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They’ve been on holiday in the Spirit World for two days when Korra suggests going for a swim. At least...it seems like it's been two days. Time has been hard to keep track of since they left Republic City, and not only because the need to keep track is less pressing here than it is at home.
Asami has discovered that the spirit world is in some ways like her own world, but it is governed by an entirely different set of laws. Time might work in much the same way in both worlds, but the length of a day or a night seems to vary dramatically. But where the Spirit World differs most of all is in the way that the environment itself seems restless and impermanent, constantly shifting in a way that defies understanding. At least, it defies Asami’s understanding. Years of learning various sciences and the hard limits of her world leave her ill-equipped to define the principles that allow the spirit world to operate.
On their wanderings Asami has walked through a field of fragrant flowers whose petals were composed of precious stones, but which were undeniably alive. She and Korra encountered a clan of singing snow deer whose songs were a record of their clan's history, and spent part of their day helping them find suitable words to alliterate with ‘Asami’ and ‘Korra.’ In the space of what Asami thinks might have been an hour, they passed from a jungle full of glowing spirits to a desert composed of scraps of paper from unfinished letters, to an endless meadow of soft earth and sweet-smelling grass.
They’re walking through the meadow now, and though the sun set a few moments ago, it’s rising again already, apparently dissatisfied with its previous exit. As Asami’s feet kick through the long grass, the scent of star oranges rises up to permeate the air around her. A hundred yards or so back, the same grass smelled like moon peaches, and Asami can’t understand how that can be.
Which is...not unwelcome. It’s refreshing to be in a place where Asami doesn’t have to understand things, where she can let her mind soak in the mystery and the beauty around her without having to break things down, analyse them, process them. It should be a source of relief that Asami doesn't have to try to reconcile how it is that she’s on vacation here when back in the human world, so many other things remain to be dealt with in the wake of Kuvira’s attack. But, although Asami doesn't need to think about those things right now, some restless mechanism in her mind keeps grinding away at all of tomorrow's problems.
Like where to begin in rebuilding Republic City, and how to handle the next board meeting, and...what kind of flowers should she buy when she goes...there.
“So!” Korra’s voice rises above the swish of the grass and breaks through the hardening shell of Asami’s thoughts. “Wanna go for a swim?”
Korra has managed to get a few paces ahead of her. She faces Asami now, surrounded by knee-high grass, her smooth brown skin softly glowing in the light of the sun. She spreads her hands, grinning, her eyebrows raised in challenge. Korra’s eyes are warm and wide and happy and Asami can feel her heart race and her face heat up when she makes eye contact.
Asami has yet to see a fraction of the wonderful things the Spirit World contains, but she already knows where the greatest wonder of them all can be found. Asami finds a smile of her own, one that she could not have found on her own, not right now.
It isn't just the changing landscape that's caused the ground to shift beneath Asami's feet these last few days. It remains largely unspoken, but things have changed between Asami and Korra on this trip. The feelings for Korra that Asami has carried folded and sealed within her for far too long have begun to unfurl, slowly revealing themselves to her as an expanse as exciting and mysterious as the spirit world itself. Just like the Spirit World, Asami feels that she has only explored a fraction of those feelings. Just like the Spirit World, she has a guide and companion on that journey in Korra.
Korra quirks an eyebrow at her. "Well?"
Asami gathers her thoughts back in as she makes a show of shading her eyes and staring around her. “I don’t see any rivers or lakes or...significant bodies of water of any kind. Swimming might be tricky.”
“That wasn’t an answer, Sato,” Korra says, her tone mock stern. She places her hands on her hips. “Do you want to go for a swim or not?”
In truth, Asami has no real idea of how much time has passed since they entered the Spirit World, but it’s long enough that the idea of feeling water on her skin is very appealing. Besides, she can tell from the way Korra’s almost bouncing on the spot that the Avatar wants to impress Asami.
And Asami finds that she likes this side of Korra quite a bit.
So she smiles again and says, “Alright. Let’s go for a swim.”
Korra grins. “Okay! So...this is going to be a spiritual process which is going to be waaaaay too complicated to explain to you, so you’re just going to have to trust me and do your best to follow my incredibly complex instructions! Any questions?”
Asami raises her hand, and when Korra nods indulgently, asks, "Is it actually too complicated to explain? Or...does it involve something you don’t understand?”
“Whaaaat?” Korra folds her arms and pouts. “Uh, I’m the Avatar, Asami. I so understand all the, uh...spirit...things. I’m not going to tell you how they work, though, because you were mean.”
Asami laughs. “I asked you about those flowers yesterday and you said you weren’t going to tell me because I didn’t understand enough about chakras.”
“Well, you don’t! Chakras are really important to understanding spirit stuff, so...” Korra shrugs. “That was a completely valid excuse. Uh, no, I mean reason why I couldn’t explain about...not that I couldn’t, just that you, uh, you wouldn’t have understood..." Korra shakes herself. "Look are we doing this or what?”
“Hmm,” Asami muses, rubbing her chin and not even trying to hide her smug grin. “I wonder what your excuse will be next time?”
Korra gives up on her pout and laughs. “You’ll have to wait and see. This time, though...c’mere. And trust me.”
Korra holds out her hand and wiggles her fingers, her laughter lingering in her eyes and in the curve of her lips.
Asami picks her way carefully through the grass, kicking citrus fragrances into the air and listening to the urgent song of her pulse as her eyes flit from Korra’s lips to her hand. So many things are different in this world, but perhaps the strangest and certainly the most welcome is the way that Asami can look at Korra now. They haven’t really talked about what this trip means, but if every look that Asami has turned Korra’s way has been a question, then every look that Asami’s received from Korra has been not just an answer, but an assurance.
Asami takes one more step, and all at once there’s so little space between them. Asami reaches out and Korra’s hand closes over hers. Korra’s skin is callused from years of training and fighting, but her skin is so warm, her grip so gentle...
Asami shivers. She smiles nervously at Korra and in a voice that’s more quiet than she intends and as loud as she can manage says, “Now what?”
Korra squeezes her hand. “You just need to follow me.”
“I can do that,” Asami murmurs, fighting the sudden urge to duck her head. She pushes her hair away from her face with her free hand, and even the tiny volume of air displaced by the gesture feels cool against her burning cheek. “I’ll...follow you.”
Korra’s grin fades, but her expression loses none of its warmth. “Yeah, I’ve never had to doubt that you would.”
And even though a part of Asami has to wonder if that’s true, and that’s the part of her that aches and strains and sorrows uselessly, the pang she feels is given no chance to develop into doubt. Korra grins again, squeezes her hand, and whirls around. She tugs Asami's hand, urging her into a stumbling run through the waving fronds of grass.
The scent of star orange gives way to jasmine before Asami pulls alongside Korra. By the time it changes to fire cherry, they’re both laughing as they run, still holding hands. The sun sinks down behind a mountain that appears on the horizon, but the sky seems to brighten above them, becoming a clear, cloudless azure. Asami gasps when the sky seems to change again, becoming a deeper blue, and it almost seems to ripple…
“Super technical spirit world instruction time!” Korra yells between gasping, giggling breaths. “JUMP!”
“What?” Asami gapes at her. “Where…?”
“UP!”
Korra jumps upward, tugging at Asami’s hand, and Asami promised that she’d follow, so she lets every other thought go and holds onto Korra instead, and jumps. Her feet leave the ground, the sky sways dizzily above her, seems to wrap around Asami as her stomach twists, and then Asami’s feet make contact, not with the ground, but with a splash.
Asami slides into the warm embrace of a body of water. She catches a glimpse of her surroundings, what seems to be a lake at the foot of a cliff, with the sun beaming down on them from high above her head, until her head disappears below the water. She’s confused, of course, and disoriented, but even as she sinks, weighed down by her clothes, her boots, and her pack, Asami doesn’t feel afraid.
Korra is holding her hand.
Asami kicks and Korra tugs and Asami’s head breaks clear of the surface of the lake.
Korra grins at her. She lets Asami go, effortlessly treading water in front of her. “Fun, right?”
“Fun?” Asami sputters when she almost swallows water. It takes her a moment to find her own stable rhythm that allows her to keep her head above water. “I can’t help but feel that when you asked if I wanted to swim, you neglected to mention certain details, Korra.”
“Uh huh!” Korra’s grin is luminous. “That way it’s even more fun!”
Asami rolls her eyes. “If I admit that...that was unexpected and, yes, even fun, will you admit that drenching our clothes and supplies wasn’t perhaps the most...sensible idea?”
“Yeah, well, sensible’s one of the things we’re on holiday from!”
“Korra…” Asami snorts, and suddenly laughs, in spite of the part of her mind that is cataloguing problems so that she can more efficiently solve them. “That’s a lovely thought. I want to agree, but...our gear?”
Korra smirks. “I wrapped our food in watertight leaves. And, uh...I hear there’s a pretty decent waterbender in the vicinity, so…”
“I see." Asami snorts again. “Can we get to dry land so we can change and swim properly?”
“Sounds like a plan!”
“But first you can dry out our things while I begin to think about how I’m going to get my revenge.”
Korra blinks. “You’re...going to be thinking about revenge? For...a good fun time prank? Haha! That...is that a thing that needs avenging?”
“Mmm,” Asami acknowledges vaguely. She can’t effectively flip her hair, so she settles for shooting Korra a look from under her lidded eyes before she turns away and swims for the shore of the lake. Over her shoulder she adds, “Revenge is a complicated business. Very technical. I'm not sure I can explain it to you, but this...I think this is going to require a lot of vengeance.”
“Vengeance?” Korra gasps. “Even though it means the same thing as revenge, that sounds so much worse! Hey! Wait up! Asami!”
When she gets out of the water, Asami shrugs off her pack, tugs off her boots, and starts wringing out her hair while she takes in her surroundings. She’s standing on a beach made up of soft, smooth sand that rises in a gentle slope towards the cliff that towers above them. At the base of the cliff, maybe a hundred yards away, there is a patch of scrubby grass that looks like it might serve as decent campsite.
Korra emerges from the water and jogs to her side. She unslings her pack and tosses it next to Asami's. “So, uh, about this whole revenge thing…”
Asami allows herself a quick grin before she smooths out her features and faces Korra. “Hmm, what do you think? Make camp here?”
Korra blinks. She chews her lip, her huge blue eyes faintly worried. “Sure?”
“Well...it might help if our things were dry?”
“Huh? Oh! Sure!”
Korra puts on a slightly strained grin, but she doesn’t hesitate. She drops into a waterbending stance, and begins to flow through a series of gentle sweeping motions, bending the water from Asami’s boots and pack. Asami kneels in the sand and opens both of their packs, methodically removing their contents and laying out their things on the dry sand. Korra continues her movements and it takes all of Asami’s willpower to focus on the task at hand and not simply stare at Korra.
The Avatar is many things, but graceful isn’t usually one of them. Asami’s seen Korra bending many times, but usually in combat or crisis. Now though, in the sighing near silence of this place where it’s just the two of them, in this time that is about just the two of them, Korra is the embodiment of grace. Any hint of worry is replaced by a look of serene confidence as she moves with fluid ease through her waterbending forms. She's so beautiful it makes Asami's chest ache.
It helps that Asami's starting to feel a little chilly in her waterlogged clothes. The mild discomfort takes her mind off of Korra. A little. She shrugs out of her jacket and lays the clammy garment down beside their packs. Asami keeps her attention on checking and laying out their things, because it’s either that or simply stare at Korra and how badly she wants to is an indication that she perhaps shouldn’t. Even though...even though Asami thinks that she probably could watch and that Korra would do no more than grin at her if she caught Asami. Or maybe...maybe Asami isn't sure exactly how Korra would react.
But it dizzies Asami to realise that here and now, she could find out.
Before Asami can decide what to do with that thought, Korra says, "So, uh...we were talking about prank vengeance, right? Just...a similar kind of prank? To my really fun, sweet, innocent prank?"
Asami grins. "That would seem a likely interpretation, yes."
"That...wasn't exactly an answer."
"I wouldn't worry about it, Korra."
"Oh?" Korra says, sounding considerably perked up. "Okay, good! You're, uh, kinda hard to read sometimes is all!"
Asami puts her grin away before she looks up at Korra again. "No, I meant...I wouldn't worry because I'll wait until you think you're safe, and then I'll take my vengeance."
"Oh," Korra says, sounding considerably perked down. "Okay..."
Asami shakes her head, letting her smile break through to the surface. She gestures at her vest and pants. "If you can do something about my clothes, I may find a way to forgive you."
A series of strange expressions flit across Korra's face, almost masked by a large blush. "Ah...yeah. I can...do something."
It takes Asami a moment to realise why Korra might be blushing, and then her own words register. "Oh...I didn't mean..."
Korra saves her with a smile of her own. "Yeah, no, it's fine! I...get what you mean."
Before Asami can say anything else dangerous or embarrassing, Korra makes one last series of gestures and water seeps from Asami's clothes and hair, flowing together into a sphere which Korra directs into the lake. It isn't perfect, and she's still a little cold, but it is an improvement.
Asami busies herself spreading out items from her and Korra's packs, checking for damage that isn't there and leaving spare clothes and their tent to dry completely in what feels like pleasantly warm afternoon air. She's so busy she doesn't notice what Korra's doing until Korra's top hits the ground with a dull squelch. Asami looks up, startled, just in time to see Korra stripping off her pants and dumping them on the sand, too.
Korra meets her eye, blushing slightly. "We, ah, are still going swimming, right?"
Asami nods, carefully maintaining eye contact. "Of course! Good...idea."
It shouldn't be this awkward being near Korra in underwear. Asami has seen Korra in various states of undress before. But the context is very different, and with Asami's earlier wording introducing awkwardness into the air before they've officially cleared it...Asami finds herself wondering if swimming was such a good idea after all.
Korra rubs the back of her neck, which causes all kinds of muscles to shift under the surface of her skin and it makes it very, very difficult for Asami to keep looking in her general direction. So Asami looks down and picks up a canteen. She tightens the already tight cap.
"Asami?"
Korra sounds...embarrassed, maybe?
"Yes?" Asami carefully puts the canteen down an inch from its original position, frowning in concentration at the sand.
"Could you...well, could you look at me?"
It isn't embarrassment, Asami realises, but nervousness.
She looks up and sees Korra in the sunlight: beautiful and strong. She sees Korra, and she almost smiles, until she realises that Korra isn't smiling.
Korra takes a long time to walk three steps towards her. She sits carefully in the sand side on to Asami, crossing her legs and resting her hands on her knees. She looks at Asami sidelong, an almost sheepish smile on her lips. "I know you've seen most of them before, but...I don't know, it just felt like...you should see them..."
Korra trails off, uncertain, but Asami suddenly knows exactly what this is about. Slowly and carefully, watching for any sign of Korra's disapproval, Asami reaches out and traces the pad of her forefinger down the length of one of the scars on Korra's ribcage.
"This one's new," Asami whispers.
Korra shivers. "Yeah. Kuvira."
Her voice is softer, calmer. Asami shuffles around in the sand and sits alongside her, resting her shoulder against Korra's. She runs her fingers across the pale tracery old wounds have left in the flesh of Korra's thigh. "I know these ones."
"Yeah..."
No name needed or wanted.
Slowly, Asami says, "Do you...think I find you less beautiful because of your scars?"
Korra turns her head, facing her, her breath tickling Asami's cheek. "Not...really. But, I just...you know what you're getting into, right?"
Asami smiles at her. "Yes." She hesitates, then gently squeezes Korra's thigh. "I wish you hadn't been through what put those scars on your body, Korra, but there's nothing I'd change about you. Nothing."
"Okay," Korra says, her smile back in her voice. She gently bumps Asami's shoulder with her own. "Okay. I...it was just something I needed to get out there."
"I understand. And I'll always listen, Korra, if you have something you need to tell me."
"Thanks. That...goes both ways, okay?"
"Yeah," Asami says, her hand still moving almost of its own accord over Korra's skin. Her earlier embarrassment is gone, and she feels no desire right now beyond this: taking and giving comfort in touching Korra.
Korra watches Asami run her fingers absently over and over the scar on her thigh. Her voice is gentle, almost hesitant when she says, "Even with waterbending you can only do so much. Some wounds never really heal, do they?"
Her shift in tone suggests a shift in topic somehow, and for a moment Asami isn't sure what Korra means. Then the thought of the flowers she'll need to buy in Republic City comes to her, and she finds herself tensing. Reluctantly, Asami meets Korra's eyes.
The kindness in them makes her mouth go dry. Asami swallows. "No. I suppose we can't expect them all to just...leave no trace."
Korra nods. "But you learn how to carry them. Time lets you do that. It doesn't make the pain any less, but it makes it...manageable. People can help with the burden." Korra rests her forehead against Asami's, lowers her voice to a whisper. "I'll help, Asami."
Asami swallows again, but she doesn't find any words. Instead, she manages a tiny nod, pressing her forehead more tightly to Korra's. Asami slips her hand into Korra's and squeezes. Korra squeezes back, then she lifts her head and turns her gaze out to the lake.
They watch the water for a while, Asami as grateful for Korra's quiet now as much as she is for what Korra just said. She thinks about all the things that will be waiting for them when they go back. The world doesn't stop, and problems mundane and monstrous will be piling up in their absence. Once again, Asami has a mess of legal papers to wade through, a company to manage, and a city to rebuild.
This time, there is also the matter of the flowers she should buy for a grave she has yet to find the strength to visit.
Asami closes her eyes and she can feel the pressure of the human world bearing down on her, threatening to crush her, until a gentle pressure on her hand brings her back. Asami opens her eyes to find Korra watching her. The love in Korra's eyes is not an answer to any of Asami's problems, but the pressure dissipates in the wake of the realisation that she will face none of those problems alone this time.
"Korra, I..." There are a lot of things Asami needs to say to Korra, but she can feel words and thoughts welling up inside her in a tangle that she isn't sure how to unpick. Not in this moment. "I, ah..."
Softly, Korra says, "Hey. There's no rush, right? We can take all the time we need to figure things out. If...that's what you want?"
Asami sighs, expelling months or maybe years of tension in a single breath. "Am I really that hard to read?"
Korra grins her crooked grin. "Mmm...sometimes."
Asami's stomach flutters pleasantly. She turns her body, facing Korra more fully, getting even closer. "Even right now?"
Korra swallows, her grin softening. "Ah...maybe not so much."
And without really meaning to, Asami says, "Oh, so you think you know what I'm thinking?"
"I think I'm willing to risk your vengeance if I'm wrong."
And before Asami can think of a response to that, Korra leans towards her, lips parted in a question. Asami answers gladly, without the need for words, and as their lips meet and their breath mingles, all the other worlds that are or could be melt away, leaving only Asami and Korra together.
When they part--Korra's fingers unweaving from Asami's hair, Asami's hand uncupping Korra's soft, smooth cheek--the Spirit World comes back to them. Asami smiles and Korra smiles back.
Asami bites her lip and looks away, over the peaceful blue shimmer of the lake. "Ah...Korra?"
"Yeah?" Her voice is strange and new and familiar and perfect in its tenderness. "What is it?"
Asami laughs, a little helplessly, still unsure how to say all that needs to be said. She's unsure how to say anything as eloquent or to the point as they both did a moment ago without a single word. So Asami shrugs and says, "Wanna go for a swim?"
Korra smiles. "Thought you'd never ask, Sato."
She leaps to her feet and offers her hand to Asami. Asami takes a moment to wriggle out of her pants, then she takes Korra's hand and lets Korra help her to rise. Hand in hand, they run into the water, leaving thoughts of tomorrow on the shore and carrying only the moment with them.