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

[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. ]