Video; UN: Korra

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[The face that appears on video is not at all her usual self. If anything, she seems shell-shocked. In truth, an entire piece of her has been unceremoniously ripped out of herself, and frankly she's moving through the day, just carrying out necessary motions.]

[Like a ghost haunting her own life.]

...Asami's gone.

[There is a long silence after that. She wants to say things about her, say what she meant to Korra, say all the things she never said in this stupid, stupid hell she loathed with all her heart that trapped them all - but what would be the point? Those who knew Asami already knew, and those who didn't wouldn't care.]

If you had any projects with her, I'll keep her shop open long enough for you to collect them.

...That's all.

[And not once, in those words, did her eyes so much as move towards the camera, staring off into the far distance instead. Right now, she's holding herself together by a thread.]

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[Because part of her had been. Anybody who had seen them fight together would have seen it - they moved as a team, without planning it, without creating it. She hadn't thought much of it, but Katara had once told her stories about how her and Aang danced, how they flowed together like two pieces of one person. It had been, in large part, how she had known what they were meant to be. It had been a telling thing for Korra, too, in the end. And oh, how she wished they'd gotten time to dance.]

Yeah. I won't.

[Because he's right. Because she'd lost three potential years with her, then. She couldn't betray her like that, even departed, by making the same mistake.]

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Good.

[ And the feed cuts before Korra gets a chance to argue—Mako has no idea whether she will, he still can't predict her half the time, which is what he likes so much about her—because Mako is absolutely taking Zuko and as much tea as he can carry, some of the dried kelp noodles he's been working on, and heading to Korra's house-hideout.

That she'd built with and for Asami.

Spirits, this is bad. Mako shoves at the ache in his own chest—brilliant Asami, clever Asami, who could re-engineer anything, is gone—because it doesn't matter. What matters is getting to Korra and then.

And then what? What is Mako going to do? The last time Korra had needed someone so much he'd failed her harder than ever. Mako can't forget the hurt in her eyes. Three years, almost four, stand now between who they were then and who they are now.

He shares a look with Zuko as he heads out into the darkness, holding up a small (tiny, so tiny) flickering flame to light the way to the lamp. ]

This a bad idea?

[ Zuko just stares at him, her golden eyes liquid, full of just as much uncertainty. Fog creeps over the ground as he walks, curls around his fingers. The fire in his palm splutters and dies, and Mako murmurs a soft curse as he steps into the pool of lamplight and whisks away into nothing, reappearing in a small eddy of fog and darkness on a street near Korra's house.

His flame won't relight—he misses the sun, misses the heat and the light and the knowledge of its presence—so he walks in gloomy darkness, lit only by a few small moths, up the slick stone to Korra's door, pushes it open after a cursory knock, if indeed she left it open. ]

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[It is left open. By itself, an unusual act. A strongly revealing one, too - because Korra never does that. The place had been built to be secure against enemies she didn't even know existed yet.]

[The entire place, to Korra, feels wrong. Like a museum, gone out of business. Like all the purpose and life has been drained out of it, like the victim of a strange sort of vampire. The ticking of clocks is now the only sound. Before it had been music, secured by Asami, or the sound of them cooking in the kitchen. Or her tinkering in her work space. Alive. And now it's dead.]

[Korra herself can be found in the living room, before the fireplace. She is making soup. She can't bear to be in the kitchen. Or any of the spaces they'd intimately shared. The fire is the only light.]

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[ It's the silence and the darkness that do it. There's no sunlight outside to filter in, no fresh air, nothing moving. It's strange and empty and dead and Mako feels like even his breath is too much, sending eddies of sound through the quiet.

He lets the door fall silently shut behind him, pads in toward the flicker of light, and hesitates in the doorway to the living room, watching the orange on Korra's face. What does he say? He'd been in the same state when she'd gone home to begin with, numb and cold and quiet. Anything he says is going to be the wrong thing, probably, and so he opts to say nothing at all, just sighs and presses in to come and sit by her, silent. A shoulder, a presence. A bit of life that isn't just her. ]

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[And once he's there, she just leans into him, saying nothing in turn. She can't think of what to say. He knows. He knows better than anyone.]

[But there's one thing she can do, now, with someone she trusts. And that's to break down and begin to sob uncontrollably.]

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[ Mako hates seeing the people loves cry.

There are plenty of things worse than that—she could be gone too, they could all be gone—but it's such a helpless feeling, watching Korra fracture beside him, knowing there's absolutely nothing he can do about it. Asami is gone, called back to the sea or whatever it is that happens when people here leave. There isn't even the assurance, this time, that she's woken up, that she's in a better place.

Mako lets a hand drop to her shoulder and then changes his mind and presses it into her hair instead, the way he did when they were a thing all those years ago. I'm here, the hand says, even if she's not.

Mako's not Asami. He can't hope to be. ]

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[She doesn't believe it's a better place people go to. She believes it's all just pawns being moved in the Pthumerian grand game. She's starting to hate them, every one of them, as much as she'd hated people like Amon, or Zaheer. Worse, perhaps, because they were untouchable pretend gods.]

[But for the moment, she can't do anything, and that fuels part of her sorrow - and she just reaches out, grabbing hold of Mako and pressing tight.]

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[ Only when the first wave of grief has subsided a little—after Mako has tugged her close in turn, taken a little of her weight, let her cry because there is nothing else he can do—does Mako finally ask, quiet and rough-voiced, ]

When did she leave?

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I don't know.

[Managed, just barely.]

She was just...gone. I woke up and this place just felt...empty.

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[ And Korra could probably sense it. Mako has a vague idea that he's be able to tell if Wu had gone. Maybe their bond makes it more likely, maybe not, but...

He clutches Korra a little closer. ]

She's still out there somewhere.

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I can only hope that.

[She sighs, folding in on herself a bit.]

It's all I can do.