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]

[ 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. ]

[alittlebent]

...that sounded really creepy. [The quote part, not the person part. She'd be touched by the message if she weren't hung up on trying to understand what the quote meant, and why it sounded so unsettling.]

[mortemscintilla]

I thought the same thing when I first heard it.

[ It's the truth, for what it's worth. (He tries not to think of what it says, that with Korra, he inadvertently takes on the role Amber once played for him.) Lightly brushing his hands on his trousers, he stands up and lets the crumbs drop. The vendor's little helper-boy will sweep up after them later, sour-faced. ]

[ He sips at his sweating glass of mango shake, finds it so much to his liking that he pours it down his throat and orders another for the go. ]

[ Glancing at Korra, he asks, dryly, ]

Ready to head back to the island?

[alittlebent]

[No, her expression clearly says. But she can't avoid it forever. And with real food in her belly and a little quiet time with Hei to just... be -- no pressures, no expectations, no being a disappointment -- she feels refreshed, if not quite reinvigorated. She's still not sure if she's up to the task ahead of her, but she's ready to face it regardless.]

Yeah. I think I am.

[mortemscintilla]

All right.

[ The freedom to be spontaneous is a precious thing, here or back home. With Korra, it's surreal how Hei is capable of forgetting everything but that nameless, spiky shudder of emotion under his cool surface. But he can't afford to let that condition become permanent. It's a matter of necessity -- survival -- to remember himself, and to remember that she is the Avatar here. Changed as they both are from their time in the City, he can't overlook certain facts like her responsibilities in this world, and his own uncertain status in it. ]

[ But it's enough that they have this -- quiet moments interspersed throughout their busy timetables, trips to the market or painfully simple things like the way he curls his fingers through hers, leans in and kisses her, cool and soft and mango-sweet. Because here, he can. He may not know himself to the core yet, any more than he knows Korra's dizzying new world. But he knows Korra, and what she means to him. ]

[ It's enough. For someone who's survived on meager scraps of nothing, it's everything. ]