steps in a journey

[anatural]

WHO: Korra & Hei
WHAT: A break from suffering for a little adorable.

[Korra lies back on the roof of the airship and lets out a heavy sigh of relief. Finally, some peace and quiet. When they'd started out on their journey, Korra had thought Asami's airship was ridiculously huge for their little party, but after two months of traveling, Korra's pretty sure a continent wouldn't give her enough space from Tenzin.

Surprisingly, her mentor hadn't exploded when he found out about the pregnancy. You’re not seventeen anymore, I know that, he'd told her. You’re only a few years younger than Pema was when Jinora was born. Korra thought she'd gotten off the hook, but Tenzin's relentless fretting was even worse than his explosive temper. It got even worse after she told Mako, Bolin, and Asami; the two brothers immediately teamed up with the air bending master to nanny her to death. They hadn't stopped fussing at her until Master Katara came aboard and asked how many times they'd been pregnant. As if to make up for the boys' fussiness, Asami's been laser-focused on their mission to find new air benders. And Hei...

She sighs. Hei is Hei. The eternally confusing, mind-breaking mess that she finds herself loving more and more despite everything. She wonders how long it will take him to hunt her down.]

Comments

[mortemscintilla]

[ Not too long at all. ]

[ With the fact of the baby practically fait accompli, he has little choice but to accept that she's keeping it. Nevermind that, if she'd had the choice to make beforehand, she'd never have opted to make offspring with him. Nevermind that even if they weren't what they are, they're still who they are -- and if there were ever a litmus test for parenting skills they'd both plunge sorely below the bars of suitability. Nevermind that they don't know what to do so much as what to not to -- which in itself is not a promising way to start a family. ]

[ Yet Korra seems to feel, in every corpuscle, the impossibility of giving up her child. Hei can argue and reason all he likes with her. But a lower, instinctual part of her brain seems to have taken over, and will not budge. ]

[ In moments alone, he can only shake his head. Hormones. Those damn hormones will be the end of her. They've swamped her sanity, and that tenuous self of self-preservation. ]

[ Yet, mixed in with his anxiety and frustration... there's something like a dark relief. She never envisioned this. He never envisioned this. But it's happened. Maybe ... there's a reason. Is it his business circumventing it? ]

[ He doesn't know. All he's aware of is that his stress levels seem to jump higher than hers as the days pass, though he does a remarkable job of hiding them. He tries to be attentive of her, light and just solicitous enough without being irritating. Yet he can't fully recover that sense of calmness. It is so fucking reckless for her to be on this trip, hunting for airbenders, while she's pregnant, while the Red Lotus is after her. A fact he tells her often enough -- not that she listens. He's always on red alert, watchful for threats. Yet his body feels wrong, like his center of gravity has shifted, like he's a compass with the needle pointing incessantly North. At Korra -- and the fetus inside her, growing each day without knowledge of the storm brewing around it. ]

[ He hopes the baby can't feel how anxious he is. Although he knows that as yet it is just a bunch of almost undifferentiated cells, still he worries about that. ]

[ It wouldn't be fair, to be born tense. ]

[ Now, he gives Korra thirty minutes, before following her out. In his hands, a peace offering, in case she explodes at him for not giving her any privacy. A tray of scallion pancakes. Beef-and-liver with dark oily sauce. A dollop of pork dumplings. A fresh-tossed salad (with lychees!). During Katara's visit, she'd mentioned something about Korra not having gained enough weight. She hadn't meant it as a slight against him. But Hei had certainly perceived it as such. ]

[ In the wake of her departure, he's made it a point to stuff Korra until she gains at least five to ten pounds. He's already written up a diet-plan. How many meals she should have daily. Her intake of vitamins, proteins, minerals. It's easier to focus on the technical side, the margins for error, rather than having an aneurysm over whether this is a good idea, and whether they'll even survive to know by the end of it. ]

[ Now, he hesitates a beat, then settles a few feet from her. Places the tray between them, almost like an olive branch. ]

Time to eat.

[anatural]

[Stop projecting your own issues, Hei. Korra is as terrified of the idea of parenthood as any first time mother, but she's hardly unsuited to the role. She just needs practice and support, the latter of which she has in abundance.

Her hands are splayed over her stomach, trying to feel the change, sense the life inside her. Sometimes she thinks she almost can, but most of the time there's nothing. Sensing other people's chi never had been her strongest suit. It's something she plans on working on with Master Katara after this whole Red Lotus thing is dealt with. She sits up when she hears footsteps approaching — Hei, by the smell of food. She smiles at him as he settles down. The thirty minutes alone had done wonders for her mood.]

You know you're not allowed to call me fat if you're the one stuffing my face, right?

[mortemscintilla]

[ He still maintains that she's too young. He still maintains that she's the Avatar, and that it's in her best interests to stay in fighting trim -- not toting a screaming infant around. Most of all, he maintains that he's entirely the wrong person she should be having a child with. A killer -- amoral, ruthless, and ultimately worthless. Already, he can imagine the child growing in her womb, soaking up his evils and fuck-ups. After it's born, he wonders if he'll look for himself in the small evolving face, in its little mannerisms. Maybe he'll hate how the baby ties him down, a cruel mirror-image of himself. Maybe Korra will hate the bargain she's made. Hate that she's brought a life so flawed into being solely because of obligation. ]

[ It feels like such a awful thing ... awful for him, for her, awful for the child. ]

[ Except, looking at Korra's bright smile, loosened of its recent strain, he can't say that. Instead he tries for a half-smile of his own. Nudges the tray towards her, while studiously avoiding eye-contact with that growing pooch of her belly. (It makes him vaguely uncomfortable, the idea of something alive inside her. It reminds him of parasites.) ]

[ Instead, almost dryly, ]

I'm stuffing you because I have to. And I call you fat because you are.

[ Not that it stops him from unsnapping the chopsticks, then spearing a dumpling with neat alacrity to offer it to her. ]

[anatural]

Then I guess you can keep your poor hands off of my fat breasts. [If she were truly miffed, this would be the point she'd take chopsticks and feed herself. But this is all in good fun. The truth is, she's hardly showing. People who see her can't tell she's pregnant; she can barely tell herself, and she hasn't figured out whether Hei can actually see the difference, or if he claims he can for shits & giggles. Either is entirely plausible.

She takes the proffered dumpling and wiggles her toes in her boots as the flavors hit her tongue. Food tastes different to her now, that's one thing she's definitely noticed. So bar, it's been a good different. More intense. Or maybe it's the traveling? For the first time in her life, being able to taste a wide range of local cuisines from different regions. She's a homebody; she's never longed to travel like Aang did, but that doesn't mean she's not excited at the opportunity to really see the world she's sworn to protect.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Oh, he can see the difference. The barest start of a pooch to her little stomach, but Hei hasn't made a career out of cataloging weak-points and dismantling bodies for nothing. He still remembers the training he'd received in Heaven's war, for learning how to distinguish whether a civilian female was really up the spout, or whether she was actually smuggling weapons and supplies under her dress. ]

[ But that's another thing he can't share with her. Instead, blinking in the bright sunlight, he captures the perfect, heightened vision of her in which the familiar and unfamiliar mixes: hair an unruly mane, curves lush and sweet, skin a dark gleam across the arms and face and shoulders as if drops of hot toffee have poured from the sky and drenched her. ]

[ Basically what you'd expect of a healthy teenager whose first time getting knocked up has made her plump and glossy, not yet turned into one of those scrawny hags with packs of kiddies hanging off them, who populate the warrens of streets around the Republic City. ]

[ Hei is hoping to keep it that way. He has a wealth of misgivings about the baby. But when it comes to Korra, his priorities are clear. Make sure the pregnancy goes smoothly. Make sure she endures as little stress as possible. So far she's developed no symptoms of any complications, but he's not altered his quiet watchfulness as time passes; anything from heartburn to a mild fever to if her scent changes with signs of warning. ]

[ With an air of satisfaction, he watches her chew the dumpling. Her remark threatens to tip his smile wider. ]

I wouldn't call them 'fat.' [ He plucks a small slab of liver from the tray, proffering it to her. ] Healthy handfuls, maybe.

[ That, or, just plain awesome. ]

[anatural]

[She snorts and rolls her eyes affectionately. Healthy handfuls, yeah. They'd been that before; now it's like they've got magnets, his hands are so drawn to them. As soon as their door closes, he's got her cupped in his palms, and more often than not she either falls asleep or wakes up with Hei fondling her.

She leans forward again to take the bite of liver.]

Are you gonna feed me this whole thing?

[mortemscintilla]

[ He won't deny he's developing a small fixation. It's funny; he's never thought of himself as a tit-man, or a leg-man, or an anything-man. Expediency and sex go hand-in-hand for him; he's seldom had the same list of requirements as other young men his age -- straight hair or coltish curves or pale skin or freckles or the absolute lack of them. He's been of the general opinion that all woman are the same in the dark. ]

[ It's only recently that he's learnt the saying is one of boorish self-absorption. As up close and personal as he's gotten with Korra, it's hard to imagine he wouldn't be able to distinguish between her or some random bar-fly in the dark anymore -- no matter how drunk he is. ]

[ He watches her chew, his gaze lit with a softer light than a moment ago. He'd been concerned she'd lose her appetite at this stage, or develop weird cravings, or ... well. Turn into Pai on her period, who'd devour all the contents in his fridge on a bad day, then crankily demand seconds. But so far she's just been Korra -- all bright-eyed gusto or wrinkle-nosed dismay, depending on how much meat there is in each dish. ]

[ Idly, he says, ]

You still don't have enough folates in your diet. [ There's a beat, before he amends. ] Leafy greens.

[anatural]

[In this Korra has been very lucky, though she doesn't realize how much. For awhile she'd been afraid she was doing something wrong, since she isn't having any of the issues normally associated with pregnancy, but Master Katara had assured her that she was fine and just needed to gain a little more weight.

Speaking of wrinkle-nosed dismay, she wrinkles her nose in dismay at his words.]

You know, there aren't a lot of leafy greens in the South Pole and pregnant women there do just fine.

[mortemscintilla]

Not taking any chances.

[ The pregnancy might be smooth sailing so far. But that's no reason to get complacent. He's wired enough with the news of the Red Lotus, with the wariness that any lull could be a prelude to an attack, with deep-simmering speculations that he might not actually feel anything for this little protoperson-to-be, or whether he might let Korra down before he's had a chance to get past the starting line. Why pile unnecessary risks on top of all that? ]

[ It's odd. He can count on one hand the number of times he's been paralyzed by fear. But his hopes and fears -- twining thornily around the fact of Korra's pregnancy -- definitely count. Everytime he looks at her, he thinks of what he's won, what he stands to lose. Sometimes he even thinks about love -- instead of hastily shelving it to the background. Big word. Four whole letters. He's trying it on for size as he studies the growing curve of Korra's belly, torso to shoulders to the fragile stem of neck below the tropistic sunflower of her silly head. And each time, he thinks that love isn't a useful word for what you can feel for someone. It is and it isn't. ]

[ Spearing a bright sprig of mint and a pale globe of lychee, he extends it to her. ]

Anyway, you can't pretend every baby born in the South Pole is perfectly healthy.

[anatural]

I'm not! I'm just saying, leafy greens can't be that important. [But if it'll make him shut up, she can oblige him for now. And lychees are good. She makes a little sound of pleasure as she bites down on the squishy fruit.]

Did you hear? Asami picked up a rumor that there's a whole family of new airbenders in the western Earth Kingdom.

[Exciting not only because it's a number of airbenders, but because it might mean that it'll be easier to talk them into joining. Leaving everything you've known and loved behind for a life of asceticism is a hard sell, but if you could stay with your family...]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He's distracted enough by that sweet fuzzy noise she makes that he blinks once or twice before focusing on the subject at hand. He won't argue that recruiting the new airbenders is a tough job. Tenzin's ... marketing schemes, for lack of a better word ... don't exactly resonate with the hearts and minds of the masses. Disavowing your earthly possessions to rest your bald pate each night on a rough hemp pallet, then awaken at the crack of dawn to the chime of altar bells... Well, he can say with sincerity he's endured worse. But the average person may not adapt so easily. ]

[ Thoughtfully, he plucks another dumpling to offer her. Says, after a beat, ]

What if they refuse to leave? These people are settled into their routines. Things like restoring a lost culture don't appeal, if it means abandoning your entire way of life. The older you are, the tougher it is to adjust.

[anatural]

[Korra shrugs.]

The same thing we've done with everyone else who hasn't wanted to come — leave and look for someone else. [Duh.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Oh Korra. Sweet, simple, shortsighted Korra. Eat your damn dumpling. ]

Have you considered that at the rate things are going ... you may end up with no airbenders at all?

[ Just sayin.' ]

[anatural]

[Korra wilts a little at that.]

Yeah, I know. But what else can we do? We can't force people to join us. [She'd thought about it, sure, but it'd fairly quickly occurred to her that the constant airbender talk of "freedom" would conflict with forced conscription.]

[mortemscintilla]

You can't.

[ This isn't the Syndicate's method of 'recruitment.' But he won't deny it's more effective than wheedling. You know what they say about the element of surprise -- paired with brute force. ]

But it's like Bolin says -- maybe showmanship will help? Something to enhance people's perceptions of the Air Nomad life. Focus their attention on the good -- fun -- aspects. And by fun, I don't mean being best friends with a flying bison.

[ Again, with a quiet patience, he extends the dripping dumpling her way. (It almost reminds him of the way he used to watch Pai drink her milk, during the brief period she hadn't liked it.) ]

[anatural]

That's the problem. [She chomps on the dumpling and erks as some drips onto her shirt. Quick, wipe wipe wipe! Mouth full, she continues.] I don't actually know that much about Air Nomad life. Nobody does, except for Tenzin. And his idea of fun doesn't exactly match the rest of the world.

[mortemscintilla]

[ With an amusement that he keeps carefully concealed, he watches her daub the stains off her blouse. Fishes in his pocket for a napkin, which he presses into her palm. ]

So ... dramatize it. Make it entertaining and exotic. Focus on perks like the chance to travel and see the world. How the katas help reduce heart disease, joint pain, all that stuff. How certain foods and herbs promote mental wellness, reduce stress, enhance sexual prowess. [ He tips her a crooked, almost imperceptible smile. Always with the sex. ] If you make it seem special and engaging, you get to convey positive feelings to other people. Ones that slowly predispose them to appreciate other aspects of the lifestyle and culture.

[ There is a daub of grease surging up over her lip. Instead of waiting for her to lick it off, he leans in to kiss her. The dumpling makes her lips salty, deliciously slippery. But, mindful of the fact that someone might walk in on them, he only indulges for a moment before drawing back. ]

[anatural]

[Wow. He really knows how to sell things. Korra grins as he kisses her.]

We should put you in charge of the sales pitch.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Well, he's been selling half-lies and distorted facts for years now. Because people seldom want to know the truth; rather, they want something, an illusion, a buffer, that makes those truths bearable, even nonexistent. And if Korra and her crew can find some way to tap into that unspoken need within these new airbenders, they might have an easier time reeling them in. ]

[ He doesn't say that, though. Instead he stays close to Korra, sunlight melting like butter around them the same way something inside him -- that hard kernel of doubts, anxieties and suspicions always prodding at the edges of his psyche, like that story of the Princess and the Pea -- seems to be softening, deliquescing. ]

[ Dryly, he says, ]

Until Tenzin accuses me of making a circus out of his sacred culture. Face it. We already resemble a carny troupe.

[anatural]

[Korra waves her hand dismissively.] He'll get over it when he has actual airbenders to teach. [She scoots closer and looks at him pleadingly.] Come on. You know how important this is!

[mortemscintilla]

[ She scooches near, a bright slice of big eyes and hopefulness, and the expression on Hei's face -- a mix of doubtful and considering and amused -- should say just how much he's on the fence about helping Tenzin out with anything. Still, if it cuts their search short, it means they'll get faster to the Metal Clan's territory. And that's the safest place for Korra to be right now. ]

[ Hei smiles, but the next thing he's doing is holding a thick slice of pancake out for her, an obvious motion for her to keep eating. He doesn't bother to answer her question. ]

I'll see what I can do when we hit the next town, [ is all the clarification she gets. ]

[anatural]

[She'll just take that as a yes. Grinning, she kisses him on the cheek, then takes the pancake. And that's about as cutesy as she can maintain. She grabs the plate of dumplings and finishes them off in a few breaths. Then, with a pointed look, she picks up the salad and starts eating that too.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He watches as she applies herself with singeleminded zeal into polishing off everything on the tray. With the clear blue sphere of sky stretching out above them, and the shimmer of the water below, interwoven with the textured pleats and patches of farmland and village, like an intricate tapestry, it's easy for his otherwise sober mood to lift, the sun touching his bare arms and face, and bringing with it a heady sense of freedom. ]

[ Because here he is, away from the Syndicate, freelance, under-the-radar, with someone he wants to be with. The fact of baby still prickles under his skin, a tiny omen, but maybe in the end having it is not that much of a change from what he's been doing with Korra. He may be unsure he can even do this at all, but Hei isn't one for giving up. ]

[ After a beat, almost casually, ]

Is there any way to know, once you get bigger ... what gender it might be?

[ By 'It', he means the baby. The question, placed between them like a pair of chopsticks folded across the bowl, is unexpected. Usually he refers to the baby much more indirectly. ]

[anatural]

Hm. [It's not hesitation — he just happens to ask the question while her mouth is stuffed with beef. She waves her hand to tell him to wait, quickly chews and swallows.]

Not really. Master Katara says she has the aura of a girl, but it's not an exact science. [Still, Master Katara's read is good enough for Korra to choose pronouns. She doesn't care much about the gender either way.]

[mortemscintilla]

'Aura'?

[ He's still inclined to take these things with a pinch of salt. It reminds him of the myriad of superstitions and folklore back home. How cravings for sour food indicate it's a boy, while cravings for sweets mean it's a girl. How, if your nipples have a thickness and darkness like dates, your child will suffer an impoverished life. How you should strengthen your yin by eating pears cooked in syrup. How if you have cramps, it means the qi is stagnating around the womb, and the best cure is sugar-sprinkled daikon radish. How you should visit herbalists who check the color of your tongue, listen to the pulses on your wrist, and prescribe you pills and formulas to make sure the fetus is 'peaceful.' ]

[ It all comes back to him now, in a gust of both dry amusement and disdain. He slants an oblique glance toward her belly, then murmurs, ]

If we were back in my world, or the City, there would be ultrasounds done. Little black and white pictures to see exactly what it [ ...or possibly she... ] looks like.

[anatural]

[Don't think she's unaware of your feelings about it, Hei. She looks at him askance, but doesn't snark about it.]

We don't have anything like that. I've never heard about it, anyway.

[mortemscintilla]

[ He ignores the way her face puckers into that cute little moue that could either melt chocolate or curdle milk, depending on whether it's used for Good or Evil. Hesitates a beat, then lays a hand on her belly. The material is warmed by the sun and her flesh; her stomach feels both drumlike and soft beneath it. No sparks leaping off to transmit any unspoken messages ob the baby's gender. No preternatural radiation to alert him that there is, in fact, a third presence burgeoning inside at all. Just Korra -- with a tummy like a flattened steamed-bun. ]

[ Idly, he walks his fingers up her midriff. ]

You'd be able to see everything. Fingers. Toes. Nose. Eyelids. All baking inside you. [ With him and Korra both adding ingredients. Like a casserole, only creepier. A living casserole, with little fingers and tiny toes and hopefully no extra appendages or stunted emotions or freakish superpowers. At least he hopes not. Hell's Gate's radiation can't possibly stretch its tainted fingers here. Ideally, the baby shouldn't be a Contractor. ]

[ He's not sure how he'd handle it, if it is one. ]

[anatural]

Seriously? [Feeling a little bold, she scoots to lean back against him. They're having a good moment; might as well see if he'll indulge her in some cuddling without fucking each other senseless first.] That's amazing. You should tell Asami about it.

[mortemscintilla]

[ He seems to consider it. First with pretend-playfulness, then a more speculative seriousness. ]

Maybe I will. Show her schematics. Have her design the machine. We could apply for a patent and split the profits.

[ He flicks a cursory glance around the periphery, in case Tenzin is hovering nearby. Folds her close, then, pushing against the wariness and distance that still feathers across him sometimes like a thin glaze of ice. A needful barrier he's set up by both necessity and default, and is only just learning to dismantle. He settles her against him, his arms and legs folding themselves around her like they're two cats, paws tucked close. Warm collapsible luggage. ]

[ For a moment he stares down at her like she's a feline mirror, half-lidded eyes to bright blue ones in some meaningful silent dialogue. ]

[ At beat, then, in a rare moment of honesty, ]

Ultrasound or not... I hope the baby's more like you than me.

[anatural]

[Korra sighs happily as she settles her weight more solidly against him. It'd be nice if he really did talk to Asami about it. Not just because it would be really cool to have a picture of the baby, but because it would (maybe) help him integrate more with her friends. She knows he feels isolated around them, like the odd man out, but it's a divide she has no idea how to breech. And for too long, it was a divide she was content to leave, because she liked having him all to herself, her own secret safe harbor when everything that should have felt familiar was alien and strange. She's over that now, mostly, and becoming mildly dissatisfied with feeling like she's living a double life. She doesn't need them all to like each other, but she wants everyone to feel like a team, and not just a group of people she's tenuously holding together.

The honest admission makes her heart flutter, though she has no idea how to respond. Me too comes perilously close to rolling off her tongue, but even to Hei that seems a little mean to say. Yet as much as she loves him, there's very little about him that she'd want to inflict on her offspring.]

I think... she's going to be like nobody else. [And not just because everybody's different. The child of a young Avatar, whose father is from a completely different world, born in the midst of global revolution... it's a unique mold.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's true. Around her friends, he's a fish out of water. Hell, he's still getting accustomed to the idea of having actual allies. (Yin and Mao might be the closest thing he has to those here -- what a fucking novel idea -- but trust is still a whole other ballgame.) ]

[ And Korra's team hovers between two uneasy lines: not enemies, not allies, not other snakes in the grass like he views rival Contractors, but not assets he can exploit either. Being around them makes him acutely aware that, for all the progress he's made with Korra, he still doesn't know how to be a real person: he's forgotten how to relate to other people without 'Li's cookie-cutter persona to act as a shield and a bridge. He's found the mask useful in the past; doubts he'd have gone even this far without it. He's been separated from people his own age too long, assumed a solitary post within the confines of his own mind. Social interaction might as well be an expedition to the North Pole. ]

[ Holding Korra close now, he feels himself thrumming with deep energies he can't distinguish from thrill or anxiety. Circling one arm around her, a heavy comfortable sling, he combs his fingers through her hair with the other. Almost a fraternal vigor, but his palm lingers, cupping the side of her face, the pad of his thumb tracing the soft pillow of her lower-lip. ]

[ Surreal, every single time, to imagine there's something alive inside her. It makes him think of matryoshka Dolls, vibrant layers folded within vibrant layers. But a baby is so much more than that. It (she?) could make both their ordeal in the City, their struggles toward and against each other, mean something. Make his mystifying connection to this young woman into something more than the animal instinct to fight and fuck and huddle together in fear. ]

[ Almost to dispel the moment of heavy emotion, he says, wryly, ]

And, hopefully, beautiful like her mom and smart like her dad. [ A beat. ] Or is it the other way around?

[anatural]

Mmm. [She's not paying attention. His words remind her of something else that's been in her thoughts.] I wonder if she'll be a bender... [Especially now, no one really understands how bending gets passed down. At one point in history it had seemed geographical, but then waterbenders were discovered in the swamps of the earth kingdom. Non-benders from the earth kingdom moved to fire nation territory and gave birth to benders. The sudden rise of airbenders from nowhere only further muddles an already confusing topic.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He's long since suspected that bending -- like a Contractor's abilities -- share a crux of energy. They exist in an electric world. Its energy runs through the veins of everyone. His energy signature -- singular to him alone. Korra's too -- a unique marker. Billions of beings, each with their own energy signature as distinctive as a fingerprint. All aware of one another's energy and reacting to it intuitively and without conscious thought. Is someone's energy strong, is it weak? Does an atmosphere of a particular place drain them, does it replenish them? ]

[ Vital energy flows sluggishly in most people. They walk and their footprints leave uneven imprints in the dust. They list. They are out of balance. But there are those in whom the flow of energy is coherent; their biophoton emissions are seamless and the periodic rhythms stable. He's always suspected those anomalies -- here, in his world -- are the ones most susceptible to acquiring the gift of bending, or being cursed with a Contractor's abilities. And after Harmonic Convergence, there are likely build-ups in the movements of people's qi, a wavelike flow in the world around them. It's no wonder all these airbenders are popping up out of nowhere. ]

[ He keeps these speculations to himself. Rests his chin against Korra's shoulder, feeling the warm ebb and flow of her breathing thrum through her torso, and says, ]

She probably will be. The question is, what kind.

[anatural]

[He rests his chin on her shoulder, and she leans so that her head is against his.]

Wouldn't it be crazy if she's an airbender?

[mortemscintilla]

[ The settled weight of her against him is like a blanket of warmth. Hei tightens his arms and, after a heartbeat's hesitation, kisses her temple. In his peripheral vision, he can see one of the porthole windows at the quaterdeck darken, and catches a glimpse of the white disk of what looks like Tenzin's concerned face. Ordinarily that'd be enough to dispel the mood, to let his arms slip off Korra. But right now ... who the hell cares? Korra's not the holy Madonna. That whelp didn't end up in her belly via immaculate conception. ]

[ Lightly, he butts his head against hers, warm and heavy and ticklish-soft as a dark cat resting on his shoulder. ]

[ Teasingly, ]

Not too crazy. But if she's a firebender or an earthbender, I'd want a paternity test.

[anatural]

[She snorts and elbows him affectionately but none too gently.]

Don't even joke about that.

[She notices Tenzin too, and deliberately ignores him. If he wants to interrupt the moment, he'll have to come out.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei watches the blinds at the porthole twitch, then flip shut. Tenzin seems to have gone. Relaxing a degree, he folds Korra closer. His right hand has fanned, as if of its own volition, across her belly. Staring at his starfished fingers, Hei thinks, bleakly, I didn't invite you into our lives. You're trouble, and you're going to change everything. I like a smooth-limbed woman when I wake up in the morning, not a bloated harpy with moodswings and cramps, and that's what you'll turn her into. You'll distract her and weaken her but she'll still have no choice but to love you. I'll have no choice except try to do the same. Can't you see how messed-up that is? Can't I? ]

[ Because the kicker is ... I want to keep you as much as she does. ]

[ In his thoughts there is cold certainty. In his arms is just ... reality. Real, thrumming, hotly vibrant, an uncertainty, this miraculous and touchable Korra Plus ProtoTyke, her hair strung with motes of sunlight and dust, flesh exuding spicy sweat and temperament, the folds of her blouse across her belly like crumpled butterflies. ]

[ A beat, then two, before he speaks quietly, his gaze dipped, ]

When I was younger, I used to think a girl wasn't worth anything if she wasn't a bundle of trouble. If she didn't cost me something. [ Amber certainly had. And Pai cost him more than he'd had in his capacity to give. A pause, an exhale. ] I don't know ... what this baby will cost us. In any sense. But I don't want to let you down, either. I can't go on being that person who keeps hurting someone who cares for them, over and over. I can't be that person.

[anatural]

[Funny. I used to be the same. Isn't she still? Would she continue to love Hei like she does if he suddenly got easy to love? She doesn't know. She doesn't think about it. He keeps talking, and she rests her hand on his arm and squeezes reassuringly. As close as they've gotten, it's still a surprise and a thrill when he opens up to her without a screaming fight preceding it.]

We can do this. I know it's not going to be easy, but look at what we've already done. And we've got people on our side. We've got this.

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's still not easy for him to open up, not when there's nothing to be gained from it.. Not when he still views the world through the red divides of that killer, born in South America and propelled by bloodshed and warfare into ruthless maturity, who doesn't quite fit into a civilized world. Doesn't know how to have an exchange where the motive isn't to get the advantage somehow. Where honesty isn't the cover for a lie. ]

[ But he finds himself wanting to give her that honesty, because it will be something real, a level of truth most go their entire lives without confronting, always content to hide behind their social masks and deep-seated delusions. Her words suffuse him with something soft, buoyant, that makes him think of marshmallows shaped like the dumb sweet dreams of children, ready to be stabbed with sticks. ]

I hope so.

[ He doesn't mean it dubiously or dryly -- he means it genuinely, a plain kind of acknowledgement. Because he's terrified and skeptical and blindsided, but he also knows all there is to know about having something in your life you'll die for. Holding Korra against him, he reminds himself over and over he's lucky to share any aspect of this girl's life, no matter how big or small. And a quieter, more logical voice reminds him that if this all goes smash, at least he'll walk away knowing that, for at least a brief moment in time, he was happier than he ever deserved to be. ]