under the stars

[anatural]

WHO: Korra & Hei
WHAT: Their first night in the Spirit World and their first chance for an actual reunion. (nsfw)

[They trek for hours without saying anything, over terrain that varies with neither rhyme nor reason. Sometimes in a desert, other times in a forest, other times across a plain that seems to stretch for miles until suddenly a mountain appears. Hei doesn't ask why they're going the direction they are, for which Korra is grateful because she doesn't know the answer. She doesn't know anything. They're walking not to get anywhere in particular, but to give Korra a chance to figure out what to do, because she can't think while standing still.

Where would Raava have gone? Is there some way she can communicate with the light spirit? Is there anyone in the Spirit World who doesn't completely despise her?

Evening starts to fall, offering no answers, only a reminder that her body is human and, like it or not, needs rest. Luckily(?) they're in a forest. Plenty of material to make camp with.]

We should stop here for the night. [She has to cough a little mid-sentence; her voice rough from disuse.]

Comments

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei raises an eyebrow. For a moment the question is an absolute non sequitur; a half-beat later, it makes perfect sense. (Part of him is amused at how quickly Korra can cycle through moods. In the morning, she'd been all doomy, stayed that way all through their trek, and now it is over, here she is all bright-eyed and curious. Then again, in a situation as bleak as this, it's better to focus outward than let the tar-black ichor in your mind lap over you.) ]

[ He rotates the spit slowly over the shifting line of orange embers, the different meats giving off a warm savory aroma as they broil. ]

[ Quietly, ]

A [ carefully self-censored ] summary?

[ You know perfectly well he's no good at storytelling. Not unless it's manipulation to achieve a goal. ]

[anatural]

Sure. Or all the details. [Is it really such a difficult question?]

[mortemscintilla]

[ It is when you're as allergic to details as he is. ]

[ For a moment Hei stays silent, wrists resting on his knees. What details to offer her? Traveling Korra's world, from the glittering boundaries of the United Republic to the heavy green recesses of the Earth Kingdom, to the Fire Nation -- both its leftover colonies and the heartland within the fertile archipelago itself -- then among the iceberg-fringed settlements of the Water Tribes, he has learnt only that the core of this world is a stratified one: socially, spatially and spiritually. ]

[ Everywhere he's been, he has tasted the clash of compulsive ideologies on his tongue. A war has brewed for 100 years. New conflicts still erupt between benders and non-benders. There is still a push-and-pull between the safety and order of the traditional, versus the bright-eyed glitter of the modern. He doesn't need to go into political detail; it's evident in the concrete form of the cities he's visited -- the way those ideas brand themselves upon each place, in its bones. Bleak stretches of the Water Tribes have a great struggle for survival, an aftermath of tragedy and genocide, marked indelibly in their architecture, but also very strongly visible in their people. Several parts of the Earth Kingdom reflect both their colonial heritage but also a struggle for independence, a love-hate relationship with their history. The Fire Nation is a thrumming proof of renewed benignity during the day, and a field of jewels by night -- yet for all its promise to satisfy your every desire, it feels strangely comfortless. ]

[ He has the sense of being in a world teetering at a cusp, some parts slumbering, others crumbling. All waiting, with a sort of mute expectation, to be invaded by something new. ]

[ Eventually, ]

To be honest ... it almost reminded me of my own world. Lots of inequality. Lots of chaos.

[anatural]

[She frowns. That's...not something she really wanted to hear.]

Where did you go?

[mortemscintilla]

[ He doesn't imagine anyone wants to hear it. But the fact of the matter is, this is a wearily beautiful world, resting upon a million slumbering bones that murmur their discontent beneath smoother pavements than they've enjoyed. He's picked his way over sleek marble temples and past legless shoe polishers, through moonlit moth-blossoming gardens, across incredible technicolor valleys and untended monasteries -- and he's seen that, here, in the City, or back home, it's all the same. ]

[ Hope and self-delusion are the fuel that moves everyone forward. ]

[ At her question, he shrugs, but it's less indifferent than it is an unspoken: I'm sure you can guess. ]

The Water Tribe. Rural towns in the Earth Kingdom. The main cities of the Fire Nation.

[ A beat before his mouth quirks with something like indulgence, like he's aware his reticence isn't what Korra wants right now. His gaze shutters, dim, but not exactly distant. Just plucking at the film-reel of memory for the pretty highlights of his trip ]

I saw a lake shaped like a perfect blue crescent in the middle of a white desert. There was an oasis and an old blood-red palace built near it. I saw huge mountains shaped like incense pillars. Houses built on stilts over a roaring river. A lagoon that changes color from green to blue to red. A bay where the sand is made of something that sings in the wind like windchimes. [ Thoughtfully, he stirs the meat over the crackling fire. ] Still, I'd argue that the Fire Nation was the most advanced. It's like Republic City; best at night. I wish I could show it to you.

[anatural]

[She's about to be cross at him, until he finally starts getting into the details she's interested in. She rests her chin on her hands and listens a little dreamily, a little wistfully.]

Me too. I've never seen it. [She reaches for some of the meat.] You've seen more of my world than I have.

[mortemscintilla]

[ The fire sends up an orange cone that obscures everything beyond it, locking them in with its warmth and light. Hei watches the pretty gold coins of light dancing in Korra's eyes, and for the first time all day, he feels ... not safe, but calm. ]

When this is over ... [ As if there is no doubt in his mind it will be; because you don't live the way he has and not hold an unshakeable conviction that while disaster and atrocity are commonplace, they can still be overcome. ] ... When it's done, we could go. A short tour.

[ It feels odd saying that, mired in so much strangeness, even in a low voice in the semi-dark. His hand reaches out tentatively and aligns to Korra's jaw; thumb stroking the her lips. Not copping a feel, exactly. Just unshackling himself from that weird inarticulated tension that's still inside. The whole reminder that he was gone while she was in such danger is still hanging between them -- unmentioned but not, he is pretty sure, forgotten by her any more than it is forgotten by him. ]

[anatural]

[Not forgotten, maybe, but not held against him. Korra protects herself; she doesn't expect other people to keep her safe. Of all the things she resents, him not being there while she was fighting in the South and taken by her uncle aren't anywhere on the list.

He touches her face, and she scooches closer to him, the way she got to used to with Bolin, though that doesn't occur to her.]

Sounds like fun.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Maybe that's what he likes about Korra. That brilliant drive -- that capacity -- she has to hold her own. It's what Hei's always expected of himself, a realization that surprises him, leaping up out of his subconscious. Perhaps it's a compliment, perhaps a risky sign, that he's no easier on her than he is on himself. ]

[ He'd contemplate it more seriously. But she's scooching close, with a blithe unselfconsciousness he doesn't remember her displaying in the past. (Or is he imagining it? Time fucks memory up as completely as separation does.) Doesn't matter, though. She's close and radiantly warm, and it's nothing to gather her in. He's spent a hell of a lot of time letting his desires thin and bleed away into the humdrum of their trek. But it seems that desire like blood will just keep welling up until he dies. ]

[ Up close to her, his senses whirl around, like dry leaves picked up and spun by the movement in his brain, and Korra seems to be the only thing steadying him. Hei snaps back into focus, blinking at the sweet upturned little face he's been watching all these hours surrounded by wilderness, and kisses it. It is a dry, dumb peck and he regrets it right away -- This isn't a good time? What if it's just comfort she wants? What if it's too fast? ]

[ But it's too late to worry about that now. ]

[anatural]

[If they hadn't kissed that morning, she'd be concerned about that little peck, like it meant he didn't want her anymore. Fortunately...

She grabs his face and pulls him back in, her mouth warm and insistent on his. There's no room for doubt or second-guessing or worries. This probably is a bad time. A cave in the spirit world probably isn't the best place to get intimate after almost a year apart. She doesn't care. She's had a bad year and is reeling from a shock she still can't comprehend and she just wants to feel good.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei's breath hitches as she curls her two little hands around his face and tugs him down -- or maybe he is bowing his head at the exact moment, openmouthed and dizzy. He isn't sure, because her mouth's sudden pressure, hot and gusty and delicious, sucks all the control out of him. ]

[ A hum vibrates in his throat, almost noiseless, and his tongue probes for entry. He draws the loose vise of his arms in and holds Korra around the waist, cups the back of her head, hair bunching in his grip. After all the stutters and misconstruals and things still left unspoken between them, he's grateful for this irrational, inevitable wash of desire. The truth that only flesh can tell. He hardens immediately against her thigh, dick knifing itself into a full-blooded ache. ]

[ It seems perfectly normal, if he doesn't investigate his own pathetic helplessness too closely. Ten months is a long time for a pot to boil. ]

[alittlebent]

[Maybe keep that in mind next time you're thinking about leaving for ten months.

Korra pushes him back by degrees, until she's sprawled on top of him, his erection hot against her belly even through both of their clothes. Still kissing him, she tugs at his shirt with one hand while the other fumbles with the clasp of his pants. She used to always let Hei take control, but now she's not giving him the chance.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ The fire flares, a pretty field of glowing embers. Something in Hei leaps with it as she nudges him back. Distantly, he thinks of the narrow shed where they'd first fucked. No flames or glittering stones on cave walls there, but the same frosty alpine scent, the same darkening aura of lust and discovery that made it easier for him to forget about the utter wrongness of the location, the inappropriate timing, or the potential for wreckage afterward. ]

[ Right now there's just the small sweet weight of her bearing down on him, covering him, dissolving the past and leaving him with the right now, the soft wisps of hair tickling his jaw, and her humid breath on his mouth. He locks her in tight, a clumsy harsh embrace. Visits each part of her face with his moist lips, long-arming the skewer of roasted food away from the fire and onto the outspread kerchief. He is hungry, but the need for Korra trounces even that, suffusing his whole body. Beyond an ache. More like an insistence. A summoning. ]

[ With fumbling fingers, he tries to wad up her coat, her shirt, a single-minded pursuit for skin on skin. The way he catches her mouth with his is both manipulative and coaxing, tilting her head to just the right angle, wet tongue flexing inside. He wields the kiss as both a prerogative and a plea. ]

[alittlebent]

[Korra doesn't seem to notice his attempt to get her clothes off; certainly she doesn't help him. Her focus is on her own agenda. She hooks her legs around one of his, encouraging it to bend up so she can grind against his thigh. Her fumbling hands finally succeed in undoing his pants, and she reaches in to pull out his erection.

She drags her teeth across his neck before leaning in to whisper] Take off your shirt. [And then she sits up. Assuming he behaves himself and takes off the top, she'll do the same.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Someone's in a rush. He would snark at her -- except her fingers are curled around his cock, which stands to attention, juiced and alert, its thick vein visibly pulsing. The sensation is so good he can feel the blood thumping in his ears, hips jerking to an exquisite natural rhythm that threatens to swallow his whole body. It's an effort to crook his thigh just so, a rocking flirt of pressure against the center seam of her pants. ]

[ At her order, rapped out with all the assertion of a soldier-girl in a porno flick -- (for a beat his mouth twitches, imagining a reprise of Korra: She-Wolf Of The SS) -- it takes him a moment to catch up with the dim surprise sparking in his chest, the little hitch as he stares at her. Except Hei's never been one to pass up a golden opportunity -- or be told something twice. He says nothing. But he gets busy: shrugging off his heavy fur-trimmed coat to spread it across the pebbly earth, then yanking the sweater over his head in a single motion. ]

[alittlebent]

[While he does that, Korra yanks off her own top, and undoes her sarashi just enough to tug it down her breasts, leaving it dangling loosely on her waist. As soon as they're both free again.

Oooooh she's missed this. Bolin was sweet, but he'd always been a little afraid of sex — self-conscious about his penis and his limited experience, wanting to please her but looking to porn for advice instead of talking to her. There had been a lot of communication issues and misunderstandings they had to clear up; the ultimate misunderstanding being the nature of their relationship. She and Hei have had plenty of communication problems, but the one place they've almost always understood one another is the (often metaphorical) bedroom.

Dragging her teeth across his lower lip, she guides one of his hands inside her pants (remembering, with a distant, lusty thrill, how it had felt to have him finger her at the muay thai match).]

[mortemscintilla]

[ It is true; sex is the pulse of their relationship. Leaning in to kiss her, Hei is aware, like a light springing out darkness, of that familiar buzz of pheromones bridging the distance between them. Solidifying between the transports of skin and breath, of warmth and friction and mouthfuls of hot sweet kisses, the things that carry them, transferred as if by bucket brigade, from the first entrance to this spirit world to right now. The moment, the awareness, looms open as Korra strips off her sarashi. ]

[ She bites his lip and guides his hand down past her waistband, and there are no objections from him, just a grizzled purr of encouragement. He curls his palm around her mons, stroking her through the humid fabric of her underwear. Nudges it aside impatiently, circling two fingertips around her clit, then pressing them to her opening, a slick corkscrewing to stretch her sex. ]

[ He kisses her with his eyes open, and allows himself trite and gooey-brained thoughts that evaporate as his fingers glide through her wet folds. ]

[anatural]

O-oh. [It comes out in a long, shuddering sigh against his lips. The angle is too awkward to stroke him like she wants to; she'd have to stop kissing him and lean back, put more of her weight on her knees so she'd have the space & balance to touch him. She'd rather keep kissing him, so instead she lets her body sink down more, until her breasts are crushed against his chest and his erection is rubbing against her belly.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She sighs, and the sound -- the hot rub of her body as she melts across him -- leaps inside Hei. His thumb begins a soft flicking across her clit, fingers working slickly in and out, crooked against her hotspot. He wants to hear every variation on this theme. Every thrum of vocal cords reverses a song on him, stroking excitations of heat across the taut bow of his cock. ]

[ Still, the maneuvering room is too cramped. He pretzels his legs with Korra's, and, free arm locked across her spine, rolls them until she's on her back, against the soft lining of his coat, pinned between him and the ground. With the fabric of her trousers twisted in his grip, he manhandles them down to her knees. Firelight brightly scrubs at the shadows, but under him, Korra is secretively gilded. It's so strange. He's had years of artful raunch, yet her state of disarray is enchanting. The hair a wild tangled bloom, cheeks red and mouth glossy, throat a pure toffee swoop dipping down to the sweet apples of her breasts. The scratchy-soft swathe of her sarashi, as he tugs at it, is nearly the temperature of her skin, and smells of her. ]

[ The sight, the spicysweet scent of her, sends a rush of heat down through his electrified veins to throb across his whole body. ]

[alittlebent]

Mmph! [She'd kind of forgotten his tendency to do stuff like this. She bites his lip punishingly and digs her nails into his back.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ The bite of her nails is a delicious hurt. Dipping his head, Hei darts his tongue across where her breasts spill over his cupped palms like soft-serve ice cream over the edges of a cone. Salty. Sweet. A hum traps itself in his throat, and he drags the bindings completely off her with sharp jerks, before making short work of her underwear, letting it tangle in a damp rope against the wadded-up brace of her trousers. ]

[ Satisfied, he winds his arms around her, a springy armful, loving the smooth sticky rub of skin on skin. The darkish length of his cock juts against her hip, withdrawn from the parted flaps of his trousers, indecently bared for her. Swallowing, he grabs her hand, thumbs it and moves it frantically higher to curl around his erection. A sharp breath, and he makes himself meet Korra's eyes. Lets her see, for once, where he is tangled up -- a place where wild hunger is knotted with vulnerability and fraying self-control, all closely tailed by a pervasive gratitude. ]

[alittlebent]

[Her heart stutters. No fair.]

How come even when you strip first, I'm always the first one naked? [Okay, that part's not fair too, but the worst part is what he's doing to her heart. If any part of her had forgotten that she was stupidly ridiculously in love with him...well, now she remembers.

Jerk.]

[mortemscintilla]

Because I'm bad at being patient.

[ It's matter-of-fact, but also tender. With a faint smile, he licks the soft hem of Korra's upper lip, her front teeth. The reminder -- Take it easy. Take your time -- is a bright reverb in his brain. But so easy to forget, in the ripening heat-haze. ]

[ Draped across Korra, he feels both adolescent and twitchy. Like he's fourteen and his heart is racing at this first encounter with the unknown geography of desire. One hand slides up behind Korra's head and works her hair free of its ties with gentle tugs. Meanwhile his mouth keeps feeding on hers, whole heated conversations on another level. Crazy-wonderful to kiss her, to let his tongue link between their open lips and flirt against hers, talking desperately to her in this new way as if he's had a lot to say before now and hasn't been able. ]

[ He tries to give back everything he's ever taken from her, desperate to believe he can do so without words. ]

[anatural]

[She hooks her thumbs in his waistband and pushes his pants down as best she can.]

So am I.

[She's trying to sound annoyed, but he's kissing her and it's hard to care about anything else.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Helpfully, he twists to shuck the trousers off. But they only make it down halfway, a constriction around his knees. It doesn't matter. Korra's hair is loose, and he buries his face in that fluid furry tumble, a grateful humming coming from his throat. Fuck. She always smells good to him, and right now she's developed a moist, musky cloak of scent that makes him want to nuzzle her, to bite deep. ]

[ His hips stir, rocking into the linked clasp of their palms, his erection a heavy slick-tipped roll of flesh. Aching to burst. God, he wants to fuck her until they're both jelly-legged. Wants to carve kisses and sweet bites across the span of her twisting body. He'd been a fool to deny himself this earlier, but there is nourishment in her embrace, in the musk of her excitement; he soaks her up through his skin and all his senses. ]

[ His hair is a dark, ticklish drift as he dips his head. Kissing her breasts, weighing them in his widespread fingers. He kneads them greedily as he licks and then sucks one nipple, then the other, rough wet tugs, until both crinkle up stiffly across the roof of his mouth. Worries them with his teeth, desperate for those sweet remembered cries that tremble from Korra's throat. ]