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Birdsong and other joyous, almost ethereal chirps and whistles echoed through the trees and gentle rolling hills of Avatar Korra Park, carried on the cool spring breeze. Ever since the raw destructive power of Kuvira’s spirit ray was remolded into something beautiful — the new spirit portal that reached out of the city line to touch the sky like a vital vein from the heart — spirits had mingled with the native fauna. Curious little flocks of glowing spirits would fly around with the birds while strange plant-like creatures would float around the rivers alongside turtle duck families.
The whimsical, awe inspiring scene was exactly the reason why Korra and Asami would often visit the park whenever they had a free, relaxing day to spend together. They would laugh and talk and walk hand in hand for hours some mornings while happily giving snacks to the wildlife, lost in the love of each other and the perfect harmony of the human and Spirit Worlds that thrived in this one special place.
It was one of these free mornings that they had in which they sat on one of the park benches, a nifty bird identification booklet in Asami’s hand and a bag of birdseed in Korra’s.
“Here comes our mama turtle duck! I think she’s starting to remember us, Sams!” Korra exclaimed excitedly, gently nudging Asami as if she wasn’t already looking with her.
Asami watched with warm adoration as her girlfriend gathered a small pile of seeds in her hand and lowered it slowly to the grass where the mother turtle duck waddled up with her ducklings in tow, and, after a moment of hesitation, nibbled at the food from the Avatar’s palm. Soon her babies joined in and before long the seeds in her hand were all gone. Asami grinned as Korra could barely contain her giddy giggling as the turtle ducks padded off toward the river with their new fill of food.
She treasured these moments with Korra. It made her pulse quicken seeing her girlfriend so carefree and light… she loved being able to look into Korra’s bright blue eyes that shone with joy in these blips of time where they were never worried, never hurried. She made sure to imprint the image of her toothy, slanted grin in her brain to tuck away for later, whenever later may be.
Asami’s inner musings were interrupted by the focus of her thoughts excitedly patting her thigh, pointing out at something as it flew over them.
“Cat owl!” Korra exclaimed and Asami’s heart nearly melted — not just because it was one of her favorite creatures that they’d seen, but because Korra knew that, too.
Before Asami could continue to get completely lost in her love for this woman, though, Korra was tapping her again.
“Oh, hey- Sams, what’re these ones?” Korra asked, focused on her task of carefully tossing out birdseed for the tiny, tiny birds that landed near them.
They were so small! Smaller than the baby turtle ducks that they had just seen and there was at least a dozen of them. Immediately Asami set to work on finding out what they were. She flipped open her identification booklet and started searching by color. Blueish grey… small… makes a chirping sound, and… there!
A butterfly titmouse. The tiny bird had, clearly, fluttering butterfly wings that the engineer could see as they all hopped around, snatching up the seeds that her girlfriend so graciously threw for them. Asami just simply couldn’t get over how small they were. She had seen small songbirds before, yes, but these looked like multiple could fit snuggled in her palm.
“It’s called a butterfly titmouse,” She declared to Korra after she quickly skimmed over the description in her book.
As if she’d said the magic word, Korra suddenly turned to her with a beaming grin and a form of recognition in her icy blue eyes.
“So those are tipmice! I’ve heard of them—” Asami immediately felt the urge to correct the mispronunciation, “—before, from people who came from outside the South Pole. We don’t have anything like that down there, it’s too cold,” Korra laughed.
Seeing the opportunity, Asami spoke up. “Korra, it’s titmice.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said?”
“No, Kor, titmice, not tipmice.”
Korra froze. She stared hard at her girlfriend and Asami feared she’d broken her.
After a concerning moment and many bewildered blinks from the Avatar, Korra abruptly burst out laughing. Her eyes squinted closed in her signature loud, whooping belly laugh. There was a beat of stunned silence from Asami before she, too, grinned and started giggling along with her. It didn’t take long for her analytical brain to figure out what exactly her girlfriend found so amusing, knowing Korra’s typical humor.
“T-” Korra tried uselessly, still loosing it, “Titmice! They’re ti-”
Both their smiles were so wide that it hurt, and it made Asami’s heart pound with joy.
“They’re tits, Asami!!” Korra practically howled, and Asami halfheartedly tried to quiet her for baseless fear of some passerby overhearing them.
Korra’s hand clutched at her tummy and her other drooped as her shoulders shook, bag of seeds on the ground, long forgotten. Said butterfly titmice had since fled at their outburst, but that was okay. She nearly fell backward from laughing so hard, while Asami was pinching the bridge of her nose and cackling.
Asami should’ve expected this, really. Her lover’s humor tended to be loud and boisterous and very often crude. She was never gross about it in public, or at all really, so it never bothered the heiress. Besides, she shared the same sense of jocularity, albeit Asami was more sly about it.
Korra was still reeling with her new discovery, and Asami was just feeding off of it. The southerner was able to at least lean back against the bench without falling off it, but her body still wracked with big chuckles. Her broad hand remained resting on her stomach, and with the back of her other she haphazardly swiped at her eyes, wet with laughter tears.
“I can’t believe that- that they’re called tits,” She giggled, and Asami echoed her.
When Korra finally recovered enough to open those big blues of her’s, Asami could see a twinkle in her eyes that told her she was just about never letting this go.
Asami was correct, as per usual.
About a week later when they were both at Air Temple Island, Korra had waddled out of the bedroom trailing behind Asami as they went to fetch a cup of coffee from the kitchen. Tenzin and company had left for a small pilgrimage to one of the other Air Temples and the master had asked Korra to watch over the island — Korra didn’t miss the way that he directed his request more toward Asami, who was present at the time, and she pouted about it a little afterward — which left the two woman with the whole island to roam.
Naturally, they stuck to the bedroom most of the time, but the morning was young and they were both admittedly a bit sore. They decided on coffee and tea and a nice spot to sit that overlooked the many trees that the temple residence had to offer. They talked and kissed and bird-watched, enjoying the cool, crisp breeze and every warm smile that they sent each other’s way.
They happily pointed out the different species that flew around, when the star of the show showed up. They landed, hopped around and chirped, then took off again when a larger bird swooped in to check things out.
Asami was mid sip when Korra spoke.
“Shit, there go the tits again.”
Asami spit out her coffee.