fuse_box | There must be other hobbies...

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universe: after the city

There must be other hobbies...

WHO: Korra and Hei
WHAT: Post-Book 4. Two crazy kids take a break.

[ A quickie vacation -- that's how Hei floated it to Korra. Don't ask him where the money came from. Don't ask him to justify it. Just say you’ll come. ]

[ They'd (half-jokingly, half-wistfully) planned a similar trip years ago, when still tangled in the mess with the Spirit Portals. It had never fallen through. War, its immediacy and aftermath, meant work, after all. The idea of a holiday was a distant fantasy in the overwhelming rumble of their busy lives. Lives full of conflicts and separations, trials and errors, from which frivolous indulgences were silently excluded. ]

[ Still, Hei had thought about it sometimes, in varying moods of sentimentality and cynicism. Time spent with Korra -- so close, so uninterrupted -- could've been either hellish or heavenly. He could imagine either a long dreamlike trip, driving with her tucked against his side, his arm around her, absorbing her pretty prattle in his ear. Or an interminable torment of sulky silences and shrieking fights, with flat tires, bad directions, shitty motels and worse meals to compound their misery. ]

[ In truth, it falls something in between. It's like they're two sugar-charged teenagers on a roadtrip, instead of adults who suffer from night-terrors and creeping stress triggers. Brimming with antsy energy, bickering over radio stations, greedily slurping noodles from the same bowl, but on the cusp of a perpetual uncertainty, as if they're not sure how long this grace-period will last. ]

[ They make it past the Hu Xin provinces before their rented Satomobile goes kaput. The vehicle, built for lowland city driving, struggles in the thinner air of the mountains, excess fuel backing up into the carburetor. No matter. They hitch a tow-ride until they find an auto-shop. Barely have to drop a penny, after the grizzled mechanic realizes it's The Avatar's satomobile. Fan belts, oil top-ups, lube-jobs -- shucks, they are on the house. ]

[ They come down to the Earth Kingdom in an evening train, stealing kisses between the snores of a grouchy old coot with whom they have to share the compartment. Share a hot bath and a slow, breathless fuck in an inn far from the best, but whose discomforts pale beside Hei's precarious contentment at being here with Korra. In the morning sunshine, they sail for the Mo Ce Sea, a crossing placid as a paddle round a pond -- until he's hit with a horrible sea-sickness. Slumped in their dim little cabin. it is hard to distinguish land from water. The floor seems to dip and roll beneath his feet. The slats of sunlight from the portholes make his head ache. Waiting to reach land, Hei curls up under the sheets of their bed, massaging his temples with both hands, gritting his teeth as he tries to master his heaving stomach -- while not-so-stoically ignoring the twinkle of amusement in Korra's eyes. ]

[ By the time they disembark at the Fire Nation's capital city, the nausea has receded, though his face rivals the color of the wan gray sky. It's almost dusk; he's logy and slow-headed from the long crossing. But the city, like every city, wakes him up. The lit-up buildings, in their towering brilliance, remind him of Bangkok, as does the stop-and-start traffic, the crowds on foot surging in and out of every dazzling golden entrance. Nothing like Republic City -- a place he's only just begun to pronounce with Home-flavored syllables -- but amazing in its own right. ]

[ As amazing as it was the first time he'd visited -- except now, Korra is at his side, bright-eyed and fizzling with energy like a can of soda all stirred-up. ]

[ Twining his fingers with hers, he squeezes lightly, ]

What should we do first?

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[You can't blame her for being amused, Hei. She's used to seeing him like that guy from that mover back in the City, Termination or whatever his name was — irrepressible, relentless. Having him laid low by something as simple as being on a ship is mind-boggling, and his temper, robbed of the bite it had in the City, just makes it more amusing. He's like a sulky Naga.

She squeezes his hand and resists the urge to bounce. This entire trip has made her feel like she's 17 again, in the best way. She's not the same entitled teenager, ignorant of the world, temperamental and hiding her insecurities; she's glad to have left that Korra well in the past. But the sense of adventure, the excitement of going somewhere new without the shadow of danger, that feeling is as magical and fizzy as she remembers from her and Naga's first journey. As much as she's a homebody, she's beginning to understand why Aang liked traveling so much.

Her stomach grumbles before she can answer his question, and she smiles a little ruefully.]

I could use some dinner. You feeling up to it?

[ You've lost all respect for him, haven't you? ]

...Dinner...

[ He'd like to believe the two syllables are brimful with superlative manliness, not the queasy half-whisper they sound like. (He'd like to believe a lot of things that will never be true.) The idea of food makes his stomach turn. But he hasn't eaten anything -- except bread and ginger soups -- since he and Korra had stayed at their last no-tell motel, where late at night, dehydrated and ravenous, they'd ransacked their pockets for yuan and wrapped their naked bodies in the motel duvet, creeping out to stock up on cold bottled lemonades and Varri-cakes, like sneaky kids in the glow of the vending machines. ]

[ The memory makes his lips twitch. He's forgotten, he realizes, how freeing it can be to sink into the moment, without calculation or agenda. How easy it can be to get along with someone else, when they're not a mark or a threat, when he lets them. Ease like that, is hard to remember, with his past. He must've had it, at some point, but the moments that come to his memory most readily are never those. ]

[ After a beat, he relents, ]

I know a few good places.

[ Places where he will order the blandest baby-food on the menu. Right now he's not sure he can stomach -- figuratively, literally -- those spicy dishes the Fire Nation is renowned for. ]

[Hei is the most manliest of all manly men. He was particularly manly ~~waddling~~ striding down the hall, wrapped in the vomit-green duvet like a moldy spring roll. The dignity, the grace. It was remarkable to behold.

She swings their linked hands out, indicating for him to lead the way.]

So how long were you here before? [She asks to help distract him from nausea, but mostly out of curiosity. He still hasn't told her a whole lot about his solitary trip through the Fire Nation; she has to draw stories out of him like water from a plant — not impossible, just difficult.]

[ Hey. You chose this moldy spring-roll of manliness. So really, there's no accounting for taste. ]

[ He ignores a moment of surrealism as she swings their hands in a big kiddish arc. Part of him feels almost like they're a pair of college kids on a backpacking trip, and can't decide if he likes it. Decides, a few moments later, that he must, because it's impossible to object to Korra's girlish perkiness. Especially after the shitstorm she's endured these past few years, and the black cloud hovering in near-perpetuity over her head. Already, he's seeing the change in her. She's lightening, and at the same time seems solid in a way he can't remember her being since she'd gotten back her bending. And serene in a way he's never seen. ]

[ At least ... never around him. ]

[ At her question, he nearly slides his teeth over his lower lip, but stops in time. He remembers, dimly, that Amber had once remarked on that little gesture of his, one that meant, I'm going to fib. Perverse idiot that he is, he dislikes lying to those he loves. But he's still a Contractor, and a damn better liar than that. ]

Just a week.

[ More like three. That time, he'd agreed to 'freelance' for one of the major gangs here, in exchange for cash and information. Had stayed for a few days in a hostel they'd paid for: a huge, crumbling but old-world-glamoured house in a narrow lane near the port, run by an ancient woman who looked like a wrinkled white frog in colorful silk robes and embroidered slippers. It was there, in one of the overdecorated rooms filled almost completely by a traditional kang-style bed, the red wallpaper peeling into sinister patterns, that he'd read the news about the Avatar's disappearance. ]

[ He'd killed so many gangbangers in that single week, out of his fear and frustration for Korra, that it made the paper. ]

[ He can't tell Korra any of that. Instead, he squeezes her hand -- a silent bid to drop the subject. ]

[She's quite satisfied with her choice in spring roll, thank you very much. Though she's a little frustrated at his unspoken Drop the subject. There are things in his life he can't tell her about — things that she definitely does not want to know — but there has to be SOMETHING he can share.]

What did you do? [And no, she doesn't mean the nasty stuff. She means the stupid tourist-y stuff that you're going to be taking her to. Conversation, Hei. Make some.]

Not much.

[ His last visit hadn't been in the spirit of tourism. Even so, he senses that she's asking for an itinerary. From what he's observed of this city, it's like the blind men and the elephant. Every part you touch fools you into thinking you know the whole thing. Except that's impossible; it's too diverse, too mysterious. During his last visit here, he'd mostly stuck to kissaten-style coffee shops to meet contacts, to weaving through warrens of enormous black markets for weapons and equipment, or strolling through heavily-forested parks -- placid green oases almost centuries old -- as he preyed unnoticed upon his marks. ]

[ None of that, he suspects, will appeal to Korra. In a way, that's good. Trying something new here will be a way of detoxing, without slipping too far into memories with uglier resonances. ]

[ Slowly, he rounds on Korra, still holding her hand, walking backwards in front of her through the brightly-lit streets, not-quite-smiling. ]

They have good clubs here. If you're in the mood for dancing. [ He isn't. (When is he ever?) But they don't have to do everything in one night. Also: ] There's hot springs of lava rock outside the city limits. More secluded than the purpose-built hot pools downtown.

[Ooooooh, dancing. That sounds like something she would very much be interested in, but not tonight. Tonight she wants a good meal and to find their hotel, rest up from their travels. And then he says some magic words —]

Hot springs? [Now that is something that sounds pretty amazing.] How far out of the city?

Less than an hour if we take the tram.

[ He's surprised she's interested in the hot springs. But why wouldn't she be? He still remembers her giddy sense of curiosity when they'd first slipped together into that hotel Jacuzzi, back in the City. The distant memory of it -- of her skin slick and hotly alive in the burbling water, the delicious weight of her in his arms, her lips tasting sweetly of alcohol and excitement -- is dizzying. ]

[ He doesn't shake it off. Instead he lets his face alter to register a vague hint of suggestion. Or nostalgia. One or the other. Or both. ]

You can even book a private crater. Small, but completely walled off.

[Hey, not liking her baths boiling hot is different from not liking hot baths. She likes hot springs plenty: the contrast between hot water and cool air, the room to move. There's a lot to appreciate about a hot spring. Especially a small, walled off hot spring.]

Do they serve dinner at this hot spring?

[ ...Are you sure it's just the hot spring that's got your little motor revving?... ]

[ It's so tempting to kiss her, a wet furl of tongue, a lewd indifference to their crowded, brightly-lit surroundings. Instead he presses her fingers and looks at her sidelong, a dark flick of blue that says, Depends on the dinner you have in mind. ]

[ Aloud, ]

They have an okay buffet.

[ Hopefully, by the time they arrive at the place, his appetite will have resurfaced. ]

[ Quietly, he guides Korra down the busy streets, toward the nearest stop for the chin-chin densha -- the bright-red double-belled train that reminds him of the yellow cars at that sole, antiquated tram-line in Tokyo, at Arakawa-sen. A tram is already waiting at the terminal -- a pretty fancy description for an open-air, street-level platform next to the sidewalk. He steps in with Korra, pays the fare, then drifts past a dozen other passengers toward the back of the single-car carrier. ]

[ He settles at an angle from a serene-looking grandmother who is holding a small girl's hand by one of the windows. The child asks, Why aren't we moving? and the old woman benignly explains that of course they must wait for the other passengers, but that soon they will be off. ]

[ The sight, for Hei, is gently amusing. Too many memories of riding trams with little Pai, dutifully holding her hand -- the same way he's holding Korra's now. Minus the creepy subtext. ]

[Whoever said it was just the hot spring?]

Sounds good to me. [Korra's not a food connoisseur; as long as it's edible, she's not particular about the quality.

She follows him onto the tram, content to let him take the lead (what a relief! to have the option not to choose, and to have your choices not be life or death). She flashes a smile at the little girl, who gives her a blank look and then returns her attention to her grandmother, too young to have the standard smile for strangers response ingrained. Watching her, Korra feels a rare stab of wistfulness. If she hadn't miscarried, she would have a daughter about that age; and with the weight of constant crisis off her shoulders and a little girl being nothing but adorable in front of her, it's hard not to wish things had gone differently, even as she knows it was for the best. Do you wish it enough to try again? Thinking ahead to their hot spring trip, she decides no. There's too much she still wants to do to deliberately curtail her freedom like that.

So she turns her attention to the view outside, admiring the way the city transitions to the mountains, its architecture similar to Republic City but in many ways completely different. It's like being in a whole new world.]

[ The train rattles along at its leisurely pace, settling into stations along the way, waiting for passengers to board and depart, easing forward again with its musical tinkling of chin-chin. Korra's hand is a soft warm curl in his. It seems so small and delicate, the individual bones pressing out like webs, that it's easy to forget the power she wields at those fingertips. ]

[ Easy to forget a lot of things -- but never completely. ]

[ Following her gaze to the little girl, who is now occupied with singing to herself and kicking her tiny red-shoed feet, it's not difficult to guess the train of her thoughts. It's strange; in the wake of the miscarriage, Hei remembers someone -- Su Yin, maybe Tenzin -- had warned him he might become more aware of parents with infants. It's true that he'd felt, in public places, like they were fucking everywhere: walking babies in strollers, holding them in their arms, gazing at their small, red-mottled, half-monkey faces with such crippling devotion. But it hadn't stirred any sense of ruefulness in him. ]

[ The only time -- months after the disaster -- that he'd felt the actual wave of loss crest, was at a supermarket. There, as he'd silently grumbled to himself over the rising cost of fresh vegetables, he'd been ambushed in the middle of the shampoo aisle by a woman singing a familiar nursery-rhyme about radishes to her wispy-haired toddler. At least, it had sounded like the nursery rhyme from his homeworld, in the brief snatches he'd heard, before a flood of queasiness blindsided him. He'd wanted to storm out of the store, because he was suddenly sick with a bitter misery, to find somewhere quiet and dark where he could calm down. Instead he'd held onto the edge of the shelf in front of the Varri-Dye display, forcing his face back into a rigid mask of order, and hoping no one he knew would happen along. ]

[ He'd never wanted a damn baby. Still doesn't. But fighting Contractors was nothing to losing one. ]

[ Gently, he unbuttons his gaze from the little girl, who has gone quiet, watching him with her small round face so solemn in its frame of squiggly hair. He's reminded, uncomfortably, that unless he assumes 'Li's false air of bonhomie, children are wary of him. Maybe it's because they sense things adults have learned to suppress. ]

[ It's a relief when they finally roll to their stop. He hasn't even realized how tightly he's been gripping Korra's hand, fingers twined in a cramp of something like anxious need. Slowly, they exit the tram. Edged by a dark fringe of mountains, the hot spring resort holds the eye-bruising shade of a courtesan's jewelry box. Arterial red, braided with dizzying shades of gold, in typical Fire Nation style. Even from the entrance, the air holds the thick aroma of sulfur. ]

[ In a quiet but normal-sounding voice, he says, ]

I'm thinking a dip before dinner? It's bad to swim on a full stomach.

[He's always been too good at reading her thoughts; she can tell from the way he's clutching her hand. She squeezes it back but says nothing. He doesn't like to think back on the baby, she knows; it was both a bullet dodged and an opportunity lost for him too.

As for his suggestion, she shakes her head.]

Food first. I want to be able reeeeeeeally relax and take my time.

[ He tips a shoulder, a silent, Suit yourself, but with no reluctance. During the ride, a creeping hunger had begun gnawing at his belly. By now, it's a gurgling nuisance, signaling that he's past his bout of seasickness. Besides. He likes that wicked lilt of suggestion -- real or imagined -- in Korra's tone, as she mentions taking her time. ]

[ Keeping his fingers loosely laced with hers, he guides her up the blood-red double doors, which swing open, wafting a false breeze of recycled semi-tropical air into their faces. The place is as he remembers: ornate but somehow elegant, the staff solicitous as they take his bookings for a private pool. Most recognize Korra easily; the formal greetings they offer her, so similar to the Chinese Gong Shou, make Hei think, dimly, that everything, from the Balinese sembah, the Thai wai, the Indian namaste, the Japanese bow, the western handshake ... The original function of all these salutations was to show the other person you weren't armed and dangerous. Politeness determined by the eschewal of a weapon. Peace as the absence of war. ]

[ The buffet has upgraded since his last visit. Steamed crabs with scallion. Whole roast squab served with wafer-thin lemon slices and ceramic bowls of sauce for dipping. Sugary sticky rice stuffed into the holes of lotus root and braised to bring out a crisp sweetness. Pork belly in honey. Whole steamed fish. Soft-boiled eggs coated in caviar. ]

[ His stomach oinks, noisily, like the greedy pig it is. ]

[ Hold him back, Korra. There is every danger of him diving into the lavish buffet without ever resurfacing. ]

[She'll give it her best. Which right now means elbowing him none-too-gently.]

Don't eat everything. Other people paid to be here too.

[Of course, that's not stopping her from piling her plate high. She's really hungry.]

Their fault for being too slow.

[ Words to live by. At least where his stomach is concerned. ]

[ He loads his plate with a cornucopia of steaming protein and starchy titbits. The other diners appear to be mostly Fire Nation citizens: for all the interested glances he and Korra get, they are clearly the only tourists at the resort right now. The local reaction to this, as during his last visit, consists of toasts from other tables encouraging Hei and Korra to down their mulled wines in one swallow, and the prompt refilling of their glasses. Another reaction is to cheerfully force the hottest dishes at the buffet on them. Hei is at least somewhat familiar with this sport from back in his homeworld: watching unfortunate white foreigners take a mouthful of food, almost choke at the spiciness, guzzle copious quantities of whatever liquid is on their table, while the locals laughed their asses off. ]

[ Against his better judgement -- and his vows to stay away from the fiery stuff -- he piles chicken with chili and lemongrass, eye-wateringly hot, into his plate. Smiles innocently at the neighboring table as he scoops up a spoonful of the raw, sliced chilies from the condiment tray and adds them to his bowl. If he can survive those spicy scorpions back in Republic City, he can endure this. ]

[ To Korra, between placid bites and watery eyes, he murmurs, ]

I hope the firebender in you likes hot stuff.

[ Because this is going to turn into a pissing contest, and he's damned if he's going to let a bunch of snooty Fire Nation jerks win. ]

[It's like he's channeling her from four years ago. It's as surprising as it is funny.]

What makes you think I'm participating in this madness? [She's Water Tribe; they don't do these crazy spices. She'll stick with the foods she recognizes as on the mild end, thanks.

But hey, she's totally cheering you on in this little quest of yours. You can tell because she's helping him pile spicy food on his plate.]

[ It seems less like help than assisted suicide. But Hei has dined on some pretty unusual fare on his travels. Always with relish. A few extra spices shouldn't faze a boy who was once raised on Chongqnig cuisine. (He hopes). ]

[ Chewing ostentatiously, his expression -- despite the flushed cheeks and moistened eyes -- does not alter. But he makes a brief tch-ing sound of perfunctory disapproval when Korra doesn't join in. ]

At least try the soup. [ He nudges the bowl -- blood-red with gold trim -- toward her. ] Good for stamina.

[ Not spicy, either. Just loaded with the usual Fire Nation nutrients. Spring water. Mountain vegetables. Turtle blood. Caterpillar fungus. ]

That better be a promise. [Well-played innuendo, Hei. Well played. She takes the bowl and takes a big spoonful.]

Mmm. What kind of fish is this? It's good.

[ It was thrown in there more for smokescreen than anything else. ]

Not fish. Bug fungus.

[ He slurps his own with gusto, his spoon barely clinking on the edge of the bowl. (Don't freak out, Korra. Those Fire Nation boys and girls must be feisty and smoking-hot for a reason. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for you.) ]

[She chokes.]

Bug fungus?

[What on earth is bug fungus?!]

[ Hei pinches in the start of a smile. Relax, Korra. It's not the gross stuff that grows on Varrick's feet. ]

It's a fungus that eats the bodies of caterpillars, high up in the mountains. It leaves behind this dried brown husk that tastes like fish. It's supposed to cure cancer. Help people with fertility issues.

[You are not doing a particularly good job of selling this fungus stuff. The look Korra gives the soup is not only dubious, but outright suspicious.]

I'm pretty sure fertility is not something I need to worry about.

[Of course, how would she know if she's infertile now? They use condoms and she takes herbs to prevent pregnancy. The lack of pregnancy scare since the miscarriage could be a hint that the poison damaged her reproductive system, or it could just mean that what they're doing is working. Either way, since the ultimate goal is not to get pregnant, it's not a problem.]

[ The long-term damage the poison wrought on her system is something he'd prefer not to consider. Nothing in life is certain. But she's healthy and happy here and now. That's enough for him. It seems enough for Korra, too. ]

[ Of course, as time passes, it might not be. She's caught up right now with getting her mojo back, coasting on a wave of self-pride and fulfillment a mile high. It's gratifying to witness. But sooner or later, as her life grows less volatile, as she settles into herself ... what if she wants another baby? He doesn't want any more truck with bringing up brats. Especially after she'd nearly died the first time. But ... There was something miraculous, wasn't there, about that period? About knowing there was a ball of churning cells inside her, busy and vibrating with life, forming into something entirely theirs? ]

[ He keeps the confused furor of thoughts off his face. Stirs the soup, then lifts a neat spoonful out of the bowl, cupping his hand beneath to catch the drip. He extends it to Korra. ]

It's also a tonic. To rebuild your strength after a bad injury or illness.

[She's feeling pretty strong, Hei. She's still not entirely sold.]

Tell you what. Beat me in arm wrestling and I'll eat that bug fungus.

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