life after the end of the world

[anatural]

WHO: Hei, Korra
WHAT: Another day, another ruined identity.

[You can't change the essential nature of an element. You can turn water into ice, but you cannot make it stone. You can make a rock explode, but you cannot make it burn. Water is not earth, and earth is not fire. Common sense, but it took the Syndicate a surprisingly long time to realize this. Korra would never be their ideal undercover assassin, slipping in & out of masks with the same deadly ease that she wielded the elements. The ability to think rationally, regardless of the circumstances, was not the same thing as being able to lie under any circumstances. She wasn't going to be another Hei for them.

After six months, they settled her into the role of "nuclear option." She was the big, threatening, intimidating weapon that they used to convince their enemies that they Meant Business, when subtlety and quiet intimidation proved ineffective. When not flying places to brutally intimidate men with more power than sense, Korra's new life was quiet. She was a student outside of Washington, D.C. (They had tried to settle her in Shanghai, but the "Indian" woman who couldn't speak a word of Chinese stood out too much. In Washington, she blended in a little better and was close enough to major international airports to get wherever they needed her to go quickly.) She lived in a cute little apartment with Naga and taught yoga on Wednesday mornings to help pay the bills. Her neighbors sometimes grumbled about Naga's barking and how loud Korra would shout at her favorite sports games, but overall, she was a nice quiet girl who caused no trouble.

When asked about the cute Asian boy who would stop by sometimes, she'd just smile and say he was "a friend". Jury was still out on whether he was a friend or her boyfriend. (The answer? Neither.)

This morning, seven months after life as she knew it ended, she's jogging back to her apartment after yoga. Exhausted from a late night with some guy she'd met at a local bar on top of two hours of yoga instruction, but she has a paper to finish before tomorrow. Sleep? Or paper? Sleep? Or paper? She's leaning heavily towards sleep as she unlocks her front door.]

Comments

[mortemscintilla]

[ Weariness reshapes Hei's brow and lip. Right now, there's something dark and quiet and raw about the way she is, the anger banked like hot-boiling clouds at the horizon. It's a look he's seen before. It makes him wonder -- was he such a nitwit when he was just starting out? So stubbornly nihilistic, so unwilling to be shown anything, told anything? Instruction really isn't his métier, he lacks the right kind of patience. Amber would've been better at this. But Amber was better at a lot of things -- betrayal and lies foremost among them. ]

[ He seals off the lid on that wellspring of bitterness. Digs into the paper cup of sour cream on the edge of his plate, instead, and starts spreading it on the golden backs of the blintzes. There's a beat, before he murmurs, ]

You're not the first person to get reamed. Not be the organization. Or by -- [ a shrug. ] Life. Karma. Whatever. [ There's a complete lack of rancor in his voice. He tucks into the blintzes with gusto. ] You want to die, that's your call. Or you can keep living. Do some dirty work for the higher ups in a dirty world, hitch your wagon to their star. You'll have money and a good life as long as you stay sharp and keep your wits about you. The more you succeed, the better care they'll take of you; the more layers of protection will build up around you. You'll never have to punch a clock. Or join a union. Or shovel forms in triplicate or suffer any of the daily indignities of a square working life, at least.

[ As a civilian, she'd never been beyond her sheltered little realm. She doesn't realize that in the Syndicate's violent world, or in quotidian civilian reality, the system is the same. Just with different types of casualties. ]

[anatural]

[She can recite the speech by heart at this point. She's gotten it from pretty much everyone -- her instructors at the Syndicate's torture centers, her superior officers during debriefs. Hell, there's even been a one night stand or two who'd managed to get a peek behind her facade and figured that insight gave them the right to lecture her.]

And look how happy it's made you, Mr. Silver Lining. You're a regular motivational poster. The "Hang in there!" kitten better watch its back.

[All the terrible things he's seen, all the worse things he's done, and his idea of comfort is "at least you don't have to do paperwork"? Like that was even going to be her life in the first place. He just assumed that he knew what her life would have been like, that "civilian" life was the same everywhere.

But she had been a shaman -- the first shaman in her village for decades. Her parents had been too concerned with hiding her from people like Hei to think of what that meant for the village, but Korra had always known that the spirits wanted her to protect her culture. And look at her now. Living in the heart of the Great Melting Pot, constantly getting mistaken for a Mexican, teaching a sacred practice from someone else's culture entirely to a bunch of white people who wanted to lose weight. But at least she doesn’t have to join a union. What fucking reality does he live in?]

[mortemscintilla]

[ The word Happy pings off Hei's brain with a sharp resonance akin to static crawling up an iron tooth-filling. Playing Little Miss Victim really doesn't become her. But his expression stays impassive; conscious effort to reject the irritation that boils through him. ]

[ No, he doesn't know what her life was going to be. But she's not a shaman to the world's heavy-hitters. She's a Contractor. A weapon; a tool; the veritable scum of the earth. That's all she'd ever be if anyone beyond her village got wind of her powers. Society would take her in, find the truth of her bitter-tasting, spit her out, and she'd exist on the fringes as human garbage. Because that's what all Contractors are, in the eyes of 'normal people.' A moat of human garbage eddying around every pristine scenic park, disqualified from sharing the picnic baskets. ]

[ But oh, the pain of being a Syndicate lackie! The stigma of being a killer! She's too young -- too stupid -- to realize it could be worse. She could be forced to work as a honeytrap or provocateurix, and suffer psychic wounds that would give a seasoned streetwalker the chills. She could be stuck in a cell, starved and beaten, let loose like a wild dog only when the Syndicate wanted something done. Instead she's been given a function. Her family hasn't been threatened or killed. She hasn't lost any beloved comrades, or been forced to operate with teams of predators who'd doublecross her. ]

[ At the end of the day, Hei can't feel the way she does, because his lifestyle was designed to make a killer of him anyway. And it isn't difficult to feel like an outcast in a world where your basic self puts you at odds with the ideals of inclusion. At least in the Syndicate, if you are a cunning risk-taker, you manage to obtain all that is officially unavailable to the 'normal people' -- money, power, influence. It's better than an ordinary existence of ignorance, monotony, minor offenses and despair. Infinitely better than a pointless death. ]

[ He sets the empty tray of blintzes aside. His tone is mild as ever. ]

Happy is subjective. If the Syndicate hadn't found you, some lower-ranking organization would have. Even if you escaped them, it'd be impossible to stay in your village. Not without endangering everyone there. You'd have had to leave, at some point. Spent a miserable daily existence ducking the cops and other agencies, and probably wind up dead by age twenty, most likely a suicide in a jail cell or a stabbing victim in a prison shower.

[anatural]

[Fuck you, sir. "Playing the victim," because she fails to accept your great and magnificent wisdom? Because instead of taking comfort in the fact that if she obeys the rules, she'll get paid, she takes comfort in the fact that if she dies, they can't use her anymore? She's not taking extravagant risks with her life here. She's not doing drugs, or picking fights in every bar, or deliberately going after suicide missions. It's a little risk here, a little risk there, and a few more casual fucks than she'd probably have had otherwise. She's not wearing fuck-me boots and giving Death a come-hither look. She's just not crossing to the other side of the street when she sees it and praying it doesn't notice her. (Perhaps another factor is her people's traditional belief in reincarnation. It's not something that Korra actively, consciously chooses to believe in, but it is a part of her cultural subconscious.)

She arches an eyebrow at his little speech -- again, nothing she hasn't heard before, from rich white men trying to convince her they did her a favor, like a rapist going "Hey, you should be glad I didn't murder you." Gee, thanks mister, that was awful nice of you.]

Once again, thank you for that stirring inspirational speech, Mr. Sunshine. [On a slightly more serious -- okay, not more serious, but on a slightly less sarcastic note] You seriously need to get laid more often.

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's those little risks that give it away. A lapse in judgement here, a dissolution of restraint there. Gears chafing; bolts rusting and creaking. Psychological atrophying doesn't occur in one fell swoop. It's a process. The fact that Korra's flirting with it already means she's been inhaled like a dust mote into the lungs of the dragon. And every breath the dragon takes will carry her deeper into its bowels and farther from the light. She is in so deep already, how the hell is she going to get out? ]

[ Except that's not his concern. It's hers. For all the Syndicate thinks it knows about Hei, it doesn't realize he's not driven by bloodlust, glory or ego -- for him it comes down to survival, his sights set not on money or medals but staying alive to fight another battle, another stepping-stone in his path to a heretofore unknown destination. (Except he knows that destination. Like a series of framed picture in his mind: red in the delicate dips of pale knuckles; wisps of dark hair pasted with blood; a child's burning blue eyes. The word Pai will always hold the same flavor as oxygen in his mouth.) ]

[ At her words, he doesn't blink. But there's something that shutters in his gaze -- brief as a flutter of wings. It isn't confusion or annoyance or even temptation. It's a blank sort of dismissal. ]

Let me worry about that non-issue.

[ Don't think you're fooling him by changing tacks this way. ]

[anatural]

Right, right. Your blueballs aren't any of my business. And unless they're paying you a lot better than I think they are, my life isn't any of yours.

[The waitress comes by with Korra's meal in a to-go container and Korra takes it with a smile that is surprisingly genuine.]

Thanks for breakfast.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei doesn't say anything; gaze steady, lips flat, the expression never falters. (Two thoughts bloom in a narrow fold of his mind, though. 1) Her smile, he decides, is an unexpectedly sweet thing to behold. 2) The Syndicate, he realizes, is going to devour her until that spark is completely extinguished.) Something almost like pity bubbles in him, but it's so brief he dismisses it as nothing more than a gurgling stomach. ]

[ As she gets up to leave, he doesn't stop her. But when she passes by, he slips a finger into the rear pocket of her jeans, to hold her back a moment. Without looking over, he says, ]

Be ready for a relocation in 48 hours.

[ It's phrased as both a You're welcome and a Goodbye. ]

[anatural]

[Well if you have indigestion, Hei, it's probably from all that food you've been scarfing down.

There's an instinct to slap his hand -- not because it's him, but because she's been in to many clubs with handsy assholes -- but, being a Contractor, she manages to suppress it.]

Yeah, yeah. Been there, done that, have the t-shirt collection to prove it. [She knows the drill by heart at this point.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Don't mock his appetite, ok. He's still growing. (Though what exactly it is, that's 'growing', the world may never know. ]

[ A tip of the chin is the only indication that he's heard. Slipping his finger loose, returns his attention to the brimming plates, and lets Korra drift off to rejoin the indistinguishable civilian blur outside. (There may be a fingertip-sized tracker imprinted into the fabric of her jeans; a failproof device in case something goes awry.) ]