Setting: after the City

[anatural]

THE GIST
When the door out ofpoly_chromatic is finished, Korra invites Hei to join her in her world. He brings a few other people along with him.

CHARACTERS
Korra | anatural
Jinora | bookbending
Hei | mortemscintilla
Yin | moonlitrequiem
Mao | maoser

Comments

[mortemscintilla]

[ While the vendor assembles their breakfast, the plumes of steam and sizzling snaps from the wok muffling his mutters of Kids these days smoking too much of the hard stuff, Hei plucks two sticks of fatty pork smeared in sweet chili sauce to tide himself over. ]

[ At Korra's words, he tears into the stick, stops mid-chew, then swallows. Somehow, the question seems strange. Perhaps because she'd never asked where his cash flowed to and from in the City -- although it was clear the cafe didn't supplement all of it. It was fed by investments in the Underground -- the murkier the better. Compared to the lattice of networks there, or the half-dozen or so private accounts back home, all loaded with slush funds or skimmed budgets from Syndicate ops, Republic City is surreal for him. Like starting from scratch. ]

[ Still, it's not too bad. To get enough sleep, to explore new territories, to learn the language, to establish contacts: these are the sorts of things he doesn't neglect to do here. Compared to the curses of the City, or the fugitive pressures at home, it's a cake walk. And the factory work, well ... it's monotonous and dirty. But if it lets him lie in on a weekday morning and get up when he damn well chooses (all right, to be fair, it's habitual for Hei to get up with the first rays of sunlight) then he counts himself as lucky. ]

[ Tearing with gusto into another piece of sweet grilled pork, he says, ]

Nothing illegal.

[ Not yet, anyway. (Give him a month.) ]

[alittlebent]

Well good, because that would be awkward.

[Even though she worked to pay rent in the City, Korra hadn't yet developed a sense of what jobs paid how much. As far as she knew, his job at the café did cover everything. Nor had she really thought too hard about it, since there were plenty of other things to think about.

Here, the money is just a reminder that she really has no idea what he does with his time here, other than study the books Jinora gives him and help out some with chores.]

I just didn't know you had a job.

[mortemscintilla]

Only if you get caught.

[ A quip, almost, as his lips quirk at the edges. But his tone is solemn. He may be a civilian in Republic City. But Hei still has the sensibilities of a Contractor. He still believes in maintaining a front of dependable, hard-working respectability -- restaurant jobs, factory work, dockwork, clerkships, book-keeping -- while accessing his real liquid income from several belowground channels. No matter which strange new environment he finds himself in, he's rarely hard-up for long. ]

[ Anyway, often, during his treks across the city, he's seen sooty-faced, haggard men and women trudging down the street on their way to the factories. Poor ugly bastards and frumpy old biddies, almost all of them non-benders: they spend their daylight hours drudging in the scalding heat for next to nothing, then come home to screaming wives and too many brats to feed, or drunken husbands who knock them from one wall to the other. If this is what it means to be 'upright', and what Hei specializes in is 'illegal'... ]

[ Well, what did God -- or whoever's up there -- give you brains for, if not to save you from senseless donkey-work? ]

[ He doesn't say that to Korra, of course. He just reaches out, gently looping a strand of her hair around his finger, watching the dark of it glitter in the sunlight. ]

It's factory work. Nothing too exciting.

[ He's fortunate he managed to get it at all, owing to his ability to 'bend.' If he'd been sweet, simple Li, he wouldn't have been so blessed. ]

[alittlebent]

[It takes her a moment to make the connection.]

Oh. [His power would look kind of like lightning bending wouldn't it? She tilts her head curiously as she thinks. She's never thought much about his power before -- has gone out of her way to not think about it, honestly, considering how they first met and the associations with Amon. But now she feels...not safe, exactly, but like it has another side. It's not just a deadly weapon. It's multi-faceted, like Hei.]

Can you do fire too, or just electricity?

[mortemscintilla]

Just electricity.

[ Some men at the factory have offered to show Hei -- assuming (correctly?) that he had no teachers to refine his 'fire-bending', and that his precise but somewhat narrow-scoped expertise on lighting-bending is the result of lack of opportunities -- how to expand his style at choice dojos. Others have suggested healers who'll be able to unblock whatever chakra they assume is interfering with his being a full-fledged fire-bender. Hei's told them, politely, that he'll think about it. But the truth is, all of this stuff is so implausible to him. Even here. Hei is a dismal pragmatist. Sweat, money, blood and lies in the real world: these are the things he understands and can wrap his head around. In his homeworld, he'd had more pressing dangers to deal with than the shadowy, undefined threat posed by stoppered spirituality. ]

[ But, again, the rules are different here. Ignorance in any sphere is a dangerous thing. One stupid move against a stronger opponent could put him in a coma. Or kill him. Which is why -- out-of-depth as the spiritualism of Korra's world leaves him -- he understands it's important to keep an open mind. ]

Xing. She was the one who could -- [ He breaks off, his gaze going unfocused, realizing it's the first time since their separation that he's mentioned Pai. In absent third person. In past-tense. An ache constricts his chest; he has to cough to breathe. ] She could do things with her powers I've never seen.

[ He almost adds, Because she was smart enough to accept her abilities as a part of her nature. Unlike me. I used them as a trump card, for fear of over-reliance. ]

[alittlebent]

That's so weird. [The words are out of her mouth before she considers the context, and she flinches before lightly bumping his shoulder in apology.] I mean, I've never heard of a firebender who could bend lightning but not fire. [She almost says I mean, I know you’re not a firebender, but remembers where they are and keeps her mouth shut on that regard.] During the Hundred Years War, only the Fire National royals knew how to bend lightning. It's a very advanced, specialized technique, but it all comes from the same source.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Her words aren't insulting, and he certainly doesn't perceive them as such. Instead he hitches a shoulder, his voice pitched low over the clamor of the marketplace. ]

Maybe that means I need to try different techniques. [ Pai's power has a range of different uses, after all. From matter transmutation to molecular oscillation, destruction to healing, intangibility to creation. But even after inheriting her ability, Hei has been able to grasp only the tip of its coldly-glittering iceberg. He doesn't have his sister's effortless talent to channel her energies at the flip of a switch. For Hei, it's always been a matter of intense concentration and focus, on shutting off the enormous honeycomb of thought-processes in his brain. ]

[ Keeping his gaze averted from Korra, he chews open-mouthed on the skewered meat, letting the cooling air in. ]

Still. It's not that different where I'm from. Everything is made up of four elements. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen. It corresponds with earth, fire, air and water.

[ A pause, as he mulls over the similarities between benders and Contractors -- the biophoton emissions versus the concept of inner light. Dryly, he says, ]

Maybe I'm just lacking a good teacher to show me how it's done.

[alittlebent]

I could. I mean, I'm pretty sure you're being sarcastic, but if you really are interested, I can run you through the firebending basics. Though it'd probably be better if you had somebody who could actually bend fire.

[mortemscintilla]

[ In other circumstances -- perhaps as little as a month ago -- Hei would've said, What's the point of firebending basics when they couldn't do jack for you? But he's been cruel to her so often before. It was easier back then. He'd convinced himself it meant nothing, because they were nothing to each other. (As if the heavy machinery of the heart is that easy to control). ]

[ He rips off the last bit of the pork, chewing, then lets the stained sticks drop into the trough of garbage at the edge of the stall. Licking his thumb almost contemplatively, he says, ]

I prefer a variety of teachers. [ It's the best way to amalgamate different styles and perspectives, then find what works for you. ] You could teach me while I'm at the island. When I'm in the city, I'll find a dojo.

[alittlebent]

Really? [She actually perks up. Between airbending practice and meditations to try and unblock her other bending, it's been awhile since she's run through any of her firebending forms, particularly her basics. She likes the idea of doing them, even if it doesn't do anything.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She lights up, and it's a look of pure Korra -- that element of almost blinding glowiness she has. Is she so bored? Hei wonders -- but doesn't ask. For one thing, it'll give him an excuse to spend more time with her. (And isn't that strange? Effort expended for no sinister outcome, no ulterior motive. For no reason but Because. It makes him feel dizzy, char-smudged, disgustingly adolescent. He wants to ask, What's wrong with me? But he already knows the answer. He's a spy, after all. Avoiding a subject only makes it more conspicuous.) ]

[ So he summons a faint nod, and a fainter smile. ]

Sure.

[ The vendor has whipped up their orders, piling them onto a broad bamboo tray. Grasping it carefully by the edges, Hei glances around the crowded market, before his gaze alights on a rickety row of tables under the canopy of dark trees. ]

Let's sit there.

[alittlebent]

[Korra slips into her seat and grabs for one of the meatbuns.]

How much do you know about chi?

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei has already tucked into the pork buns with an unselfconscious zest. A small pond, encircled by lichen-matted stones, shimmers beside their bench, teeming with turtleducks. He pauses now and then to flick crumbs into the water, watching the strange shelled creatures flutter around the offerings. At Korra's question, he pauses, ]

Just the basics. It's an energy flow that runs through the body through twelve meridians. I learnt nèigōng and wàigōng when I was younger, for better self-control.

[ He'd also perfected lethal strikes that could shut down nerve centers in the body -- what his teachers referred to as disrupting the flow of qi. But his training was destruction-focused. The spiritual aspect was excluded almost completely. ]

i'm going to fuck this up so

[alittlebent]

[...well shit.]

Sounds like you know more about it than I do. [Awkward. But Korra forces herself not to feel discouraged.]

Firebending's pretty unique among all the bending arts. It's the only one where all your power comes from your chi. It's all about willpower and your breath.

/chuchu<3

[mortemscintilla]

That sounds familiar.

[ Korra's discomfort is a bright ripple in the air, but he ignores it for the moment. His focus is on the similarities 'fire-bending' shares to another martial arts style from his homeworld. ]

When I was a boy, I was taught rudiments of something known as shaolin. It wasn't about strikes and throws. I was instructed on how and when to breathe. That was the way to balance your body in accordance with your movements.

[ It's reflex for him by now. When inhaling he acclimates his muscles, gauging them for the next movement, whether it's a punch or a kick. When executing his own blow, he exhales. Of course, as a teenager, he hadn't been interested in anything beyond mastering the surface techniques. In a war, there was seldom much cross-pollination between the two sides of martial arts -- spiritualism and combat. He'd scoffed at the discipline required to master the precise and powerful repetition of the katas, and only come to understand the deadly intent hidden in the dance when he was older. ]

[ Here, he's uncomfortably aware of how sciolistic his comprehension of the arts still is. ]

[alittlebent]

[Korra nods.]

It's kind of like that, yeah. You can't control fire if you can't control your breath.

[mortemscintilla]

Show me the proper katas, then. Maybe something will click.

[ There's no embarrassment in how little he knows; it's stated simply. Humility is something Hei's instructors couldn't beat into him with a steel mallet. All that had fueled him in his younger days was the drive to train harder so he could defeat more of his 'superiors' and prove to them just how wrong they really were. It's funny to consider how important things like that felt to him then. Pretending he knew everything. Proving others wrong. Fighting stupidity. Wanting formal recognition. It took him a long time to learn that no one knows anything about everything, proving people wrong is purposeless, fighting stupidity is futile, and formal recognition prevents people from underestimating you -- and thereby from ceding to you surprise and other tactical advantages. ]

[ But here, he's completely out of his depth, and in no hurry to go sticking his ignorance in, even if he thinks he knows something. It's better -- for the time being -- to listen and learn. ]

[ There's a beat, as he chews a bit of the egg pancake while it's still warm, before he asks, ]

When did you learn how to fire-bend?

[alittlebent]

[Korra has to chew her meatbun for another moment before she can swallow it to speak.]

Uh, I mastered it about two years ago? But I've been able to firebend my entire life. Had been able to. [The ache that had faded while in the City has been brought back full force here, in the world where she had already gotten her bending back, a world which doesn't understand why it's gone again.] I don't remember anyone showing me how. I just knew.

[mortemscintilla]

[ I just knew. Sitting there, her face half-shaded by the brim of the hat, Korra is achingly human. Not frail or breakable -- she will never be made of hollowed glass no matter how young she is -- but even she can bleed. Hei knows that firsthand. The others might be amazed to know the Avatar doesn't drip a glitter-glow of astral energy from her wounds. It's the same red as everyone else's. ]

[ His gaze dips, more out of concession than consideration. It's reflex for him to chart out someone's weak-points with a dictionary and dots of brilliant light, so it looks like an astronomical map as much as a strategy for manipulation. But that's unnecessary here. Instead he focuses on the flakes of coconut floating in the thick, white congee. Lifts his chipped porcelain spoon and stirs the soupy concoction before bringing a spoonful of it to his mouth. A beat, then, ]

There's a reason you don't need to be shown, Korra. Books and lab results are for theorists. But I've watched you fight. You're the real thing. While the rest of us argue about semantics -- you tap into your energy intuitively. [ Quieter, ] You just have to clear the baggage in your head -- with or without meditation -- and remember what you're capable of.

[alittlebent]

[She groans a little and rests her chin on her hand.]

I just wish someone would tell me how.

[mortemscintilla]

I don't think you need to be told. [ It's flat but not callous. He sips noiselessly from the side of the spoon, listening to its clinks against the bowl, to the watery burble of the pond and the splashing of the turtleducks, and beyond that, the ambient clamor of the marketplace. The expression on his face is mild, absorbed, but his gaze stays fixed on Korra's. ] It's something you have to figure out yourself. Whatever makes things ... click ... in your head. Does that make sense?

[ He knows when that click happens for him. When he's moving so fast in a firefight that his brain whites out into a perfect, rational emptiness. Or the breathtakingly pure simplicity of the snick in his chest, whenever he'd be near Pai, basking in the soft radiance of her attention. Or everytime his mind goes into hyperdrive -- ideas, theories, exit strategies, attack formations -- everything blossoming with perfect translucence amid a deafening vacuum of adrenalin. Or the jigsaw-soft click, when he's alone at night, mapping the bed of glittering stars -- or watching Yin from a distance. Or that sweet delirium that comes from the moments he spends with Korra, where his entire universe is compressed down to a pinpoint of white heat. ]

[ Each time, the clutter dissolves into clarity. His life becomes simple. ]

[alittlebent]

I've been trying. I've been trying for years now!

[She tugs on the edges of her hat in frustration. She's been putting on a good show for Tenzin and Jinora and the others, believing with them that her bending really will come back, but with Hei, that front slips.]

I don't think it ever will.

[mortemscintilla]

It will.

[ If he really means that, is willing to speak in absolutes when nothing about life or its uncertainties is absolute -- who can tell? Except Hei recognizes the exhaustion and futility darkening her eyes. Remembers the feeling of being helpless and human and stupid, trying to transcend the limitations of what he was. He still doesn't know himself to his bones. No one does. But he knows the externalities -- how far he can be pushed (miles on foot, days without rest, insects and entrails to eat, slitting throats one moment and smiling at children the next) how low he can stoop (all the way down, chin-deep in sewage or sex, duplicitous, ruthless, anything from sweet-talk to slaughter to achieve his goals), how high he can aim (for victory, for perfection, for fallen comrades, for Pai and even for the damn stars). ]

[ There's a great deal about Korra's world that is mysterious. But Korra isn't one of those esoteric elements. He's come to know her well. To know that if any disaster crashes in, she'll deal with it. ]

[ Gently, ]

If you think that your bending's gone forever -- that you can't be the Avatar without it -- that's just Amon, and everyone who is against you, moving you 'round the board from the great beyond. Don't let them.

[alittlebent]

[She meets his eyes, her expression mostly uncertain but maybe a little hopeful too. It's not like he knows anything about bending or understands anything about her world; he doesn't know what he's talking about any more than Tenzin or Jinora do.

Aang found a middle path, she reminds herself. When everyone told him it was either kill or lose, he found another way to win.]

You're right. [She doesn't quite believe it yet, but she will. Like Aang, she'll find her own path.

Maybe she'll luck out and a giant lion turtle will appear. Anything's possible.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Finding your own path. That's the watchword between them, isn't it? ]

[ Hei's tray is almost empty -- the bowl polished off, the noodles slurped up, nothing left of the meat buns and fried braids and egg pancakes except for a few heels of dough. Mopping up the last of the congee with a scrap of bread, he pops it into his mouth. His eyes carefully skate across the planes of her face. There's uncertainty there, but a fleck of fragile hope too. (Hei has always mistrusted hope. What is it, except a byword for an absolute lack of control?) Except it's necessary for Korra. Maybe even necessary for him, too. Strange to consider that one of them is the manifestation of a divinity -- all-bright, all-powerful. The other is a shadowy legend, a killer of killers. But what are they now? Nothing? ]

[ Of course not. Hei exhales, his lips twitching at the edges, ]

'I'm nobody. Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell. They'd banish us, you know.' [ It translates rather creepily in this language. Glancing at the pool of turtleducks, all saffron yellow feathers and bright eyes, he says, ] Someone I knew [ Amber ] used to say that. Except it's the opposite. You're not nobody. With or without your bending, you're a person. You're capable of being whatever you want to be.

[ It's as much a reminder for himself, as for her. ]