Winding Legacies: A 'The Legend of Korra' Rewrite

Adventures in the Earth Kingdom: Chapter 3

Day 4: Oneta

"That doesn't look appetizing."

Bolin rested his chin on top of the kitchen counter, quietly watching Asami fry something on the stove to keep his mind off of Mako's letter, but as he caught a glimpse at the thing in the pan, he couldn't help his frown. "Maybe that's because it's not for eating."

"What do you cook that's not for eating?" Bolin asked, trying to look around her at the sizzling blob.

"Lot's of things. Tonics, healing pastes, this cleaner I'm making for the pans, compost. Water."

Bolin crossed his arms. "You don't cook water." Asami shrugged and turned the stove off, letting the pan continue to sizzle behind her as she leaned toward Bolin. How convenient that he knew all about cooking now after his pancake mishap.

"How would you know?" Bolin clamped his mouth shut as Asami stared him down.

"As a matter of fact, I have seen cooking occur on more than one occasion and even if my pancakes were bad, I at least know that you cannot cook water." Bolin straightened his back and clasped his hands on the counter, mirroring Asami's leaning form.

"I see."

Her comment didn't leave much room for continued conversation, which made Bolin a little uneasy. So to fill the silence that ensued, he hurriedly said, "Mako was always the one who cooked for us. He'd agree with me." Asami raised a brow.

"I think he'd be on my side for this one," she chuckled. "Speaking of, have you talked to him revently?"

Bolin winced. That was exactly the kind of conversation he was trying to avoid, and yet he walked himself right into it. After a few seconds of silence, Bolin raised his head just a tad and peeked through his eyelashes to see Asami staring at him, her head tilted curiously to the side. Bolin felt the need to look behind him, as if the intense look in her eyes couldn't possibly be for him. But, the longer she stared, the more Bolin started to second guess his last few moments. Did he accidentally say what he thought out loud?

"What did you do?"

Bolin knew he didn't do anything, but the confidence in Asami's voice had him second guessing himself. Did he in fact do something that he didn't know he did? "What do you mean? I didn't do a thing." Bolin's voice cracked under itself and Asami leaned further over the counter. Now, she was just messing with him, but it was amusing to her to watch Bolin squirm.

"Spill it. I saw you pretend to be asleep all along when I said I had a letter for you from Mako." Was that probably irrelevant? Most definitely, but in Asami's multi-step plan to get someone to confess something to you, the second, and most important step, was to bring up suspicious behavior for them to dig themselves into a hole trying to disprove.

For Bolin, none of her genius-level thought processes crossed his mind. All he was focused on was the panic mode he went into every time someone came close to unraveling his stories. "I must have been in and out of sleep at that point." Bolin laughed nervously as Asami searched his eyes.

"Mhm. Then why are you so nervous?" Asami narrowed her eyes, focusing on making sure Bolin could feel her piercing gaze. That was step four. After doubting, you show them you mean business by staring them down. Most people break by then, but if they know what might happen once they do, they'll hold out for a bit longer. So all of Bolin's actions were doing was telling Asami that it was really about her by the lengths he was going through to keep quiet.

Looking anywhere but at her, Bolin fumbled around for some type of excuse. Before he knew it, his brain had gone completely blank and the first thing that shot out from the depths of his mind found its way spewing out of his mouth. "Mako died."