[ If Korra's Good comes as a surprise, Hei doesn't let it show. (It doesn't) His ideas of Korra are wrapped up in kindness. But he also knows how narrow and stifling anger can be, how it can close on all other emotions until they curdle into corruption. Korra's innocence is a transient thing. At the rate her life's going, it'll last barely another summer before the petals' pinks start to fade and the stench of reality begins to corrupt. In the back of his mind, he knows it must've been cruel, the way he'd been so uncaring, the way Pavel had shrugged her anger off. It must've felt like going to the police when you've been burgled or attacked or raped, and them telling you to forget it, because life goes on and in a few years from now, what will it matter? ]

[ What she doesn't understand is Hei's flickering moral compass, his ideas of right and wrong. There are layers of cold indifference built up over his history; chip away one and it will reveal the memories of five years ago. Insert a needle through the epidermis, and it'll reveal a long column of the past, of horrors that have been compacted and hidden away. Each one meaning less and less emotion, lost behind years of sediment. Unfortunately Korra's met him when the thickest sheet has formed and the ice is almost impenetrable. ]

[ Almost. ]

[ He doesn't try to defend himself to Korra. But he does say, after a pause. ] Try not to be too angry with Pavel. You're his friend. But Marie is too. He couldn't condemn her without hearing her side of the story as well. [ The difference between him and Hei. Pavel wanted to know Why. All Hei focused on was What Next? ]