The next few minutes felt like an eternity to Korra, who looked at her own hands as if they had become a foreign extension of her altogether. A few more experimental thrusts and punches produced the same futile result and confirmed her very worst fears: not even a spark of flame. But how? She had been Fire bending as early as a few hours ago! As far as she knew, nothing had changed since then.
She shivered as the realization settled in, panic gripping her heart cold.
It wasn't just the prospect of losing her bending that frightened her, despite what the Fire Nation had done to her, she enjoyed Fire bending. It was the first element she had ever learned to bend, and one of her earliest memories of her childhood was the feeling of joy and amazement from bending her first flames, watching them dance wildly in the air and lighting up the darkness around her cell. Her fire bending had been the only thing anyone had ever acknowledged and praised her for in the prison camp, and it had been the one thing helped her and her family survive those harsh years when the Warden had forcibly conscripted her into his ranks. And while Fire itself could be both destructive and wild, Korra had always thought there was a natural beauty to her flames, something that she couldn't quite explain.
But now, that was gone, and with that, Korra suddenly felt a strange emptiness building inside her, as if she had also lost a piece of herself as well.
"But we only saw you bend fire earlier today!" Tarrlok said, taken aback as well by the recent developments. "That doesn't make any sense."
"I...I don't know what happened." She said.
Tarrlok turned to his brother with a worried expression on his face. While he was horrified for Korra, he wasn't quite sure how he to react in this situation. He had never seen anyone lose their bending just like that before and even if he wasn't a Fire Bender, he couldn't help but feel sympathy for Korra's plight. After all, how would it feel like if he had suddenly lost his water bending just like that? He would probably be dead weight to his father and brother, and he shuddered at that prospect.
Noatak however, didn't seem phased by this turn of events.
"You're better off without it." He said flatly.
Korra blinked in disbelief. "Excuse me?"
Noatak however, didn't flinch at Korra's outrage.
"I said," Noatak repeated, more sternly this time, "You're better off without it."
"How can you even say that?!" She protested.
"Nothing good ever came out of fire bending." Noatak said, "Its brought nothing but destruction and pain for our people."
"You don't know what you're talking about!" Korra replied derisively, her blood starting to boil at Noatak's callousness. "Besides, don't I have to learn all four elements if I'm supposed to be the Avatar?"
"I know that." Noatak sighed, realizing that he may have gone a little too far with his last statement.
"Look, maybe we can take this is a sign of progress." Noatak offered. "We need you to work towards being a Water Bender first, to balance out your jing. This is probably just an adjustment period for you. Once you master water bending, your fire bending should come back."
That however, wasn't good enough for Korra.
"This is all your fault!" She said accusingly. "Your stupid negative jing exercises did this to me."
"I didn't mean to take your firebending away." Noatak replied, taken aback by that accusation. "It was just the best way for you to learn."
