take a tiny step into another world

[anatural]

WHO: Korra & Hei
WHAT: Months after leaving Republic City, Hei tracks down Korra.

[A lot can happen in ten months, Korra had thought as Hei left. And she had been right. Just a few weeks after he left, she'd gotten word that her father had been injured in an uprising in the South Pole. That her uncle's troops weren't there to protect the South Pole, but were there to control their sister tribe. She'd kicked herself for not realizing it sooner — hadn't Jinora warned her?

So against Tenzin's wishes, she had gone home to help her tribe. He'd told her that it was important for the Avatar to be impartial, that she was a representative of the world and not just her tribe. Bullshit. Home is home is home, and her home had needed her.

It had been a brutal slap in the face. Her attempts to resolve the situation peacefully had ended in failure. The Northern Water Tribe soldiers didn't acknowledge her as having any authority. Some people didn't even believe she was still the Avatar. The southern soldiers she fought alongside didn't say anything to her face, but she heard the whispers and knew that they thought she was holding them back, because she went out of her way not to kill any of the northern soldiers, because her uncle is the leader of the Northern Water Tribe.

She'd tried to prove her loyalty by kidnapping her uncle, and that plan had backfired. That's how she ended up his prisoner, brought up to the North Pole to open the northern spirit portal.

And that's how she ended up trapped in the spirit world.]

Comments

[anatural]

[She shakes her head.]

I don't know. But that's not the point. He took something from me, and I have to get it back.

[She's not making any sense and she knows it, but she doesn't care. There's a gaping hole inside of her where Raava used to be, a hole even more painful than when Amon took her bending. It's the difference between being cut on the arm and being stabbed in the gut. The one thing that makes it better is that she knows what to do now.]

[mortemscintilla]

Took something?

[ It's the most perfunctory of glances, a miniscule shift in the tension of his shoulders that's there and gone again when Korra doesn't elaborate. Whatever Unalaq's taken from her -- her bending, some other intangible essence -- it doesn't matter. All he needs to infer is that it's important, and that Korra needs to get it back. It elicits almost a non-response from Hei, his expression shuttering closed into something determined but not necessarily cold. Not yet. Things are how they are, and when push comes to shove, being a creature of electricity and bruises and revenge is how some of the best partnerships are formed. ]

[ (It's not hard to understand Korra's anger, if you've lost enough.) ]

Do you have a plan?

[anatural]

[She's not angry — she's beyond anger. There is something that needs to be done, and so she's going to do it. It's as simple as that.]

I'm going to find Raava. [That's totally a plan, right? It's as much of a plan as she has, anyway.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ His face shades into mild confusion. You can tell, because, well. He blinks. ]

... Is this a past life?

[ Does it matter? That thread of questioning is only tangentially related to their situation. She doesn't have a plan, but that's not largely surprising. Korra is spontaneous and spur-of-the-moment, driven by the force of her passions. It's Hei who operates while weighing every little detail, even if it's purely at a subconscious level. As he regards her now, a scheme coheres. It is crude, it is ugly, and it is improvised, but given the parameters, it might work. ]

Unalaq's probably at his base. [ Otherwise they'd both have been ambushed by now. ] I can get you in there.

[ He's still wearing the Northern military's fur-lined uniform. He still has the shroud he'd bundled Korra's body in. ]

[anatural]

[She shakes her head impatiently.]

She's not there. She's... I don't know where she is, except she's here, in the spirit world. Unalaq ripped her from me. He tried to kill her, but she escaped, and she's hiding, and I need to find her.

[It's as simple as that. Really.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ That's better. At least he knows it's a lost spirit she's after. That information is tangible, lets ease settle into his shoulders as he slips one hand into his pocket, his gaze steady and appraising as it skates the periphery. Finding Raava is a step toward the most tangible thing of all: destroying Unalaq. Because if there's anything Hei dislikes most, it's loose ends. ]

[ A hand cupped around his eyes, he blinks into the direction of the forest, a light shrug as he tips his chin and says, ]

She can't be far.

[ The I'll help you look is implicit. ]

[anatural]

[A laugh cuts through the air — or, more accurately, a giggle that is both nervous and condescending.]

Shows what you know! Can you catch a sunbeam in your hands?

Who's there?! [Korra looks around for the source of the voice. She's so fucking sick of the spirit world, of how strange everything is, the surreality of it. Nothing is what you expect it to be. Nothing behaves the way it's supposed to. Clouds grow dark and heavy above their heads.

A chipmunk comes out from behind a tree. A bright purple swirls in its otherwise grey eyes.]

You can’t. Raava travels light. She could be on the other side of the spirit world right now. You're just a human. [There's an extra level of disdain in its voice when it says human.] You’ll never find her.

[mortemscintilla]

[ ....It's a talking chipmunk. ]

[ Hei stares -- and it's not a live-wire sort of alertness so much as it's a half-weary, half-disgusted: What has my life come to? Overhead, low-hanging stormclouds gather, blocking out the light, etching the landscape in sharp-edged darkness. On reflex, he steps closer to the intruder. The way it sneers the word human lodges in his head like a string of gristle -- fray-edged and familiar. He's heard it often enough on the battlefield. His narrowed eyes are a cloudy blue, the face a mask of coldness. But around the edges, like a thin lip of light silhouetting a doorframe, there is defiance. ]

[(It's feigned. Why stop acting like the clueless hothead that enemies are used to underestimating? It always prevents them from seeing what is coming.) ]

I doubt any of your kind have a clue where she is, either.

[anatural]

Whaddya mean, MY KIND? WAH!

[Korra grabs the creature before it can dodge.]

Where is she? Tell me what you know!

I’m not telling you anything!

[mortemscintilla]

[ There's Korra for you. Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. And just as subtle. ]

[ Reaching out, he curls his fingers lightly around her wrist. His expression isn't disapproving, exactly, but it does communicate a faint discouragement. People always say torture and intimidation are what gets the information. But there are a lot of ways better than that to extract it. It's the way it had played out between him and Carmine: he didn't torture her just because he was after information on Pai. He tortured because he was enraged, confused, resentful -- and most of all because he wanted to torture. Most targets, faced with the threat of it, will bluster. Others will beg. Both types are really two sides of the same coin: their focus is the interrogator, and because of this they tend to crack easily. As soon as they see that their bluster and begging is useless, that they can't make a human connection that will stop the pain and torment, their psyches fold and information begins to spill out. ]

[ That doesn't work well with non-humans, though. To them, you're more an infection to be waited out, not something intelligent to condescend bargaining with. The better tactic is to play on their arrogance. ]

[ Mildly, ]

Let it go. I doubt it knows anything about anything.

[anatural]

[Korra reluctantly lets the creature go, and it runs. It's not sticking around to be waited out or manipulated — it's said all it wants to say.]

Hey! Stop!

[Korra turns and glares at Hei.]

Now look what you did!

[mortemscintilla]

[ In Hei's face congeals the cynicism of his voice. ]

That pest doesn't know where Raava is. Any more than you do.

[ Nor would it have any reason to be cowed into helping them. It's as ludicrous as a slaughterhouse owner making tremulous bargains with livestock. There's a beat, before he glances up at the gloomy spread of the sky. Deformed shapes swirl in the air above their heads. It's easy to mistake the spectacle for a particularly gruesome phase of the northern lights, until the air coalesces, attaining a splintered permanence, and a shoal of faces begin swimming out of the sky. Their aspect is hideous: eyes ripped of eyelids or punched from their skulls outright, noses bitten away, lips freakishly swelled, tongues long and lolling and eaten through as if by parasites. ]

[ Hei shakes his head irritably, centering his mind on something cool and smooth-shaped, and the shapes dissipate by slow degrees like smoke. ]

One thing is sure. The spirits are going out of their way to antagonize us. The more they succeed, the crazier things become.

[anatural]

Stupid spirits. [Grumbled. She sighs and runs her fingers through her hair. No idea where Raava's gone. No leads. An antagonistic world of spirits. It's enough to make her cry.

But she doesn't. Nor does she ask Hei for suggestions. He never even believed in spirits before coming here; what would he know?

Just start walking. She'll come across a clue eventually.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ A summary of the past forty-eight hours:

Traveling all the way to the North Pole like his life is a chapter out of The Snow Queen.
Entering a dimension closer to Wonderland than anything mentioned in religious books or mythologies.
Being duped by a tentacled monster wearing Pai's face.
Encountering a mini-Korra.
Turning pint-sized himself.
Saving Korra from a haunted tree.
Reuniting an empty shell with the incorporeal spirit.
Being snarked at by a demented chipmunk. ]

[ Hei cringes, and it's almost visible. Lifting a hand, he massages his eyelids with a thumb and forefinger, the eyes sandpapery with exhaustion. Then he strips his gloves and warms his hands together. They feel sweaty and pink and wrinkled, skin like a baby mouse's. When this nightmare is over, he's going to take a nap that puts Rip van Winkle to shame. And with that he sucks in a deep breath and strides after Korra, letting it energize him, the drive toward a goal. When he's home: hot baths. Sleep. Whiskey. Lots of whiskey. And his bed. Hell, Korra's bed. And he'll get some take-out crab rangoon. Or sesame noodles. He'd kill for some noodles. ]

[ For now though, his eyes are focused straight ahead, with an intensity suggestive of crosshairs roving for a target. ]

[anatural]

[For some reason, this is the last thing Korra expects.]

What are you doing?

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei blinks, glancing at her, not quite in time to conceal a flicker of what resembles genuine confusion. ]

What do you mean, 'what am I doing'?

[ It should be obvious. He's scanning the parameter for any hostile spirits. The last thing they need is to be taken by surprise. Again. ]

[anatural]

I mean, aren't you going back? [Honestly, a part of her can't help feeling like he's just a figment of her imagination, and that at any moment, he's going to vanish.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei is blindsided enough by the suggestion that he blinks, staring blankly for a moment. Then his features readjust themselves to a familiar impatience. ]

Of course not.

[ The words are salted with irritation, but something else too. Incredulity that she'd even ask. At the same time, he's not surprised. It says volumes about what she thinks of him, of their mess of a relationship, that the first assumption she fits to the meager facts is of him abandoning her at the crux of disaster. ]

[anatural]

[She'd ask it of pretty much anyone who was here with her. This is Avatar stuff — she just assumes she'd handle it alone. And, okay, Hei does have a habit of vanishing. But mostly she just assumes that other people have other plans, other things to do, and she has to handle things on her own. The thought of him joining her is just...confusing.]

Oh. Okay.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Something almost like a headache thumps behind Hei's eyelids. The implication braided into her words, in her silence, coils around him. It's just another reminder of how surreally similar they both can be. Determined to handle everything by themselves, out of either duty or some unfathomable self-flagellation. So used to running everything that they think they're right even when they're beating themselves up for being wrong. Always needing to be the biggest hero, or the biggest monster. Except, now that he's here, he can't believe he'd gone off exploring, like some trust-fund baby leisurely backpacking across Europe. The sense of displacement, of missing something so important while being fixated on what is utterly trivial, is killer. ]

[ He tries to tell himself he'd been too restless to stay in Republic city. To be a warped consort to the Avatar, when he was too mentally disturbed after everything in Tokyo, in the City, to participate in a full-blown love affair. But that feels like an excuse. It doesn't make him feel better about how coolly he'd treated her when she'd said I love you -- almost a code for Please stay. And it didn't explain away his own mendacity. ]

[ That's what irritates the most. It would've been one thing if he hadn't cared for her, to gallivant off for reconnaissance. But he does care about her, and he'd promised to have her back. How selfish, in light of that, to have abandoned her when he knew the politics of Korra's world were unstable anyway. ]

[ He wishes he could tell her that. But what's the point? The most he can do is make amends -- here and now. ]

[ At length, ]

I want to help you. That's all.

[anatural]

It's going to be a lot of weird spirit stuff. [Which she knows isn't his thing. You sure you're up for that, Hei?]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei lets off a huff that's indecipherable -- either amused or dismissive. Reaching out, he touches her shoulder -- a brief, but hard squeeze. A year ago, he'd never have come here. He's always navigated through the world as a loner. Always been self-centered. Always had assets and business associates, but few friends. He knows what he is, and has grown grudgingly tolerant of those facts. Any other time, he'd have left Korra to fend for herself without a qualm. The Avatar isn't helpless. All she'd represent is time and energy that could be refocused elsewhere. ]

[ But somewhere along the line, that mindset has faded. Suddenly he is seventeen again, back in the jungles of South America with Pai. Suddenly Korra's life has a value beyond mere currency. Time is surreal that way. Once she'd meant nothing to him; now he'll willingly go through the bizarre and nightmarish for her. It is the kind of knee-jerk reaction he might once have made spying a child playing on the street in a careening car's path. Instinct. Nothing to second-guess or strategize. ]

[ Letting his hand slip away, he says, ]

We'll deal with it.

[ As far as he's concerned, that's the end of the discussion. ]