[ Listening to Varian talk about this is like listening to a younger version of himself. Mako presses his hand a little more firmly onto Varian's back, leading him up the beach to some twisted, bleached log sticking out of the sand like bones. The sand is hot under their feet, baked by the high sun.

For once, the words come easily. For once Mako knows exactly how to handle this rush of emotion and fear bubbling up from the depths of his friend, because he knows that fear as intimately as he knows his own bending. ]

You're not wrong about that. Firebending is the most dangerous kind of bending. It's the easiest to lose control of, and the easiest to misuse. Firebenders are... inherently dangerous. Especially amateur ones.

[ There is a weight in his tone, a flat calm smoothing over a deep-held belief. If you talk like it doesn't hurt, people won't think it does.

Varian, he is sure, knows what happened to Mako's parents, how quickly their lives were extinguished in a burst of sharp flame. Mako knows very well how much danger lives in his palms, in his limbs: how easily he could kill someone. How many firebenders do, how many of them thought they were better for so long. The wounds of a nation don't heal that easily, especially given the land Republic City is built on. ]

If you can firebend now, then you're going to need to learn how to control it. That's just a given.