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]

[ 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.) ]