time, it’s nothing. People are nervous. Post-trauma, maybe. We’re sorting through what’s real and what’s just…” She hesitated, searching for a word. “Residual fear.”

Ayla nodded slowly. “I get that.” When her cup was empty, she set it on the floor and slid off the couch, crossing her legs on the rug. Lin looked up briefly. “You don’t have to be quiet,” Ayla said lightly. “I just, this helps me center myself.” The uneasy feeling of her meditation earlier had left her still feeling unsettled. She told herself it was probably just residual anxiety from being back in the city, back where everything had happened. 

Lin’s pen paused mid-line. “You do this often?”

“Yeah,” Ayla said. “Every day, if I can.”

Lin leaned back slightly in her chair. “What exactly are you doing, when you meditate like that?”

Ayla tilted her head, trying to find the words. “Tracing. Exploring how my bending connects through my body. Mapping it.”

“Mapping,” Lin repeated, curious.

“When I was in the cell,” Ayla said softly, “I spent nine days doing nothing but that. I had to. I couldn’t move, couldn’t sleep. So I went inward, inside my body. I traced the pathways, explored internally.”

Lin frowned faintly. “Aren’t you always… inside your body?”

Ayla laughed. “My awareness, not my body. Sorry, I should have explained it better. It’s… complicated. I don't know how to explain it.” She searched for a clearer way to make sense of it. “I follow the flow of my chi. Where it pools, where it splits. Before Korra healed me, some of it was blocked. I had to find new channels to reroute through the damage.” She shook her head, embarrassed. “That probably doesn’t make sense.”

“No,” Lin said quietly. “It does.” Ayla looked up. “I’ve just never thought of it that way,” Lin went on. “I know what my bending feels like, but I’ve never considered where it comes from.”

They fell quiet for a long while, just the steady rustle of papers, the sound of the city beyond the window. Then Lin said, “I found us a place to spar.”

Ayla pulled out of her tracing. “You did?”

“There’s a bluff just south of the city,” Lin said. “Abandoned quarry access road. No one uses it anymore.”

Ayla blinked. “You just know that offhand?”

“I scouted it after you said you wanted to add my bending,” Lin said.

“You did that for me?”

Lin’s eyes flicked up from her papers. “Don’t act so surprised,” she said, the corner of her mouth curving. Her answer sparked something in Ayla, that warm, dangerous wanting. This woman who mapped fault lines for strangers had scouted a secluded bluff for her without hesitation. Who annotated hundreds of pages out of duty and precision had sat down and researched a place for her to train with the same quiet intensity. 

“How’d you find it?”

“Old patrol routes,” Lin said. “I used to run safety checks out there before the quarry shut down. Still have clearance for the gate.”

“Of course you do,” Ayla murmured with a half smile. 

Lin’s mouth curved in quiet amusement before she turned back to her files. “We can go later this week. It’s isolated enough you’ll be able to practice without half the city watching.”

“Perfect,” Ayla said softly. She let the quiet settle again and drew her focus back inward, tracing the familiar paths under her skin. Her awareness moved slowly, wrist to elbow, ribs to spine, marking the steady pulse of each current. The connections still felt slightly new, but she was starting to become more familiar with them. That faint pressure was still there, though. Not sharp, just... off. She kept her attention surface-level, following the safer channels. She told herself it was just nerves. Or the lingering unease from earlier that day. She told herself it would ease with time, once things were back in balance. She just needed to sit with it long enough, like she had in prison. 

After a while, Lin stood, collecting their mugs. She refilled the kettle, moving silently in the kitchen, and when she returned, she set the fresh cup beside Ayla’s knee. Without a word, she brushed her fingers once through Ayla’s hair, before sitting back down at her desk. 

A couple hours later, Lin had finally had enough of her files. The reports had blurred into each other after a while, incident logs, cross-referenced complaints, half-formed witness accounts. None of it making any sense, nothing that explained what she had seen in that room in a way that the felt confident in. Put it away until tomorrow. When she set her pen down, the room had gone quiet. She rubbed the back of her neck and lifted her gaze. Ayla had fallen asleep beside the couch, leaning the side of her face against the cushion, one hand curled loosely near her knee. Her empty mug sat beside her. Her hair had slipped free, a dark spill across her cheek.

Lin stilled. She’d been in this apartment for years, and it had never felt as much like home as it did with Ayla asleep on her floor like she’d always belonged there. Her chest tightened. Her mind drifted back to the morning before she called Ayla. She’d woken early, too restless to sit still, the thought of Ayla asking to spar with earthbending looping through her mind. She’d made coffee and gone driving. She’d eliminated four locations before remembering the quarry road from years ago. And then she’d followed it, more out of habit than plan, and the bluff had opened before her. And in that moment, something inside her had sparked, not obligation, not practicality, but pure, selfish wanting. She’d stood at the edge and thought, Ayla would love this. I want to show her this. I want her here with me.

She hadn’t meant for the place to feel sacred, but it had.

Now, looking at Ayla asleep, curled beside her couch, it struck her again how impossible it was that she got to have this at all. Lin stood, slowly, stretching stiffness from her shoulders, and crossed the room. She bent and brushed her fingers lightly along Ayla’s shoulder. She stirred, blinking groggily. “Sorry,” she mumbled, pushing herself upright. “I didn’t mean to- I can go-”

“Hush,” Lin murmured, her hand still warm on her shoulder. “You’re staying. Come on.” Ayla stretched and followed her down the short hallway to the bedroom. Lin handed her a folded shirt from the dresser. “Here.”

“Thanks,” Ayla said, voice softened by sleep. She undressed, pulled the shirt over her head; it hung loose on her frame, brushing her thighs as she climbed into bed. Lin changed beside her before reaching over, dimming the light, and sliding beneath the covers without a word.

Lin’s arm found her waist, drawing her close, and Ayla turned toward her, rustling the sheets. She reached up, fingers tracing along Lin’s jaw before kissing her, brief, warm, intimate in a way that still surprised Lin despite their growing familiarity. Lin lay awake for a long while afterward, wanting to keep the weight of her in her arms, wanting the end of the week to come so she could bring her to the place she’d found for her.

~*~~*~~*~

The road wound to a stop at the edge of the quarry. Beyond it, the bluff opened wide to sea and sky, a sweep of pale stone and long grass sloping toward the water far below. The wind carried salt and the distant crash of waves against the cliffs. Overhead, gulls coasted in lazy circles, their cries sharp against the low hum of a coming storm in the distance. Lin stood near the edge, the gray light caught at her hair, the loose strands whipped free by the gusts, silver against the grey of the sky. Something in Ayla’s chest drew tight and warm all at once. Lin had brought her here. Not just a training spot, but this. A place outside everything. Outside the city. Outside the lives they were both supposed to be living. A liminal edge, where nothing demanded anything of them but to exist. 

It wasn’t really about sparring.

It was the intention behind it. The care woven into the choice of the place. That Lin had heard her say I want to train with you and responded with I’ll find us somewhere to go. Ayla took in another breath, steadying herself, the wind tugging at her hair as she stepped forward. “You sure this isn’t trespassing?”

Lin didn’t turn yet. “If it were,” she said dryly, “I’d arrest us first.”

Ayla huffed a quiet breath, something like a laugh. “Comforting.”

Lin finally looked over, scanning the horizon once more before her gaze came back. “You said you wanted space to practice with earthbending,” she said. “This was the best I could do without filing a field-operation report.” The words were practical. The tone wasn’t.

Ayla’s throat worked once. “It’s perfect,” she said, and it felt like an admission.

Lin dipped her chin. “Good.” She stepped back, rolling her shoulders slightly. “Ready?”

Ayla felt her pulse rise, not with nerves, but something deeper. “Just like that? No advice beforehand?”

“Humor me.”

Ayla exhaled, centering herself, letting the air settle in her lungs. Her voice stayed warm, even as she pushed it a little toward their usual cadence: “Don’t hold back on me just because you like me.”

Lin’s mouth curved, soft but certain. “Wasn’t planning to.” The first exchange was tentative, testing. Ayla shifted her weight forward, palms cutting through the air. The gust struck loose gravel and sent a scatter of dust against Lin’s boots. Lin barely moved.

“Try again,” Lin said. Ayla drew another breath, slower this time. Her next motion, a step, a pivot, a precise release, sent a clean arc of air toward Lin’s chest. Lin anchored her stance, the ground under her responding. A low ridge of earth rose, deflecting the air with a dull thud.

“Listen before it breaks,” Lin said. Ayla nodded, closing her eyes briefly. The next burst was sharper, controlled, a clean strike that split the dust at Lin’s feet. Lin countered with a small ripple of earth, not enough to strike, just to remind her. Ayla caught it, pulling air upward in a loose twisting column that spun the dust before it dispersed. For a moment they were both still, wind tugging at their clothes. 

“See?” Lin said. “You can redirect if you catch it early.”

“Or maybe you’re just going easy on me.”

Lin’s smirk was brief, knowing. “Believe what you need to.” They fell into rhythm. One motion led to the next, the tempo shifting. Lin pressed forward, Ayla circled wide, responding faster each time she moved.

The first hour passed without either realizing it. Sweat slicked Ayla’s neck, dust clung to her calves, but she didn’t stop. Every strike felt closer to something she could control. Lin shifted her stance and raised a wall of earth waist-high. Ayla sent a gust over it, then another, harder, the second one cracked through, scattering the top layer of stone like powder.

“Better,” Lin called. Ayla wiped her sleeve across her brow, chest heaving. She rolled her shoulders, grounding herself, then tried again. She moved slower, more deliberate this time, letting the air gather before pushing it forward. The pressure built naturally, and when she released it, the current shot clean across the bluff, scattering a spray of loose gravel against Lin’s stance.

Lin nodded once, approving. “There it is.” Ayla grinned, half-wild with satisfaction. “Don’t celebrate yet.” Lin struck, a sharp stomp, a line of stone breaking the surface and racing toward her. Ayla jumped aside, lost her footing, rolled, came up laughing. “You said this wasn’t a test!”

“It’s not,” Lin said, her mouth twitching. “It’s an assessment.”

“Oh, so worse.” Another exchange, faster this time, the impact echoing across the bluff. Ayla ducked, countered, lifted the dust into a messy spiraling column that cut Lin off mid-step. Lin narrowed her eyes, drove her heel down, and the spiral collapsed. When Ayla sent a particularly well-timed arc, Lin’s footing slipped a fraction, and she let out a short, surprised laugh, the sound rare and startling and entirely human. Ayla froze for half a beat, stunned by it. Then Lin reset, braced, and gave her a look that said don’t get cocky.

They circled again. The light had shifted by now, pale gray softening toward gold-pink, clouds in the distance burning faintly at the edges. Ayla moved, quick and low, air slicing at Lin’s knees. Lin shifted, the ground beneath her flexing to absorb the blow. Ayla threw another; Lin deflected it easily. Ayla grinned. “Fine. Try this.” She spun, sending a compressed wave of air toward Lin’s back. Lin turned, countering with a low sweep of earth that forced Ayla to vault up, landing hard on her palms.

“Telegraph your turns less,” Lin said, smirking down at her.

“Maybe I wanted you to see them coming,” Ayla shot back, cheeks flushed.

Lin’s grin deepened, sharp-edged, alive. “Spirits, you’re impossible.”

“You like that about me.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t.” Ayla surged up, sweeping the air low again. The gust caught Lin at the knees, knocking her slightly off balance. Lin steadied, eyes narrowing. “That was a good hit.”

“Was it?”

“Almost.” Her foot came down hard. The ground shuddered; a ridge of earth lifted just enough to catch Ayla in the stomach, sending her back onto the dirt with a soft oof. Lin crossed the space in two strides and offered her a hand. “Yield?”

Ayla took it, fingers curling around Lin’s. “Not a chance,” she said, but she let Lin pull her up anyway, their hands lingering a beat longer than necessary. The wind howled briefly across the bluff, carrying the smell of rain. Below them, waves broke white against the cliffs. Neither spoke. They just stood there, catching their breath, the sky bruising darker above the sea. The next gust came stronger, and Lin tilted her head toward the horizon. “We should head down.”

Ayla followed her gaze. The clouds offshore were rolling fast now, heavy, the sea turning the color of tempered steel. “You afraid of getting wet?”

“Afraid?” Lin gave her a flat look. “No. Just aware of lightning.”

Ayla laughed, breath still uneven from their spar. “Fair point.”

They gathered their things in silence. By the time they started down the slope, the first drops had begun to fall. The path wound back toward the quarry road, narrow and slick with grit. Lin moved easily and Ayla followed close, her boots scuffing against stone, her pulse still caught somewhere between exertion and something softer. Halfway down, the rain thickened. It came in sheets, not a downpour yet, but enough to blur the horizon and slick their hair to their faces. Lin glanced back once to check Ayla’s footing, Ayla just grinned, soaked to the skin and utterly unconcerned. “Still think this was a good idea?” Lin called over the wind.

Ayla shoved a strand of wet hair from her face. “Best one you’ve had all week.” When they reached the bottom, Lin opened the passenger door of the car and gestured for her to climb in first. Ayla slid inside, dripping, still laughing under her breath. Lin rounded the front and settled into the driver’s seat, and for a long moment neither of them moved. Rain drummed steady on the roof, soft and insistent. Ayla leaned back against the seat, head turned toward Lin, watching the drops chase one another down the glass behind her.

Lin huffed a soft breath, half amusement, half disbelief at the sheer absurdity of the situation, and turned the key. The car rumbled to life, headlights cutting through the gray. They drove in companionable silence, the city lights blooming on the horizon. When they reached the first cluster of buildings, Lin glanced sideways. “Dinner?”

Ayla tilted her head toward her, humming in agreement. The rain came harder as they turned into the city streets, thunder rolling far out over the water. Lin’s hand moved on the gearshift, and Ayla found herself watching the motion with quiet fondness. We'll figure it out. 

Chapter Text

Ayla woke to a line of warmth along her back and the soft drag of breath at the back of her neck. An arm heavy around her waist, palm resting across her stomach like it belonged there. She opened her eyes slowly and was greeted with soft light that washed through the bedroom. Beside her, Lin lay partly on her stomach, cheek pressed to the pillow, hair mussed and curling over her face in uneven waves. The corner of Ayla's mouth turned upward before she could help it. Lin made a low sound when Ayla adjusted slightly, half hum, half sigh, and shifted more fully in her direction. “Morning,” she murmured, voice rough-edged with sleep. Ayla’s heart gave a small, traitorous lurch. “Morning,” she whispered back. For a few long, indulgent seconds, neither of them moved.

Lin’s fingers traced aimless shapes against Ayla’s hip, and Ayla let herself have the moment, the sunlight, the closeness, the weight of Lin’s arm. She didn’t want to shift and break whatever easy, early-morning peace they’d stumbled into. “You get better morning light than me,” Ayla said quietly, eyes drifting toward the window.

Lin glanced toward the windows too, then back at her. “You can wake up to it anytime you want.” She pressed a kiss to Ayla’s temple. “I’ll make tea.” Ayla closed her eyes again, letting the warmth linger after she’d gone, and then slowly made her way out of bed too.

The kitchen was all cool tile and warm light. Sun spilled across the counter and caught on a shelf of neatly stacked bowls. The kettle hissed. Ayla leaned in the doorway, watching Lin pull down two mugs with practiced ease. She handed her one, her other hand brushing a light touch along Ayla’s waist as she moved past. 

They drifted through the rest of the morning like something half-learned, half-improvised. Sharing the sink. Ayla borrowing Lin’s comb. Lin pretending not to notice the way Ayla’s hair fell loose onto her shoulders as she snagged the comb through it. By the door, Lin fastened the last clasp on her belt. Something in her expression softened, barely there, but real.

Come here.

Ayla stepped in before the moment could pass. Lin slid a hand behind her neck and kissed her. Ayla inhaled sharply, hands rising to the back of Lin’s neck, fingers sliding into her hair. Everything narrowed to the press of Lin’s mouth, the firm warmth of her hand against Ayla’s skin, the familiar tug in her chest that somehow felt new every time. “Dinner tonight,” Lin murmured when she pulled away. 

“Dinner,” Ayla echoed, too breathless for anything else.

Only then did Lin open the door. They walked several blocks together. Lin’s boots clicked against the pavement in that steady, familiar rhythm that Ayla could probably identify blindfolded at this point. The air smelled faintly of sesame bread from a nearby stall, and a child drew chalk circles on the sidewalk and waved at them with blue-stained fingers. Ayla let herself collect these details like small treasures. At the intersection, they slowed. “My turnoff,” Ayla said, tipping her head toward the left-hand street.

For half a second she thought Lin might lean in again, even here on the sidewalk, but she didn’t. Her fingertips brushed lightly at Ayla’s elbow instead. She held there for a moment, thumb barely moving. “Have a good morning, I'll see you tonight.” 

Something warm and sharp flickered under Ayla’s ribs. “Okay,” she said, too soft to hide how much it meant. "You as well." Lin nodded once, the smallest release of tension in her shoulders. Then she continued ahead, and Ayla turned left. The city felt almost relaxed in the morning, shutters opening, someone watering potted ferns, the faint hum of radio music drifting from an open window. Her chest still hummed with warmth from the kiss earlier. 

But before she could round the corner, everything tilted. Not dramatically, but enough to feel slightly off balance. Like the street shifted a fraction sideways beneath her feet, somehow. Ayla’s stomach dropped, and her knees bent instinctively. A sharp inhale caught too high in her chest. What? She blinked hard.

The world snapped back. The child with the chalk kept drawing. The air hadn’t moved. Nothing had moved. Her pulse thudded anyway as she recovered from the vertigo. 

Okay. Okay. Probably nothing. Not enough sleep. Too much sparring the other day. Her mind reached for the simplest explanation, anything to make the moment fit inside something normal. Residual anxiety, she told herself. Jittery nerves. She rubbed her sternum once, hard. Nothing dramatic, she thought. Just stress. And by the time she reached her building, the fear had downgraded itself from terrifying, to unsettling, to something she could almost pretend she imagined. Almost. 

Her apartment was quiet when she stepped inside. Not empty-quiet, just soft, familiar. Ayla sank onto the cushion by the window and crossed her legs, pressing the heel of her hand to her sternum again where that faint, hollow feeling still lived.

It wasn’t pain. Not exactly. More like… something misaligned. It simply existed, an unmoving band of density right at the outer edge of her awareness. No physical counterpart. No name. Maybe this is what full power feels like, she tried. For years she’d been cut off, buried, blocked. Maybe reconnecting came with… turbulence? Maybe what she was feeling was just old scar tissue learning how to move again. Bodies heal strange, she reminded herself. Energy does too. This is just that. Just healing. Just you.

She closed her eyes and followed the path inward. Wrist pulse, breath, centerline, until her awareness brushed the pressure again a little while later. Her awareness flowed easily, until it reached that place. Then it slowed. Not a block. Just… density. A coldness at the edges, the way water changes texture when it deepens. Unease stirred low in her stomach. She didn’t push against it. She simply sat with it. Let it be what it was. Let herself accept that she didn’t know what she was feeling yet.

Not enough proof to call it something real. Not enough comfort to ignore it entirely. So she breathed until her hands stopped shaking. And she told herself, firmly, almost harshly, Residual trauma. Adjustment. That’s all. Anything else is imagination. It wasn’t convincing. But she held onto it anyway.

~*~~*~~*~

It was late afternoon when the call hit her line. Lin had planned to spend the rest of the day drowning in paperwork. The safe kind of work. “Chief?” Dispatch crackled. “Third Street tram yard. Engineer reporting uh… movement in the line. He, uh- he said the machine was breathing.” Lin stared at the receiver. Breathing machinery.

Fucking hell.

The rational part of her mind assembled itself immediately, sharp and orderly, supplying countless rational explanations. Half the city is jumpy after the protest bombing. Stress hallucinations are normal after near-misses. People might say “breathing” when they mean “shifting.” Officers know the difference. You're tired. You are over-reading.  But the dispatcher’s voice had carried that tight undertone, the kind that wasn’t panic, but definitely trying not to be. And something low in Lin’s chest twisted in answer, the same uncomfortable tug she’d felt at the tenement call last week.

She knew herself too well. If she didn’t go, she’d spend the entire night replaying the choice. And she hated that feeling, of not looking, more than she hated being tired. “Tell them I’m coming,” Lin said, already moving. 

By the time she arrived, the tram yard was nearly deserted. Rails stretched in long, wet lines, gleaming like thin mirrors. A maintenance tram sat crooked on its axle, one wheel off track. The overhead power conduit spat sparks like molten rain. Two officers hovered near an engineer slumped against a crate, and he cradled his arm against his body like it had been injured. “What happened?” Lin asked.

The younger officer swallowed. “He says the cable grabbed him.”

Lin arched a brow. “Grabbed.”

“It moved,” the engineer snapped, face pale. “I was checking the line and it just... started pulsing.”

People in shock misinterpreted things all the time. Loose tension cables jumped when they released. Power faults looked like movement if someone was tired enough. There would be an explanation. There always was. You’re exhausted, she reminded herself. Your brain is primed for patterns after that tenement call. Don’t start inventing ghosts. She stepped closer. 

Beneath it all, something else hummed. A low, rhythmic thrum she felt more than heard. Too slow for a motor, and too steady for loose wiring sending vibrations through the ground. Her jaw tightened. “Power status?”

“Still live,” the older officer said. “We waited in case you wanted eyes on it first.” 

She braced a hand on the tram frame to lean in. And froze.

Warm.

Not sun-warm. Not heat-retaining metal warm. This was body temperature warm in a way metal shouldn’t be unless a person had been touching it. Recently. She hated that she could tell the difference. Lin snatched her hand back and her pulse kicked once, hard.

The hum shifted as soon as she broke contact. Not louder, just… aware of her. Like something had registered her touch. Behind her, one officer whispered a quiet prayer under his breath. Lin kept her expression neutral by habit, but her shoulders tightened. “Cut power to the entire yard,” she said. “Grid and auxiliary.”

She kept her eyes trained on the place she had touched as they ran for the breaker shed. A series of heavy switches clanged down. The ambient buzz of transformers died, and the yard fell eerily quiet. The tram stayed crooked and still, the wrongness staying with it. If anything, she felt it more clearly now that the machinery had stopped shouting over it, it was almost like a faint movement under the soles of her boots, subtle, but unmistakable to someone who’d spent her life reading the ground.

Stress resonance, she told herself. Rails sometimes hold vibration patterns. She crouched anyway and pressed her palm flat to the asphalt. A pulse answered with something like… intent? That was the only word her mind could find, as ridiculous as it sounded. Like the ground wanted to rearrange itself into a different shape, but couldn’t quite decide which one. Impossibly. 

Her stomach rolled, twisting in a way she hadn’t felt until she lost her bending, that feeling of something in the world behaving in a way that refused the rules she understood. But before she could pull back, the air above the tram folded.

A soft concavity formed in space itself. Like someone had pressed an invisible hand into the air and left an indentation. Light bent inward, pooling in a shallow shape. The tram’s outline warped, barely, but enough that her eye caught it. A suggestion of a shape clung to that distortion. Not visible. Just… implied. The absence of something where something should have been, and she had no idea what she was looking at. 

Lin didn’t jump back. She stepped once, cleanly, between the distortion and the engineer. “Behind me,” she said. That was all, and there was something in her voice that made both officers obey without argument. The distortion shivered. For one moment, she could feel something in the ground dropping out, like something had momentarily slipped under the world instead of through it, leaving a hollow in the feedback.

Then, as quickly as it came, there was the soft sound of air moving. The light unbent itself and everything appeared normal again. “What the hell was that?” One of the officers whispered. Lin didn’t answer. Naming it would make it real. She exhaled slowly and looked at the tram again. Moisture clung to the metal where she’d touched it, the shape of her palm outlined in condensation. “Get him to the hospital,” she said. “Check for nerve damage.”

“I told you-” the engineer began.

“I believe you,” Lin cut in. Her own tone surprised her. His eyes went wide, not at the words, but at the admission in her tone. She cleared her throat and continued, “Run diagnostics on this entire section. And pull the west line schematics.”

“You think it’s sabotage?”

“No,” Lin said quietly. She looked back at the air where the distortion had been. “I think it’s something else.”

An hour later, she sat in the evidence room staring at the preliminary report.

              Incident 89-B: electrical anomaly, west line tram yard.  

              Contributing factors: power fluctuation, rail resonance in rail bed.  

              Mechanical cause: undetermined.

All true. None honest. She could still feel the warmth ghosting her palm, the hollowed out second where the world had thinned. “When you frown like that,” Saikhan said, setting a mug of tea beside her, “it means something didn’t add up.”

“How many ‘spirit disturbance’ calls this month?” she asked.

“Seventeen,” he said. “Counting this.”

“And how many found actual causes?”

He flipped open his own file. “Seven. Sticky valves, rigged wiring, one spectacularly drunk man and a broken radiator...”

“So ten,” Lin said. “Ten we can’t explain to anyone’s satisfaction.”

“Ten we can’t explain yet,” Saikhan corrected.

Lin’s jaw flexed. “We are not filing a report under ‘haunted infrastructure.’”

“No one is saying that,” Saikhan replied. “Not out loud, anyway. Besides," he said dryly, "the category would be Environmental Anomaly. Maybe Unclassified Hazard." He huffed a dry laugh that didn't meet his eyes. 

“This isn’t funny.”

“I know.” He leaned a hip against the table, studying her. “Do you want an explanation, or do you want a logical explanation?”

She met his eyes then, tired and unamused. “I want the world to make sense. Preferably before sunrise.”

“Don’t we all.”

“This city is traumatized,” Lin said. “People jump at shadows. That engineer probably misread a power surge under stress.”

“And you?” Saikhan asked.

Lin hesitated. “I think,” she said slowly, “that I need more than a warm tram and an off feeling before I escalate.”

“And if more of these events keep happening?”

“Then I’ll deal with it. For now, it’s a malfunction on paper.” She tapped the report. “We log it. We watch for patterns." 

He nodded, not believing her but respecting her enough not to keep pressing. He pushed off the table and headed for the door. Halfway out, he added, “For what it’s worth, if you told me it felt… wrong, I’d put that in my official report.”

When he left, Lin stared down at the last line of the report. Cause: pending further investigation. The closest she could come to admitting her world had tilted off its axis today. And that she didn't know, for the first time in a long time, how to prevent it from happening again.

~*~~*~~*~

Ayla’s apartment smelled like ginger and garlic when Lin knocked. Ayla stood barefoot, sleeves rolled, the ends of her hair curling at her neck. Her cheeks were flushed from the stove’s heat. “Hey,” Ayla said, smiling like Lin hadn’t spent the afternoon staring at a piece of metal that behaved like it was possessed. “I need someone to taste this before I poison myself.”

“Risking your life for the cause,” Lin said as she stepped inside, stress already bleeding out of her shoulders. “Very noble.”

She shut the door with her foot. The latch clicked, solid, familiar. A normal sound. She held onto it. Blessedly ordinary. The radio hummed quietly under the sizzle of the pan. Steam curled upward in the faint city light filtering through the kitchen window. Lin felt the tram yard tug at the edge of her thoughts- no. She pushed it away with the same practiced shove she used on the memories of her bending being removed. Not here. Not now. Not in this kitchen full of ginger and warmth and her. 

“Okay,” Ayla said, setting the spoon aside. “I got news today.”

Lin’s spine tightened before she could stop it. “Good or bad?”

“Good.” Ayla practically glowed. “I got the foundation job.”

“That’s great news,” Lin said, and she meant it. She stepped closer, her fingertips brushing Ayla’s arm. 

Ayla tilted her head a little, smiling in that unguarded way that always knocked Lin a little off-balance. “It’s helping coordinate relief donations. Nothing glamorous. But it feels… useful.”

“You’re good at useful,” Lin said. “And this one comes with less violence.” She laughed, and Lin watched her. This version of Ayla, hopeful, steady on her feet, shoulders not hunched in anticipation of impact, went into a mental lockbox Lin rarely allowed herself to open. The one that held: Her mother on the balcony in late summer. Su laughing so hard rice flew everywhere when they were children. The city skyline the day the first airships lifted. Moments that proved the world wasn’t always cruel and unexplainable. And that was when the decision came, clean and quiet: She would not tell Ayla about the tram yet. She would not hand her that image of metal pulsing, of light bending wrong, of a shadow made of pressure hanging over the rails. Not when she didn't even understand it herself. 

Not tonight. Not when she looked like this. Lin did not hand people fear without a plan to counter it. She never had. “When do you start?” she asked instead.

“End of the week.” Ayla stirred the pot again as the spices bloomed richer in the steam. “I’ll be on their new relief initiative. I’ll see what that actually means once I get there.”

“Sounds like they’ll keep you busy.”

“That’s the idea. I don’t do well sitting still.” Ayla shot her a knowing look. “You may have noticed.” Lin huffed a laugh. A few quiet moments passed. Then Ayla said, “Oh, more news. Training’s gonna be paused for a bit. Apparently Tenzin and Korra are heading to the South Pole for a short trip. Something about a festival.”

“Good,” Lin murmured. “You can actually rest for five minutes.”

Ayla huffed a laugh, shaking her head. “I’ve rested enough the past few weeks.” The radio crackled, the previous program ending in a flourish of trumpets. After a moment of static, soft music began to play, and the city’s wrongness took a half-step back, and she clung to that. She could carry the uncertainty longer. Without really deciding to, she stepped behind Ayla and slid her arms around her waist. Ayla inhaled a surprised breath, then melted back against her. Lin lowered her mouth to the warm skin below Ayla’s ear and kissed her there, almost thoughtlessly. Thank you, she thought, without any idea how to say it out loud. For this room. For this ordinary moment.

Ayla’s hand came up to curl around Lin’s forearm. She tipped her head slightly, brushing her cheek against Lin’s jaw. “Can we go back to the coast tomorrow?” Ayla asked quietly. “To celebrate my job. I want to practice more, now that we actually have space.”

“It’s a plan,” Lin said immediately.

“You didn’t even pretend to think about it.”

“I didn’t need to pretend.” Because she wanted that as much as Ayla did. Open sky. Ground she understood. Air that didn’t fold inward. Watching her use her bending where nothing bent wrong around her. She rested her chin lightly on Ayla’s shoulder. Tomorrow she would chase the patterns. Tomorrow she would map the anomalies and track down schematics and try to fit this city’s new wrongness into boxes that had never needed labels before. Tonight she let herself pretend the world was simple.

~*~~*~~*~

The bluffs stretched open around them, pale rock and tall grass moving in slow circles. Republic City was a smudge on the horizon, the sun sliding down behind it. This was why she’d suggested sparring. Lin had looked tired last night. Not just long-day tired, she had that particular set to her shoulders that said something was grinding away under the surface. Even when she’d smiled about the job, the tension hadn’t completely left. So Ayla had said, let’s go to the coast to celebrate, like it was about training and fresh air and practice. Truthfully, she just wanted to see some of that weight bleed out of Lin’s spine. And if they were up here, far from the city, maybe the strange pressure that had settled behind Ayla’s sternum would quiet down, too.

Lin stood a few paces away on the flattest part of the ground. The wind had already started working at her hair, teasing out a few silver strands to brush along her jaw. Ayla felt something loosen at the sight. She looks happier here, Ayla thought. Lighter. “Ready?” Lin asked.

Ayla smiled. Her own chest eased a notch. “Depends. Ready for what? Friendly spar? Duel to the death? Rematch where you pretend you’re not nervous?”

“I don’t get nervous,” Lin said, settling into stance.

“You definitely do.”

“I definitely don’t.” Ayla laughed and stepped onto a stone opposite her, feeling the drop behind her. The wind curled up from the cliff, cool and alive, coiling around her ankles before running up her back. Lin moved first. She always did, testing, watching. A low sweep of her heel sent a ripple through the ground toward Ayla, subtle enough that anyone else might miss it. Ayla bent her knees and let the air compress around her, vaulting over the shift with a burst that carried her higher than necessary simply because it felt good. The edge of it wavered as she released, a tiny stutter she hoped Lin hadn’t noticed. She landed and snapped a gust outward that broke harmlessly against Lin’s side.

“Too direct,” Lin called. 

“I thought you liked direct,” Ayla said, circling.

“Only when it works. You need to adjust your carry-through.” Lin said with a smirk, followed by another shift of her foot. This time the stone rolled toward her in a narrow wave. Ayla widened her stance, inhaled, and let the air thicken around her before snapping it outward. Her form wasn’t perfect; she could feel the momentum wobble slightly at the base, but she powered through anyway, letting instinct fill the gaps technique hadn’t caught up to yet. The wave broke in the middle, stone shedding off in harmless chunks that skittered into the grass.

“Better,” Lin said, as they found a rhythm. Lin pushed; Ayla redirected. The ground moved under Lin’s call in small, controlled tremors. Ayla answered with sharp, elastic responses, quick jabs, tight curves instead of big shows of force. Dust curled around their feet. The wind whipped Ayla’s hair across her face; she blew it away with a short laugh. Lin was watching her with that narrowed, intent focus, but the line of her mouth had softened. Some of the hard, flat tiredness from last night had eased. Good.

“Blend the current into your step,” Lin said over the wind. “Strike starts before you move. Feel the pressure change first.” Ayla closed her eyes for half a second, letting the ground under her boots and the wind at her back register together. On the exhale, she stepped forward and let the air move into her before she pushed it out. The gust that unfurled wasn’t a shove, it spiraled down her arm and unwound toward Lin in a tight arc. She sank into her heels, drawing up steadiness from the ground as the spiral hit the wall of earth she'd raised to block. Ayla laughed, breathless. “Did you feel that?”

“Hard not to,” Lin said. There was something like satisfaction in her voice. They picked up speed. Ayla sharpened her bending into smaller, quicker lines. Lin answered with infuriatingly economical counters, a crack in the ground at exactly the wrong spot, a raised edge where Ayla meant to plant her foot, forcing constant adaptation. No wasted motion, just that relentless, quiet competence that Ayla both admired and wanted to shove against.

She kicked up a spray of pebbles with a snap of air; Lin blocked with a braced forearm, metal bracers catching the late light. Ayla slid under a low strike and sent a tight burst along Lin’s shoulder. Lin met it with a raised hand, pulling stone up in a flat plane, the air rebounding as it broke. Ayla staggered, caught herself with a reflexive push of air. Her lungs burned; her cheeks prickled from the wind. “Okay,” she panted, laughing. “Maybe a little much.”

“Maybe,” Lin said, but her eyes were bright in a way Ayla hadn’t seen in days. They let the pace drop. The sun slid lower, shadows stretching long. The wind stayed, steady and cool, tugging heat and sweat off their skin. Ayla bent, hands braced on her knees, breathing deep. Her awareness slid inward on habit.

There it was, that damn pressure that was getting harder and harder to ignore. She wished she could just forget it. That it would just leave her alone and she could move on with trying to build a life for herself after all of that trauma. Her throat tightened. Observe without judging. She could also hear herself trying to explain it to Lin and wanting to sink into the bay instead. Hey, something feels off in my… internal... something. Not bad, just weird. No, I can’t show you. No, I don’t know what it means. She did not have a category for vague spiritual wrongness at the edge of awareness. She huffed out a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh.

And Lin had looked so tired last night, even when she was trying not to show it. The idea of saying, something’s wrong inside me and I don’t know what, and watching that land on her shoulders- No. If this turned out to be nothing, Ayla would feel ridiculous dragging Lin into it. And if it turned out to be something, she’d rather come to her with more than I felt weird.

“You okay?” Lin asked, closer now. 

Ayla looked up and smiled. “Yeah.” It was the truth, the sparring session had felt good. Really good. Being out here had helped, and she felt better for it. This damn feeling underneath it all just wouldn’t go away. She straightened, rolling her shoulders. The city on the horizon was mostly lights now, a loose glitter against the dark sky. The weirdness behind Ayla’s chest was still there. Lin’s shoulders weren’t completely loose. But up here, the wrongness felt farther away. Distant. Manageable.

Ayla let the wind thread through her fingers and thought, deliberately: This. Right now. This is what I’m choosing. Not because nothing was wrong. Because so much had been wrong for so long that having this, an evening out here, a spar that left them both smiling, the promise of dinner later... She leaned into it and let it carry some of the tightness out of her chest. Just for a while.

~*~~*~~*~

The smell of coffee reached Lin before she was fully awake. It drifted through the apartment, tugging her toward consciousness. She blinked at the ceiling for a moment before she slid out of bed, ran a hand through her hair, and walked barefoot across the room. Ayla was already in the kitchen. She was perched sideways on the counter, one knee drawn up, a bare foot dangling. A book lay open across her thigh, thumb hooked to keep it open. Her hair was damp from the shower, soft waves darkened and clinging at the ends. “Morning,” Lin said, her voice coming out softer than she meant it to.

Ayla looked up, smiling at her. “Morning,” she answered. “Coffee’s ready. I also made toast. It… evolved into something else. Consume at your own risk.”

“I’ve survived worse,” Lin said, crossing to her.

“You’ve eaten worse,” Ayla corrected.

Lin placed her palm on the counter near Ayla’s hip and reached for a mug with her other hand, stepping into the narrow space between her knees. Ayla stayed right where she was, her knee brushing Lin’s thigh. Lin let the motion carry her forward and eased her arm around Ayla’s lower back, fingers resting just above the curve of her hip. The coffee was strong and a little scorched. Perfect. “You’re up early.”

“Couldn’t sleep.” Ayla flicked her eyes back to the page, then up again. “Too many thoughts. Figured if I’m going to spiral, I might as well do it with a book instead of staring at the ceiling.”

Lin glanced at the cover: a well-worn fantasy novel with a stylized sky bison on the front, corners soft with use. “So this is the one you reread when you’re anxious?” 

Ayla’s mouth curved. “Maybe I just like it.”

“Maybe you like it when you’re anxious.” 

Ayla laughed. “Fine. You win.” She nudged her knee against Lin's hip. “Big plans today?” 

“Paperwork,” Lin said, grimacing. “Follow-up meetings about recent incidents. Leadership wants updates. The usual joy.”

“Ah yes. The glamorous world of municipal leadership.”

“Try not to be too jealous.”

Ayla snorted. She slid off the counter, brushing Lin’s side with her shoulder as she crossed the room. “I should finish getting ready. First day and all.”

“Nervous?” Lin asked, turning and leaning against the counter. 

Ayla paused in the bathroom doorway, fingers pushing hair off her forehead. “Yeah. A little. But… it feels good.” Something tightened under Lin’s ribs. Pride, mostly. And something else she refused to name.

“Good,” she said simply. The radio crackled faintly to life in the corner, the morning announcer’s voice seeping in with weather and pointless commuter updates. Lin drank her coffee and listened to Ayla moving around the bathroom, items being set down, the faucet running, the click of heels as she slid them on. For a moment she let herself imagine this as routine. Mornings like this, plural. And when Ayla came back out, Lin almost forgot how to breathe. She’d seen Ayla in training clothes. In borrowed air acolyte linens. In her worn, soft shirts. In her casual work clothing from the previous months. She had not seen this.

The blouse Ayla was wearing was a soft off-white, sleeves cuffed neatly just below the elbow. The fabric fit clean over her shoulders, tucking into well-fitted trousers that sharpened all the lines training had carved into her, accentuating the easy, upright way she carried herself now. Lin’s eyes tracked down and back up before she could stop them. “You’re staring,” Ayla said, pink starting at the tops of her ears.

“Observing, actually.” 

“That’s worse.”

“No,” Lin said, more honest than she meant to be. “It’s not.”

Ayla made a sound that was half laugh, half swallowed inhale, and reached for her own mug to have something to do with her hands. “You should head out or you’ll be late.”

“You’re assuming I intend to be on time.” In that outfit-

“Chief Beifong, paragon of punctuality?” Fuck. 

Lin crouched to pull on her boots, fingers moving a little slower across the clasps than usual because she didn’t particularly want to turn her back on Ayla in that outfit. She straightened, picking up her discarded armor from where it sat by the door. “I could be convinced to stay,” she said, not looking over her shoulder, “if someone gave me a reason.”

Ayla crossed the room in a handful of quiet steps. Arms slid around Lin’s waist from behind, hands flattening over her stomach. Ayla rested her cheek between Lin’s shoulder blades and pressed a soft kiss just below her shoulder. “Go,” Ayla murmured. “If you stay, I’m going to be late too. Dinner tonight?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good. Now go be… whatever terrifying thing you are at the office.”

“Chief,” Lin supplied.

Ayla laughed. “Yeah, that one.”

Lin turned in her arms brushed a kiss against the corner of her mouth. “And you enjoy your workday.”

The corner of Ayla’s mouth quirked. “Working on it.”

Lin slid the final pieces of her armor on and left first, the door closing with a clean click behind her. Inside, Ayla stood with both palms braced on the counter, heart humming. Maybe, she thought, this really is what normal could feel like. Messy, stitched together, real. She grabbed her satchel, checked twice that she had her paperwork, and headed out.

The Helion Foundation offices gleamed in the morning light, glass and clean lines, softened by ferns in clay pots and warm wood trims. Ayla smoothed her hand over the front of her blouse more out of habit than necessity and stepped through the door.

The lobby was bright, high-ceilinged, full of quiet movement. A few people in neat clothes crossed from rooms on one side to the other, carrying folders, chatting lightly with each other. The wall behind the reception desk held a large, framed black and white photograph of a rebuilt tenement block. Her heart lifted a notch. This is real, she thought. Not theoretical. Not speeches. Actual people getting help.

“You must be Ayla.” the receptionist said as she approached, already standing. “Welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. I’m Ryn.”

Ayla smiled, a little startled by the warmth. “Thank you. I-yes. First day.”

Ryn came around the desk. “Come on, I’ll walk you up.” She led the way to a large staircase, motioning for her to follow. “The Foundation is technically its own branch,” she explained as they walked, “but we’re housed in Helion’s main building for now. Research and Development has extra space, and they already had the infrastructure for secure records, so the board decided to nest us in with them.”

“Efficient,” Ayla said.

“And cheap,” Ryn added cheerfully. “Can’t forget that part.” They stepped out onto a large, airy floor. Open workspaces. Maps of the city pinned up with colored tags scattered over them like confetti. “This is us,” Ryn said, leading her toward a cluster of desks by the windows. “Relief Coordination. We handle intake, donor matching, material logistics, community contacts. You’ll be starting with correspondence and tracking, but you’ll see everything.” A large wall board displayed current projects: housing vouchers, clinic support, food distribution, transit subsidies. Little pinned notes marked neighborhoods and deadlines. Ayla felt something eager uncurl in her chest. Work. Tangible things. Lists she could check off that made someone’s life better.

She showed Ayla her desk, small, but by a window, with a view over a strip of the park and the river beyond. Someone had already set a neat stack of intake forms and a little plant in a chipped teacup on the corner. “They insisted we give everyone a plant,” Ryn said. “Something about morale.”

“I like it,” Ayla said. And she meant it.

“Before we bury you in paperwork,” Ryn added, “we do have one quick thing, because we’re inside R&D, everyone goes through a basic health and chi screening. Building protocol, helps support internal research initiatives and employee wellness.”

Ayla nodded and followed through the floor and down the hallway. Easy enough. The screening room was close, a small, pale-walled space with a bored-looking technician. “Just stand in the marked circle,” he said. “Hands at your sides, breathing normally. It’s more about ensuring nobody’s bringing anything dangerous near the labs. You won’t feel much.”

She stepped into the circle. A mild static sensation brushed over her skin. Then it was gone. “All clear,” the technician said, barely glancing up from his clipboard as he jotted down a note. “You’re set.”

That was it. Just a checkbox ticked so she could get on with her day. Back at her desk, Ryn walked her through the donation management system, the routing protocols, the way they tracked requests from neighborhoods and matched them with what funding and supplies they had. By mid-morning, Ayla was drafting replies:

          We’ve received your request for replacement heaters…  

          We can schedule a supply drop on…  

          Yes, transportation vouchers are available for clinic visits…

It was small work. But every form connected to somewhere real- an address, a family, a clinic. That mattered. Her shoulders eased as the hours went by. The nervous flutter in her chest traded itself for focus.

One of her new coworkers, Varrin, leaned in from his desk a few paces down. “Hey, first day survivor. You holding up?”

“So far,” Ayla said. “No one’s fired me yet.”

“Give it time,” he deadpanned, then grinned. “Joking. You’re doing fine. Ryn only brings people in she thinks can handle the chaos.”

Another woman Ayla hadn't met yet dropped a stack of files on her own desk a few paces down with a sigh. “If anyone finds where the city hid all their decent typewriters, let me know. I’ll defect immediately.” They laughed, the sound easy and ordinary.

By late afternoon, Ayla’s wrist ached pleasantly from writing. She’d sent a couple dozen letters, logged new requests, and sat in on a brief meeting where they sketched out priorities for the next month’s relief focus. She hadn’t had to fight anyone or steal anything to feel useful. That was new. And it felt, quietly, profoundly good.

~*~~*~~*~

Ayla sat at her usual spot on the floor. She'd settled down here soon after she got home, determined to align the way she felt inside with the happiness she was experiencing externally. 

Breath in. Follow the line down. Trace the familiar channels she’d walked so many times now, the steady movement along her arms. The descent was easy tonight. Almost too easy. Until she reached the threshold.

The pressure. Not inside the channels she knew, but pressed against them. Parallel. A dense seam running alongside her own energy, just out of alignment. It was wrong in a way that felt… structural? A harmonic just barely out of tune, a resonance trying and failing to match hers. She eased closer, breath thinning. It was like standing near a damaged bell. The shape was there, the capacity for sound, but something inside had cracked, and now everything came out warped.

Her focus brushed it. A shiver ran down her spine, not cold, exactly, but like her awareness had touched a bruise that didn’t belong to her body. This isn’t me.

The thought arrived very quietly. It didn’t feel dramatic. It felt matter-of-fact. Not imbalance. Not leftover fear. Other. Something near enough that her spirit could feel it, but not claim it. She shifted her attention, the smallest tilt, a gentle lean into the space it occupied. The resonance buckled. It didn’t push her out; it folded under her awareness, collapsing inward like a step that wasn’t there. The sensation jarred through her whole body. She gasped. Her heart hammered, too fast, too loud. Lin would be here soon. Pull it together, Ayla. Shove it down. 

She started cooking before she was actually hungry. By the time the sun slid down between the buildings and the streetlamps switched on, the apartment was already warm and bright, windows cracked to let in the cool night air. The radio hummed low, and she checked the clock. If she’s on time, she should be here in… There was a knock at the door. Ayla smiled before she even moved. She wiped her hands on a dish towel and moved to open the door.

Lin stood there in the hallway, lines of fatigue still faint around her eyes, but softer than they’d been that morning. Lin stepped inside, shutting the door and started removing her armor in pieces. Ayla returned to the stove. “Shoes off, Chief. This is a civilian zone.”

Lin made a quiet noise that might have been a laugh and removed her boots, followed by the rest of her armor pieces. As she passed behind Ayla, a warm palm skimmed in a light, absent-minded line across the small of her back. “Sit,” she said, feigning sternness to cover the flutter in her chest at Lin's hand on her back. “I’ve got this. You had an actual job today.”

“So did you,” Lin countered.

“Mine's a desk job.” Ayla nudged her with her hip. “Which is why you’re banned from lifting anything heavier than a spoon until dinner is served.”

Lin sighed, long suffering but without any bite in it, and let herself be shooed toward the small kitchen table, where Ayla had very deliberately left one of her more ridiculous paperbacks. The cover glared up, The Pirate Queen and the Storm Spirit, with swirling clouds kissing a woman with a cutlass. Ayla pretended to be very focused on her pan as Lin sat down.

You don’t have to read it, she thought, biting her lip to hide her grin. But you want to. I know you do. She heard paper rustle, Lin giving in and opening the book. A little spark of smug satisfaction flicked up in Ayla’s chest and she had to fight the chuckle that surged up her throat at being right. “You know,” Ayla called over her shoulder, “you don’t have to read that one.”

“I’m aware,” Lin said.

“So why’d you-”

“Because,” Lin answered dryly, “this one insults my intelligence in a very specific, almost recreational way.” Ayla’s grin stretched. She likes it. She’ll never admit it, but she likes it. Steam hissed as she added broth to the pan. Oil sputtered. The lingering echo of that strange pressure she’d felt in meditation sat somewhere far behind her ribs, but she pushed it firmly out of reach. Tonight was for this.

Lin flipped to a random page. “Lightning coiled around the spirit's spine as she descended, hair made of rainfall and desire-” She paused. “I don’t think rain should have a spine.”

“It’s fantasy,” Ayla said, stirring. “Let her have whatever spine she wants.”

Lin tried again. “‘Steel cannot cut the sky,’ the spirit hissed-” There was a moment of silence while Lin kept reading. “She catches a knife with a cloud?”

“That’s my favorite part.”

“Of course it is,” Lin muttered with a sigh. 

“When we eventually add metalbending to our sparring,” Ayla said, sliding bowls onto the counter, “will you bend knives at me so I can learn to do that?”

“No,” Lin said immediately. “Absolutely not. I am never metalbending directly at you.”

“Probably a good call,” Ayla admitted, laughing. She brought the bowls to the table with a little flourish, pleased at how good they looked. They sat close without even thinking about it now, knees brushing under the table, shoulders turned inward. Lin’s hand drifted to the back of Ayla’s chair, fingers resting lightly against the curve of her shoulder blade. Ayla soaked in the contact.

“My first day was so good,” she said, surprising herself with how true it felt. “Actually good. My team seems great. I learned the intake system for the relief shipments, they’re reorganizing it, and it’s a disaster, but I think it'll be fine. And I met their logistics coordinator, and she’s terrifying in an amazing way. She hates inefficiency, you’d like her. And-” She caught herself rambling and laughed. “I don’t know. It just felt like… purpose. Like I can do something that matters again, without someone trying to arrest me for it.” Lin watched her with an expression Ayla didn’t have a word for, something soft and intent and proud, like she was cataloging every word.

“I’m glad,” Lin said. “It suits you.”

The simple sincerity of it made Ayla’s throat tighten. She nudged Lin’s ankle under the table. “What about you? How was your very glamorous day in city leadership?”

Lin took a sip of tea. “The usual thrilling civic duty.”

Ayla couldn’t quite read the flicker that crossed her face at that, something quick and shadowed, but the tone was dry enough to lean into. “So a normal day,” she said. 

“Tragically, yes.” Then Lin’s hand slid up, fingers tracing the line of Ayla’s back through her shirt. “Seems you’re the one with the exciting job now.”

Ayla snorted. “Exciting is a strong word.”

“Mm.” Lin hummed. “Then distract me.” Her fingers skimmed Ayla’s back again. “Tell me where you grew up.” Ayla blinked, surprised. Lin didn’t often ask questions like that. When she did, Ayla wanted to give her everything.

“The middle of nowhere,” Ayla said, mouth tugging into a crooked half-smile. “You’d have hated it.”

“Try me,” Lin said.

“We moved a lot,” Ayla began. “But there was one place we stayed longer than expected, a Fire Nation coastal outpost in the eastern archipelago. My dad was stationed there with the United Forces.” She leaned back slightly, letting the memories unspool.

“Rice paddies on one side, red cliffs on the other. The heat would shimmer off the rocks in the afternoon, I can still see it.” Lin’s fingers paused briefly on her back, but she didn’t interrupt. “There was an old kiln near the outpost,” Ayla continued. “Cracked all the way down one side, chimney leaning like someone kicked it. Completely unsafe. Every kid loved it.”

“You climbed it,” Lin guessed.

“Well, obviously. Someone dared me to walk the ridge behind the chimney. I slipped, almost fell in, scraped half my arm. My friend told my parents I’d been ‘exploring.’ Technically true.”

Lin huffed a quiet laugh. “And what did you do all day?” she asked.

Ayla shrugged, softening. “Caught ember-salamanders in drainage ditches, even though the little ones will burn you if you annoy them. Made a game out of racing the tide on the cliff path. It was quiet. You had to make your own fun or it never came.” She nudged Lin’s foot under the table. “What about you?” she asked. “What was the city like when you were younger?”

Lin’s gaze drifted toward the open window and the hum from the piers in the distance. “Smaller,” she said. “Rougher around the edges. My mother dragged me along half her shifts because there wasn’t always someone to watch me. So I learned the alleys early. Knew which rooftops you could climb without getting arrested.”

Ayla bit back her smile. “That sounds… incredibly on-brand.”

Lin’s mouth twitched. “I wasn’t a delinquent.”

“You absolutely were.”

“Only a little.” She took another sip of tea. “Most mornings, though, she dropped me on Air Temple Island. It was quieter. Calmer. Too calm, sometimes.”

Ayla’s expression softened. “What was it like?”

Lin exhaled slowly. “Structured. Peaceful. All open sky and rules about shoes.” Her eyes warmed faintly at the memory. “Tenzin and I grew up together there. He was always trying to teach me focus. I was always trying to teach him how not to get knocked over by a stiff breeze.”

Ayla’s laugh was instant. “That I can picture.”

“He’d sit me down and try to make me meditate. I lasted maybe thirty seconds before I started counting how many tiles were on the roof, or how far I could hear the ferry from. I think Aang believed if he surrounded me with enough serenity, I’d eventually behave.”

“Did you?”

“Not even remotely.”

Ayla leaned in, propping her chin on her hand. “Did you spar?”

“Mm.” Lin traced idle circles on Ayla’s spine. “Not until we were older. Tenzin was too cautious. I was too… enthusiastic. Air doesn’t always pair well with someone hurling rocks at your head.”

“Let me guess, he got hit a lot?”

“Frequently. Until he didn’t.” Lin rolled her eyes and sat back a little. “Once he figured out how to bleed off the momentum, he’d redirect them back at me. Usually while quoting some proverb about patience." Ayla brushed her fingers against Lin’s wrist, and Lin exhaled softly, eyes flicking down. “You know… as much as I hated meditation back then,” she said, tone shifting, “the time you made me sit with you, it actually helped. More than I expected it to.”

Ayla's breath caught. “Sometimes it feels different with someone who doesn’t expect you to be still, just present.”

Lin lifted an eyebrow. “Or you’re unusually persistent.”

Ayla snorted. “That too.”

Lin’s expression softened. “But yes. It helped. More than I told you at the time.”

“Would you do it again? With me?”

Lin pretended to consider it. “I’d need a compelling argument.”

“You’re impossible.” Ayla laughed. 

“I’ve been told,” Lin murmured, eyes warm.

Following dinner, they drifted to the couch without really discussing it. Ayla was still reeling from the warmth that came from Lin Beifong sitting in her kitchen and talking about her childhood as she lit a small candle and set it on the side table. 

Lin settled at one end of the couch, one knee bent the other stretched out. She’d pulled one of Ayla’s battered Fire Nation folklore books from the shelf, something about a mountain dragon whose breath carved warm valleys between peaks, and opened it with the kind of half-attention she used when she wanted to look occupied but was listening for everything. Ayla took the floor. She lowered herself cross-legged onto the small rug in front of her couch, back against the base, her shoulder brushing Lin’s knee. Anchor, she thought. Good. I need that. She rested her hands on her thighs, palms down, and let her eyes fall shut.

Breath in.  

Follow it down.

She had barely begun tracing the familiar map when fingers slipped gently into her hair. “Is this… allowed?” Lin asked quietly. Dry, but too soft around the edges to be teasing.

Ayla smiled softly. “You’re not offending any ancient spirits. I like it.”

Lin’s knuckles brushed the back of her neck once, then withdrew. Her hand settled lightly over Ayla’s shoulder instead. The touch made it easier to slip inward. “Can I ask something?” Lin murmured after a few moments. Paper rustled as she marked her place.

“Mm?” Ayla hummed.

“When you do this… what are you actually paying attention to?” Lin asked. “Breathing? Something else?”

“It depends. Sometimes it’s breath. Sometimes the way the energy moves. I'm... not really sure how to explain it.” Lin made a low, thoughtful sound, and Ayla sank further. Okay, she told herself. Just check. Don’t push. Don’t be stupid. Just… check.

Her awareness followed the pulse line inward. She didn’t stop. Beneath the warmth, the boundary waited where she'd left it. A seam, running parallel to the flow of her own spirit. This is me, she reminded herself, brushing her awareness over what belonged to her. Then, very slightly, she shifted sideways. Her breath caught in her chest. And this isn’t. The official realization hit with the quiet, crushing certainty of recognizing a shadow that had been following her. 

No. No, you don’t know that for sure. It could still be you. You healed wrong. You’re anxious. You’re imagining patterns that aren’t there. The folklore books say the Spirit World is serene, lakes, forests, spirits who look like rippling silk. Not… this. Not wrong. Not broken. So this can’t be that. This can’t be the boundary. It’s just you. It has to be you. Denial seared through her like a physical heat. She edged closer anyway.

Above her, Lin’s thumb traced a lazy circle at the base of her skull, reassurance, steady and human and right. The boundary flexed. Ayla’s breath hitched. Not me, she thought, terrified. Please don’t be me. I don’t know whats worse, something feeling like this being a part of me or something else. Slowly, she skimmed the surface. Just feeling. Not pushing. The boundary flexed. Warped. Her awareness recoiled with a jolt. She tried again, gentler.

The moment she gently pushed it, the energy buckled. A jolt slammed into her sternum. Ayla pitched forward with a choked sound, hands slapping into the rug. The room lurched. Her stomach rolled sharply. She sucked in air but it felt thick, viscous, wrong. She forced her eyes open and the walls were shifted, almost like they were tilted. Like the world had been peeled and glued back together at the wrong angle. Then it snapped into place and she was left feeling insane. 

“Ayla?” Lin was already kneeling on the floor next to her, the folklore book discarded on the table. Her hands were on Ayla’s face and back, her voice low. “Hey. Look at me. What happened? Are you hurt?” Ayla tried to breathe, but her throat burned. Her chest felt too tight. She clutched fistfuls of the rug like she could keep the floor from tilting again.

If she said it out loud, if she said the boundary felt broken, if she said the spirit world felt wrong... it would become real. And if she was wrong? If it was her, some fracture inside herself she didn’t understand, then she’d sound insane. Tenzin would meditate into the spirit world, if anyone knew about that it would be him, and he would see nothing. And she would look unhinged. No. No, no, no. Don’t say that. Don’t be that person. Don’t make this real. She dragged in a breath that scraped. “Sorry,” she whispered, hating how thin she sounded. “I just… slipped too deep. Got dizzy. I’m still trying to make sense of my pathways I think. It feels unfamiliar.” Lin’s jaw flexed once, just once, but her hand slid up the back of Ayla’s neck, fingers sinking into her hair.

“Unfamiliar how?” 

Ayla’s breath stuttered. “Like… like I finally know where everything should be again, but the room keeps changing around it. I’m trying to relearn myself and every time I sit with it, there’s this-” Her voice locked. Her throat tightened. “this weirdness. This thing I don’t… understand.” 

Lin didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just waited with that patient stillness she only ever used on Ayla, the kind that said I won’t push, but I will not back off either. “I think I’m just jittery,” she said, voice cracking as a weak laugh scraping out. “Prison, losing my bending, getting it back, it’s a lot. The most rational explanation is that I’m… a mess.”

Lin’s eyes softened, but her voice stayed low. “If something’s wrong, you tell me.” It wasn’t a plea. It wasn’t a question. It was an order with a barely disguised tremor under it.

“I don’t want to be another thing you have to worry about,” Ayla whispered.

“That’s not how this works,” Lin said, her hand tightening where it rested. “Not with you.”

The words cracked something open inside her. Ayla’s eyes burned. Before she knew she was moving, she reached for Lin, pulling her in by the nape of her neck, fingers tangling in her hair, and kissed her. Lin froze for half a breath, then kissed her back. Ayla leaned into it hard, the kiss turning messy, searching, her hands still shaking as they skimmed up Lin’s shoulder and down her throat. Like she could push all of the wrongness aside by feeling something real, something hers. Lin cupped the back of her neck, tilting her head back as she leaned into the kiss, her other arm wrapped around Ayla's waist, anchoring her in place. The kiss deepened before turning into something full and slow. Lin’s thumb stroked small circles at her side, gentle in a way that made Ayla’s throat tighten again. Lin's mouth traced her jaw, then her neck, and Ayla shuddered. Then her breath cracked, and Lin pulled back immediately, framing her face with both hands. “Ayla,” she murmured. “Hey. Look at me.”

Ayla blinked hard, heat rising in her cheeks. “Sorry. Spirits, I don’t know why this hit me so hard. I feel ridiculous. I shouldn’t be this overwhelmed by getting my bending back. I should be grateful.”

Lin’s brows pulled together. “You had part of who you are ripped out and then returned suddenly. Anyone would be unsteady after that.”

Ayla let out an unsteady. “You make it sound so reasonable.”

“It is reasonable,” Lin replied.

Ayla huffed something like a laugh, pressing a hand briefly to her face. “Sparring tomorrow? After work? I think it’ll help.”

“Yes.” Lin didn’t hesitate. “We’ll go.” Something eased in Ayla’s chest, sharp and immediate. Lin leaned in and kissed her again, slow, warm, then rose and offered her a hand up. “Come on,” she said softly. “Let’s call it a night.”

The rest blurred comfortably into the sounds of running water, brushing teeth, the soft clink of mugs as they cleaned up and shut the lights off. In the doorway of the bathroom, Lin tugged the pins from her hair and Ayla stepped behind her, slipping her arms around her waist, resting her cheek against her shoulder blade. Lin’s hand came up to cover hers without a word as she finished taking her hair down with the other. Once they settled beneath the covers a few minutes later, Lin shifted until Ayla rested against her chest. One arm slid beneath her shoulders, the other resting over her ribs. “Better?”

Ayla nodded into the warm skin beneath her collarbone. Her breath steadied. Lin’s hand brushed once through her hair like habit, and Ayla let her eyes close, the steady rise and fall of Lin’s breathing grounding her easily. The wrongness didn’t disappear, but it felt farther away, muted around the edges. Not fixed. Not forgotten. Just… less sharp with someone holding onto her. And Lin held her like she understood that.

~*~~*~~*~

Lin was halfway through the morning briefing when Saikhan appeared in her doorway, file tucked under one arm, expression too careful for anything labeled “routine.” He didn’t step all the way in. Just lifted the folder a fraction. “Chief,” he said. “We’ve got an… equipment malfunction in the East Steelworks.”

Equipment malfunction. Coded. His eyes did the rest. Lin closed her notebook, the motion too clean to be casual. “Which building?”

“Foundry Seven. High-load cranes.”

A muscle ticked in her jaw. “Of course it is.” She dismissed the officers with a nod. As the room emptied, Saikhan moved aside to let them pass, then fell into step beside her toward the stairs.

“Dispatch says the overhead cranes started shifting on their own,” he murmured once they were out of earshot. “Moving girders without a signal.”

“Power surge?” Lin asked automatically, because there had to be a slot to put this in.

“Main line was already down for maintenance.”

Her stomach dropped half a notch. “Breakers?”

“Tripped,” he said. “Twice.”

The weight in her chest sank the rest of the way. Dread felt like the wrong word now; dread implied anticipation. This was something slower and heavier. A pattern trying to gel while she pretended not to see its shape. “Fine,” she muttered, pushing through the precinct doors into pale overcast light. “Let’s get this over with.”

The foundry air hit her like a punch, furnace heat, coal dust, oxidized iron. Normally, heavy industry settled her. It followed rules. Load, stress, failure points. Today, every vibration laced straight into the back of her skull. 

A handful of workers clustered outside the main doors, protective gear clenched in white-knuckled hands, voices too low and too fast. Even at a distance, she could feel the way their steps landed: off rhythm, like nobody trusted the floor. The foreman met her at the gate, skin washed pale under the soot. “Chief Beifong.” He swallowed. “It’s the big crane. Overhead. It-” He glanced back at the building. “It started running itself. Picking up load after load with no signal.”

“Emergency cutoff?” she asked.

“We hit it.” His voice frayed around the edges. “Twice. It just kept going.”

A chill crawled up the back of her neck. “Anyone under it?”

“No. Spirits be thanked.”

“Let’s keep it that way,” she said. “Show me.” Inside, Foundry Seven was a cathedral of steel. Gantry tracks webbed the ceiling. The crane hung from them like a spine, hooks empty now but still slightly swaying. Stacks of girders lined the floor in neat rows, each one a straight-backed promise of weight. The overhead lights flickered, buzzing just enough to get under her skin.

The crane moved. Not a clean mechanical slide. A jerk. A stuttered hitch that moved through the empty hook assembly, metal rattling against metal as if something unseen had tugged upward, hard. Lin stopped mid-step. She felt it in her feet.

Not through her eyes, not through her ears. Through the soles of her boots, through the slab, down into the foundation. Her seismic sense lit up with something that didn’t have a category. Not an earthquake. Not load transfer. It was a directional pull. Like the steel was being dragged somewhere that wasn’t… here.

Behind her, Saikhan said, “Could be magnetic interference,” the way people said maybe it’s just the wind when something knocked at their door at midnight.

Lin stepped closer to a support column and raised her voice toward the catwalks. “Who’s at the manual controls?”

“Nobody!” a worker called down. “Console’s dead, Chief! We cut it when it started moving!”

The crane lurched again.

Empty hooks swung, chains clinking. The motion wasn’t big, but the sensation under her feet was off enough to make her queasy. “Everyone off the floor,” Lin barked. “Clear the arc. Now.” The foreman hauled two men back by their collars. Others scrambled for the edges of the work area, boots scuffing against concrete. Lin reached the nearest load column and planted her palm against the steel. The structure vibrated. Deep. Wrong. Not the tired groan of overworked metal. Resonance requires a source. This doesn’t have one.

She pushed her awareness down through the column, into the floor, into the stone beneath. This was where she trusted herself more than anyone: reading the ground, feeling weight and tension and faults. Instead of familiar language, she found that same sideways drag she’d felt under the tram yard. A pull that wasn’t gravity. Wasn’t stress. Wasn’t even directional in any way that made sense. It tugged at her sense of “down” like someone had tilted the world by a few degrees without moving the ground. Her stomach flipped.

What are you?

The steel hummed under her hand. The crane shivered again, barely moving, but wrenching at her sense like a flinch. Then the coil on the overhead trolley snapped. She felt it before she heard it, a spike in the wrongness, a sharp, jagged wrench through the steel that made her stomach lurch. The sound followed half a heartbeat later: metal screaming, cable whipping free. The girder dropped, and Lin was already moving.

Her palm slammed against the nearest support as she yanked, hard, on the metal in the overhead rails. The crane’s housing and the girder’s brackets answered her like nerves to a reflex, twisting, locking, freezing the load mid-fall with a jolt. The suspended steel lurched, then held, swaying in place instead of scything through the work floor.

The freed cable cracked through the air like a live thing, snapping toward the nearest catwalk. Lin’s other hand shot out, fingers curling and jerking it down. The cable hit an invisible wall and slammed to the ground, flattened against the concrete with such force it left a crack. Bolts rattled in their housings. The catwalk shuddered but held. Someone swore. Someone else prayed.

“Shut down the line!” Lin shouted, not taking her hand off the steel. “Everything. Main, auxiliary, backups. Turn this place into a graveyard.”

“We already cut power to the crane!” the foreman yelled. “It’s dead!”

“Every source in the building,” she snapped. “I don’t care if it’s a single emergency light. Off.”

Men bolted. Heavy switches clanged in another part of the building. One by one, the layered sounds of the foundry died, the whine of motors, the rush of vents, the distant thunder of conveyors. The overhead lights stuttered once, then flickered out. The crane went still. The wrongness under her hand did not. She could still feel it, that feeling like teeth worrying at a wound under the floor. “Chief?” Saikhan’s voice had dropped. Too casual. “You alright?”

She made herself take her hand off the steel. “No,” she said, quietly enough that only he could hear. “And don’t put that in the report.”

Workers huddled along the fence line, hard hats dangling from loose grips, eyes darting back to the foundry doors as if expecting the building itself to move. A few made temple signs. One of the older earthbenders just stood with both hands braced on his knees, expression gray and distant. Lin’s clipboard felt useless in her hands. “So,” Saikhan said, pen hovering. “Mechanical failure.” She watched a crane cable inside sway once, with nobody near it.

“If it’s not structural,” she said slowly, “what is it?”

He exhaled, long and frustrated. “You want my honest answer?”

“No,” she said. “Give it to me anyway.”

“I don’t know.” He grimaced. “And I hate that almost as much as you do.”

She stared back at the foundry doors. At the gantry silhouette. At the empty space under the crane. “Get the city inspector,” she said. “And an earthbending engineer who isn’t afraid to argue with me. This place stays shut until both sign off.”

“You think it’s unsafe?” he asked.

“I think I don’t trust the ground,” she answered. “And that’s new.” He went quiet at that.

If it’s not structural, she thought, watching a worker make another quiet Fire Nation warding sign. If it’s not power, not sabotage, not Equalist tech… The only explanations left were the ones she’d been stacking carefully in a pile labeled anything but this.

Later that evening, she shut her apartment door harder than intended. The sound cracked through the quiet. Her coat missed the hook, slid to the floor. She didn’t pick it up. Every step across her own living room floor carried a ghost-jolt of that wrong gravitational pull, like the ground might decide, at any moment, to tilt sideways again. She went straight to the map pinned above her desk. Blue pins crawled outward in a messy pattern that didn't have shape yet. Rail lines. Power nodes. The foundry. Infrastructure. Load-bearing places.

Her hand moved before she decided it would. The phone sat on the side table, cord loose. She lifted the receiver, thumb landing on Ayla’s first number out of habit.

           “Did anything feel strange today?”  

           “Did you get dizzy? Pressure? Anything off?”  

If Ayla said no, then it was just Lin. Just trauma echoes. Just a bending sense still learning how to trust itself again after being ripped out and put back in. But if Ayla said yes, then it wasn’t paranoia. And it wasn’t small, or avoidable. Her thumb hovered over the dial. She saw Ayla yesterday morning instead, adjusting the collar of her blouse, pretending she wasn’t excited. Lin’s stomach twisted. If she called and said, “I think something's messed up in the city,” Ayla’s excitement would turn into worry. Lin would not put that weight on her. Not without facts. Not without names. Not with nothing but a gut feeling that had spent days trying to tell her something she refused to hear. She set the phone back down. The click was too loud. Figure it out, she thought. Then tell her.

That was the only sequencing she trusted. Understand first, make a plan, complete the plan. The knot at the base of her skull didn’t budge. Her gaze caught on Structural Resonance and Building Integrity. She opened it like a drowning person grabbing a railing, flipping to harmonic load failure, beam frequency, stress curves. The world made sense in graphs. In equations. In absolutes. None of the diagrams explained why the crane had moved. She turned the page, hopelessness seeping through her, and a small square of tape snagged her thumb.

In Ayla’s messy, scrawled handwriting, it read, 'Say this to me in bed and see what happens.'Lin’s breath caught. Ridiculous. Perfect. She could picture it with painful clarity, Ayla curled on the couch with this book in her lap, squinting at formulas she didn’t need, deciding to tease her in the gentlest, most removable way possible. Optional. Non-invasive. A note written on tape, so Lin could peel it off if it crossed a line. She pressed it down instead, smoothing the tape flat until it clung like it belonged there. Something in her chest softened. Not much. But enough to breathe.

The foundry’s wrongness didn’t vanish. The pins on the map didn’t rearrange themselves into something that made sense. But the panic subsided a little. Dropped from a roar to something slightly more manageable. She needed to leave to pick up Ayla soon, but before she did that she needed to not look like someone who’d spent the day trying not to vomit at her job site. Is Ayla feeling this? Is this what’s twisting her meditation out of shape? Is she already standing on the same edge I am? Dread seeped back through her. Fresh air, she told herself, shaking it off. Movement. Rock under my feet. Watching Ayla bend in a place where the ground still held the correct shape. 

~*~~*~~*~

Lin stood near the cliff’s edge, back to the drop, shoulders squared but tight enough that Ayla could feel the strain from twenty paces away. The sight hit Ayla low in the ribs. But tonight…  something in her chest answered it. That warped boundary hum, the one she kept pretending wasn’t there, had been sitting under her sternum all damn day. She couldn't stop thinking about it. She needed noise. Contact. Anything that pushed her back into the present.

She swallowed, dropped her bag, and shrugged off her jacket. “You want warm-up forms,” she called, “or straight into bruises?”

“Bruises,” Lin said. Flat. Immediate.  

Ayla exhaled slowly. “Rough day?”

Lin didn’t look at her. “Later,” she said. “I don’t want to bring it here.” That told Ayla everything. Lin only refused to talk when she was one breath away from snapping. But Ayla… she wasn’t exactly steady either. Good, she thought distantly. We’ll knock it out of both of us. They moved to opposite ends of the stone plateau.

Ayla inhaled deep, letting the cool air scratch down her throat, and shoved all of her thoughts viciously down. “Same rules as always?” Ayla asked, rolling her shoulders.

Lin nodded once, the kind of nod that meant I’m here, I’m present, I know exactly where your limits are. “Same rules,” she said.

“Ready?” Lin asked.

Ayla dropped into stance. “You first.”

Lin obliged.

The ground punched beneath Ayla’s feet, not a rolling quake but a compact, brutally precise shock. Ayla’s heart leapt. Good. She wanted that. Needed it. She pushed into the strikes, not away from them. She rolled with the strike, twisting upward into a burst that skimmed stone and curled toward Lin’s knees. Lin shattered it with a brutal ridge of rock. They fell into rhythm instantly, fast, unforgiving.

Lin’s bending was different tonight. Compressed. Like she was folding herself into something denser, harder, so nothing could get inside. Ayla matched her, abandoning the wide air arcs she was attempting for tight pressure bursts, stingers to the wrists, shocks to the ribs. She wanted to feel her own body again. Wanted the hit. “Again,” Lin called whenever Ayla landed anything. So Ayla hit harder. Needed the thud of force traveling through her bones to drown out the wrongness inside her.

Her breath grew sharp; sweat slipped down her back. Lin’s movements were clipped, sharp, but every few exchanges she went distant, eyes flicking somewhere else. Somewhere mental. Lin’s jaw twitched, a warning, then she moved in a blur. The next hit came too fast to think. Lin drove her heel down, a fracture racing toward Ayla like a blade drawn from stone. Ayla jumped it, twisting air down the line to force the crack sideways. Even with her nerves thrumming like live wire, Lin’s precision never slipped. Ayla could feel it, the careful, razor-sharp restraint beneath every strike. Lin at full strength could shatter her. Tonight she shaped her power around Ayla instead. Close enough to challenge. Never close enough to harm.

She stepped left, coiling the air up her arm the way she had taught her: tighter, cleaner, sharper, then she drove it straight into Lin’s torso. The impact hit solid. Lin slid back half a step. Her head snapped up. Shock flared in her eyes. Then approval. Then hunger, the kind born of pressure that needed an outlet before it crushed her. There you are, Ayla thought fiercely.

The change was immediate.

Lin steadied herself, and in the split-second pause before she moved again, Ayla saw it: that internal calibration Lin always did when they sparred. The quiet adjustment. The shift from protective to engaged. The unspoken math of: How hard can I push her tonight? How hard does she need me to? Lin came alive, posture sharpening, focus narrowing, her whole presence locking into the fight. Ayla braced. Lin struck. The ground under Ayla’s feet leapt, a vicious little rise that stole her balance. She twisted mid-air, messy but instinctive, only for the ground behind her to jut up a second time. It caught her shoulder blades. She hit with a grunt. Lin was over her in an instant, knee planted beside her hip, one hand braced near her head. Her shadow fell over Ayla.

“Pinned,” Lin said. Very calm. Very not-calm. Ayla stared up at her, chest heaving. Lin’s face was flushed, tense, hair slipping. Her eyes were dark and fixed. Even now, Lin was holding back just enough to be safe and pushing just enough to be real. Something twisted inside Ayla, hot, sharp, grounding. She lifted a hand and brushed Lin’s wrist, thumb grazing the sliver of exposed skin. “You’re somewhere else,” she murmured. 

Lin’s expression flickered, pride, fear, want, all edged with something else. “So are you,” Lin said. “Focus.” Focus. If she focused, she’d think. If she thought, she’d feel the wrongness. If she felt that-

No. Keep sparring. Keep me here. Wind pushed between them, cool against overheated skin. Lin’s gaze dropped to Ayla’s mouth. Ayla’s pulse stuttered. For a second too long, neither of them moved. Then Lin pushed off her like she’d touched open flame. “Up,” she said roughly. “We’re not done.” Ayla lay there one extra heartbeat, staring at the violet edge of the sky, lungs burning with adrenaline. Good, she thought. If she keeps landing hits, I can stay here. If I keep landing hits, maybe she’ll come back.

She took Lin’s offered hand. They went again. This round dissolved into close-range bending chaos, wrist hooks, shoulder blocks, hip checks, fingers scraping armor, knees colliding, breath on each other’s cheeks. Nothing clean. Nothing elegant. “You good?” Lin asked between exchanges, voice taut. “Yeah,” Ayla rasped. “Keep going.” By the time they stopped, the sky was bruised purple. Dust clung to their skin. “I concede,” Ayla panted. “Your stubbornness wins.” Lin didn’t answer.

She just stared at Ayla with that hollow, heated look, like the fight had scraped her raw but still hadn’t drained whatever was clawing at her. Ayla saw it. Felt it in herself too. They were still half-full of things they didn’t know how to name.

“Come on,” Lin said finally, voice low. “It’s getting dark. I’ll drive you home.” Ayla nodded. But neither of them moved right away. The need hung between them, hot, electric, unfinished. Not peaceful. Not resolved. Just pressurized.

They walked to the car in silence, steps too steady for how unsteady they felt. The car was cold when they slid in, metal creaking, air sharp on sweat-damp skin, and the doors shutting sounded too loud in the sudden quiet. Ayla stared straight ahead. Her hands wouldn’t stay still. Her lungs wouldn’t pull deep enough. She couldn’t take the silence. “Lin,” she whispered. “Come here. Please.”

There, a tiny, involuntary flinch at her name. Not fear. Recognition. Something in Lin’s back went loose and tight at the same time. But she moved.

Bench seats were a blessing.

Lin slid across the center, steady, controlled, until her knees brushed Ayla’s. She stopped with an inch of space like she was trying to be polite when nothing in either of them was polite anymore. Up close, Ayla could see everything: the grit of dust along Lin’s jaw, the smudge at her temple, the wind-tangled strands of silver hair, pupils still blown wide from the sparring. “You’re doing that look again,” Ayla murmured. “Like the city’s burning behind your eyes.”

Lin swallowed. “It feels like it.”

Ayla lifted a hand to her neck, thumb over her pulse. Fast. Running too hot. “Not here,” she whispered. “Not right this second.” Lin’s breath stuttered, the smallest catch only someone this close could ever hear. Ayla leaned in. Lin met her halfway.

The kiss wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t anything except the thing they’d both been holding back for hours, a pressure-valve release. Lin’s hand came around her waist instantly, and Ayla climbed onto her without thinking, straddling her hips, knees bracketing her on the seat. Lin gasped against her mouth, half surprise, half something much darker.  

Everything in Ayla dropped at that sound. The wrongness under her ribs didn’t vanish, but it dimmed, drowned out by Lin’s hands and the realness of skin and breath and heat. Her hands slid up Ayla’s back, palms broad and sure, one between her shoulder blades, the other anchoring the small of her back. Holding her there. Holding both of them there. When Lin tore her mouth away, breath uneven, her forehead pressed to Ayla’s.

“Seatbelt,” she ground out. “Please.”

Ayla let out a breathless laugh, still close enough that her lips nearly brushed Lin’s. “Lin, I’m not… technically… in a seat.”

“Exactly,” Lin breathed, thumb tracing a shaky line along her waistband. “If we stay like this, I’m not driving anywhere.” Ayla kissed her once more, slow, lingering, then slid off her lap. Lin watched her scramble for the buckle like it might undo her. Then Lin reached for her belt, jaw tight, chest rising too fast, the look of someone trying hard to keep her hands where they were supposed to be. The engine turned over. 

City lights smeared past the windows in yellow streaks. The interior felt small, warm. At the first intersection at the edge of the city, Lin reached blindly across the bench seat, not to Ayla’s hand, but to the inside of her thigh, a touch too desperate to be casual. Ayla slipped her hand under Lin’s and laced their fingers together. Lin’s breath shuddered once, barely audible. Neither spoke. They didn’t need to.

By the time the car pulled next to Lin’s building, Ayla felt like her skin was too thin, nerves buzzing with leftover adrenaline and want and relief. They climbed the stairs fast, and Lin got the door halfway shut before Ayla grabbed her and kissed her again, messier this time, less controlled, teeth catching, breath stumbling, backs hitting walls they hadn’t quite aimed for. Lin’s hands dragged up under Ayla’s shirt, hot against her skin; Ayla arched into it, tracing the line of her throat like she could map every tendon by touch. At some point Ayla distantly registered the sound of Lin kicking the door shut with her foot as Lin murmured, "bedroom" against her mouth. 

“Mm,” Ayla agreed, already pulling her in that direction.

They didn’t make it there in a straight line. There were interruptions, Lin pressed against the hallway wall, Ayla trapped between her and the doorframe as she pulled off her shirt, kisses broken by rushed, breathless half-laughs and the clumsy scrape of armor clasps that refused to cooperate.

The details blurred. The weight of Lin's body on top of her, the way Lin gasped when Ayla bit her shoulder, the repeated, desperate way they reached for each other like closeness might be enough to outrun the wrongness felt throughout the city. The sense of finally, finally not being the only one holding it all together. 

Ayla pressed her thigh harder between her legs, Lin swore under her breath, hands anchoring Ayla's hips as she tried to claw her closer than physically possible. Ayla kissed her again, savoring the scrape of Lin’s teeth across her lower lip when the kiss tipped desperate, the way her own heartbeat thundered against someone else’s chest, the way the sheets were kicked down and gathered in the chaos. She slid her hand between them, moving deliberately, driving pressure with her hips until Lin gasped into her mouth as she finally let go. She shuddered under her hands in a way that made Ayla’s chest ache.

Lin dragged her hand up Ayla's side, tracing a path towards- "Mm-mm, we're not done," Ayla murmured, snatching her wrist. She felt Lin's pulse jump at her own words from sparring repeated back to her as Ayla pressed her lips in a slow deliberate path: her jaw, neck, collarbone, between her breasts, the center line of her abdominal muscles, the line where her thigh met her hips, just below that point on her inner thigh.  Ayla kept her movements unhurried, giving Lin room to redirect, to pull back. She did none of that. She only curled her fingers deeper into Ayla’s hair, slight tremors still moving through her body from the aftermath of her release. This was permission. Deliberate. Lin letting her see her in a way that no one else did. 

Ayla adjusted slightly, hooking her arm around Lin's thigh and leaning in. When she made contact Lin let out a low sound and instinctively moved against her. One of Lin's hands left Ayla's hair and grasped the sheets as she bit out a curse, and in response Ayla flattened her tongue as Lin arched her back against her. Holy hells, Ayla thought wildly, I want to crawl inside her- She has never seen Lin let go like this. Not in training. Not anywhere. Not even with her at this point. Lin had said, in her own wordless way: here. You can have this part of me too. She hadn't realized how deeply she wanted this, wanted her, in a way that wasn't just physical. It was something bone-deep. This is what we are. This is how we fit. 

Lin drew her knees up, one hooking around Ayla's shoulders as she continued to move against her and slowly tipped over the edge a second time. Lin never yielded by accident. If she gave something, it was because she meant to. And she was giving Ayla this. The realization hit her so hard she nearly faltered. The want, the trust, the weight of what Lin had given her, it curled under her ribs like heat and ache at the same time. When she pulled herself back up, Lin was already reaching for her, hands searching, pulling her against her, and Ayla was flooded with the terrifying bliss of being seen and wanted in equal measure.

Her hand curved behind Ayla’s neck, pulling her close, grounding herself in the solid reality of her. She was still coming back to her body after how completely she’d allowed herself to be known just now. No one had ever been allowed to see her like that. It should have sent her straight back behind her walls. Instead, something quieter unfurled in her chest- something she almost didn’t recognize. It felt like safety. Real safety. The kind she hadn’t let herself want in years.

And when Ayla’s mouth met hers, Lin felt the unmistakable truth of it, a reflection of herself, the same way Ayla’s sparring now carried the shape of her teaching. Ayla broke for half a gasp, Lin chased her mouth without thinking. There was something dangerously intoxicating about it; it sent a sharp, possessive heat through her. Ayla moved like her. Fought like her. Wanted her. Tasted like her. The combination nearly unraveled her. Spirits, she was going to lose her goddamn mind. 

Lin deepened the kiss, adjusting so that her weight was more fully on top of her, the bare skin of her thigh now flush between them, pressing until Ayla let out a soft noise. Lin responded by pressing harder, adjusting again as she moved her hips. Her hands dragged up her back, nails biting into her skin as she moved one of her hands from where it braced and snaked it between them, fingers brushing once, twice outside before pushing in. Ayla gasped into her mouth as she moved with her, her hand supporting the back of Ayla's neck. Lin curled her fingers slightly and continued moving until Ayla shuddered around her. Their foreheads brushed, close enough that Lin could feel her exhale ghost across her mouth. This was what it had all been for, Lin thought distantly. She wanted Ayla’s breath against her, her hands in her hair, her voice breaking because she felt good when she touched her. 

~*~~*~~*~

The shower was already running when Ayla opened her eyes. Steam drifted from the half–cracked bathroom door, softening the lamplight. For a moment she just lay there, suspended between exhaustion and something warmer, her body heavy in that loose, molten way that followed a long spar and, well, that. Lin’s hands still lived on her skin. Her weight. Her breath. Her surrender. The realization pushed through her chest so sharply she almost winced. Lin had let her lead tonight. Chosen to. Ayla wasn’t sure she would ever get over the shock of it, or the quiet, reverent terror of being trusted like that. But beneath that glow, beneath the memory of Lin beneath her, open and unguarded in a way Ayla had never imagined she’d be allowed to see, something else coiled low in her chest.

That pressure. That wrongness. A steady pull, like a hand closing around her lungs. Ayla pressed her palm against her chest. The warmth from earlier still lingered, but now it felt… crowded. As if two truths lived under her skin at once: the exhilaration of what had passed between them, and the dread of what waited beneath it. She should tell Lin. After everything tonight, after what Lin had given her, she couldn’t keep hiding it. But not yet. Not without knowing what she was dealing with.

Just once more, she told herself. Just enough to understand it. To get a glimpse, official confirmation. She pushed herself upright, crossing her legs in the center of the bed. Her breath slowed. She lowered her hands to her thighs and closed her eyes.

Her awareness slid inward, past the creeping blush that still warmed her when she remembered the way Lin had felt against her mouth, deeper, past all of it. Warmth met her first, familiar, steady. She followed it down. Into her center. Past it. Toward the place she’d been pretending she couldn’t feel. The boundary pressed against her, wrong, strained, but she didn’t hover this time. Didn’t test it. She exhaled and let herself slip. Not forward or back, but inward. Not pushing against it this time, letting go the way you fall into sleep before you can stop yourself. This should get me close enough to see it without it buckling. If it’s me, I’ll feel it. I'll know once and for all, and then I can tell Lin what this boundary is. I just need to get close enough to look. A heartbeat of nothing. Then Ayla’s stomach dropped.

Light tore open sideways. Gravity disappeared.  

The room snapped out from under her and she was there before she could claw her way back. The sky wasn’t sky at all. It was a cracked wound of light and color that bled into itself. The ground flexed beneath her feet. Buildings, or something like buildings, tightened as if bracing for impact somehow, impossibly. The air tasted metallic. Something enormous moved behind the tear in the sky. Colossal, suffocating hurt radiating through the world like fever under skin. Ayla’s breath hitched and the world warped toward her. Edges pulled tight, depth warped in a way she had no idea how to conceptualize. The ground tilted toward her panic like a living thing and she tried to recoil from it. “Stop-” she gasped, or thought, or felt? She wasn't sure, and then the realm folded inward, and her awareness slammed back into her body with a brutal snap.

Her lungs seized. Her vision doubled. Couldn’t inhale without choking. The sheets bunched in her fists, knuckles white, and hands were on her face. Warm, bracing, shaking hands. Lin's hands. “Ayla-” Lin’s voice cracked. “Hey. Hey, look at me.” Ayla forced her eyes open. Lin was kneeling in front of her on the bed, damp hair clinging to her jaw, shirt half-buttoned, water sliding down her throat like she’d run straight from the shower without thinking. Her face was pure terror. And her hands, the same steady, decisive hands that had held her a little while ago, were shaking so badly she had to brace her wrists against Ayla’s collarbones. 

Ayla’s stomach plummeted. “Lin,” she gasped, voice raw. “I- I think I just went into the Spirit World.” 

“You-," Lin inhaled sharply. "I felt you vanish.”

“You felt it?”

Lin nodded once, a jerky, painful motion. “My seismic sense- your heartbeat, your breath, everything went silent. Not dim. Gone. It felt like,” Her voice broke. “It felt like feeling someone disappear in real time.”

“Oh my god,” she choked out, reaching for Lin’s face immediately, pulling her closer. “I’m so sorry.” Her voice cracked. “I didn’t mean- I never meant to scare you.” Her voice cracked open further. “I wasn’t trying to go anywhere. I thought I could just get a solid glimpse at it. Falling into it, it just happened.”

“Ayla-”

“No, listen.” Her voice shook, desperate to make this clear. “I was trying to understand the feeling I’ve had since we got home. I wanted to make sense of it so I could tell you. I thought if I just ease closer to it, gently, I’d know whether it was me or something else. I didn’t think it would do that.” Her eyes burned. “I didn’t think I could cross. I just wanted confirmation it wasn’t just something messed up inside me. I’m so sorry.”

Lin’s jaw tightened, grief and fear braided together. “Just- spirits, Ayla, you have to warn me. Please.” Her voice cracked again. “I thought-” She swallowed hard. “I thought you died for a second.”

Ayla cupped her cheeks, thumbs brushing damp skin. “I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m here, Lin. I’m okay. I’m so sorry.”

Lin shut her eyes, relief shuddering through her. “Please don’t do that again without warning me.”

“I won’t,” Ayla said instantly, with fierce conviction. “I promise. I wouldn’t have tried it at all if I thought there was any chance, any chance, of actually going somewhere. I was just trying to get enough information to tell you the truth. I thought it’d be like looking through a window.” She swallowed hard. “I’m so sorry I scared you.” 

Her hands slid to Ayla’s jaw, holding her like she needed the proof of solidity. Ayla covered Lin’s wrists with her hands, grounding both of them. Lin’s shoulders softened just a fraction, but the terror still lived under her skin, bright and bracing. She closed her eyes for half a second, jaw tight. “Tell me,” she said, barely more than breath. “Tell me what you saw. Tell me what happened.” 

“I didn’t mean to go all the way,” she began. “It wasn’t even a push. I just… let go. And something in it shifted. Like something was already stretched too thin and I slipped between the seams.” Lin swallowed, her thumb brushing Ayla’s cheekbone again unconsciously. “The spirit world didn’t look like it does in stories,” Ayla continued quietly. “It wasn’t a forest or a lake or anything calm. It looked… wounded. Like the whole place was trying to heal around something it couldn’t fix. The sky was cracked open.” She hesitated. “It felt like something enormous was really messed up in there.” Lin stared at her, face pale, eyes dark. “And it reacted to me,” Ayla added. “To my fear. Everything tilted toward me when I panicked. Like it was already unstable and I just made it worse.”

Lin’s breath stuttered in her chest. “Ayla,” she said softly, voice breaking on her name. “I don’t… have a way to make sense of any of this.”

Ayla nodded. “I know.”

“No, you don’t,” Lin said, shaking her head once. She shifted back enough that she could really look at Ayla, hands gripping her thighs like she needed physical contact to stay anchored. “I’ve been getting calls at the station, strange ones. Transformers humming like they’re possessed. Building frames that shift wrong when you touch them. I can’t explain any of it because I don’t have the language. I don’t have a box to put any of it in.” She exhaled hard. “And the worst part is that I kept thinking: if I don’t understand it, I can’t fix it. And if I can’t fix it, I can’t protect you from it.” Ayla closed her fingers over hers. Lin shook her head again, a quick, jagged motion. “I didn’t want you worrying about something that might turn out to be nothing. So I tried to hold it until I had answers. Except I don’t have answers. I have vibrations in the floor and machinery acting like it's alive and now… whatever just happened to you.” Her voice thinned and cracked in the middle. “I didn’t want to drag you into something I wasn’t sure existed.”

Ayla gave a soft, humorless laugh. “That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you about the pressure.”

Lin’s eyes shot up. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve been feeling it since we got back to the city,” Ayla admitted. “Not the way I did tonight, not the full… whatever that was, but the wrongness. The heaviness. The sense that something was off. I kept telling myself it was trauma or stress or just my body learning itself again after everything with Amon. I didn’t want you thinking I was… messed up.” She hesitated, then added quietly, “And I didn’t want to make you worry. Not after everything.”

Lin let out a breathy, disbelieving sound, something between a laugh and a curse. “So we both noticed and said nothing,” she said.

“Trying to protect each other from worrying,” Ayla said softly. “Which is apparently our shared worst habit.”

Lin huffed out a breath. The corner of her mouth twitched, not amusement, but recognition. Agreement. “That wasn't smart,” she said.

“No, it wasn't.” Fucking hell, Ayla. Not your brightest plan by a long shot. 

A long moment passed between them, then Lin shifted closer. “No more of that,” she murmured. “If something feels wrong, it gets brought to light. Immediately.”

“Yes. Agreed.” She exhaled, and only then, now that the panic of the moment had subsided, realized she was still completely naked. “…oh for fuck's sake,” she muttered under her breath. Lin followed her glance downward. For a single, stunned moment, something like disbelief flickered across her face. 

Lin dragged her gaze back up to Ayla’s face. “You really entered the spirit world like this?”

Ayla winced. “In my defense-” 

“There is no defense,” Lin cut in, rubbing a tired hand over her face like she was trying to scrub the night off her skin. “You entered the spirit world naked.”

Ayla huffed out something halfway between a laugh and a wheeze. “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere, I didn’t know how it worked-” 

“That doesn't make it better,” Lin replied, exasperated. She stood, retrieved a shirt from the dresser, and handed it to Ayla wordlessly before sitting back down. “Put this on. Please.”

Ayla pulled the shirt over her head, shaky hands fumbling the hem. She let out a laugh. “Do you want me to start coordinating outfits for unintended spiritual travel?” she asked weakly. Lin stared at her, mouth twitching into something that vaguely resembled a smile despite herself. “I’m not going back anytime soon,” Ayla said quietly. “I won’t touch it again until we know what we’re doing.”

Lin’s breath left her in a raw exhale. “Good,” she murmured. “Because I can’t follow you there. And the idea of you disappearing again-” Her voice thinned. She didn’t finish.

Ayla leaned forward, cupping the back of Lin’s neck and bringing their foreheads together.  

“Don't worry," she murmured, "We'll figure out what's going on. I won't disappear into it." She brushed a kiss across Lin’s cheek before sliding off the bed. “I’m going to shower. I’ll be right back.” Lin nodded, and her eyes followed Ayla until the bathroom door closed. The water came on, a steady sound through the cracked door, and that was when the hit landed. Not the panic. Not the fear. The afterimage of everything that had just happened between them.

Ayla’s hands on her. Ayla taking her. And she had let her. Willingly. Completely. Almost hungering for it. And right beneath that feeling, braided tightly into it now, lived the spike of horror she felt when Ayla vanished from her body a few minutes ago. Those two sensations collided inside her, intimacy and fear, surrender and helplessness, and something in her chest felt heavy with dread. Ayla had gone to the spirit world. Accidentally, but she had done it. She had left this reality and Lin had been powerless to follow her. She had never, ever had any desire to figure out how to enter the spirit world before this exact moment. But now she felt like she had to figure it out or she would go insane. All of these calls she couldn't explain, Ayla saying the spirit world was off, she had to understand. She had to know what she was up against. She had to know how to protect Ayla if something happened to her. 

The resulting movement she made was crisp, purposeful. Legs folding beneath her, spine straight, palms resting on her knees. This is ridiculous, she thought. You aren't a spiritual person. You have no idea what you're doing. She closed her eyes anyway. She had no vocabulary for what Ayla had touched. No framework. No training. She had simply never needed to develop her spiritual sense. Her whole life had been built on things that obeyed physics like weight, vibration, metal, structural load, breath control. She could predict almost everything, except whatever Ayla had just touched. She could protect everyone, except in this one way. That truth dug under her ribs with a cold, humiliating precision.

So she tried.

She reached inward the only way she knew, searching for the internal seismic pulse she used to feel her environment. The same sense that had felt Ayla disappear. But inside her own body? Nothing answered. Just a hollow space where something should be. She inhaled sharply. Tried again. Deeper. Methodical. But she still came up with nothing. Her chest tightened, and heat crawled up her spine, equal parts frustration, humiliation, and fear. She could learn anything if it followed rules. But this? This didn’t follow rules. This didn’t even acknowledge she existed. She dragged her hands through her hair, breath rough. What did you think was going to happen, Lin? That you’d close your eyes and suddenly be able to follow her? That you’d magically be able to enter the spirit world because you’re afraid?

The anger cracked something open, and underneath it was the real wound. She had just given Ayla a version of herself she had never shown anyone. And minutes later, she felt Ayla disappear. Fear carved through her with merciless clarity even though she knew it had been an accident that she had left. She closed her eyes again and reached inward a final time. Nothing.

The same cold void. The same helplessness she thought she’d buried forever. Her breath faltered. Panic struck fast and sharp. Her body remembered exactly how it felt to be powerless. She hunched forward, one hand covering her mouth, swallowing the tremor in her breath. No weakness. No collapse. Not now. She forced herself upright again. Forced breath into her lungs until the panic backed off by a fraction when the sound of the shower turned off. She uncrossed her legs too sharply, pulling the sheets into place, erasing every trace of her panic with brutal efficiency. Her face assembled itself into something soft and steady. By the time Ayla emerged, toweling her hair, flushed from the steam, Lin’s expression was calm. Almost.

Ayla paused. “Lin are you alright?” Lin couldn’t trust her voice. So she reached for her instead, two hands at Ayla’s waist, drawing her in with a quiet urgency she couldn’t hide. Ayla melted into her with a soft exhale, cheek resting on her shoulder. Lin closed her eyes, pressed her lips to Ayla’s damp hair. “I’ll figure this out,” she said softly. “I don’t know how yet, but I will.” Ayla’s arms curled around her waist.

She didn’t know how to reach the spirit world.  

She didn’t even know how to sense the boundary.  

She didn’t know how to follow Ayla if she slipped through again.

But Lin held her tighter anyways, like sheer force of will could build a bridge somewhere she had no idea how to reach. 

Chapter Text

By the time Lin made it home from the station, the sky had gone dark. The day had stretched long in that particular way spirit-call days always did, brittle at the edges, thin in the middle. It had been a few days since Ayla had slipped into the spirit world accidentally, and the memory still sat tight beneath Lin’s chest. But Ayla was okay. Here. 

She rolled her shoulders as she stepped further into her apartment, trying to dislodge the afternoon’s tension. More spirit calls kept rolling in, still no answers, and all she could do was hold the city together for one more night. She had just finished filling the kettle when she heard a knock at her door, and something in her loosened before she even went to answer it. 

When she opened the door, Ayla stood there, slightly out of breath from the walk over, a paper bag hooked in one elbow and another tucked against her hip. “Hi,” she said, “I brought groceries. And, before you say anything, yes, there’s vegetables. And also noodles. I contain multitudes.”

Lin felt the corner of her mouth pull upward. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“You were thinking it,” Ayla countered as she brushed past her into the kitchen. “You have those eyebrows.”

Lin hummed, closing the door behind her. “You made that up.”

“Maybe,” Ayla laughed, already unloading the bags. Lin watched her for a moment, the way Ayla moved through the kitchen now with familiarity, like she’d been storing away the details without meaning to. She stepped in beside her, pulling a cutting board toward herself. The simple act of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with someone during small domestic tasks still felt startling in how easy it was. She sorted vegetables into neat piles as Ayla set a pan on the stove. 

Ayla worked easily beside her, tossing garlic, onions, and mushrooms into the pan while Lin busied herself with chopping greens into clean, even strips. The repetition of the task soothed something in her after the chaos from the day, the proximity soothed something else. Ayla hummed under her breath, off-key and distracted, as she shook something fragrant into the pan, and Lin found she didn’t mind it. Found, actually, that she missed it on nights it wasn’t there.

Dinner smelled warm and fragrant, and when Ayla handed her a bowl, Lin touched her wrist without thinking. "Thank you," she said quietly. Not just for the food, she hoped that that was clear. 

Ayla smiled and cut the flame from the stove. "Of course."

They ate at the counter at first, shoulders brushing. Halfway through her bowl, the pull of unfinished reports pulled at Lin. She almost drifted toward the desk by instinct, until she paused. Ayla met her eyes immediately, giving her a look that said go, I get it, you don’t have to apologize for it, layered over something deeper. 

It loosened something in Lin, enough that she leaned down, and pressed a kiss to Ayla’s temple. “Thank you,” she murmured, voice low. “For bringing the groceries. For cooking. For… all of it.”

“You don’t have to thank me for cooking for you.”

“Too bad. I like when you do." 

Ayla’s smile was warm. “Good. Because I’m not planning to stop.”

Lin’s mouth tugged into the smallest smile before she turned toward the desk.

“Go on,” Ayla said. “I’ll clean up.”

“Leave it. We’ll deal with it later.” She gathered a clipped stack of forms into order, set her half-finished bowl off to the side where it wouldn’t drip on anything, and uncapped her pen. The map on the wall, its tangle of pins and scribbled notes, hovered in her peripheral vision like an accusation she refused to answer tonight. Instead she let the routine work anchor her, the sound of Ayla shifting on the couch behind her drawing her back toward solid ground every so often without her even realizing.

On the other side of the room, Ayla curled up on the couch with her bowl balanced against her knee, feet tucked comfortably beneath her. After a minute of scanning the bookshelf, she reached for the worn copy of The Tale of the Painted Lady. The cover had faded to a washed blue-green, the corners soft and pliant from years of being thumbed through. She opened it carefully. Pencil lines threaded through the pages in Lin’s handwriting. Only a handful of sentences were marked. Not the emotional climaxes. Not the plot turns.

the reeds whispering along the riverbank  

the moonlight bending on the water like a silver path  

the hush of lanterns flickering in fog

Ayla traced one underline with the pad of her fingertip. Of course she underlined the scenery, she thought. Of course. Lin didn’t keep stories for the plot. She kept the feeling of a place, the world around it. The quiet spaces. Ayla’s chest tightened with something she didn’t have a name for yet, and she glanced up. Lin was still at the desk, pen moving quietly. The lamplight caught at her silver hair, brightening the strands each time she shifted. A loose piece had fallen from its pin and brushed her cheek and she pushed it back with a distracted motion. A moment later, Lin blew out a slow sigh over whatever report she was annotating, her palm skimming down the thigh of her pants in a habitual gesture. It was such a small, human motion. 

Spirits, she thought, heat rising quietly in her chest. This woman. The one who corrected math in engineering texts had underlined moonlight bending on the water. She’d like something artistic, something focused on the sky, she thought. And sea legends. And weird little roadside gods. The idea of handing Lin a book and saying, this made me think of you, stuck itself inside her, impossible to ignore. She rested her thumb along the spine and tucked the thought away. 

The minutes stretched into an hour. Lin finished her reports one by one, stacking them at the corner of the desk. Ayla turned pages slowly, pausing on lines Lin had marked, trying to imagine what had made her stop there, what small beauty she had found worth keeping.

Eventually Lin pushed her chair back, fatigue in the movement but something warmer beneath it. “I should shower,” she said, voice low. “You can stay. If you’d like.”

Ayla’s smile tugged up without effort. “That wasn’t in question.”

As Lin passed by her, she brushed her hand along Ayla’s jaw. Ayla leaned into it instinctively, warmth catching in her throat. Then Lin crossed into the hallway, footsteps soft, the sound of running water beginning a few moments later. Steam curled up around her until the room blurred into softer edges, the air thick enough to ground her but not enough to quiet the knot in her chest.

She had felt Ayla vanish.

Not metaphorically. Not poetically. A real absence, a wrongness under her palms, a hollowed-out space she didn't understand. Her seismic sense had given her nothing to fix, nothing to brace against, nothing to understand. It was the helplessness that stayed with her. Ayla kept talking about tracing pathways, following chi like currents, pressure and depth. Lin had listened. She always listened. And she had tried, and failed, to understand. 

And so tonight, she did the only thing she knew, she tried again. She pulled her awareness inward. Breath in. Breath out. Heartbeat steady, somewhere between her throat and her sternum. Muscles braced, then deliberately loosened.

Depth, Ayla had said. Pressure. She pushed her focus past the ache in her shoulders, past the old scar along her hip, past the reliable tug of gravity.

Nothing answered, just water. Muscle. Bone.

She stayed there anyway. Counting breaths. Stubborn out of principle, out of pride, out of something else she refused to name. Ayla sat in silence for long stretches every day, so Lin would not be undone by stillness. She tried again. Five breaths. Ten. On the eleventh, frustration seeped in. It was the same nothingness. No shift. No threshold. She exhaled sharply, twisting the water off with more force than necessary, and reached for a towel. When she returned to the living room, the lights were dimmed. Ayla had stacked their bowls neatly by the sink and was sitting sideways on the couch, one knee up, Lin’s folklore book still open on her lap. She looked up, and her eyes softened in that unguarded way that made something in Lin go unbearably warm around the edges.

“Feel better?” Ayla asked.

“Cleaner,” Lin said, brushing damp hair back from her cheek. It wasn’t quite the truth, but it was the closest she could manage without unraveling.

They went to bed not long after. In the half-dark, with only the faint spill of streetlight through the curtains, Ayla slid close without ceremony. Lin felt the tension in her chest ease almost immediately, not because anything was resolved, but because Ayla was here. Warm. Real.

“You’re quiet,” Ayla murmured against her shoulder.

“I’m thinking.”

“Dangerous habit.” Ayla’s palm came to rest against Lin’s chest. “Sleep, Chief. You can glower at your thoughts tomorrow.”

“I don’t glower at thoughts,” Lin said, with a touch of amusement.

Ayla hummed noncommittally, and it didn't take long for her breathing to even out while Lin lay awake. The ceiling was a vague shadow in the dark, but she stared at it anyway. Ayla’s hand rested against her, fingers curled in a loose, unconscious claim. The simple weight of it steadied her more than she wanted to admit. She waited until she was sure Ayla was deeply asleep before trying again.

Lin shifted one hand free, resting it lightly over Ayla’s forearm, because that was the only way she could breathe evenly enough to start. Ayla’s pulse was soft beneath her hand, a quiet reminder that she was here, safe, not vanishing into some place Lin couldn’t follow.

Then Lin closed her eyes. No counting, no forcing, just looking. She found her heartbeat, the steel beams in the building foundation, the faint vibration of a distant tram turning somewhere down the block. She pushed past the familiar terrain, only to still find nothing, just herself. She didn’t let herself acknowledge the thin thread of fear woven through the effort, fear of being helpless again, fear of not understanding, fear of losing this life she was only just learning how to hold. Her jaw ticked. “Fine,” she breathed, barely a whisper.

Ayla murmured something incoherent at the sound, shifting closer. Lin turned her head enough to brush her lips against Ayla’s hair. “Go back to sleep,” she whispered, even though Ayla hadn’t fully woken. She let the attempt go, for now, not because she wanted to, but because she could feel that if she pushed any harder, something in her would crack before the world did. Tomorrow, she told herself, she'd try again, and she lay there listening to Ayla breathe until sleep finally pulled her under.

~*~~*~~*~

Ayla arrived five minutes early, as she always did now. The receptionist sat curled over her first cup of tea, offering Ayla a wave. Ayla returned it with a small smile and slipped toward the staircase, boots clicking lightly in the quiet that only existed before 8 a.m. Varrin spotted her the moment she stepped into the office space. 

“You missed it,” he announced, raising his mug like a proclamation. “Pastries. Golden hour. Gone.”

Ayla let out a small polite laugh and set her bag down as she slid into her chair, tucking one foot under herself. She pulled the stack of paperwork toward her, already sorting it mentally. 

– grant application: nearly ready  

– donor routing form: missing a signature  

– volunteer outreach summary: formatting needed  

– thank-you letter: rewrite the opening so it didn’t sound so stiff 

Her shoulders eased as she fell into rhythm. She liked this, knowing the bounds of her tasks, the satisfaction of neat stacks and crossed-off lists, the feeling of doing something that tangibly helped people. 

“Hey,” Varrin called over. “Look at this.” He rolled over and handed her a sheet covered in chaotic numbers and arrows. He shoved his glasses back up his nose with the same hand, smudging one lens.

“We have enough carryover in the Q3 donation pool to expand the emergency housing grant.” His voice pitched up. “I’m reworking the allocations. Tell me I’m brilliant.”

Ayla blinked, pen still hovering over her form. She took the paper. “You’re brilliant,” she said lightly, because it was easier than not.

“I know,” he grinned, then spun away too fast and hit his trash bin.

By midday, she’d reviewed three proposals, helped a volunteer coordinator rewrite a letter so it sounded like it came from a person instead of a legal manual, and flagged a relief request with a reporting location that didn’t make sense. She ate noodles in the break room with two assistants who had adopted her into their lunch circle. 

The rest of the afternoon unfurled in a soft, productive hum, phones ringing, typewriters clacking, chairs skimming across the floor. Somewhere down the hall, someone turned the radio up too loud and was politely begged to turn it down. Ayla finished a summary packet, initialed a stack of outgoing envelopes, and smoothed her desk into clean, parallel lines. She stretched her arms overhead, back popping lightly. 

That was when Varrin reappeared. New mug, same enthusiasm. “You signing up for that new initiative?” he asked, leaning his hip against the corner of her desk like he’d been invited there. 

She looked up, mildly startled. “The chi one?”

“Yeah.” He gestured vaguely with his mug, nearly sloshing coffee onto his sleeve. “Something about testing ‘energy alignment’ in volunteers. Supposed to help scan for lingering imbalances after the Amon crisis. Big PR win.”

“Energy alignment? I thought it was for wellness.”

“Yeah, I mean, same thing, right? They’ve got the spiritual advisors in on it now, one from the Northern Air Temple, I think? Maybe the Eastern. They keep talking about it in the break room.”

Ayla nodded once, turning back to her desk. “Is it different from the onboarding scan?”

“Oh, totally different.” He waved a hand, already reaching for a fresh stack of forms. “Onboarding is just medical clearance. Like a… baseline picture. This thing is supposed to identify how people are adjusting to the new spiritual equilibrium.” He used air quotes, face serious for half a second before cracking a grin. “The official memo talked about ‘detecting fluctuations in resonant fields’ but that could mean anything.”

“Sounds… broad.”

“Who cares? Stipend’s great.”

She hummed, noncommittal, already returning to her sorting. She hadn’t asked for the conversation, but he lingered another moment, sipping loudly, waiting as though she might ask him something back. 

She didn’t.

When she didn’t, he gave a small disappointed shrug and rolled back to his corner.

Her shoulders eased.

Big organizations changed phrases all the time. It was probably the same program wearing a more dramatic hat. I mean, maybe they needed the study. Of course people’s chi would be affected after all of that. Trauma had a way of sinking into the body. If Helion could figure out how to help people recover, that was a good thing. She told herself that as she reached for her pen.

Work pulled her back under easily, and soon enough she was on the evening tram, standing near the window with one hand looped casually around the strap. She watched the city slide past, balconies strung with laundry, a rooftop garden, a bakery closing up early. 

Her thoughts unwound slowly. She liked this job. The rhythm. The way the day built toward something and then resolved into order again. Varrin was a little annoying and couldn't seem to read the room, but it was probably just his personality. Ugh, I miss working with Kira.

Her stop arrived. She stepped out into the warm, early-evening air, the scent of soy and frying oil drifting from the restaurant at the corner. She walked the last few blocks at a steady pace, keys already in hand, wondering if Lin was still leaning over her desk working, refusing to admit she needed dinner.

~*~~*~~*~

Lin knocked once out of habit more than courtesy, the soft tap barely audible before she let herself in, nudging the door shut with her heel as the warm scent of takeout drifted into the room. She held the paper bag up, something wry settling at the corner of her mouth. “Jiang’s,” she said.

Ayla broke into laughter. “You went back there? After I got fired from being thrown in prison? Bold move.”

“I didn’t tell them who it was for,” Lin said as she headed toward the counter. 

"Maybe you should have," Ayla laughed as she reached for bowls. They ate standing side by side at the counter, and Lin felt the tension of the day easing out through her shoulders in slow increments. 

Between bites, Ayla said, “So apparently I misunderstood the chi revitalization thing.”

Lin glanced at her, the shift subtle. “How?”

“My coworker said it’s really about testing ‘energy alignment’ now. Or something.” She made a vague gesture with her chopsticks. “Which is not what I thought it was. I thought it was wellness. Coping strategies. Breathing exercises.”

Lin’s brow pulled together. “Testing is different.”

“That’s what I said. But everyone’s acting like it’s basically the same.” Ayla shrugged lightly, shoulder brushing Lin’s for a moment. “There’s a stipend, so half the office is signing up.”

“Are you?”

Ayla laughed. “Absolutely not. I’m not letting Helion quantify how messed up my chi is. They’ll write a thesis and then lock me in a closet.”

When they were done eating, the cleanup unfolded in its usual unspoken rhythm of Lin rinsing, Ayla wiping down. When the dishes were set aside to dry, Ayla leaned back against the counter. “Do you want to stay tonight?” Lin hummed a low agreement as she began unlatching her armor and setting it beside the door. 

“I think I want to meditate before we sleep, if that's okay. Just surface-level. I didn’t do it this morning, and everything feels… compressed.”

Lin went still, not dramatically, not even noticeably to anyone else, but Ayla felt it anyway. “Surface-level,” Ayla repeated, gentling her voice. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll stay where you can feel me.”

Lin let out a breath that dropped her shoulders half an inch. “How do you know you’re not going to fall in like you did before?” she asked, and the casual tone couldn’t hide the edge underneath, the part of her that had felt Ayla disappear once and couldn’t forget the sensation.

Ayla took a moment to find the right words. “It’s like swimming,” she said. “You can feel when you’re deeper. The pressure changes. The water gets heavier. And when you’re near the surface, the air is right there above you, bright, easy to find. The tracing I do is like that. I can feel the shift if I start to slip. I stop before it happens.”

Lin considered that, eyes searching her face in a way that had nothing to do with doubt and everything to do with fear. “All right.”

“You can keep an eye on me,” Ayla added softly. “If it helps.” She settled on the rug near the couch as Lin crossed to the table, and picked up the book she’d marked earlier that week, but she didn’t open it yet. Her attention stayed fixed on Ayla for a long moment. 

No sudden stillness.  

No hollow drop.  

No sense of a presence pulling away.

Just Ayla, settling into herself but still here. 

Only then did Lin open the book. The page she returned to held a painted illustration of a long, flame-red dragon coiling through a valley, with text following it. 

The Flame-Backed Dragon was older than the mountain spines that held it. When the world was young and the stone still soft in its heart, the dragon carved the first valleys with a single exhale of fire, shaping creases in the land where the people would later build their homes. Every spring, when the snow on the high ridges clung stubbornly to the cold, the dragon emerged from the middle valley to melt the snowcaps and feed the creeks that wound down into the villages. In return, the villagers left baskets of fruit at the mouth of each creek, a quiet exchange, year after year, a promise that as long as the valleys fed them, they would feed the one who carved them.

Lin kept reading slowly, and found herself getting lost in it a little as time went on. She hadn't noticed how much time had passed until Ayla’s breath shifted slightly, so small it might have been imagined, and Lin looked up. 

“I’m heading to bed,” she murmured, stretching overhead until her back cracked quietly. “Keep reading if you'd like.” Lin closed the book instead and switched off the lamp, followed Ayla toward the bathroom, and brushed her fingers lightly along Ayla’s back as they passed each other in the narrow doorway. 

Tonight, something in Lin eased, not the fear, not the question of what had happened when Ayla fell into the spirit world, but the part of her that believed she had to deal with all this alone.

Tomorrow she would try again. Tonight she let herself slip into a warm bed, the world narrowing to lamplight and the knowledge that Ayla would fall asleep close enough for Lin to feel every rise and fall of her chest. 

~*~~*~~*~

A couple nights later, Lin let herself into the apartment just before midnight. She paused in the doorway, letting the silence rise up to meet her after the relentless noise of the precinct. She flipped on the small lamp by the bookshelf rather than the overhead lights, and warm yellow light pooled across the hardwood floor, catching on the spines of her books and the rim of the tea mug Ayla had left out before rushing out to work at some point. 

She unclasped her boots and moved into the kitchen, not bothering with more light than the lamp. A grocery bag still sat on the counter where she’d dropped yesterday evening, and she unpacked it quietly. Tea. Coffee. Rice noodles. A jar of chili paste she would not have bought half a year ago. A fresh bundle of green onions she’d grabbed from a street vendor because Ayla had complained that every restaurant in the city used limp ones. Spices she hadn’t purchased in years, maybe ever. 

She stood there with the jar of cardamom in her hand, thumb brushing the ridges of the cap, and only after a long moment set it gently into the cabinet she’d reorganized the week before. It hadn’t been intentional, the change in arrangement. She’d simply found herself making space for things she didn't use but Ayla reached for without thinking. The details were small, but once she saw them she couldn’t unsee them.

Two mugs drying on the rack instead of one. The blanket draped neatly over the back of the couch where it hadn't been previously. A book left open on its face on the coffee table because Ayla had fallen asleep reading it and Lin hadn’t moved it. The apartment wasn’t different, no dramatic rearranging, but it felt changed anyway. 

She carried a basket of folded laundry to the bedroom and set it on the bed. She worked through it quickly, shirts stacked, socks paired into neat rolls, uniform pants creased. When she reached the extra pillowcase, the one Ayla had slept on and Lin had washed, her hand slowed, thumb brushing along the fabric before she tucked it carefully into the drawer.

She returned to the desk in her living room, pulled her notebook toward her, and opened to her weekly list. She started writing out a list of tasks for the next day: 

rent  

budget review  

meeting with city liaison  

incident reports  

training adjustments

steel foundry inspection  

She stopped at “steel foundry inspection,” and her pen paused over the paper. Pressure. Depth. Ayla’s words from the night before. She set the pen down with more care than necessary.

For a moment she sat perfectly still, the familiar map of the apartment pressing in around her, the faint vibration under the floor from a far-off tram, a metal pipe cooling somewhere in the walls. Everything solid. Everything grounded. Everything exactly where it belonged.

She rose, crossed to the center of the floor, and lowered herself into a seated position, legs folding beneath her, spine straight, hands resting lightly on her thighs. This time she didn’t approach it with impatience or skepticism. She approached it with the kind of steady, quiet resolve she reserved for the things that mattered. 

If Ayla could sit in the dark of a prison cell for nine days straight and find her way through the internal landscape of her own chi, Lin could sit in her living room for longer than twelve seconds.

She closed her eyes and inhaled slowly, letting her breath expand toward the back of her ribs, letting the air settle. She traced the rhythm, inhale, exhale, the subtle shift of muscles tightening and then releasing, and tried to stay with the feeling instead of analyzing it.

Her awareness, unhelpfully, began categorizing within moments. She caught herself, exhaled through her nose, and started again.

Again.  

And again.

Eventually she felt the edges of her body begin to settle, the floor steady beneath her, her heartbeat slowing, her breath stretching out in longer lines. She waited for something beneath that familiar landscape, something like the pressure Ayla described, the sensation of a depth she wouldn't notice until she looked for it.

Nothing answered, but she stayed anyway, long enough for her knees to ache and a muscle near her shoulder to tighten in complaint. She ignored both. 

The silence inside her felt stubborn, immovable, like scanning the surface of metal and finding no fracture, but knowing something had shifted beneath it anyway. She opened her eyes, a long, frayed exhale slipping out before she pushed herself to her feet.

She stripped her shirt off on her way to the bathroom, toes curling briefly against the cool tile as she turned on the shower. The steam rose quickly, fogging the mirror. She stepped under the stream, ducking her head until the water drummed against the back of her neck with a steady, rhythmic pressure.

Pressure.  

She let her eyes close, leaned into the water, and tried one last time to imagine the internal shift, the subtle change in weight, the sense of a surface above and a depth below, the quiet tilt of the world when something moved spiritually rather than physically.

She reached for it,  carefully, quietly, and felt nothing but water and heat and the thrum of her own heartbeat. 

~*~~*~~*~

The ocean caught the last slivers of late light as they climbed the path up to their spot on the bluffs. Up here, the city felt far enough away that Lin could almost pretend it didn’t exist, just for a while.

They took their positions without speaking, feet settling into the same spacing they always found. Ayla moved first this time. She came in with a quick step and a low strike, and Lin let the force meet her, hips turning just enough to let it slide past, weight shifting through her back foot so cleanly that Ayla felt the deflection more in the change of pressure than in the movement itself.

“Center’s tighter,” Lin observed as she stepped back. 

Ayla’s grin flashed. “Still not good enough though, huh?”

“Not yet,” Lin said, but there was no bite in it, only a quiet satisfaction that Ayla had learned to recognize as praise. They reset and Ayla tried again, this time feinting right before cutting sharply left, letting a short, sharp burst of air hit the ground to help the pivot. Lin read the shift early anyway, her hand snapped out to catch Ayla’s forearm and redirect it upward, the movement so practiced it barely registered as effort, and a moment later Ayla’s boots scraped through loose gravel as she fought for balance.

“You have eyes in the back of your head,” she said, half laughing, pushing hair out of her face with the back of her wrist.

“I have eyes in the normal position,” Lin replied with dry amusement. Ayla circled, dragging the inside of one boot lightly through the dust to test the give, watching the way Lin’s weight rested, the small adjustments she made. She dropped suddenly into a sweeping kick, sending a quick upward draft toward Lin’s ankle at the same time, and for half a heartbeat, Lin’s front foot wavered, the air catching under it just enough to threaten her grounding.

Then her heel came down with a short, precise stomp, earth moving under her in a contained pulse that she used to recover her footing. “Damn, that almost worked,” Ayla laughed. 

“Almost,” Lin agreed, and there was something warm at the edge of her voice now. 

They pressed closer, exchanges shortening and tightening as the pace picked up. Lin kept her bending stripped down to the bare essentials, small stabilizations, a slight firming of the ground when she needed it, nothing flashy, while Ayla tested angles that forced Lin to respond rather than simply read her three motions ahead. Ayla spun into a tighter rotation, using a narrow gust to lift her just enough to clear what would have been a solid sweep at knee height. She landed lightly behind Lin and tapped her shoulder with two fingers, breath warm against the back of her neck.

“Point for me,” she said, triumphant and a little breathless.

Lin glanced back over her shoulder, “Your neck was exposed.”

“Minor detail.”

“Major artery,” Lin said as Ayla laughed and reset. She launched into a quick combination, switching rhythm halfway through but Lin caught the change, hand hooking behind Ayla’s elbow to bring her down. The motion felt almost like being tipped into a chair, and Ayla ended up on her back, the sky opening overhead as she laughed. Damn. 

Lin extended a hand. Ayla took it, letting herself be pulled upright, and they moved again. The longer they sparred, the more Lin’s stance shifted away from rigidity into something looser at the edges, as though the tension she carried everywhere else couldn’t quite stick out here. Her sweeps were clean but unhurried, the force measured, as if she were enjoying the movement more than she was chasing any particular outcome.

“That was new,” Lin said at one point after a sequence that ended with Ayla springing away from a near-pin.

“Trying things.”

“It shows,” Lin answered, resetting. Ayla had been thinking about a particular sequence all week, replaying the geometry of it in her head whenever the tram rocked through a turn or she sat in a meeting too long. She stepped in as though going for another sweep, let Lin begin to counter, then pivoted late and hooked her hand behind Lin’s elbow. At the same moment, she sent a tight pulse of air low, not enough to lift, only enough to shift Lin’s balance the smallest fraction.

Her palm landed solidly against Lin’s ribs, and Lin actually stopped moving.

Ayla stared up at her, stunned. “Did that just land?”

The look on Lin’s face lasted no more than half a second, surprise, then something sharper, hunger, and then Ayla was on her back again, the sky where Lin had been a moment ago. Lin had rotated with the contact, caught her wrist, and swept her legs out in one fluid line. 

When Ayla's breath came back, Lin stood over her, breathing barely elevated, eyes bright in a way that had nothing to do with victory and everything to do with interest. “Do that again,” she said.

Ayla wheezed a laugh. “The part where I hit you or the part where I eat dirt?”

“The first part,” Lin clarified, offering her hand once more. “The second was predictable.”

Ayla let herself be pulled up, dust sticking to the back of her shirt. “So you admit I hit you.”

Lin’s mouth curved. “You grazed me.”

Ayla rolled her eyes, laughing. “Let me have this.”

Lin stepped in close enough that Ayla felt the heat radiating off of her. Her hands found Ayla's waist easily, sliding along her stance as though she was checking alignment, her thumbs lingering under the hem of her shirt. “If you land it again,” she said, voice low in her ear, “I’ll consider it.”

Heat climbed the back of Ayla’s neck where Lin’s breath brushed her skin. 

“Are you flirting with me or taunting me?” she managed, half amused, half unsteady. 

“Both,” Lin said as she stepped back into stance with a look that made Ayla's pulse jump. 

The next exchange came faster, Lin clearly invested now, her stance tightening with purpose, her movements sharpening into that unmistakable precision she only used when something had caught her attention. She pressed forward without crowding, cutting down Ayla’s options, her footwork narrowing the openings Ayla usually relied on. It wasn’t aggressive. It was intent. Focused. A little hungry, and Ayla felt every inch of it. Felt the shift when she became the thing Lin was studying, that quiet, consuming way Lin had of paying attention that made everything else fall away.

Unfair.  

Exhilarating.  

Impossible not to answer.

She went for the maneuver again, committing to it with more confidence. She stepped in, pivoted late, sent the same tight pulse of air off-angle, but Lin was already moving with her, the adjustment clean and deliberate. She caught Ayla’s wrist mid-strike, redirected the momentum, and stepped in close enough that Ayla felt the warmth of her breath along her cheek. Lin’s other hand settled at her waist to keep her from losing balance, the touch firm. Ayla’s breath hitched before she could control it.

“Better,” Lin said, voice low, her thumb brushing along Ayla’s hip in a faint, unconscious arc before she released her. “You adapted when I did.”

“So did you,” Ayla managed, pulse unsteady for reasons that had nothing to do with technique.

Lin’s mouth curved. “That’s the idea.”

They moved again, and again, until the evening light fully dimmed. Each exchange was tighter than the last, Lin pressing just a little harder, Ayla adjusting with quicker instincts. 

The final round ended, as it reliably did, with Ayla flat on her back, gravel biting into her shoulders, chest rising and falling as she stared up at the thinning strip of sky. 

“Okay,” Ayla said between breaths, one arm flung out dramatically into the grass. “You’re still terrifying.”

Lin offered her hand again. “And you’re getting interesting.”

Ayla took the hand, let herself be pulled upright, dirt streaking her arms and sweat prickling at her collar. Her heart thudded with exertion… and the slow burn of being watched like this.

“Interesting,” she echoed, lifting an eyebrow. “That's what you like?”

Lin’s gaze flicked over her face, lingering for a moment too long to be neutral, humor shifting at the edges into something warmer. “Unpredictable,” she amended. “In a useful way.”

Ayla tried to suppress the grin tugging at her mouth and failed. They gathered their things, dusted themselves off as best they could, and started down the narrow path toward where the car was parked. The stone still held the sun’s heat, though the air had cooled enough that the wind coming off the ocean felt good on sweat-warmed skin. Ayla bumped her shoulder lightly against Lin’s as they walked.

“So,” Ayla said, trying for casual and hearing the pleased undercurrent anyway, “I definitely landed that hit.”

Lin’s expression didn’t change, but her tone shifted towards amused. “A partial hit.”

Ayla scoffed. “My hand was on your ribs.”

“Briefly.”

“That counts.”

“We’ll negotiate,” Lin said mildly, “once you can do it twice.”

Ayla made a wounded noise and, without bothering to think it through, flicked her hand toward Lin’s side in imitation of the maneuver, more playful than anything. 

She didn’t get even a brush. Lin’s hand closed around her wrist, turning her with a smooth pivot that stole her balance without threatening it. Ayla’s back settled against Lin’s palm, light, but firm enough that Lin could feel every point of contact, the residual heat from sparring, the hum of exertion still running through Ayla’s muscles.

She felt absurdly aware of her. Of how warm her waist was under her hand. Of how strong she was. Of how good she’d looked flushed from landing a hit. Lin guided her backward without thinking, without needing to. Ayla followed the motion easily, trusting her weight to Lin’s hands in that instinctive way that made something low in Lin’s stomach tighten. Ayla drew in a sharp breath, half laughter, half something much warmer, her free hand catching at Lin’s forearm as gravel shifted under her boots. “Hey-”

“Careful,” Lin murmured, her voice close enough that Ayla felt the shape of it against her ear. “Loose gravel.”

Ayla’s pulse stuttered under Lin’s hand. “Oh, so now you’re worried about my safety.”

Lin walked her backward another few steps, hands tightening at her waist, not hard, but just enough that Ayla’s breath hitched again. Spirits she was warm. Overconfident. Alive in a way that lit up every one of Lin’s nerves. Lin swallowed the feeling down and let it slip into dry humor. “I’m worried about my evening,” she said, low. “If you sprain something, I’m the one who has to carry you.”

Ayla swallowed, flushed down to her collar, extremely aware of Lin’s breath at her neck and the pressure of her hands. “You’re impossible.” 

“Mm.” Lin didn’t release her until the path widened again, and when she did, her fingers trailed one lingering moment along the curve of Ayla’s hip before falling away. “You knew that already.”

By the time they reached the car, the ocean had darkened, reflecting streaks of violet sky. Lin opened the passenger door with that old-fashioned courtesy she never acknowledged and Ayla never teased her for, not when it made her chest do whatever soft, ridiculous thing it did now. Ayla slid into the seat, still catching her breath from the spar, the walk, the way Lin had walked her backward like it was the easiest thing in the world. Before she could settle, Lin stepped in after her, bracing one hand on the doorframe above her head, the other finding Ayla’s thigh.  “Next time,” Lin said, voice low, “try it without announcing it first.”

Ayla opened her mouth, to argue, to flirt, to say something that would get her in trouble, but Lin cut off the thought before it formed. She leaned in, and the kiss landed with more weight than her tone had suggested, slow at first, then deepening with an unhurried confidence that sent heat curling low in Ayla’s body. Lin’s hand slid up her thigh, and Ayla’s hand slid into her hair with a soft breath, easing back into the seat without breaking contact. Lin kissed her like she was trying to say, I liked that hit. I like your unpredictability when we spar. And I’m not done with you.

Lin pulled back with a final brush of her lips and shut the door, the restraint costing her more than she’d ever admit as she walked around to the driver's side. By the time she rounded the car, Ayla still looked a little dazed. It was satisfying, dangerous, and Lin let herself enjoy it for exactly one moment before shutting the door and drawing a careful breath. She could not afford to drive like that. 

The quarry road wound down toward the city in loose switchbacks, headlights cutting through patches of scrub and the occasional reflective marker. The air in the cab was still charged with the afterglow of exertion from the spar, and the ghost of Lin's hand on her thigh. Lin reached for the radio out of habit and Raiko’s voice spilled out mid-sentence. “…reaffirming our commitment to supporting-”

Ayla made a face and flicked the dial before the sentence could finish, and Lin’s mouth twitched. “Avoiding civic engagement?” she asked, glancing over long enough for Ayla to see the curve of humor at the corner of her mouth.

“Avoiding Raiko’s voice,” Ayla corrected, sinking a little deeper into her seat. “I hit my limit on self-congratulation somewhere around lunchtime.”

The next station was music, and Ayla let it stay. Lin rested her hand on the gearshift at first, but after the next time she changed gears, she let her hand fall to Ayla’s thigh, fingers curling just above her knee. Ayla’s breath hitched, and Lin felt it. Of course she felt it. Her hand was right there. A slow curl of satisfaction unwound in Lin’s chest. She liked this. She liked how responsive Ayla was. She liked knowing she’d put that flush on her skin. 

The road straightened as they joined the coastal highway, the city glowing ahead of them. 

“So,” Ayla said after a stretch of quiet, turning her head enough to watch Lin’s profile as light cut across it, “I’m thinking Fire Nation food. Medium spice. I promise not to destroy your internal organs this time.”

Lin made a noise low in her throat that Ayla felt more than heard. “The last place nearly killed me.”

“You’re exaggerating,” Ayla teased.

“I couldn’t taste anything for hours,” Lin replied. “My teeth went numb.”

“That’s called flavor.”

“That’s called damage,” Lin said, dry as pavement. “Weaponized chili paste.”

Ayla reached down and tapped her knuckles lightly. “Come on. Live a little.”

“I am,” Lin murmured, and the way her thumb traced a slow line along the inside of Ayla’s knee made Ayla’s breath catch in her chest. “That’s what this is.”

Lin’s jaw worked once, a small, decisive shift. She kept her eyes on the road when she spoke, because that was how she said anything honest.

“It’s been good,” she said, eyes on the road. “Coming up here. Having this. Leaving the office before midnight for something that isn’t another crisis.”

Ayla’s chest tightened, soft and full. She watched the side of Lin’s face, the silver catching in her hair with every passing streetlamp, the steadiness in her grip on the wheel even though her other hand still rested above Ayla’s knee. "Thanks for being open to it," Ayla said softly. 

~*~~*~~*~

Her favorite little Earth Kingdom hole-in-the-wall was already half-full when Ayla pushed the door open with her shoulder. Heat rolled out at her immediately, steam from the kitchen vents, the warm bite of ginger frying in oil. Plates clattered in the back. Someone laughed loudly at the end of the bar. Kira spotted her before the door even shut.

“Ayla!” she called out, lifting her glass in a toast. “Get over here before Kenji eats all the dumplings again.”

Behind the counter, Kenji was wiping down a glass. “I only take the ones no one appreciates,” he laughed, then promptly dropped the cloth.

“You take whatever isn’t nailed down,” Kira shot back, nudging an empty stool toward Ayla with her foot.

Ayla slid onto it, warmth already rising. “I’m glad we kept this lunch thing going after last week,” she said. 

“Oh, speaking of which,” Kira said, leaning in. “Updates.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes.” Kira tapped her nails on the countertop. “Back on with Rurik.”

“The water tribe courier? The one who-”

“The one who ghosted me, yes.” Kira rolled her eyes. 

“I thought he left town?”

“He did. And then came back. With a boat, flowers, and allegedly personal growth.”

Ayla narrowed her eyes. “Is it actual emotional growth or just you deciding he’s hot again?”

“…both can be true.”

Kenji snorted. “Rurik couldn’t grow emotions in a greenhouse with professional supervision.”

“You don’t get to judge emotional maturity,” Kira told him, stabbing a dumpling.

“I am extremely mature,” Kenji shot back, placing a fresh plate in front of them. “Ask anyone except every woman I’ve ever dated.”

Ayla bit the inside of her cheek to keep her smile from getting too smug. Kira slid a book across the counter toward Ayla. “Speaking of catastrophes, I finished that novel.”

Ayla groaned. “Not the garden one.”

“Oh, the garden one,” Kira confirmed. She tapped the cover. “The General’s Garden. Worst romantic scenes ever committed to paper. I would rather wage actual war than kiss a man like that.”

“You can’t fight,” Ayla reminded her.

“I would learn,” Kira said solemnly, “just to avoid this man’s mouth.”

Kenji, curious despite himself, leaned over the bar. “How bad is it?”

Kira flipped to a marked page. “‘His lips descended upon hers like a victorious banner unfurled over conquered territory.’”

“Fucking hell.”

“Yes, exactly,” Kira said. “He keeps scooping her like a sack of rice and then charging at her face like he’s storming Omashu. My back hurts.”

Kenji sighed and changed the subject. "Speaking of illustrious kisses, I think i'm going to ask out the new girl at Jiang’s.”

“You’d really ask out Ayla’s replacement?” Kira laughed. “Low blow.”

Kenji shrugged, shooting her a look that said you're going to kill me when I say this. “Well, I can’t ask out the real Ayla. She’s too busy mooning over Chief Beifong in my bar.”

Ayla froze with her chopsticks halfway to her mouth.

Kira’s head snapped toward her, eyes sparkling. “…what.”

“Oh god,” Ayla muttered, lowering her face into her hands. “I forgot about that.”

“Oh, I didn’t,” Kenji said cheerfully. “That was historic. The Chief walks in a couple months ago, and you just stopped functioning. Like someone unplugged your brain.”

Ayla groaned into her sleeve. “Please. Talk about literally anything else. Anything.”

But they were both too amused to obey. Kenji rested his chin on his hand, wistful. “Funny though. I haven’t seen the Chief in here since. Ayla, you’d almost think the timing was connected.”

“She did stop by Jiang’s,” Kira said, casually popping another dumpling. “Came in looking very official. I told her you’d been fired.”

Ayla’s head snapped up. “Kira.”

"She didn't seem too impressed." Kira imitated Lin’s unimpressed hum with unsettling accuracy. "'Mm' was all she said."

Kenji barked a laugh. “Cold.”

“I hate both of you.”

Kira snorted. “Alright, alright. We’ll behave.” She paused. “Speaking of hookups-”

“Kira-”

“No, you want to hear this,” Kira insisted. “Remember that one server who never showed up for her shifts?”

Kenji was already grinning. “Oh, she’s gonna lose her mind.”

Kira leaned in. “She’s sleeping with the chef, that's why she wasn't fired for it.”

Ayla choked trying to imagine him in any sort of position other than glowering at a crate of vegetables. Kenji nodded solemnly. “Stockroom.”

A strangled noise escaped Ayla before she could control it. “No. No. Spirits, no.” Had her takeout from the other night been adjacent to his buttcheeks? 

“Oh yes,” Kira said, delighted. “Management pretends not to see it. Apparently he likes her more than he likes yelling at his ladle.”

Ayla dragged a hand down her face. “I'm never eating there again. I don't want his buttcheeks anywhere near my takeout." 

“It's tragic,” Kira said. “You could’ve been the one hooking up with him in the stockroom if they hadn't fired you.”

Ayla shot a flat glance at her. “So,” Kira said, ignoring it, “what are you doing after this? I need a book trashy enough to survive payroll week.”

“I was actually heading to the used bookstore on Fourth.”

Kira’s eyes lit. “Perfect. Come on, then. Let’s go right now." 

They paid and stepped into bright afternoon light, waving at Kenji from the door. The heat of the day had mellowed into something warm and golden, and Kira looped her arm through Ayla’s in an easy, familiar way as they headed down the street. They rounded the corner past a woman selling carved sea-stone pendants, and the bookstore came into view, narrow, sun-faded, its green awning drifting faintly in the afternoon breeze. A paper sign in the window read “NEW ARRIVALS,” though it looked like it had been hanging there for at least six months.

Inside, the air shifted instantly in favor of old paper, binding glue, and worn cedar floorboards. The clerk at the counter was hand-stitching the spine of a battered Water Tribe travelogue and waved lazily at them as they entered.  

Kira drifted toward the romance section and before she even finished scanning the first shelf, she turned back. “Ayla,” she hissed, holding up a luridly illustrated paperback. “You’re not ready. The title is Embers of Midnight Passion.”

“Spirits,” Ayla grinned, "that means you have to get it," she said, turning away and pushing deeper into the store. The folklore shelves sat in a quieter part near the back. The spines were muted earth tones, embossed symbols from all four nations.

Ayla exhaled slowly, letting her fingers drift along the edges of the books. She could picture Lin so clearly in this space it almost hurt, the little tilt of her head when she read a sentence twice, the quiet narrowing of her eyes when a line of description hit some private place inside her. Lin didn’t chase big plots or sweeping declarations, she lingered on atmosphere, on the world around the events.

So Ayla searched for that.

The first book she pulled down was beautifully bound, but a glance at the prose made her grimace, all 'moon-pale maidens' and 'hearts fluttering like startled finches'. No, she thought, sliding it back. Absolutely not. Another offered dramatic epics about skyfire battles and tragic lovers separated by volcanoes. She returned it to the shelf. 

She kept going, reading opening lines, scanning paragraphs, weighing the feeling of each book in her hand. She found herself smiling faintly every time she pictured the small crease that formed between Lin’s brows when she found something she liked. 

Then her fingers stopped on a deep blue hardcover. Tides of the Red Moon: Sea Legends of the Ember Isles.

The weight of it felt right, not flashy, not overwrought, the title promising landscapes shaped by weather and tide rather than melodrama. Ayla flipped it open. The prose was clean and sensory-rich: salt wind, cliff paths, tidal glow. She tucked the book under her arm and kept searching.

Another slender volume caught her eye, The Fisher King of Turtle Bay. She skimmed a random page. The language was quiet, grounded, every sentence shaped around the lay of shoreline and season rather than the heroics of the figure in the title. Lin would like this too, and she added it. A few minutes later, another title pulled her attention. 

The Skyreader’s Atlas.

She slid the book free. The cover was soft matte, constellations etched in silver. She turned to a random spread, where the River Serpent constellation curved across the sky, annotated with small notes in Fire Nation glyphs. Beneath the illustration ran a paragraph of the myth,

“The River Serpent constellation marks the turning of the warm current. When its tail touches the horizon, the storms break along the eastern cliffs. Farmers watch the spine for changes in the season. Sailors watch the eye, a single star that flickers when winds shift unexpectedly. Legend says the Serpent once carved the channel between the Ember Isles with one long sweep of its body, reshaping the tides so villages could survive the monsoon years.”

She tucked the atlas with the others.

She glanced at a few more books, one mixing metaphors so violently she almost winced on Lin’s behalf, and she set each one back, feeling strangely protective of Lin’s reading experience.

By the time she returned to the front, her stack felt like the right balance. 

Kira was at the counter balancing eight paperback romances. “I’m choosing to take none of your judgment,” she announced.

Ayla just shook her head, laughing. “You’re unwell.” 

“I contain multitudes, actually.” 

The clerk wrapped Ayla’s books in brown paper, and Ayla slid them into her bag and they headed out onto the street. Kira squeezed Ayla in a quick, warm hug before heading out with her tower of trash novels. Ayla waved her off, bag bumping lightly against her hip as she turned toward home.

Three steps later, the realization hit her, warm, ridiculous, uninvited: Her friends were busy teasing her about staring at Lin in a bar, blissfully unaware that just last night Lin had kissed her breathless in her car and then taken her home and- Ayla mentally shoved down the rising blush at the feeling of Lin's hand between her thighs and shifted her focus outward. The city softened around her in familiar noise, and Ayla loved all of it in a way that felt startlingly new.

She hadn’t planned on staying here. Originally, this city had been a place to run to, not a place to build anything in. And she had spent the last ten years constantly re-inventing herself in new pockets of it without ever settling down. And yet, somewhere between fighting rings and losing her bending and getting it back and finding Lin tangled somewhere unexpectedly into her days, she was building something like a life.

Her life.

She crossed a small park, slowing as a vendor stacked crates of pears and a flock of turtle-ducks paddled under the footbridge, their wakes catching the last streaks of sun. She let herself stop and watch for a second, the evening breeze lifting her hair before she continued on. 

She hoped whatever was happening, whatever wrongness kept pulling at the spirit world and bleeding into this one, would settle soon. She didn’t want the city hurt. She didn’t want the spirits hurt. She didn’t want the people she was finally letting herself care about to be caught in the middle. Because for the first time in longer than she could remember, her life wasn’t empty space waiting for the next disaster.

She had a rhythm now. Friends. A good job. A woman who kissed her like she was worth something. She didn’t want to lose any of it.

The lights of her apartment building flickered into view and she kept walking. The door clicked softly behind her as she stepped inside. She dropped her bag in its usual place and crossed the room, turning the radio dial until she found a slow, slightly static-laced big-band track. Warm brass drifted through the air. She rolled her sleeves up and moved toward the kitchen.

The first thing she saw was the mug rack. Her own chipped cup sat exactly where she’d left it. Next to it, tilted to dry, pale ceramic with faint cherry blossoms and a thin gold rim, was Lin’s mug she always used. Ayla reached for it without thinking, thumb brushing a small gold vine. A quiet, unguarded warmth settled in her chest. She set it beside the kettle.

She spooned loose tea into Lin’s mug, poured hot water, and let the scent unfurl into the room. 

She moved to the windows next. The brass stopper clicked free and the evening air pushed in immediately. Mug in hand, she stepped to the center of the room and moved into the first airbending form. Bare feet on cool floorboard, shoulders loosening. Between transitions she sipped her tea, now cooling, drifting toward bitter, and she set it on the sill before continuing.

By the time she finished, the sky outside was almost dark, and she switched on the small lamp by the couch. She reached for the stack of books she kept next to it and noticed the top one nudged half an inch out of alignment and pulled it free. Oh, the book Lin had been reading. A folded newspaper clipping marked the place. She unfolded it and snorted. It was the ostrich-horse photo she'd clipped from a newspaper a week ago, mid-gallop, ears too large for its head. She’d forgotten she put this aside. Apparently Lin had found it and decided it was good enough to use as a bookmark. 

She read a few paragraphs from the familiar chapter, the villagers gathering on the riverbank at dawn, leaving baskets of fruit where the water met the valley mouth, the sky-dragon passing overhead in spring to melt the high snowcaps and feed the creeks below. Ayla set the book back before crossing to her bag at the door.

She pulled out the brown-paper-wrapped books she’d bought earlier, knelt, and lifted the loose board at the bottom of her wardrobe. She tucked the wrapped novels inside, spirits it's getting full in here, I need to clean this out soon, placed the board back with a soft thud, and stood.

Ayla finished tidying, dishes dried and put away, clothes gathered, rice set to cook for the week.  By the time she turned off the radio and switched off the light, she glanced back at the kitchen to Lin's cherry blossom mug and headed toward the bathroom with a quiet, unguarded smile tugging at her mouth. Lin wasn’t here. And yet somehow, she was everywhere.

~*~~*~~*~

The noise of the precinct seeped in under the door, and Lin tuned it out the way she always did, by narrowing her focus to the neat fan of reports spread across her desk. Each one carried the same vocabulary, a kind of instinctive language civilians reached for when they had no proper words.

A pull.  

A pressure.  

A wrongness in the air.

Something feels off.

She read the phrases and her jaw had tightened at some point, a small knot of strain sitting quietly beneath the line of her cheek. A knock came and she looked up. Saikhan stepped inside without waiting for permission, a stack of new statements tucked beneath his arm.

“More?”

“Three since noon,” he said, setting them down. “Two industrial, one residential. Witnesses all describe the same thing. And-” He paused, glancing at her. “Argument in the street right after one of them. Water Tribe tension.”

“What kind of argument?”

“The usual flavor,” Saikhan said, taking the seat opposite her. “North versus South. One side yelling that spiritual decay is inviting punishment. The other yelling that the North is using the unrest to justify the occupation. Someone threw tomatoes at a delivery truck because it had Northern markings on the crates.”

Lin’s exhale was slow. “It hasn't even been a week.”

“People don’t need time,” Saikhan said. “They need excuses.”

She reached for her map, red marks for confirmed spirit disturbances, blue marks for suspected ones. A faint clustering had begun along the northern edge of the Industrial Sector. Not enough to call a pattern, but exactly enough to make her uneasy. Her thumb tracked the area. “If the public starts framing these as judgment or divine retribution,” she said, “we’ll be dealing with mass panic. Maybe riots.”

Saikhan nodded grimly. “Northern delegates aren’t helping. They keep giving statements about balance and protection.”

Lin’s lip curled. “Because nothing says spiritual stewardship like occupying territory under the guise of protection.”

“That’s what I said,” Saikhan muttered.

Lin didn’t smile, but something softened briefly in her posture, a shared, bitter understanding.

“Spirit Affairs weighed in too,” he added. “Their representative said, and I quote, ‘energetic misalignment caused by collective anxiety.’”

Lin stared at him flatly. “Energetic misalignment.” She shut the folder. “This doesn’t feel like offended spirits,” she said. “It doesn’t feel ideological. It feels-” She hesitated, searching for the right words, “like something deeper is wrong.”

Saikhan didn’t argue. He sat with that a moment. Outside, a burst of laughter rose, then faded. Someone dropped a stack of papers. A rookie cursed. When he shifted again, he sounded exhausted. “We need monitoring if this continues. Predictive patterns. Maybe pull grid data.”

“Grid data?”

“Voltage irregularities,” he said. “If these things mess with machinery, we might see spikes before calls come in.”

Lin nodded, already making space for that line of thought. “Good thinking. Pull the last month’s records. Cross-reference with incident timestamps.”

“On it.”

“And keep an eye out for rhetoric involving ‘punishment,’ ‘retribution,’ or anything invoking spiritual authority. If the narrative shifts, I want to know.” Saikhan rose with a crisp nod and left.

Lin stayed still for a moment, staring at the map. She picked up her pen and began drafting a report for City Leadership.

“…pattern of disturbances does not currently align with known spiritual behaviors…”  No. 

“…increasing frequency necessitates immediate review of-”  She scratched it out.

She didn’t write what she wanted to, which was if someone doesn’t take this seriously we’re all going to regret it, but her hand tightened around the pen as if she had.

An hour later, Saikhan was back in her doorway. “Engineering sends their condolences,” he said. Lin arched a brow, and he handed her a folder. “Industrial grid is a mess. Maintenance backlogs, unreported expansions, everyone pointing somewhere else. But…” He tapped the tab. “There’s something in here you’ll want to see.”

She flipped it open to find pages of voltage graphs, spikes, dips, jagged irregularities. Not gradual strain, but some sort of sporadic interference. “If it were simple overextension,” Lin said, “we’d see more of a clean upward arc.”

Saikhan hummed in agreement. “These,” he murmured, leaning over her shoulder, “seem to be jumping.”

She pulled her map back in front of her, setting the grid schematic to the corner, then cross referenced the call locations. It wasn’t clean. But there was something.

“These sectors,” she said quietly. “Northern edge of Industrial. Same cluster we saw earlier.”

“Do we shift patrols?”

“East of the Yue Bay Bridge. Not a redeploy, just tighten rotations. And tell them to report anything that feels off.”

“Define off?”

“If they hesitate at explaining it at all,” Lin said, dry, “tell them to report it.”

Saikhan grimaced. “So… everything.” Lin didn’t disagree, and he left to relay orders. She returned to her desk and stared at the half-written report title, Emerging Unclassified Phenomena and Related Disturbances. She sighed, rubbing the back of her neck, and picked up the phone.

The hallway line clicked twice before someone answered. “Hello?”

Lin’s irritation flared instantly. “307.”

“One second,” the neighbor said, knocking. “Phone’s for you!”

Lin pressed her fingers to her temple. She hated that hallway phone. She was going to buy Ayla her own landline if it killed her. The receiver clattered. Then Ayla’s voice, warm, slightly breathless. “Hey, sorry. Neighbor snagged it first.”

“I’m buying you a phone,” Lin said immediately. “Don’t argue.”

Ayla laughed softly. “Okay. I won’t.” The tight coil between Lin’s ribs eased a fraction.

“Do you want to do dinner?” Lin asked. “I know it’s late. I just-” She looked at the scattered reports, spirit calls, grid anomalies, political tension, escalating rhetoric, and felt the weariness of it in her bones. “need something that isn’t this.”

“Yes,” Ayla said, without hesitation. “Come over.”

Relief slid through Lin. “Alright,” she murmured. “I’ll head over when I finish this report.”

A couple hours later, Ayla opened the door before Lin finished her second knock like she’d been standing on the other side of it listening for her footsteps. Lin barely had time to draw a breath before Ayla was already pulling her in. 

The surprise flashed across Lin’s face for exactly half a second before the look sharpened, the shift so visceral it hit Ayla like heat blooming under the skin. Lin’s hands came up, catching at Ayla’s hips as if she’d been waiting to be claimed like this all week.

“Ay-” Lin started, and Ayla kissed her before the name finished leaving her mouth, palms sliding up the line of Lin’s shoulders and then into her hair, drawing her just slightly off balance.

Lin hands tightened at Ayla’s waist, guiding her back step by step until Ayla’s back met the wall with a soft, helpless sound catching in her throat. Lin swallowed it with her mouth.

Lin kissed like she was making up for lost time, the kind of kiss that forced Ayla’s knees to soften, her body tipping instinctively into the hold at her waist. One hand slid up Ayla’s back, fingers splaying between her shoulder blades.

Ayla angled her head, kissed her deeper, letting one of her hands wander along the line of Lin’s inner thigh. 

Lin let out a low sound as she adjusted her stance seemingly involuntarily at the touch, “Wait, just-” Lin fumbled at the chestplate latch one-handed, nearly scraping her arm guard across Ayla's arm as she kept her close. “At least let me get out of this-”

“You said needed a distraction after a long day,” she said, her lips brushing the corner of Lin’s. “I’m providing it.”

A small breath of laughter escaped her. “And to think,” Lin murmured, deadpan, “some people bring flowers.”

“I brought enthusiasm. Much more practical.” Lin reached again for the buckle at her shoulder, and her fingers caught on it. Ayla made a small, laughing sound against her mouth and slid her hand between them, brushing her fingers over Lin’s fumbling grip. “Here,” Ayla whispered against her lips, catching the clasp.

“Don’t,” Lin murmured, kissing her again, more insistently. “I’ve got it.” 

She did not, in fact, have it.

Ayla let out a breathless laugh. “You can’t seduce me and fight your armor at the same time.”

“I absolutely can,” Lin said, already pulling her in again.

The next clasp gave way under Ayla’s fingers, she helped this time, too flustered not to, and Ayla grinned, leaning in again. “You’re not complaining.”

Ayla could feel Lin’s mouth curve against hers when she answered. “Not even a little.” Lin hooked her thumb under the clasp, forced it loose with a short, irritated jerk, then shrugged one shoulder until the plate slid off and clattered gracelessly to the floor. She didn’t even look at where it landed as she cast her bracers down too, she was too busy capturing Ayla’s mouth again, her newly freed arm wrapping around Ayla’s waist with the kind of confident heat that made Ayla’s spine arch.

By the time she freed the last of it, Lin pulled her away from the wall. Ayla let herself be guided backwards toward the bed, laughing under her breath as they gracelessly pulled off their remaining clothes. Ayla's knees hit the bed and she fell backwards on it. Lin murmured, "graceful" with amusement as she slid her waistband over her hips. Ayla made a wounded noise and tried to sit up, but Lin was already moving, arm curling around her waist. In one sudden motion, Lin dragged Ayla deeper into the bed and followed her down, kissing her again as she settled on top of her, her skin warm. 

The day’s tension drained out of her in waves, each one coaxed loose by Ayla’s mouth or her hands or the warm weight of her body underneath her. 

Lin shifted so that her knee urged Ayla's legs wider, pressing her upper thigh closer until Ayla gasped into her mouth. She rolled her hips, trailing her hand down Ayla's waist, grasping her hip firmly as she kept moving against her. She’d been holding so much, fear, responsibility, the horrible tilt of the world shifting under her feet, and Ayla was the only person who could ease any of it. She made it possible to stop thinking. That alone felt like a miracle.

Lin trailed her lips along the curve of Ayla's jaw and nipped her ear with her teeth before capturing her mouth in another messy kiss. Ayla's hands were at her hips, pulling her closer as she continued to drive pressure with her thigh. "Can you please-" Ayla breathed against her mouth before Lin interrupted her by deepening the kiss. Spirits, she almost completely lost control at the sound of Ayla asking for her. She adjusted just enough to slip her hand between them and almost groaned with how good she felt around her. Lin slipped a second finger in and pressed harder as she moved, swallowing the sound that had escaped Ayla's mouth. She wanted more of them, greedily, a slow-building heat that curled low in her stomach. Her instincts narrowed to a single point: more, closer, now. 

Ayla made her feel wanted in a way that stripped her down to something raw and honest, and she focused on the sound of her breathing, the feel of her body underneath her, the way her leg bent as she got closer and closer to release. 

Ayla arched her back, digging her nails into Lin's back as she toppled over the edge, and Lin pulled back just enough to look at her face, the flush of her cheeks, the crease between her eyebrows. She’d spent weeks feeling the world slip sideways under her feet, and now here was Ayla, reacting to her touch in ways that were honest and immediate and entirely within her ability to handle. And with each little shift in Ayla’s breathing as she came down, Lin felt herself come back into her body piece by piece, the adrenaline tapering into something warm and heavy. For a long moment she didn't move at all, just let her forehead rest against Ayla's shoulder, breath evening out, one hand still curled loosely at Ayla's hip like she wasn't ready to give up the contact yet. 

Eventually, though, the need to breathe deeper made her shift, easing back onto her own pillow. She stayed there for a moment before she exhaled and dragged a hand down her face in something like dazed composure. 

And when Lin finally pushed herself upright, breath still settling, Ayla couldn’t help but follow the movement with her eyes. Lin braced a palm on the mattress, hair mussed, skin still flushed as she reached blindly with her other hand until her fingers brushed her undershirt on the floor. She tugged it over her head as she stood, just long lines and bare legs and the kind of quiet strength that made Ayla feel suddenly, painfully aware of every place their bodies had just touched. She propped herself up on her elbows, heart kicking a little harder at the sight. “Wait,” she managed, still breathless in a way she wasn’t sure was physical or something else entirely. “What about you?”

Lin leaned back in before she could say anything else, catching her mouth in a kiss that left no room for doubt. “You say that,” she murmured against her lips, “as if listening to that little sound you made in my ear didn’t do it for me.”

Ayla’s breath caught embarrassingly, heat rushing to her face in a way she couldn’t hope to hide. Lin pulled back just enough to look at her, eyes a little wicked with private amusement, and Ayla thought, helplessly, spirits, she’s beautiful like this. “You can be indignant later,” Lin added, voice low. “Get dressed. You left the stove on.” Ayla groaned in mixed complaint and laughter, sliding out of bed and tugging on the nearest shirt from the scattered dirty clothes on the floor. She caught Lin looking for a split second, just a flicker of appreciation so quiet it landed harder than anything overt could have.

“Then it’s a good thing you showed up when you did,” Ayla said as she padded to the kitchen. “And if you think you’re getting out of your turn later… you’re wrong.”

Lin met her gaze over her shoulder, amused and entirely unbothered, turning off the forgotten burner. “I was counting on it.” She didn’t move when Ayla stepped beside her, just handed her a bowl with a brush of fingers along her wrist that sent a warm line of tension up Ayla’s arm.

“Thank you for cooking,” Lin said. 

Ayla bumped her lightly with her hip, trying for casual and failing at hiding the smile tugging at her mouth. “So… long day?”

Lin leaned back against the counter, posture loose and hair still mussed from Ayla’s hands. “Chaotic,” she said. “Less unbearable once I decided to come here after.”

Ayla arched a brow, pleased. “Progress.”

Lin hummed, neither confirming nor denying it, and they ate like that for a minute, the radio humming low in the background.

“Kira said she saw you at Jiang’s earlier,” Ayla said eventually, trying for nonchalant and failing. “She told you I’d been fired, apparently? And you just went ‘mm’ at her.”

Lin’s lips curved, almost hidden. “It was an adequate response.”

Ayla narrowed her eyes. “Adequate?”

“If it helps your pride,” Lin said, glancing at her, “you being fired didn’t stop me from coming here for dinner.”

Ayla tried, truly tried, not to grin. It didn’t work. Lin rinsed her bowl, took Ayla’s from her hands, and set both in the sink. She didn’t step away afterward; she simply let her palm settle at Ayla’s waist, fingers warm against the thin cotton of the borrowed shirt. Ayla leaned into the touch without thinking, one hand brushing Lin’s forearm.

“So,” Ayla said softly, “what do you want to do with the rest of the night?”

“Nothing strenuous,” Lin replied, expression perfectly mild. “I think we’ve met the quota there.”

Ayla made a strangled sound. “Lin-”

Lin brushed past her, letting her fingers skim once along the small of Ayla’s back as she went. “Come on,” she said, softer now, the fatigue threading back into her voice. “Let’s go lie down. It’s been a long day.” Ayla picked up the stack of books from the table near the couch and moved it to her night table as they shut off the lamps until only the bedside one remained on, and cracked the windows before sliding back into bed. Ayla had curled onto her side facing Lin, one knee resting loose against Lin’s hip. Lin lay on her back the way she always did when her body was tired but her mind refused to shut off, one arm behind her head, the other resting easy over her stomach.

For a few minutes, neither moved. Then Ayla reached across Lin and handed her the fire nation folklore book she had been reading and pulled her own book into her lap, a slim collection of sea dragon myths that she'd picked up a few months ago, mostly for the stylized illustrations. 

The quiet filled the room around them, broken only by the sound of pages turning. Ayla glanced up once and caught the small crease between Lin’s brows softening as she read, and it made something warm thread through her. Lin reached for her arm under the blankets without looking away from her page, fingers brushing Ayla’s wrist, and Ayla shifted slightly so their legs touched more fully. 

They read like that for a while before Ayla eventually dog-eared her page and let the book rest against her stomach. She shifted onto her elbow, tracing idle patterns on the blanket between them, the quiet comfortable enough that she didn’t bother filling it at first. “You know,” she murmured finally, “I don’t think I ever told you much about the place I lived before I came to the city. North of the Serpent’s Pass. My dad was stationed there when I was a teenager.”

Lin set aside her book and turned her head slightly, eyes soft in that unguarded way that made Ayla's heart skip. “Tell me.”

Ayla’s smile warmed. “It wasn’t much of an outpost, but the foothills were incredible. I kept sneaking off with plant guides. One of the officers finally stopped trying to rein me in and just gave me her field manuals.”

Lin’s mouth curved. “I know that region. My mother passed through there with Aang when they were young.”

“Really?”

“She told us stories,” Lin said, voice softening into something quieter, more private. “About Ba Sing Se, the wall, traveling with Aang, getting lost, getting found again.” Her eyes drifted to the ceiling, the faint crease between her brows easing. “They went through the Serpent’s Pass. According to her, the serpent is… unsettling when you can’t see it.”

Ayla pushed up on an elbow. “Wait. The serpent is real?”

“Very real.”

“How real?”

Lin didn’t even blink. “Large enough to capsize a boat. Small enough to vanish under fog.”

Ayla laughed softly her knee brushing Lin’s hip again. “So your mom told you stories about her adventures with the Avatar?” Then she huffed a laugh. "Wait, that was a stupid question. Of course she did."

“Every night,” Lin said, and there was a thread of something older in her tone, not grief exactly, but something adjacent. “She couldn’t read to us, so she told us about the world instead. I used to think she exaggerated. I’d ask Aang to confirm.” A small exhale, humor lacing through her tone. “She never lied.”

Ayla settled her cheek against Lin’s shoulder. “Do you have any more?”

Lin was silent for a few moments before answering. “When Aang was training for the final battle with Fire Lord Ozai, Sokka decided the best way to prepare him was to declare my mother the Melon Lord.” Lin’s voice flattened just slightly, which only made the affection beneath it more obvious. “She hurled flaming rocks at him while screaming dramatic monologues, acting as the armed forces for a melon on a stick.”

“Naturally.”

“She took it very seriously,” Lin said, lips tugging faintly before she huffed a quiet breath that might have been amusement. “Suyin misunderstood the moral. She was seven. She decided fighting melons made Aang strong enough to win the war. I caught her in the alley afterward training with stolen produce.”

Ayla laughed, sliding an arm around Lin’s stomach. “I like hearing these,” she said, voice warm at the edges.

Lin made a small sound, not quite agreement or deflection, before her hand drifted down, fingertips brushing Ayla’s hip under the blanket. The touch was light, unguarded in a way that made Ayla’s breath catch. “I’ll tell you more,” Lin murmured, voice softer than she meant. “Sometime.”

“I’d like that.”

For a long moment, nothing changed, just the sound of the curtains shifting in the breeze and the slow, steady rise of Lin’s breathing beneath Ayla’s cheek. Lin’s hand stayed at her hip, thumb tracing a slow, absent line she probably didn’t realize she was making. Ayla shifted minutely, lifting her head just enough to look at Lin. The movement was small, but Lin felt it. Ayla kept her voice low as she murmured, “Hey Lin?”

“Mm?” 

Ayla leaned in before she could think herself out of it, pressing a kiss to the corner of Lin’s mouth, soft enough to feel like a question. Lin’s breath caught, and then she turned her head to meet her fully. Lin’s hand slid from Ayla’s hip to her lower back, pulling her closer as Ayla shifted slightly on top of her, her knee sliding across Lin's hips. Ayla’s fingers curled lightly in Lin's hair as she deepened the kiss, angling herself a little closer still. The sight of Lin’s restraint unraveling by degrees made Ayla’s pulse spike in helpless escalation.

Lin was devastating like this, hair mussed, breath uneven, eyes dark in a way that made Ayla want to drag her in and kiss her stupid. Lin's hands pressed into Ayla's lower back, driving pressure where her hips were positioned as Ayla moved her mouth to Lin's neck. Lin tilted her chin upward to give Ayla access as she pressed slow kisses down her neck, to her collarbone, before returning her attention to Lin's mouth. She savored the way Lin’s hands tightened when Ayla kissed down her throat, the little shiver that ran through her when Ayla nipped her lower lip.

Every time Lin’s breath hitched, Ayla felt a corresponding shift inside her, something loosening, something dangerous in its tenderness. She pulled one of her hands from where it rested and coaxed Lin's underwear over her hips with a quiet, is this ok, and Lin drew them over her knees and pushed them aside as Ayla murmured thank you and slipped her hand between Lin's thighs. Lin responded with a soft hitch of her breath against Ayla's mouth as she began to move with her. Spirits, she wanted to follow those sounds, wanted to earn them, wanted to learn her by feel. Ayla shifted so that she could press her hips against her hand as she moved, and Lin arched her back slightly with the increase in pressure. Ayla leaned into it, pressing harder each time, almost desperate to try and give Lin some sort of release after everything she was dealing with outside of this apartment. 

She knew she wasn’t fixing anything larger by curling her fingers and teasing out that soft breathy sound Lin always made when she was close, but it felt like the one thing she could do right now despite it all. Ayla brought her to the edge so slowly that Lin's breath shuddered as she found it, and Ayla stayed right there, breath warm against her neck, until the last of the tremors subsided. She let Lin pull her in, body wrapping around her and legs tangling, as Lin pressed a kiss to her temple. If this was the one place she could help Lin, then she wanted to do it thoroughly, wanted to leave her breathless and soft and taken care of. Ayla pressed closer still and listened to Lin's breathing even out as sleep pulled them both under. 

~*~~*~~*~

The precinct had settled into that heavy, late afternoon quiet when Saikhan appeared in her doorway, breath a little too quick for something routine. He didn’t knock, just stepped inside and closed the door behind him, the gesture alone enough to pull Lin’s attention up sharply from the stack of reports on her desk.

“Dispatch sent units to a spirit call on Pier Street,” he said, voice low. “They’re requesting backup.”

Lin straightened, every line of her posture switching from tired to alert. “Backup?” 

“I rerouted Patrols Seven, Four, and Five. Figured you might want eyes on it too.”

She didn’t bother with more questions, she just checked her cables and stood. “Fill me in on the way.”

Saikhan briefed her as he drove. “First caller was an older tenant. Said the building felt wrong, her word. Claimed something was moving through the walls. Dispatch marked it as hallucination and sent medical until the second caller described the same thing.”

Lin’s hands tightened against her knees. “Anyone injured?”

“No reported injuries yet. But patrol said civilians are panicked enough they’re evacuating without being asked.”

Lin exhaled once, slow. “Alright. We handle what’s in front of us.” But the sick, cold line of anticipation in her stomach said she already knew this wasn’t going to be like the last disturbances.

They heard it before they saw it.

Not the spirit, the people. A crowd spilling into the street, voices pitched sharp with fear, the kind that had an edge of disbelief to it, as if everyone was trying to wake up from the same nightmare.

Officers were already moving civilians back, forming a loose perimeter around the three-story apartment building. Then the wall on the second floor shuddered. Not impacted, distorted.

The metal of the building framing distorted, flexing as if pushed from inside by something that didn’t entirely exist in the same way the wall did. Something slid through the wall an instant later, and Lin felt her stomach drop, not because of what she saw, but because of what she sensed.

A pull.

A sick, dragging tug through her feet and up her spine, like her seismic sense had been hooked by something wrong-shaped as the spirit hit the ground in a slithering, disjointed way that made her vision tilt. It wasn’t a single form so much as overlapping possibilities, its edges stuttering between shapes; too many limbs, then none, the brief flash of something almost face-like before it collapsed inward again.

Officers reacted fast, cables firing as they snapped forward and hooked what might have counted as the spirit's upper half. For half a heartbeat, it looked like they’d made contact.

Then the lines went slack, sliding straight through the thing as though its body had dissolved around them. The cables snapped back, and her stomach lurched. Lin shot forward anyway, angling herself where she could draw its movement away from the civilians being pulled out of the entryway behind her.

“Keep it off the civilians!” Lin called as two officers flanked her, one raising a stone barrier while the other yanked a screaming resident out of a doorway. The spirit twitched sideways, movement stuttering between frames, limbs unfolding in a way that suggested elbows and knees but reversed, then reconfigured again. It saw them, or felt them, and lurched forward. Lin met it head-on.

Cables shot from her bracers, anchoring into the street with a crack as they passed straight through it. She pivoted hard, redirecting her momentum, using her lines not to restrain the thing but to yank her own body into angles where its path could be cut off. Saikhan mirrored her, wrapping his own cables around a fire escape support beam to create a barrier the spirit crashed against, its form splintering before reconstituting again.

The pull hit her again, stronger this time, violent enough that the world pitched to one side for a second. She forced her knees to lock, forced her breath to stay steady. Lin turned just in time to see it start to crawl up the exterior wall. Above them, a woman screamed as the thing continued to surge upward, climbing the face of the building in a disjointed series of spasms, limbs unfolding and refolding as if testing which arrangement worked best. Officers fired cables again, trying to redirect it downward before it reached the third-floor windows where civilians were still being ushered out.

The spirit collapsed its form sideways, slipping between angles, and fell toward the fire escape landing. One of Lin’s officers swore, catching a civilian by the back of their shirt and hauling them down the stairs a second before the spirit tore through the railing.

An officer on the fire escape swung a cable, aiming to hook its midsection, but the spirit flickered, its outline blurring into something serpentine before snapping into another form. 

“Eyes up!” Lin barked, firing her own line. The cable struck the wall beside its head, the impact didn’t harm it, but the force of the debris showering past it made it recoil into the interior stairwell just enough for an officer below to drag another civilian clear. 

Lin launched herself upward through an open window on the third floor, cables firing into the corner beam. She swung in a tight arc, boots hitting the landing with enough force to rattle the frame, then redirected the angle of the spirit’s movement with a solid kick that made her entire shin go numb. It wasn’t resistance. It wasn’t impact. It was like striking something suspended between states of matter.

“Clear the floor!” she shouted to the officers inside the interior stairwell. “Now!”

Saikhan joined her on the landing, catching the spirit's next movement with a cable-wrap that redirected its momentum into the corridor wall. They herded it, barely, down the stairwell. 

Lin felt it move, felt the pull drag downward through the structure, skipping from wall stud to support beam. Her knees buckled for a moment before she caught herself on the railing.

“Chief?” Saikhan’s voice was tight.

“We have to keep driving it down," she managed, firing her cables into the stairwell darkness. She swung over the railing and dropped two flights, landing hard. The pull jerked downward again as it moved through the foundation. 

“It’s under us,” Lin said.

The floor buckled, not structurally, but visually, tiles warping like they were softening. The spirit surged back up through the floor, limbs clawing along the floor. Lin barely had time to twist aside. It didn’t look at her. It didn’t have a face that could.

The spirit jerked again, pulling itself up along the wall to the ceiling as though gravity were optional, its torso elongating for the length of the corridor before snapping back into a compressed shape that slithered up and out of the stairwell and back to the street. 

“Drive it toward the alley!” she shouted, forcing momentum back into her limbs.

Saikhan ran ahead of her and lifted both hands, stone rising in a sharp wall that forced it sideways along the building edge. Another officer swung a cable wide, and the spirit reacted, continuing around the corner of the building. 

Lin followed, tearing up a barrier from the street to make it scrabble along the alley wall. Then, without warning, it collapsed inward, pulling itself into one horrifyingly condensed shape before  pouring into the storm drain.

And then it was gone.

The silence that followed was worse than the noise.

Just the drip of water and the ragged sound of officers catching their breath.

Lin stared down at the storm drain, jaw set, the muscles along her neck pulled tight enough to ache. Her breath came too shallow at first so she forced it out evenly, slow exhale, reset, reset, reset.

“Secure the scene,” she said, voice rough. “Structural checks, medical triage. Account for residents.”

Her officers moved instantly, fanning out, checking doors, calling status updates, escorting remaining civilians into the street. Saikhan was already assisting paramedics, his voice steady even as he rubbed a hand once along his jaw like he was trying to wipe the memory of the thing off his skin.

The street filled gradually with the sounds of recovery, radios crackling, civilians sobbing quietly into blankets. Officers moved through the crowd, guiding people toward the triage area, marking who needed transport, who could give statements, who couldn’t stop shaking long enough to speak. Another civilian, older man with a bloodied elbow from a fall he took while running down the stairs, shook his head violently when an officer tried to guide him away.

“I saw its face,” he insisted, voice ragged. “Don’t tell me I didn’t. It looked right at me.”

Lin paused. “Describe it.”

His breath stuttered. “Wrong. It was wrong. Like it was made of-” He waved a shaking hand in front of his eyes, searching for the word. “Layers. Like it kept deciding what shape to be. And then it-” He clamped his jaw shut, eyes squeezing closed. “It smiled at me.”

Lin felt a faint twist in her stomach, not from belief in the detail, but from how certain he sounded. She nodded once to the officer. “Get his contact information. Keep him nearby for now.”

“Structural damage?” Lin asked as several officers approached from inside the building.

“None,” Saikhan said. "Just a couple superficial places cables hit." 

Lin exhaled through her nose. “Small mercies.”

She gestured toward the alley grate. “Did you feel it? The pull.”

Saikhan rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Yes. I’ve never felt anything like it. It was like-” He frowned. “I don't know. Displacement?” he offered.

“Maybe.” She stared at the drain again. “Or something trying to exist in the wrong medium.”

They were quiet a moment, listening to the drip of water and distant sirens. Then Lin said, “Do you think it's worth it to call Spirit Affairs?”

Saikhan let out a sharp breath, halfway between frustration and exhaustion. “Spirit Affairs already thinks we’re making half this up. They want meditation workshops and public reassurance campaigns,” Saikhan said. “Not… whatever this was.”

“I guess they won’t step in with a statement until something actually kills someone.”

“Probably not.”

Lin rolled her shoulders back, the ache settling in along her spine. “Fine. Priority stays civilian safety. Containment. Site closure. Structural inspections.” She took one last look at the grate, jaw tightening. “I’ll draft a report for city leadership.”

“What are you going to say?”

Lin paused. She didn’t have an answer. “That we contained the incident,” she said finally. “That we prevented casualties. That we have… ongoing anomalies requiring further monitoring.”

Saikhan huffed a humorless breath. “You think they’ll do anything with that?”

“No,” Lin said. “But it’ll be on record.”

The drive back to the precinct felt longer than it should have. By the time they reached headquarters the adrenaline had worn thin, leaving a heaviness behind her eyes. Saikhan walked beside her through the bullpen, dropping the first stack of incident statements on her desk.

He waited until the door to her office clicked shut before speaking. “This is going to make things worse,” he said bluntly. No preamble. No softening.

Lin didn’t sit. She paced once behind her desk, and nodded. “The spirit activity alone was going to cause tension. But after tonight…”

“The city’s already on edge,” he continued, crossing his arms. “We’ve got civilians calling in asking whether the United Forces are still here because they think Republic City’s under moral review from the Northern Tribe.”

Lin snorted under her breath, exhausted and unamused. Saikhan shook his head. “Some people are convinced the spirits are punishing us. Others think this is proof the North is right about the South being out of balance. We’ve had three small demonstrations this week, and none of them were violent, but the rhetoric is getting louder.”

Lin exhaled slowly, rubbing her thumb across her brow. “We need to get ahead of this before the city starts tearing itself apart over competing theories.”

Saikhan tapped one of the reports. “You said it earlier, this doesn’t feel like punishment. It feels like something’s broken.”

“It does,” Lin murmured. “Tonight that thing wasn’t hunting. It was lashing out. Like a wounded animal trapped in the wrong shape.”

Saikhan considered that. “I’ll prep statements for officers to use if people start asking questions. Keep it neutral. Keep it calm.”

“Good.” Lin straightened. “We should shift more patrols east of the bridge for now. Reaction time there is going to matter if this keeps happening.”

He nodded and left her alone with the mess. Lin sat heavily, pulled a blank report, and stared at the page for several minutes before writing a single word. Every sentence felt wrong. 

Subject manifested non-corporeal characteristics and appeared to phase through solid structures...

Seismic resonance produced nausea and vertigo in all nearby personnel.

She scratched out half of it.

She tried again.

And then scratched out what she wrote next as she scrubbed a hand over her face. None of it sounded real. None of it captured the sick pull she’d felt in her bones, the way the walls had warped around the spirit, or the way her officers had looked afterward, ashen, shaking, swallowing bile between statements. Every phrasing she tried read like either exaggeration or delusion.

Eventually she settled on something technically accurate and utterly meaningless, enough that Raiko wouldn’t panic, but not so little that it would jeopardize civilian safety. It was a miserable compromise. Her eyes burned by the time she finished. She leaned back in her chair, rubbed her hands over her face, and then reached for the phone.

The hallway phone answered on the third ring. A man’s voice. “Hello?”

“307.” she said flatly. 

“Oh, yeah, yeah, sure, hold on!”

She heard clattering, muffled knocking, someone calling Ayla’s name far too loudly. Lin pinched the bridge of her nose. I swear to fucking god-

A few seconds later, Ayla’s voice came on, breath a little quick from hurrying. “Hi, sorry, sorry, what’s wrong, are you okay?”

Relief hit so fast Lin had to sit forward. “If you hadn’t answered that hallway monstrosity of a phone, I swear to the spirits-” I really need to find time to buy her that phone. 

Ayla laughed softly. “I know, I know. I'm sorry. Are you alright?”

“No,” Lin said honestly. “Something happened at work. I can’t keep sitting in this office staring at it. Can I come over? We need to talk about it.”

“Of course you can.” Lin hung up without ceremony and headed out. 

Ayla had barely stepped back to let her in before Lin stopped just past the doorway, like she’d hit an invisible line. The door clicked shut behind her. The contrast between this apartment and the alley, the warping, the wet scrape of something that shouldn’t exist, was sharp enough that Lin’s throat tightened. Ayla watched her for a moment, taking in the set of her shoulders, the way Lin’s hands hovered empty at her sides. 

“Lin,” she said quietly. “Tell me what happened.”

Lin took a breath that didn’t quite make it all the way down, then tried again. “We said we’d be transparent about anything… off.” Her jaw worked. “Spiritually. It wasn’t like the other calls,” Lin continued. Her hand went through her hair once, rough, like she wanted to scrub the memory off her scalp. “It had a form this time. Or it was trying to. It moved through walls. Through the floor.” Her mouth flattened. “Through my sense of the floor. It hit my seismic reading like a… like a hook. It made me sick. Actually sick. Like the whole world slipped sideways under my feet for half a second and didn’t bother to tell me which way was down.”

Ayla’s brows pulled in, concern all over her face. 

“I don’t know what to do about it,” Lin said, the words coming out low and tight. “That’s the part that’s driving me insane. You saw something wrong in the spirit world, something wounded or angry or broken, and I keep thinking that’s what’s bleeding through. But I don’t know how to fix that. I don’t know how to even understand it. I’m used to damage, not…” She gestured vaguely, fingers flexing. “This.”

Ayla hesitated. “Do you want me to go back in and-”

“No.” The response was immediate, sharp enough that it cut off whatever she’d been about to offer. Lin stepped in without thinking, narrowing the distance between them. “Absolutely not. Whatever I saw tonight, I am not sending you toward anything like that on purpose.”

Ayla lifted both hands, palms out. “Okay. I won’t. I was just trying to find… something I could do.”

Lin’s mouth twisted. “I don’t even know what to tell you to be careful of. ‘Don’t let the world come apart under your feet’ doesn’t make a very useful guideline.”

Ayla’s thumb found the back of Lin’s hand and ran a light line along the tendon there. “You protected people,” she said. “You got them out. That counts for something.”

“That was training and luck,” Lin said. “Not control.” She exhaled, shorter than she meant to. “If that thing had decided to stay, if it had turned on anyone instead of just… lashing around, we had nothing.” There wasn’t an answer for that. They both knew it.

Sighing, Lin added, “The Water Tribe situation isn’t helping either.”

Ayla’s fingers stilled. “What about it?”

“The North occupying the South. Claiming the South is spiritually out of balance,” Lin said. The irritation in her voice was steady, familiar territory compared to the earlier rawness. “We’ve got increased spirit disturbances, unexplained things like tonight, and suddenly the North shows up with ‘protection’ as their banner.”

Ayla frowned. “You think it’s connected?”

“I don’t know.” Lin shook her head once. “I don’t like the timing. It could be an excuse for control. Or they’re reacting to something real and not telling anyone. And if it’s real, we’re seeing the same symptoms here without any of the context.”

Then Lin shook her head again, this time more like she was physically trying to dislodge the thoughts. “I don’t know what I need,” she admitted. “I just know I can’t think about it anymore tonight.”

Ayla nodded once. That, at least, she understood. “Alright. Start by taking off your armor.”

One of Lin’s brows edged up, a dry flicker of life returning to her expression.

Ayla went bright red halfway up her ears. “Not, spirits- I mean literally, not like that. Here.” She spun toward the wardrobe, rifled through it, and came back with a change of comfortable clothes. “Put these on, you menace.”

Lin huffed a small, tired sound that was possibly a laugh. “Bossy,” she murmured, but she took the clothes and began stripping out of her armor. 

Ayla moved into the kitchen, putting the kettle on. She pulled a container of leftovers from the icebox and circled back to the stove, focusing on the things she could actually control.

“Have you eaten?” she called over her shoulder. 

“No,” Lin admitted, “But I can go grab something-”

“Sit,” Ayla said, not turning around. “I have food. You’re not going anywhere until your pulse stops trying to punch its way out of your neck.”

There was a tiny pause, then the couch creaked as Lin obeyed. That, more than anything, told Ayla exactly how wrung-out she was.

She reheated the leftovers in a pan, poured hot water over tea leaves in two mugs, green for herself, black for Lin, and carried everything to the living room. 

Ayla handed her a bowl and a mug, fingers brushing briefly along Lin’s knuckles in passing. “Here. Eat.”

“Thank you.” 

Ayla settled beside her with her own tea, tucking one leg under herself so her knee brushed against Lin’s thigh. “Lucky for you,” she said, reaching down to pull a book from her bag by the couch. “Kira gave me a new disaster to suffer through. The General’s Garden. It’s the exact kind of trainwreck you shouldn’t read alone.”

Lin blew on her tea. “You know what?” she said. “Fuck it. Read me the damn thing.”

She shifted, settling more comfortably against the couch and let Lin draw her legs across her lap, rearranging herself until she was half-curled toward her, one knee brushing Lin’s hip. The lamp cast a soft pool of light across the cushions, catching the faint shadows still tucked beneath Lin’s eyes. 

Ayla watched her for a moment. The way Lin’s fingers curled a little too tightly around the ceramic. The way her shoulders remained lifted a touch higher than usual. 

“Alright,” she sighed. “Distract us, General Hiroshi.”

She cleared her throat and read aloud, “General Hiroshi stepped into the moonlit courtyard, the lanterns casting long shadows across the plum trees. ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ he whispered, though his feet betrayed him, carrying him toward Mei as though drawn by a force older than war.”

Lin exhaled slowly. “He could leave,” she said. “That remains an option.” Ayla continued reading. “She rose from where she’d been kneeling among the blossoms, petals clinging to the hem of her robe. ‘Then go,’ she said, eyes shimmering with starlight. ‘If you truly can.’ The war was calling him. His duty was calling him. But so was she.”

Ayla briefly dropped the book to her thigh. “He’s absolutely going to choose both,” she said. “Get laid and then go to war. It’s the worst decision and you know he’s making it in the next three pages.”

“Standard tactical morale strategy,” Lin murmured.

“You did not-”

“I didn’t,” Lin said. “But someone did, somewhere.”

“Spirits.” Ayla shook her head and flipped ahead a few pages. “You’re impossible.” But she let herself smile. Something about hearing Lin joke so soon after what she’d faced eased a knot she hadn’t realized had formed.

She continued reading. “‘The heart,’ he murmured, lifting her chin, ‘is a traitor.’ ‘Then let mine betray me too.’”

Lin leaned in, squinting at the text. “Is there any military strategy in this book, or is it all emotional treason?”

“Emotional treason is the strategy.” She skimmed, then grinned. “Wait. Here it is. Kira was right, each time he kisses her it truly is tragic. There's another one where he's described going at it like 'a victorious banner over conquered territory.' Listen- 'He kissed her with the force of a thousand breaking waves, lips crushing against hers as though he meant to drown the very air between them.' I could almost hear their teeth click together," Ayla said, grimacing. She tapped the line with her thumb. “Should I kiss you like that next time?”

Lin turned her head just enough to give her a flat look. “No.”

The corner of Ayla's lips quirked. “I don't know. Clearly it worked for them.”

She flipped to a later scene, where the book had a ribbon marker. “They stood beneath the plum tree, petals drifting around them in the late summer breeze. Hiroshi bowed his forehead to hers. ‘If this is betrayal,’ he whispered, ‘then let me be faithless.’ Hiroshi swept her into his arms, carrying her across the garden with effortless strength, his boots not disturbing a single fallen petal.”

Lin reached over without a word. “Give me that.”

Ayla handed the book over, and Lin uncapped the pen sitting beside the lamp, wrote something in the margin, and passed it back. Ayla read the note aloud. “Plum trees don’t bloom in late summer.” She looked up at her. “Out of everything in this scene, the teeth-cracking kiss, the betrayal speeches, that’s what you’re focused on?” Lin lifted a shoulder, and Ayla fought a smile and lost. “You know you can annotate any of my books anytime, right?”

“I assumed,” Lin replied, voice mild. “Given the tape you left in mine.”

Heat crept up Ayla’s neck. “You saw that.”

“You don’t have to use tape,” Lin said. “Write in them. Without adhesives.”

Something unexpectedly tender loosened in Ayla’s chest. “Okay,” she said. “Deal.” She leaned more fully into Lin’s side, letting her thigh press closer as she turned another page. 

She continued reading, and Lin let her voice settle between them, until she reached the part where they finally left the courtyard. Lin frowned. “Is he carrying her across the entire palace?”

“It… seems like it.”

“That’s a nightmare. Those palaces are enormous. And if he kisses like that, he’s probably winded.”

Ayla snorted. “Lin, hush, maybe he's just very strong, oh wait-” She skimmed ahead. “No, they don’t even make it out of the courtyard. He takes her in the covered hallway right alongside it.”

“Surely there would be guards that would see it.”

“He probably planned this,” Ayla mused. “Paid them to be elsewhere.”

“That’s a massive security breach,” Lin muttered. “Their country is at war.”

Ayla shrugged. “They’re already at war. It’s not like he’s making it worse.” Ayla kept reading, and Lin didn’t comment as often now. Her grip on the mug loosened, her shoulders gradually dropped from their earlier rigid line. At some point, without seeming to think about it, she reached down and brushed her thumb once along the curve of Ayla’s calf where it rested against her.

After a few pages of increasingly terrible metaphors and one particularly egregious line about hearts being 'traitorous birds in a gilded cage,' Ayla let the book rest on her lap. “Hey,” she said quietly. “Is this… actually helping? Or do you want me to shut up and we can just… sit?”

Lin was quiet for a moment. The exhaustion was still there, but some sharp edge had sanded down. “Yes,” she said. “It's helping.” A small huff of air that almost qualified as amusement. “More than anything else would have.”

Ayla’s fingers tightened slightly against the book. “You mean that?”

“The other option,” Lin said, “was going back to my apartment alone and replaying that thing in the alley until dawn.” Her mouth curved. “Listening to you make fun of a man who kisses like blunt force trauma is preferable.”

Something in Ayla’s chest unclenched. Then, because it was there and wouldn’t be ignored, she added quietly, “I still feel like I’m not… doing enough. For what you’re dealing with. I can’t help with the spirit calls. Or the politics. All I can do is… this.” She lifted the book a fraction. “Food. Bad novels. Clean sheets.”

“You’re doing more than you think,” she replied. “Trust me.”

Ayla held her gaze and let the reassurance settle. “Okay,” she said, because arguing with someone who looked that certain felt almost disrespectful.

Lin leaned back into the couch, letting her head rest fully against the cushion this time. “Now,” she said, “read the next terrible line. I need to know how much worse it gets.”

Ayla’s mouth tugged up. “You’re going to hate the rest of this book.” She flipped the page. “‘If betrayal is the price of longing,’ Hiroshi whispered, ‘then-’”

As she listened, the pull in Lin’s chest had faded to a dull echo, and the wrongness of the alley felt a little further away. It wasn't gone, but it was held at arm’s length and she could carry that for a little while longer. A while later, Ayla eventually closed the book and gave Lin’s thigh a quiet, reassuring squeeze before rising and stretching her arms overhead until her back popped. “I’m going to shower,” she said, her voice warm. “Don’t move. I’ll be quick.”

Lin made a low, noncommittal sound, something between agreement and surrender, and watched Ayla disappear behind the bathroom door, towel slung over one shoulder. A moment later the water came on. She eased back into the couch cushions, drawing one leg up beneath her, then the other. Her palms rested flat against her thighs. Her breathing stayed shallow at first, almost absentminded, her gaze fixed on the opposite wall without fully seeing it. But the image wouldn’t leave her.  

The spirit still warped behind her eyes, the stuttering movement, the impossible angles, the way it had crawled up the building. And the pull in her seismic sense, that dragging, nauseating hook that seemed to tug not just at her feet but at the part of her that oriented her in the world, still lingered. She drew in a long breath and shut her eyes.

Pressure, she reminded herself, dredging up Ayla’s earlier words. Depth. Tilt. Concepts she didn’t speak fluently. Still, she tried. She let her awareness settle. She mapped her body, the line of her spine, the feeling of her pulse. She reached past that, or at least tried to. Nothing answered. She tried again, adjusting her breath, loosening her jaw, letting her shoulders drop a fraction, but there was still just silence where she desperately wanted there to be anything else. 

By the third attempt, something like frustration curled up under her ribs, slow and unwelcome, and by the fourth she felt the sharp edge of helplessness pushing against her restraint. She hated both. She hated that she couldn’t solve this the way she solved everything else. 

The shower shut off. Lin opened her eyes immediately, as though caught in a moment she hadn’t meant anyone to witness. She didn’t want to snap from embarrassment, she didn’t want to explain badly, she didn’t want Ayla to look at her and see nothing but the failure she felt coursing through her. 

The bathroom door opened and Ayla stepped out, starting to speak, but she stopped short when she saw the tension in Lin’s posture. 

“Hey,” Ayla said, her voice softening immediately as she dried her hair. “Are you okay?”

Lin swallowed, the answer catching on something raw. “Ayla,” she said softly.  

She came toward her without hesitation, sitting beside her. “What’s wrong?”

For a moment Lin stared straight ahead, jaw clenched, deciding how to phrase her next words. Then she forced herself to turn fully toward Ayla. “I need you to explain something to me,” she said, and the admission scraped out of her. 

“Anything,” she said softly. 

“When you meditate,” Lin began, slowly, “and you find those… pathways. Or whatever it is you follow-” She exhaled sharply, frustrated with herself. “I know you’ve explained it. I’ve listened. I’m not ignoring you. I just… can’t find it. I’ve been trying.”

“You've been trying?”

Lin rubbed a hand over her face, fingers dragging along her temple. “Tonight. And the night before. And before that.” Lin looked down at her hands. “I don’t understand how you feel it. Any of it. I only know how to track what’s physical.”

“Okay,” Ayla said gently. “Then let’s start there.”

Lin looked back at her, expression flickering through wary and embarrassed and quietly relieved, all too close together.

Ayla shifted closer. “Tell me what you were trying to feel.”

Lin inhaled. “That off-kilter thing,” she said, voice low. “Or even just a pathway, a pressure, anything.”

Ayla nodded, her expression softening into something steady. “Alright. Then we’ll try. I'll help you.” Lin didn’t move for a moment, but then the hesitation eased, and she gave the smallest nod.

Ayla reached out first, letting the back of her knuckles brush the side of Lin’s hand before lacing their fingers together.

She shifted again, sitting close enough that their shoulders brushed when she settled, tucking one leg beneath herself so she faced Lin completely. Her hair was still damp, leaving faint marks along the collar of her shirt, and Lin’s eyes lingered on one for a second before she forcibly looked away, as if any more softness might fracture the thin composure she was holding onto.

“Alright,” Ayla said softly. “Slow, okay?”

“I’ve been trying. Really. I just… I can’t tell when something is supposed to feel different. Or even what I'm looking for.”

“That’s fine,” Ayla assured her. “That’s what we’re figuring out. Close your eyes.” Lin did, with the smallest hesitation. “Start with what’s familiar,” Ayla said. “What your bending listens to.”

Lin inhaled. “The building settling,” she said quietly. “The foundation. Street vibrations. Someone walking upstairs. A tram, a block away.” A pause. “And my heartbeat. And yours.”

“Okay. Good. Keep going.”

Lin shifted, uncurling her fingers, curling them again. “That’s everything. Just physical things. Structure. Motion. Nothing like what you described.”

“You’re not supposed to reach for anything new,” Ayla said. “Just notice what’s already there.”

Lin cracked one eye open. “I don’t know how to ‘just notice.’”

“Then we start there.”

“I don’t-” Lin’s brow tightened. “There’s nothing there.”

“There is,” Ayla murmured, calm and certain. “You just override it without realizing.”

Lin exhaled, frustration threading through it. “That doesn’t mean it’s real.”

Ayla smiled faintly. “I didn’t say it was real. I said it was there.”

Lin shut her eyes again. She tried, really tried, loosening her attention, letting go of the analysis she defaulted to. Minutes passed, and the silence thickened until Lin’s shoulders began to pull tight again. Frustration simmered low, rising like heat inside her. “Don’t follow anything,” Ayla whispered. “Don’t hunt for it. Don’t try to reason with it. Just… notice. Without adding anything.” Lin’s jaw clenched. Her breathing stayed controlled, but the tightness under it was clear.

Minutes stretched again. Finally Lin exhaled, sharp, frayed at the edges. “All I feel is the city. I keep waiting for something else. It never comes.”

“That’s okay. You’re not doing it wrong. You just haven’t found the signal yet.”

Lin’s hands curled slightly on her knee. “I don’t like not knowing what I’m supposed to be looking for.”

“I know,” Ayla murmured. “But you'll get it.”

Lin huffed, barely, but there. “You’re very confident.”

“You’re very stubborn,” Ayla countered, matching her tone. “Usually works out.”

Lin’s mouth twitched despite herself. “Look at me,” Ayla said softly, and Lin turned to her. “You’re tired,” Ayla told her. “And rattled. And trying to solve something that refuses to fit inside the rules you know. It’s okay that it isn’t working tonight.”

Lin looked away, jaw working again, the helplessness flickering too close for her comfort. “I should be able to do this. After tonight, and after what you saw, if something like that is coming from the spirit world, I need to understand it.”

“And you will,” Ayla said, certainty soft but unshakeable. “Just not right now. Come to bed. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

For a long moment, Lin didn’t move, but then she exhaled, long and quiet, and gave a single nod. She followed Ayla to the bed without speaking.

They slid beneath the blankets, Ayla curling close like she understood what kind of comfort she could give even if she couldn’t solve the underlying problem. Lin lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. Ayla fell asleep quickly. Lin did not.

She watched the shadows shift across the ceiling. She listened to Ayla’s breath deepen. She tried, once, then again, to feel for something beyond the familiar structures of her bending, reaching for the tilt or the hum or whatever lived just outside her understanding.

She adjusted her breath, tried softening her attention the way Ayla described, tried releasing tension she didn’t even realize she was holding. A quiet, sinking helplessness rose in her. Not panic, more like a slow, heavy ache that felt too much like fear and made her try again. Frustration burned up her throat. Her fingers curled instinctively in the sheets and Ayla shifted closer, her arm tightening around Lin’s waist. 

An ache in Lin’s chest broke open, sudden and terrifyingly soft, and the truth came in one clear, awful thought- She was afraid of losing this. If Ayla could cross a threshold Lin couldn’t feel, and Lin had no way to follow her, no ability to sense the thing beneath their world, then there was no way to protect her. Or protect anyone. 

Lin pressed her lips to the top of Ayla’s head, eyes burning, breath thin. Tomorrow, she promised herself. Tomorrow she would try again. Whether it made sense yet or not.  

~*~~*~~*~

The office hummed with its usual layered noise, typewriters clicking, phones ringing, chairs scraping back and forth across scuffed tile. The volunteer coordinator strode past with an armful of flyers, sleeves rolled, hair half-escaping its tie. The smell of burnt toast drifted from the breakroom. 

Ayla slid into her seat, hung her coat over the back of the chair, and reached automatically for the stack of paperwork waiting for her. Intake summaries, donation confirmations, a handwritten note from a community partner with handwriting so chaotic it would require decoding, and she could already feel herself easing into the rhythm of sorting, triaging, making things make sense.

Across the way someone called, “Did you see the news this morning? Another demonstration at Harbor Square last night. Northerners yelling about spiritual purity again.”

Someone else snorted without looking up from their ledger. “Spiritual purity my ass. They’re just mad they’re losing political leverage.”

Another voice chimed in from the far side of the room. “I heard the North thinks the South angered the spirits with ‘moral corruption,’ whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

Varrin made a face. “Moral corruption? Have they been to Republic City? If spirits cared about that, this place would’ve been a smoldering crater ten years ago.” That got a wave of laughter. 

Ayla tuned it out and leaned forward and pulled the intake forms closer, letting the familiar columns and boxes pull her attention down. Names. Addresses. Funding categories. Across the desks, someone raised their voice, aiming for a joke. “Hey! All I'm saying is if that dark spirit from last week was gonna show up anywhere, I swear it should’ve gone straight for my degenerate neighbor. Thing probably just needed to get laid.” Laughter rolled over the cluster, louder this time. 

Ayla’s stomach tightened before she could stop it.

“Imagine trying to explain that to your landlord,” someone else added. “‘Yeah, the hole in the wall? Dark spirit. My bad.’”

“And to the cops,” another chimed in. “Evening, Chief, sorry for the disturbance, I was just enjoying my hedonistic ways-” More laughter followed. 

Ayla stared down at her forms, the lines of text blurring for a moment. She heard the echo of Lin’s voice, flat and strained: We had nothing if it stayed. She pictured the tense way Lin had held her shoulders. “What happened to those people wasn’t funny,” she said finally, the words coming out flatter than she meant.

The laughter stuttered and broke. A few heads turned toward her. The tone shifted into that awkward half-smile people wore when they weren’t ready to feel guilty.

“Don’t make it weird, Ayla,” Varrin said. He tried for casual, but it dropped just left of where it should have landed, too dismissive, missing the point entirely. “People cope with humor.”

He didn’t read the shift in her shoulders. Didn’t see her jaw tighten. Didn’t notice that half the room had already turned away to something else. He just kept watching her, waiting for her to laugh along so he wouldn’t have to feel the discomfort. She swallowed whatever she wanted to say back and looked down again, picking her pen back up. “Yeah,” she said eventually. “I know.”

She buried herself in the work the rest of the day. She drafted thank-you letters and flagged three that needed a softer tone. She helped restock the supply cabinet. The day’s small tasks blended together, but underneath, something stayed sour and heavy in her chest. By the time she boarded the tram that evening, the car was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with commuters. The scent of oil, metal, and too many people clung to the air at every stop as the doors pulled open and shut.

Ayla wrapped her hand around the overhead strap and stared out through the blurred glass, watching the city pass by. As the tram crossed the bridge, she shifted to peer through the window at the crowd of demonstrators in the park by the river. The tension in the city felt different this time. Not just angry, more volatile, as if everyone was already stretched thin and one small thing would be enough to set it all off. 

She rode three more stops, the protest fading behind her, replaced by the normal evening sounds of her commute, a baby crying somewhere behind her, the conductor announcing stops, someone humming tunelessly under their breath.

She stepped off onto the pavement, the air cooler on this side of the river. Lanterns glowed in nearby windows. A bakery pulled its shutters down for the night, the scent of cardamom and sugar still drifting out onto the sidewalk as she walked past. Soon after, she climbed the stairs to her apartment. 

Inside, she dropped her bag by the door, toeing off her shoes, and reached to switch on the radio. “Northern spiritual leaders continue to argue that the-” She shut it off, but a minute later, she turned the dial to a music station instead. A big-band track from a decade ago came through, warm horns softened by static. Better. 

She moved into the kitchen and let herself fall into the ritual of cooking. She pulled spices out one by one, lining them in a neat row along the counter. Her knife work settled into steady rhythm as she chopped things. Steam began to curl up from the pot she was tossing things into, clouding the lower half of the window she’d cracked open for air. The breeze coming in carried faint traffic noise and the smell of someone else’s dinner from the next building over. Cooking for herself always calmed her. Cooking for Lin… steadied something deeper. 

She prepared the dough next, humming under her breath as she kneaded. The radio shifted to a slower instrumental piece, and her shoulders finally began to unclench.

When the knock came at the door a while later, she wiped her hands on a towel and went to answer it. Lin stood in the doorway, shoulders set in that way that meant she was standing upright by choice, not because she necessarily wanted to. 

She took one slow look at Ayla, the rolled sleeves, the flour smudge on her wrist, the scent of garlic and chili in the air, and something in her face loosened by a fraction.

“You okay?” Lin asked, voice low. 

Ayla hesitated, then decided not to lie. “Not really,” she admitted. “People at work were being crass about the spirit call and it rubbed me the wrong way. I know they’re scared but-” She shook her head once, the words drying out. “I’m just tired.”

Lin’s mouth tightened and she stepped fully inside, closed the door, and began unfastening the clips on her chestplate. She set each piece of armor down then turned and joined Ayla at the counter. Ayla started to move aside to give her space, but Lin cut the distance first, leaned in, and pressed a kiss to Ayla’s temple. 

“Show me what needs folding,” Lin said. 

Ayla nodded toward the waiting bowl on the counter. “Dough’s there,” she said. "Thank you."

Lin washed her hands without another word. She pulled the bowl toward her, pinched off a piece, and began to shape dumplings. Ayla turned back to the stove, stirring the pot, adjusting the flame. 

They moved around each other easily as they finished working. Ayla checking the bottom of the pan, Lin nudging a bowl closer to the edge of the counter so Ayla could drop additional fillings in. Ayla reaching automatically for the extra plate. 

When the last bowl slid into the drying rack after dinner had been cleaned up a little while later, Ayla leaned back against the island and watched Lin for a moment. “Do you want to try meditating again?”

“No,” Lin said immediately. She hesitated slightly, softening at the edges. “But I’m going to keep trying until I get it.”

Ayla pulled a soft smile at the honesty. “That was almost optimism.”

Lin huffed. “Almost.”

Ayla reached for her hand, and Lin folded her fingers into hers with a tired sigh, letting herself be guided toward the couch. Ayla curled her legs beneath herself while Lin settled beside her. “Okay,” Ayla murmured, their hands still lightly linked. “Tonight is just stillness. Listening. Nothing more demanding than that.”

Lin let her eyes fall shut, aware even before she tried that she would find nothing but the familiar grid of sensations she already knew, but she nodded anyway, because she wanted this to make sense, wanted to meet Ayla halfway. They eased into the quiet together and sat with it for a while before Lin softly said, "This isn't working."

Ayla looked at her for a moment. “Remember when I slipped into the spirit world by accident?”

Lin hummed slightly. “You told me you felt something,” Ayla continued. “When I crossed. The shift.”

“I did,” Lin said, voice low with the memory of it, that awful moment when the world had tilted in a way she couldn't understand. 

“I could get close,” Ayla offered softly. “Not through. Just close enough that you might find the same point again. Or a glimpse of it.”

Dread twisted through her. “No.” 

“Okay. I’m just thinking out loud.”

Lin looked away, jaw working as she tried to swallow the fear. “I can’t do this,” Lin said, voice clipped around the edges. “There’s too much noise. I can hear someone walking on the next floor, and the tram outside, and a pipe settling, and it’s just-” Her jaw clenched. “I can’t hear anything underneath that. I can’t separate anything. It’s all just… noise.”

Then something sparked across Ayla’s expression. “Actually,” she said, “I have an idea. Can we drive out to the bluffs? Right now?”

Lin turned toward her slowly, exhaustion and reluctance still clinging to her, but something in Ayla’s tone, the quiet conviction, the certainty that she’d see this through, made her pause. After a moment she spoke. “I’d do anything you asked me to. You know that.”

"Really?"

“Get your coat,” Lin said, already moving to stand. “Before I lose this tiny scrap of resolve.”

Ayla stood as well, grinning despite the stress humming under both their skins. “You’re bossy when you’re overwhelmed.”

“Don’t test me,” Lin muttered, but her voice was warmer than it had been all evening.

The road curled along the cliffs pulling them slowly away from downtown. The darkness opened into a cool, silvery plain where the moon washed everything in pale light. Lin cut the engine, and they headed up the path, Lin reaching for her hand. 

The top of the bluff opened around them with quiet ceremony, the sky so impossibly clear it felt as if the stars had been carved out of the darkness. Far off, the city glittered across the water. Ayla breathed out slowly, letting her shoulders ease. “Okay,” she murmured. “Before we try anything, just take a second.”

Lin did. She closed her eyes briefly, letting the air settle inside her lungs. The city’s noise fell away up here. Everything was sharper, cleaner, easier to distinguish. It helped more than she wanted to admit.

Ayla lowered herself into the grass, tugging Lin down beside her until their backs fit together the way they had that night after being released from prison. Lin didn’t say anything, but the steady weight at her back anchored her so quickly it made something in her chest loosen.

Ayla tipped her head back toward the sky. “Same start as last time,” she murmured. “Just… listen.”

Lin let her hands settle loosely on her knees, eyes closing. “I am listening,” she said quietly, and the words carried a thread of resignation, like she already expected to fail.

“Not with your ears,” Ayla reminded softly.

Lin huffed a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Right.”

She tried. She tried to find anything beneath the usual grid of sensations. But everything she felt was familiar- the grain of the earth beneath them, the distant thrum of waves breaking against the cliffs, the slight internal shift of the bluffs as the wind battered them. All of it lived squarely in the realm she could understand.

After a long minute, her breath escaped in a way that slipped towards frustration. Ayla felt the shift immediately. “Please let me try," she murmured. 

“Ayla-”

“Just trust me,” Ayla said, her voice firm but gentle. “I’m not going through. I promise. I’ve been tracing the path since it happened. I know exactly where to stop.”

Lin swallowed, raw fear creeping in. “I don’t want you near it.”

“I won’t cross,” Ayla murmured. “You felt me slip the first time. If you can feel me get close… maybe that’s something we can work with. Just to give you an idea of what to look for.”

Silence stretched a moment. Then Ayla asked quietly, “Do you trust me?”

“I do.”

“Then just feel for the tilt. Don’t analyze it. Don’t force it. Just be open to it.”

Lin drew a slow breath, tightened her fingers on her knees, and closed her eyes again.

For several breaths, nothing changed. Ayla’s presence stayed level, familiar, warm. Then her breathing softened. And Lin felt... Something.

Barely. Barely more than a tremor of wrongness under her skin, a tilt she couldn’t place, a tiny falter in the grid. She thought at first the wind had shifted, or the bluff had settled, but then her internal sense faltered, not physically, not spatially, but in the deeper place where her bending lived. It felt as though something had slipped sideways beneath her perception. It made no sense. 

Her breath caught sharply. “Ayla,” she whispered. 

“I’m here,” Ayla murmured behind her without opening her eyes. “That’s the boundary. That’s what it feels like when I get close.”

Lin tried to hold onto the sensation, tried to categorize it the way she categorized everything- vibration, density, displacement, resonance, but nothing fit. None of those structures held under it. It wasn’t weight or motion or presence. It was simply... misaligned. Tilted. Wrong in a way that wasn’t dangerous, only foreign. The moment slid away, like a misstep on uneven ground, leaving Lin grasping for something her senses could no longer locate. The absence hit her like a sudden imbalance, a brief wave of vertigo sharp enough that she caught herself with one hand pressed against the grass.

Ayla shifted behind her, breath steadying. “Lose it?”

“Yes,” Lin breathed. “Immediately.”

“Try again?” Ayla asked, her voice soft. 

Lin did. She searched for that thin slip in the world now that Ayla wasn’t leaning toward the edge, tried to find it within herself. Nothing. Just the hum of the earth. The clean night wind. Ayla’s warmth against her back. 

Her shoulders eased downward, not sharp with frustration this time, but weighted by something quieter. Ayla leaned back into her, their shoulders aligning. “You felt it,” she murmured. “That matters.”

Lin kept her gaze on the horizon where the moonlight smudged the water into silver. “I don’t understand what it was.”

“You don’t have to,” Ayla said gently. “Not tonight. Just knowing it’s there is the beginning.”

“It’s the first time anything’s made even a little sense at all,” she admitted, voice almost too soft to hear.

“Then that’s progress,” she whispered. And for the first time since this had began, Lin felt something ease in her chest, not because she understood the danger, but because she had finally felt the faintest outline of the path she needed to follow. A direction. Something she could grasp. They descended down the path slowly. Ayla stayed quiet, and Lin didn’t speak either. She kept Ayla’s hand folded in her own, thumb tracing hers without conscious thought. Halfway down the slope, when the path evened out and the wind eased, Ayla broke the silence. “Can I stay the night?”

Lin didn’t even have to think about it. “Yes.” At the car, Lin opened Ayla’s door first. She didn’t release Ayla’s hand until the last possible second, until she ducked inside and the angle forced them apart. Then she rounded the hood, slipped into the driver’s seat, and for a long moment she didn't move to start the engine. Ayla turned slightly in her seat, watching her. Even in the dim, her eyes were soft. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “For trying. I know it’s… hard.”

Lin didn’t answer with words. She leaned across the cab, one hand sliding along the back of Ayla’s jaw, her thumb brushing once under Ayla’s ear before she guided her in for a kiss she hoped could convey everything she could never say aloud with the same precision: that the progress mattered, that Ayla mattered, and that this terrifying new ground felt survivable because Ayla was with her. 

She kissed her like she could translate gratitude through touch, like the slight curl of her fingers at Ayla’s nape might communicate the feeling of finally having something to hold that wasn’t fear. Her mouth lingered, deepening only enough to let the relief show. Ayla’s hand came up the length of her forearm, fingertips tracing the line of muscle there before hooking lightly above her elbow. When Lin finally pulled back, she didn’t go far. She kept her forehead resting against Ayla’s, breath mingling in the small space between them. Ayla let out a soft, almost soundless laugh. “Okay,” she whispered. “Message received.”

The corner of Lin’s mouth tilted, subtle and dry and unmistakably fond. “Good.”

She eased back into her seat, started the engine, and let her right hand fall to the same place it always seemed to return to lately, resting warm on Ayla’s thigh just above the knee. The gesture was casual on the surface, but Ayla felt the way Lin’s fingers curled slightly, the way her thumb brushed once in a slow arc. She leaned her head back against the seat and watched Lin's profile for a moment, the moonlight tracing faint lines along Lin’s jaw. 

They drove down the road, gravel giving way to asphalt as they dropped back down into the city. Lin's apartment was dim when they stepped inside, and Ayla turned the lock with a soft click. Lin stepped farther inside, fingers going straight to the first clasp of her armor before Ayla even turned around. Ayla crossed the short distance between them and reached for a clasp, fingers brushing along the inner seam of metal, and Lin let her help until it was all placed on the floor by the door. 

“Come on,” Ayla said softly. “Let’s go to bed.”

They changed without ceremony. When Ayla slipped under the blankets, Lin followed within seconds, turning automatically onto her side so they met in the middle. Lin settled a hand between Ayla’s shoulder blades as she settled in beside her. Ayla’s breathing evened out quickly, and Lin lay awake listening to it. 

Her mind kept circling back to the tilt, the wrongness, the impossible moment earlier when the world had shifted and, for the first time, she’d actually felt it. She drew a slow breath and let her awareness drop. Not in the intuitive, unstructured way Ayla seemed to do it. Lin didn’t know how to surrender to something she couldn’t map. So she started where she knew, even though it hadn't worked before. 

Pressure.  

Weight.  

Contact.  

Vibration.

She followed her spine, the column that anchored her bending, feeling the bed under her, the floor beneath that, the building resting on its foundation, all the way down into the steady mass of the earth itself. She tracked the hum of the city. She tried to loosen around it this time instead of tightening, to let her awareness soften at the edges the way Ayla had described, to stop bracing the world into fixed positions and just notice it.

At first, there was nothing but their two heartbeats, hers a little quicker, Ayla’s slow and even against her side. But then there was the faintest, almost impossibly off wrongness. So faint she almost wrote it off as fatigue, but it landed under her sternum like a misaligned step, an almost-skip in the pattern of things. Not physical, just a brief, disconcerting sense that one invisible beam in the framework of reality had slipped half a finger-width out of alignment before it was gone. Her breath hitched before she could control it. Vertigo washed through her, not the violent nausea from the spirit, but a softer, stranger disorientation, as if the world had tilted and then instantly pretended it hadn’t. Her fingers curled in reflex.

Lin stared into the dark for a long moment, jaw working, breath steady by force of habit. It wasn’t enough to follow. It wasn’t enough to build a strategy around. It wasn’t even something she could properly name. But it wasn’t nothing.

That truth scared her in a way nothing on the job ever had, and yet, under the fear, something else sat quietly. Relief. Confirmation. She hadn’t imagined the feeling she had experienced when Ayla slipped close to the boundary. She wasn’t chasing ghosts inside her own nerves. The fracture line existed. She could feel the faintest seam of it now, if only for a second at a time.

It wasn’t comfort, not really. But as she lay there, listening to Ayla breathe, it began to feel like a problem she could move toward, one careful, terrifying step at a time. Even if it frightened her, even if it contradicted everything she thought she knew about how things were supposed to work.

~*~~*~~*~

Ayla woke first. Lin was still asleep beside her, or at least her eyes were closed, her arm was slung low across Ayla’s waist in a loose, protective hold that made it obvious her body had decided it was not ready for the day. Ayla watched her for a few seconds, letting herself have the moment, the rise and fall of Lin’s chest, the faint crease between her brows that smoothed only when she was truly resting. She leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to Lin’s shoulder. “Stay in bed,” she whispered. “I’ll make coffee.”

Lin made a noise, low, the equivalent of shrugging while horizontal, and tightened her arm around Ayla’s waist for one last second before letting her go. By the time Ayla had made her way out of the blankets, found a pair pants, and walked to the kitchen, she heard the quiet sound of Lin’s feet on the floor.

“Disobeying direct orders?” Ayla called over her shoulder as she filled the kettle.

Lin appeared in the doorway. “You’re not my commanding officer,” she said, voice still a little rough. 

“Mm,” Ayla hummed. 

Lin leaned her hip against the counter. “I don’t like waking up alone.” 

Ayla stilled with the spoon halfway to the coffee tin. “Well,” she said lightly, shaking off the slightly flustered feeling she got at the words, “then sit. You look like you slept about twelve minutes.”

Lin obeyed without protest, dropping into the kitchen chair. She rubbed both hands over her face, palms dragging down her cheeks. “I tried again last night,” she said.

Ayla froze mid-pour. "You tried without me?” She asked, teasing. 

Lin’s mouth twitched. “It’s not like I was going anywhere. I stayed on my half of the bed.”

“Uh-huh,” Ayla said, sliding a mug toward her. “How’d it go?”

Lin wrapped both hands around the mug. “I felt… something. For a second. Then it kicked me in the throat and disappeared.”

Ayla pulled out the chair across from her and sat with her coffee. “Tell me what happened.” Lin did, haltingly, but she told her. The feeling, the vertigo, the way it vanished the instant she tried to follow it.

When she finished, Ayla’s thumb brushed the grain of the table. “That’s progress.”

“It was barely anything.”

“Barely anything still counts.” She nudged Lin’s foot under the table and Lin made a quiet, unimpressed sound.

“We can try again tonight, if you want.”

“It’ll have to wait,” Lin said, straightening a little. “There’s a large Southern Water Tribe demonstration planned for tonight. We’re on crowd control.”

“Crowd control? That sounds…”

“Routine,” Lin said, though the tension in her shoulders contradicted the word. “It’s mostly symbolic. But big crowds can turn fast. We’re there to make sure they don’t.”

Ayla exhaled slowly. “Okay. Tomorrow then.”

~*~~*~~*~

Ayla tried to focus. She really tried. She narrowed her eyes, reread a line three times, and still found her mind sliding sideways. Lin up by the coast. The way her breath had caught when she had felt it. The way her back had straightened not from tension but from recognition. She thought of the way she’d sat across from her with tired eyes and her hair messy, admitting she had tried again on her own. She thought about how she’d asked, actually asked her, for help a few days ago.

Lin Beifong didn’t reach for help. She endured. She powered through, she figured it out on her own through brute force. But she had asked for help with this. That meant something, and Ayla’s heartbeat flared warm in her chest. She blinked hard, dragged the next form toward herself, and forced her pen to make contact with the page. Emergency Housing Reallocation, Proposed. Routine, familiar, and boring in a comforting way.

Check the signatures.  

Verify routing codes.  

Confirm the fund availability.  

Initial at the bottom.

She did all of that, but she couldn't stop thinking about Lin. Right. Work. Ayla inhaled slowly, scanning another line of text on the next form. Chi Alignment Pilot, Participant Intake. That phrase alone made her pause for a second. Chi alignment. Resonance calibration. Energetic displacement mapping. Normally she’d have tossed it in her “ambiguous wellness project” pile and moved on. But today her brain caught on the words. The way Lin processed the world, pressure, distribution, structural load, felt closer to this than the vocabulary Ayla had been trying to use. 

She wanted to explain it in a way Lin would understand, something grounded, physical. But Ayla only had a surface grasp of how seismic sense even worked. She knew Lin could feel the world through vibrations and structure. She set the intake sheet down and reached blindly for a piece of scrap paper. Her pen scratched fast.

lin understands:

-load distribution  

-resonance under stress  

-pressure gradients  

-displacement  

-structural strain  

not good w/:

-'pathways'

-'energy flow'

-'depth'

She paused, then added:

explain boundary as:  

-stress redistribution? 

-“wrongness,” not “pressure” -> maybe describe as a load shift? like weight change? 

– seismic sense  maybe she feels misalignment 

– not looking for a pathway -> maybe a disturbance?

She stared at the note and underlined “misalignment”. Was that anything? Maybe. Sort of. She added: 

-ask her: what does “off-axis” feel like physically? 

She tapped the pen against her knee, trying to reframe her memory of last night in language Lin used instinctively. What did she feel when she brushed the edge of the spirit world trying to show Lin how it felt? It was almost like a drift sideways in her chest, like the world had tilted by a fraction of a degree.

She wrote, 

tilt = load transfer?  

not heavier -> just sideways? Lin is going to hate that one 

like feeling a beam shift inside a wall

It still didn’t feel clean enough. Lin needed blueprints. She wrote, 

explain like:  

reading metal tension?  

waiting for tension leak. Does tension leak? 

“Ayla,” Varrin called from their clustered desks, waving a stack of donation routing forms. “Did you get the notice about tomorrow’s logistics meeting?”

“What notice?” she asked, already reaching for the folder.

“The one I told you about twenty minutes ago.” He handed over the forms. “Mentally with us today, or…?”

Ayla forced a guilty smile. “Halfway.”

“Long night?”

“Sorry,” she said automatically. “Just thinking.”

“Dangerous,” he muttered, then added brightly, “Want me to bring you an extra pastry at break? You look like you need sugar.”

Ayla shook her head declining, pushing aside her notes for Lin. Work settled in after that and she forced herself to try and stay on track. Letters to draft, approvals to route, calls from community partners checking on disbursement timelines. But every so often, her mind flicked back to the bluffs. To the way Lin had kissed her in the car afterward with a kind of fierce, wordless gratitude. Spirits. Ayla would solve this if it killed her.

She pulled the piece of scrap paper back toward her.

lin’s problem isn't inability, it’s over-mapping. she keeps forcing shape but needs undefined space maybe? she feels stability, so maybe angle as unstable resonance? 

She stared at that one for a long moment. Someone walked by and dropped a pastry on her desk and she didn't look up to see if it was Varrin, she just kept jotting down notes to share with Lin. She's trying because she's scared, you have to figure this out. If Lin was willing to step into the unknown to protect her, to understand her, to follow her into something that terrified her on principle, she would meet her halfway. 

Ayla stayed later than she needed to that evening. Technically, she could have gone home two hours ago, but the office had emptied out slowly enough that staying felt natural. Varrin packed up with a distracted wave, someone from development called goodnight, and eventually the lights over the far rows clicked off one section at a time. She told herself she was just finishing the last batch of routing approvals. But really, she knew Lin was working late, and there was something comforting about knowing they were both somewhere in the city, focused, busy, their evenings running parallel. She shrugged her coat on, tucked her scribbled notes for Lin into her pocket, and stepped outside. 

The sky had fully slipped into twilight by the time she boarded the tram. The rail hummed beneath her boots as it pulled away. 

A few stops later, as the tram curved along the elevated track that skirted downtown, she saw it, a massive crowd of Southern Water Tribe demonstrators gathered between buildings, a steady thrum of raised voices reaching even through the glass. Ayla found herself leaning closer to the window.

The tram carried them past the next block, and then the world flashed orange. A boom cracked through the air, sharp enough that several passengers shouted in surprise. A plume of fire blasted up from somewhere behind the line of buildings, orange against the purple sky. A second later came the sound, a deep explosion that made the tram windows shudder. 

People surged to the side of the car, craning to see. Someone swore loudly, another clutched their bag. A child started crying. Ayla’s breath dropped out of her chest. Lin. The tram kept moving, too slow, too indifferent, through the city’s grid of lights while her mind reeled through every impossible scenario. She forced herself to breathe, forced herself to repeat that Lin knew how to keep herself safe, that she was with dozens of officers, that she had handled worse. It didn’t make the sick feeling in her stomach ease.

By the time the tram reached her stop, she was already digging in her pockets for her keys. She nearly stumbled on the last step, and made the walk home in a clipped, thoughtless rush. Inside her apartment, she dropped her bag by the door and immediately twisted the radio dial to the news channel.

“-repeat, a structural explosion occurred at the Southern Water Tribe Cultural Center-”  

“-no confirmed casualties at this time, emergency units on site-”  

“-authorities have not released a statement-”

It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t anywhere near enough.

She turned the volume louder, then louder again, pacing once, twice, before the restless energy tipped over into motion. She turned to her kitchen and unloaded everything onto the counter, jars, tins, spices, spreading them out into messy rows she immediately started reorganizing. When that didn’t help, she crossed to the bookshelf and emptied the top two shelves onto the table, sorting them into piles that made sense only in the moment. Soon half the apartment was covered in random stacks of nearly every item she owned. She was on her knees rearranging the space under her sink when there was a knock on her door. She set the jar she was holding down too hard and quickly crossed the room, yanking the door open to find Lin standing there. 

Her hair was messy, jaw set too tight, shoulders locked in that posture Ayla had learned meant she’d held everything she could possibly hold until she couldn’t anymore. “You’re here,” Ayla breathed. Relief hit her as she stepped back immediately, letting her inside. “It’s past midnight, are you okay? I saw the explosion from the tram, what happened?”

“I don’t know,” Lin said, exhausted. “Not yet. We secured the scene, got initial statements, but…” She let out a sound that was half exhale, half surrender. “I’m too damn tired to pretend I can make sense of it tonight.” Her gaze swept over the apartment and the chaos scattered around. Her brow edged upward by a millimeter. “…Did you get robbed?”

“I was stressed. Don’t comment.”

A faint ghost of a smile curved Lin’s mouth, not her usual dry amusement, but something softer, frayed at the edges. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

She unclasped her chest plate, hands a little clumsy with exhaustion. The metal clicked against itself as she set each piece down by the door, slower than normal. Lin unclasped her boots, and something in her posture wavered, not dramatically, but enough that Ayla still sensed it. “Come on,” Ayla said softly. “You need to lie down.”

Lin didn’t argue. Ayla reached for her hand, and Lin’s fingers closed around hers instantly, and she led her to the bed. Lin didn’t sit, she folded, letting her body drop into the mattress. Ayla turned off the light, climbed in behind her, and slid an arm around her waist. Lin leaned back into her immediately. The full, unguarded collapse of someone who had been holding herself upright by force of will since the moment the bomb went off.

Ayla held her, her breath slow against the back of her shoulder. Lin’s hand found her forearm, fingers curling tight, and Ayla pressed her forehead between Lin’s shoulder blades, voice soft. “Got you.”

Lin didn’t respond out loud, but she didn’t need to, because the way her fingers tightened, just a little, said everything Ayla needed to know. Her weight softened in Ayla’s arms, muscles loosening one by one, her entire body settling into the shape of the person holding her like it was the first safe space she’d found in the entire city. 

She let herself drop the title, the responsibility, the weight that came with shouldering crisis after crisis. She just let herself be Lin, tired, overwhelmed, in someone’s arms. And Ayla held her like she’d been waiting for this exact moment. Lin’s breathing eased, and her fingers didn’t let go. She fell asleep like that, and Ayla stayed awake long enough to feel the exact moment her weight settled fully against her.