#day13

She didn’t ask questions she knew Lin didn’t want to answer. She had brought food from the White Lotus kitchens, so she was able to have some Gaoling Beef instead of the bland tofu soup being served to Tenzin and his family. Even the tea eggs actually had good flavor.

She was grateful, and yet.

Lin wasn’t oblivious to the sidelong glances. The pauses just before Kya encroached on her thoughts. The harsh wispers at the door, keeping people away.

It was deep in the night when they returned, full of Korra’s breakthrough experience.

But when everyone returned to the temple, she couldn’t find Kya anywhere.

No note.

No message.

She threw her things in her bag and sat on Oogi for an hour waiting on everyone else to get organized.

That way, Kya could stop pretending to care.

.

Kya knew Lin meant well.

She hovered by Kya’s bedside, reading something. She always had a book or a paper or a report in her hand.

Any time she moved, she could feel Lin’s eyes on her. It was odd, how judged she felt.

If this is what being a patient was like, she wanted none of it.

Even if Lin kept her water jug full. Even if Lin had hot tea ready at any hour. Even if Lin brought her foods her healer would have a fit over. Even if she went to get Pema instead of her brothers.

She was grateful, and yet.

Lin just wouldn’t leave her alone longer than it took to get to the bathroom and back. She couldn’t leave Kya’s blankets alone, constantly tucking them in around her feet. When Kya asked for something to read, she took the healer’s side and offered to read something out loud instead.

With a sigh, Kya had just shaken her head silently, and turned to the window.

When the healer woke her for night-time vitals, Lin’s chair was empty. The nurse said something about a police officer pulling her away too urgently for her to leave a note.

Kya waited for the staff to leave before using the last water in the jug to heal herself just a little more.

She froze her foot in a boot of ice, walked to the bay, waterbent herself to the Island and slowly worked her way up to the family quarters.

The crowd in the lobby parted as her boots clanged against the tile floring, the noise echoing throughout the hall. Even her officers - and they were hers again - stared at her in consternation, not willing to do anything to slow her down.

Reaching forward with her bending, she wrenched the swinging wooden doors forward and out of her line of progress. She squelched the guilt she felt when someone got smacked off their feet.

At the top of the stairs to the third floor, she slammed open the door to the bullpen and shouted, “SAIKHAN!”

Everyone in the room froze. She ignored the gapes, the terrified looks on faces.

Her breaths were harsh and loud, her fists tight with rage.

At the other end of the room, the door to her - hers, not his - office slowly swung open.

And there he stood, in full uniform as if he hadn’t been fired the second she got her bending back.

“Lin, you have to know I didn’t ask for this. I never wanted this.”

With pin-point precision, she latched hold of his chestpiece and yanked him across the room, disturbing nothing else in the room. His head flailed backwards, but he caught himself, and tried to fight back.

One of the first things recruits to the metalbending unit learned was control of their own armor at all times. Humiliation didn’t begin to cover what she was doing to him.

She grasped his armor in her hand when they made contact and she crumpled it like so much waste paper.

“You gave in to Tarlock. You corralled civilians! You harrassed non-benders! You gave them everything they wanted! And for what? So you could call yourself Chief when you looked in the mirror?”

At that, his face hardened, even while raising his hands to either side.

“For my kids, Lin. First Tarlock, then Amon. They lost their bending, then they were in cages, and not even together. They had Ming-Li in city hall as a servant. I didn’t see her for weeks.”

His face crumpled and tears fell from his eyes. He shifted, and the full weight of his armor pulled against her before she could control it.

He had opened his armor at the back and stepped away from her.

Piece by piece, the rest of his armor clattered to the ground as he walked away in nothing but his undershirt and trousers.