[ By the time Korra arrives, Hei is almost too hungry to think of anything. Spotting a few vendors coming in by boat, he buys a salty cake stuffed with chopped greens and wrapped in a leaf of wax paper, and a bowl of jook. He's settled by the willow tree, once his favorite spot to meditate when he lived on the island, and to read Jinora's language and history books. His hands are clumsy with cold and hunger; he devours the cake in one bite, then scrapes the porridge bowl empty, his stomach giving pangs that are fed by stress and sleeplessness, but his instincts saying to keep eating, keep drinking. The thick pale liquid tastes herbal, smoky. When it hits the back of his throat it nearly makes his eyes water. ]
[ Blinking, he glances up, just in time to spot Korra. Her Hi has such a soft, wavering note. Yet hearing it, seeing her face, his head clears in a way that has nothing to do with the meal, the pain and anxiety and tension moving far off and then shutting down into a little dot that soon vanishes. ]
Hey.
[ It's Contractor-calm. But it's not devoid of emotion; his gaze is a soft, wistful lingering across her face and body. Months since he's seen her -- at least for him -- but she's always been a warm amorphous blur at the edges of his consciousness, a brilliant splotch of color when the monotonous grayness of the Enterprise leaked into his dreams. ]
[ But here, now, in the flesh, she looks more beautiful than he's ever seen her -- even with the mussed hair and the tired smudges under her eyes. It has nothing to do with the fact that all he'd seen otherwise were the women aboard the Enterprise, all of them efficient and sleek yet somehow entirely unerotic and unmystical, more like glossy parts of an expensive machine. Hers is a raw beauty, and any changes he can spot are minor: the features harder edged like a diamond, her hair still short and boyish, but everything imbued with the same sweet lustre. ]
[ Dipping his gaze, not shy so much as reticent, he gestures for her to sit. Next to him, if she wants. ]
no subject
[ Blinking, he glances up, just in time to spot Korra. Her Hi has such a soft, wavering note. Yet hearing it, seeing her face, his head clears in a way that has nothing to do with the meal, the pain and anxiety and tension moving far off and then shutting down into a little dot that soon vanishes. ]
Hey.
[ It's Contractor-calm. But it's not devoid of emotion; his gaze is a soft, wistful lingering across her face and body. Months since he's seen her -- at least for him -- but she's always been a warm amorphous blur at the edges of his consciousness, a brilliant splotch of color when the monotonous grayness of the Enterprise leaked into his dreams. ]
[ But here, now, in the flesh, she looks more beautiful than he's ever seen her -- even with the mussed hair and the tired smudges under her eyes. It has nothing to do with the fact that all he'd seen otherwise were the women aboard the Enterprise, all of them efficient and sleek yet somehow entirely unerotic and unmystical, more like glossy parts of an expensive machine. Hers is a raw beauty, and any changes he can spot are minor: the features harder edged like a diamond, her hair still short and boyish, but everything imbued with the same sweet lustre. ]
[ Dipping his gaze, not shy so much as reticent, he gestures for her to sit. Next to him, if she wants. ]