caught between dreams

[anatural]

WHO: Korra and Hei
WHAT: Amber’s been playing with Hei’s new toy.

[Korra wraps her arms around herself and shivers a little as she watches Amber just...vanish. The other woman's ability to control time is something she still hasn't gotten used to, even after working with her for almost six months. What it enables her to do is unnerving, and makes Korra feel powerless in a way she hasn't in years, if she thinks about it too much.

Don't think like that, Amber would tell her. You are so much more powerful than you realize. You're the only person who can do what needs to be done.

Someday, maybe she'll even explain what that means. The other woman's relentless mysteriousness is more than a little aggravating -- but only once she leaves. When Amber's around, it's impossible not to adore her. Everyone in the organization loves Amber. (But have all of them kissed her, or is that something special to the two of them?)

Korra tries to shake off those thoughts. She knows better than to attach much significance to physical intimacy. Mooning like this is unbecoming. And yet she stays where she is, enjoying the smell of salt water on the wind and the way she can still taste Amber on her lips.]

Comments

[anatural]

[Korra knows if she refuses, he'll (try to) kill her. And honestly, she has no real incentive to. Hei is no match for Amber, particularly since Amber will have her support and all of Evening Primrose.]

Fine.

[To the waiter coming with their food] You should probably put that in a box. [To Hei] Unless you want to finish eating first.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei doesn't shake his head so much as offer a short, sharp jerk. The whole restaurant is bedlam of noise: what to others might sound like the gentle hum of conversations and tinkling silverware is to him an encompassing hiss and roar, as if countless ants are chewing away steadily at his mind's surface. The whole world seems sharply delineated, as if he is seeing everything in the moment after a camera flash, a layer of faded light across darkness. A moment never actually sustained, except for him. ]

[ Pai might be dead. The words clatter hollowly inside his skull. He's had bad dreams like this. ]

[ To Korra, flatly, ]

Let's go.

[ He has no appetite, beyond a crawling need to get his hands around Amber's throat. ]