Count the bodies like sheep
Oct. 8th, 2014 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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fuse_boxWHO: Korra & Hei
WHAT: Months after Korra disappears, Hei receives news on her whereabouts.
[ When the word first reaches him that Korra -- missing for months -- has been spotted near the dingy steel-factories in the Earth Kingdom, Hei doesn't credit it. He's hauled in a fishing trawl's worth of Red Lotus members who've supplied him with similar non-leads. It's always a toss-up about what they know; give the order to hook up the alligator clips and crank the generator and they spew so much bullshit that even if there's real intel mixed in with it, you can never be sure, much less make use of it. ]
[ When further word comes confirming the first word -- he's sent tails on the scene -- a heat-flicker he'd like to call joy but that is really shock courses through him, from his toes in the steel-enforced boots to the very ends of his long hair. ]
[ Korra hasn't been abducted. Korra is still alive. ]
[ After the debacle at the South Pole, where the Red Lotus had attacked Tonraq, and where his daughter wasn't even considered an eligible candidate for leading the tribe, Hei had let her return to Republic City -- ostensibly to focus on her Avatar duties. In truth, he'd thought she'd prefer space to lick her wounds, while he hung back to focus the entirety of his energies on weeding out and eliminating the Red Lotus. They'd exchanged letters, terse and to-the-point -- he out of natural reticence and security reasons, she due to time-constraints and a lack of anything new to report. But halfway through, the correspondence ceased. In the dizzying vacuum of silence that followed, Hei learnt, from Tenzin, that Korra wasn't in Republic City. Had, in fact, never arrived there at all. ]
[ Looking back on it, Hei wonders: why hadn't he guessed it sooner? Would a smarter man have come to his senses faster? He'd been so caught up in eradicating the Red Lotus. In safeguarding Korra. But, as usual, he'd lost the forest for the fucking trees. It's so obvious now, so terrifyingly self-evident, that Korra was drifting away from everyone -- her family, her friends. He'd known she had, in clinical terms, posttraumatic stress disorder. He recognized enough of the signs. With it came that morose detachment in her that none of his efforts could regulate. She'd just floated further and further off. Small as star-dust and infinitely heavier.]
[ Maybe it is me, Hei thinks bitterly. Maybe I drive them off. ]
[ But that's useless self-indulgence, and fails to solve the problem at hand. Which consists of the latest bulletin. The Avatar is fighting in illegal underground brawls. ]
[ Collecting his essential gear, Hei abandons the South Pole -- recently his base of operations -- and heads to the Earth Kingdom. He hasn't informed anyone in his network where he's going, beyond a few key players. He doesn't need to. Over the past few months, he's amassed assets who hail from either careers in need-to-know environments, or those who've spent their lives in the dust, right at the fringes of society. They've joined him for profit and plunder and he gives them plenty -- a kind of privatized intelligence operation, more shadowy, better connected, and substantially less accountable than official security firms in Korra's world. ]
[ A miniature Syndicate, Mao calls it snidely -- though Hei prefers not to think of it in those terms. ]
[ He needs to scour through deep waters for the control and intel necessary to stay afloat. The organization doesn't represent a life-vest, but a safety net. An expansive tool to cover greater ground, and secure a heftier bulk of weaponry, manpower and resource. Because no-one fights harder or moves faster than mercenaries when they smell a pay-off. ]
[ At the specified location, not far from the waterfront, Hei drifts in -- a hooded sweatshirt, heavy workboots, clean-shaven but with his hair in the haphazard tie he's taken to favoring after he'd stopped cutting it. The air is bilgy with damp; the pitted streets are pretty much deserted. The few guys he passes aren't dangerous so much as desperate, broken by pills or inhalants or strong drink or the unstoppable craving for all those things. Some pale faces jump out of dark alleys asking him for something, or offering it, but most give him wide berth. A cold glint in Hei's gaze, lurking past the mildness, discourages confrontation. ]
[ Korra. Are you really out here? ]
WHAT: Months after Korra disappears, Hei receives news on her whereabouts.
[ When the word first reaches him that Korra -- missing for months -- has been spotted near the dingy steel-factories in the Earth Kingdom, Hei doesn't credit it. He's hauled in a fishing trawl's worth of Red Lotus members who've supplied him with similar non-leads. It's always a toss-up about what they know; give the order to hook up the alligator clips and crank the generator and they spew so much bullshit that even if there's real intel mixed in with it, you can never be sure, much less make use of it. ]
[ When further word comes confirming the first word -- he's sent tails on the scene -- a heat-flicker he'd like to call joy but that is really shock courses through him, from his toes in the steel-enforced boots to the very ends of his long hair. ]
[ Korra hasn't been abducted. Korra is still alive. ]
[ After the debacle at the South Pole, where the Red Lotus had attacked Tonraq, and where his daughter wasn't even considered an eligible candidate for leading the tribe, Hei had let her return to Republic City -- ostensibly to focus on her Avatar duties. In truth, he'd thought she'd prefer space to lick her wounds, while he hung back to focus the entirety of his energies on weeding out and eliminating the Red Lotus. They'd exchanged letters, terse and to-the-point -- he out of natural reticence and security reasons, she due to time-constraints and a lack of anything new to report. But halfway through, the correspondence ceased. In the dizzying vacuum of silence that followed, Hei learnt, from Tenzin, that Korra wasn't in Republic City. Had, in fact, never arrived there at all. ]
[ Looking back on it, Hei wonders: why hadn't he guessed it sooner? Would a smarter man have come to his senses faster? He'd been so caught up in eradicating the Red Lotus. In safeguarding Korra. But, as usual, he'd lost the forest for the fucking trees. It's so obvious now, so terrifyingly self-evident, that Korra was drifting away from everyone -- her family, her friends. He'd known she had, in clinical terms, posttraumatic stress disorder. He recognized enough of the signs. With it came that morose detachment in her that none of his efforts could regulate. She'd just floated further and further off. Small as star-dust and infinitely heavier.]
[ Maybe it is me, Hei thinks bitterly. Maybe I drive them off. ]
[ But that's useless self-indulgence, and fails to solve the problem at hand. Which consists of the latest bulletin. The Avatar is fighting in illegal underground brawls. ]
[ Collecting his essential gear, Hei abandons the South Pole -- recently his base of operations -- and heads to the Earth Kingdom. He hasn't informed anyone in his network where he's going, beyond a few key players. He doesn't need to. Over the past few months, he's amassed assets who hail from either careers in need-to-know environments, or those who've spent their lives in the dust, right at the fringes of society. They've joined him for profit and plunder and he gives them plenty -- a kind of privatized intelligence operation, more shadowy, better connected, and substantially less accountable than official security firms in Korra's world. ]
[ A miniature Syndicate, Mao calls it snidely -- though Hei prefers not to think of it in those terms. ]
[ He needs to scour through deep waters for the control and intel necessary to stay afloat. The organization doesn't represent a life-vest, but a safety net. An expansive tool to cover greater ground, and secure a heftier bulk of weaponry, manpower and resource. Because no-one fights harder or moves faster than mercenaries when they smell a pay-off. ]
[ At the specified location, not far from the waterfront, Hei drifts in -- a hooded sweatshirt, heavy workboots, clean-shaven but with his hair in the haphazard tie he's taken to favoring after he'd stopped cutting it. The air is bilgy with damp; the pitted streets are pretty much deserted. The few guys he passes aren't dangerous so much as desperate, broken by pills or inhalants or strong drink or the unstoppable craving for all those things. Some pale faces jump out of dark alleys asking him for something, or offering it, but most give him wide berth. A cold glint in Hei's gaze, lurking past the mildness, discourages confrontation. ]
[ Korra. Are you really out here? ]
no subject
Date: 2014-10-13 07:43 pm (UTC)[ He's been where she has. He knows. But he also refuses to return empty-handed. If he has to knock her out and stuff her in a burlap sack, so be it. ]
[ He ignores the fizzle of irritation in her words. He doesn't care who she has or hasn't slept with. He'd asked because he was wary she'd hit the same self-destructive wall as him. When his vitality had slowly returned, after the Syndicate found him in the brutalized remnants of San Pedro Sula, and he'd learnt UB001 was still active. By day -- by night -- he'd sunk into wetwork. The skills he'd honed in the warzone were still there. Along with a streak -- miles wide -- that hadn't been. He was eerily reckless, in a don't much care about the outcome way. More than a few times, he'd swung himself away from maiming and certain death, right at the last moment. Felt like he was high afterwards, when the mission was completed, and he'd prowl the streets looking for women who were willing to fuck him, for free or for a fee, even if certain venereal easter eggs might get tacked on. ]
[ He hopes Korra isn't caught in that vacant headspace. Hopes she never will be. ]
[ She reaches out to tug his hair, and he lightly bats her hand off. In the next beat, he's threaded his fingers with hers. He squeezes them gently, half-wishing she'd shrink and disappear into his palm. Be small enough for him to cradle there forever. ]
I'll get rid of it, if you want.
[ He'd only let his hair grow out of indifference and neglect. It helped that he was residing in the South Pole; the locals interpreted it as an attempt to blend in. (Tonraq met the happenstance hairdo with something almost resembling approval, although Kya had teased, It's not a nice look. It ages you.) ]
no subject
Date: 2014-10-13 08:20 pm (UTC)You look like a grizzled old warrior. [Not saying whether or not that's a good thing.
And she's not saying anything about going back with him because she doesn't even register it as a question. Why can’t you be lost with me? He'd asked her, like he'll follow her wherever she goes. He didn't say "Are you staying here or coming back with me?"]
I bet my dad was thrilled.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-13 08:45 pm (UTC)[ Yet all his instincts -- to force her to return, to force her to get better -- might do no good. His stomach churns: futility, frustration. Because he can understand, if he were in Korra's shoes, why he'd feel the need to keep moving. Understand why she's embarked on this crazy quest of hers. To meet something new that is surging up. Or to recapture old fragments of what has been taken from her. Maybe she wants to dive down into the wreck of her mind, and meet it. But the idea makes his blood thin with impending despair, because he feels it's necessary to chase after her, help her, pull her back. Shouldn't he? Or should he let her go through with it? Let her do whatever she's out here to do, and assure himself that they'll still be ... tethered. If he just lets it happen. ]
[ Hei doesn't know. Fuck-- he can't even work out a suitable metaphor for this, whatever this is. He doesn't understand what he's supposed to do. All he recognizes is that he is scared, on some level, of losing her. ]
[ He keeps the blur of concerns off his face. Musters a half-smile, his gaze fixed on her with a soft contemplation. ]
He did mention how I [ or Li, anyway ] could almost pass for a man now.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-14 02:09 am (UTC)[And then she hesitates, because this talk about her father is making it hard to avoid the question — do her parents know she's not in Republic City? Do Tenzin and the others know she's not in the South Pole? Or is Hei the only one who realized? The answer will determine what she does next. She's not so far gone as to abandon people who are worried about her, but she's not ready to go back if she doesn't have to. Finally she takes a little breath.]
Did you tell them where you were going? [To find me?]
no subject
Date: 2014-10-14 02:30 am (UTC)[ At her question, he pauses, his expression sobering behind that faint, da Vinci smile of his, before a tiny indentation slips between his brows. It's easy to track the pattern of her thoughts. For a moment he's tempted to lie, to magnify the worries of her loved ones so she'll agree to return home -- or at least be amenable to the idea. ]
[ But, even as the impulse flickers through him, he hesitates. Playing dirty is an inherent facet of his nature. But he'd prefer it if Korra makes the choice of her own free will. If she refuses to come back... Well. Joining her on her quest was never part of the agenda, but he also can't stand the idea of leaving her. Going away would mean the risk of not seeing her again, if disaster strikes. And if he isn't with her, he'll never know whether she's unharmed or wounded, alive or dead -- and that uncertainty would be a worse torment than being sure. ]
[ Eventually, honestly, ]
Your father knows. Tenzin does too. I agreed to contact them ... once I found you.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-14 02:42 am (UTC)Why did you have to tell them?! [Because somehow she's pretty sure that once Hei figured it out, he tattled. It hasn't been that long since she last wrote to her parents. Hei figured it out and he told them and why did he have to do that?!]
no subject
Date: 2014-10-14 02:59 am (UTC)I didn't tell them anything.
[ One of the first lessons the Syndicate drums -- or rather punches -- into operatives' heads is Don't hold out on us. The second is Don't snitch. He's been thoroughly indoctrinated in that law, steeped in the culture and norms of espionage. ]
[ After a beat, he reaches out to stroke the curve of Korra's shoulder, the choppy heap of hair. Ordinarily her assumptions would stir a vague sense of indignation. But this carries such a reassuring touch of Korra's old spark and spirit. He can't keep a tiny curl of gratitude from creeping through him, tangled as it is with the ache of love and frustration. ]
[ In a different tone, more reasonable, he explains, ]
When you stopped writing... I asked Tenzin about you. We figured out, more or less at the same time, that you'd gone AWOL. Pretty soon the news reached your father. We kept it between the three of us because we didn't want to start a mass panic. Not until we knew where you were.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-14 03:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-14 03:30 am (UTC)[ That was his intention at the outset. He still wants nothing more but to drag her back, to keep his attention fixed on her, as if that attention has the power to force her back into her old mold. It used to be, that whatever challenge he gave all of himself to, went his way. Because he was the Black Reaper, unwavering, ruthless. And there's an inner voice -- that cool, modulated, therapeutic sort of voice, the voice of Pai at her most rational and of stern articles in magazines at their most didactic, that chivvies him to take her somewhere she can get the help she needs. ]
[ Except... that might be the right help at all. ]
[ A headache pounds behind Hei's eyes, at his temples. He has no respect for quitters and slackers. But Korra isn't any of those things. And what does he know about her feelings, her dilemmas, beyond secondhand guesswork -- what right does he have to say they're not mystical or meaningful just because he doesn't comprehend them? He's not invested with a scrap of spiritual license. It's easy for him to just blow off the whole thing, sweep it under the rug like he would bending or chakras or rebirth if he thought he could get away with it. They're not at the crux of his life. ]
[ But they are at the crux of Korra's. That's why she's out here -- unhinged as she is. Because she wants desperately to get back to being what she is. What makes her special. All that light and grace that she'd once embodied. All that beautiful deadly power. It's been stolen from her -- sapped away -- and she seeks a new source to refuel it. ]
[ The lengthy pause threatens to turn into an uncomfortable period. In an effort to dispel it, Hei reaches for her hand. Rubs her palm slowly with his thumb. The effort is palpable, to be tender but not manipulative. ]
I just want to help you.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-14 03:45 am (UTC)[It doesn't occur to her that this may seem like she's dismissing him, sending him away empty-handed, when really she's picturing an awkward phone call home and then Hei traveling with her.]
no subject
Date: 2014-10-14 04:05 am (UTC)[ It's a real risk, because Hei feels insufficient to console or keep her. ]
[ His gaze drops; he focuses not on her face but on their clasped hands. He refuses to be parted from her again; he can't stomach the idea of being sent away. He wants to be where Korra is -- or wherever she's going. Sinking into the metaphorical wreck. Going deeper. It doesn't sound so bad, phrased that way. Deep, deeper to ground, like a tree, and trees stay in one spot. Unless Korra tries to plant herself elsewhere. ]
[ Finally, ]
All right.
[ If not for the tension in his shoulders and the heaviness to his face, it could be any of the countless calm words plucked from his vocabulary. Inside, he's bracing himself for her to say either, You should go, or Stay with me. ]
no subject
Date: 2014-10-14 04:18 am (UTC)Thank you. [She wants to hug him, but that would require letting go of his hand, so she settled for resting her head against his shoulder. It's the two of them again, like when she fought Unalaq, like when she fought Zaheer. Team Avatar is back. The thought makes her smile.]
no subject
Date: 2014-10-14 04:34 am (UTC)[ He doesn't say anything. Just kisses her -- a hot, clumsy, grateful print to her temple. Once, then again. His hand draws free from hers. But it's only so he can gather her in. With the humid weight of her body pressed close, he buries his nose in her hair, breathing in deep, filling his lungs with that Korra-ish scent that is like fallen leaves. ]
[ He isn't sure, still, what she's planning. Where she intends to go from here. Interrogation would be easy, but he holds his tongue. He'll let Korra work at her own pace toward whatever she's reaching for. When they're together, they seldom stagnate. They're always in flux, one way or another, hurtling toward something. ]