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

[mortemscintilla]

[ They meet again in Bangkok. ]

[ Ostensibly it's an international joint operation. An easy kill -- and there's no reason it shouldn't be, between NC108 and BK201's ruthlessly efficient reputations. Though maybe it should have been -- diplomatic emissaries normally have more hi-tech security. Of course, this isn't the first for either of them, so it's the equivalent of a wham-bam-thank-you. The best missions end this way, with a dead body (a US ambassador) and a handful of shiny secrets (a microchip, tucked into his right cufflink). ]

[ Of course that's one layer to the complex tapestry. ]

[ Hei had been debriefed before he'd left Tokyo. The Syndicate suspects NC108 is defecting. They say she's in bed with Evening Primrose. Huang's beady eyes had fixed on him. If it turns out they're right, you'll need to dispose of the girl before there's a problem. An operation within an operation -- 'focused prevention' as it is referred to, a construction that hides within it the more straightforward phrase of 'assassination.' ]

[ Is she really working for Amber? The thought holds the echoes of a deep, uneasy chord, struck far off but lingering. In their trade, loyalty is a daydream as fantastical as the real stars. Contractors are notorious vipers: to them, the world is a playground of treachery, and war, and politics, and money to be made. Korra isn't any different. If she's betrayed the Syndicate, it should come as no surprise. ]

[ It doesn't. Within forty-eight hours of hanging around her, it's evident to Hei that she's hiding something. There is something knowing and heavy in her eyes. Her smile always seems incomplete. (Impossible not to think of Pai, of how Amber lured her into martyring herself with the meteor-shard. Is that what she plans to do with Korra, too? The back of Hei's throat is clammy and slime-coated at the thought.) ]

[ That evening, he'd tailed her after she'd gone out, determined to learn who she was rendezvousing with. Halfway, he'd lost track of her -- only for her to mysteriously reappear by the beach. Except Hei had felt that chilling displacement between one heartbeat and the next -- a deja vu, yet not. A signal that Amber had used her power. ]

[ His veins churn with ice-water -- but it's rage, not dismay. It's tempting to confront Korra, to drag her somewhere he can drug and interrogate her until she gives him whatever information Amber has shared. But that's no way to go about it. He can't risk spooking her. ]

[ When Korra returns to their hotel, she'll find him at a curry stall with its tables in the open street, sipping guava juice and watching the colorful swarm of pedestrians out in the humid pink evening. ]