...wow.

See, when Tahno made his appearances on the show, I really didn't like him. He was obnoxious and arrogant and built to be an antagonist, even with the sympathetic appearance later on once he's been living without his bending.

And you've turned him around. I'm going to go put this on TV Tropes. That's right, now you can find it on the LoK fanfic recommendation page.

Guh. I know you write angsty stuff, but I feel like this was just so much heavier than what I'm used to seeing from you. I almost feel like this should be labeled under "tragedy" or something. D:

Tahno in this story shows so much more depth and character development than Korra did in the finale. Korra forgot everything she had learned in the first 8 episodes and was ready to give up (possibly contemplating suicide), and then Aang took pity on her and magically made it all better. Korra didn't do anything to earn her Airbending or to reach the Avatar state.
But Tahno isn't giving up. He's viewing his loss as an opportunity to examine himself and see what he could do better. He's learned that there's more to life than bending and he's trying to figure out who he is apart from that. Fear of losing his bending again provides a good motivation.
I also like the way this fanfic addresses the economic desparity between benders and nonbenders - something that the series hinted at but didn't explore to any depth.
Season Two will have to address whether the Avatar can give bending to nonbenders. I imagine most nonbenders would jump at that opportunity - at least the ones who aren't too proud. "I could shoot fire out of my hands and feet? Sign me up for that!"

This is so beautiful. Seriously. This is almost exactly how I imagined Tahno would be after he lost his bending, always letting his pride go before everything and anything.

The premise of this fic is really interesting.

Kudos to you for justifying the "Tahno doesn't want his bending back" plot in a way that makes sense and fits his character (or what we have seen of it). I love Tahno, but him getting all maudlin' and "I need to redeem myself so I won't take my bending back 'cause it'll make me slip back into EVIL" always seemed ridiculous and OOC to me (and yeah, I've seen that idea floating around).

Your approach is more subtle and also more in line with how he could be like if he had more depth in canon: he realizes how weak/useless he is with out it, so once the possibility of getting it back becomes real, he fears becoming weak once more, especially if he somehow loses it again. I like how you wrote his relationship with his brother and his co-worker (kudos for making her a lesbian who crushes and Korra).

Oh and of course, his other reason for not approaching Korra are his feelings for her. Given his personality and his crush on her, yeah, it would sting him big time that he fell completely off her radar and that she doesn't even recognize him in the crowd. It was almost a relief that when he does come face to face with her, she did remember him after all.

The only thing about the story that I would criticize is that the swearing is in a different language than the rest. Unnecessary (meaning stuff that has serviceable equivalents in English) foreign words always throw me out of a fic, even if I do understand said foreign language. It only gets worse when I don't understand it.
But it's up to you, I don't want to push you into anything you feel uncomfortable about. It's still a very enjoyable, interesting and well-written fanfic.