They stood as statues, a tableaux caught in awe, watching him go. Storming off effectively isn't exactly feasible on a beach, where sand encapsulates every stomp.
Korra found her breath heaving, and sense of body returning to her. She was thrumming with adrenaline, feet firmly rooted in the ground she uncoiled, and remembered to breathe.
Asami admired the muscles she could see as they moved, realigning and smoothing out. Korra didn't look back at her, eyes fixed on the shadow shrinking in the distance.
"I can't believe you told him." Her tone was unreadable, which put the heiress on edge given that she couldn't see her best friend's face to read it.
"I just… wanted him gone," Asami breathed, thumbing the headache forming over her nose.
"You wanted to hurt him." Korra surmised, and a pit formed in Asami's stomach when she heard the truth of it, "because you still care,"
"Korra don't-"
"It's okay Asami, really…You're only human." Korra turned to her finally, and presented her with her best wounded smile.
Asami wanted to cup her face and tell her it wasn't true, that in the space of a few days Korra had helped her pummel all traces of the man who had left her. But as she pursed her lips to form the words, it tasted a lie to pretend there were no feelings left. Pain being just one of the many swirling in them.
"Uugh," Bolin groaned on the ground, and Mako stood as he always did, brooding, yet awkwardly pinching his bloody nose.
"So," he began, "Iroh's back."
"You're a cop you say?" Korra teased before hugging him.
"Wha's this I hear about lesbians?" Bolin mumbled in a dream-like state. Asami offered him hands to help him up and pull him lumbering to his feet.
Korra's eyes skated over Asami's before she told him.
"Nothing Bo. Thanks for coming to our rescue,"
"Any time," Bolin wheezed, still breathless from being unceremoniously flipped onto his ass. Korra guided his arm over her shoulders to march him back, leaving Mako and Asami to follow.
To the heiress the world seemed to be spinning, she hugged herself, feeling the early evening sun evaporate the sea from her skin. As she walked she went over all that had happened in her head. So much in such a short space of time.
I was going to marry him, she snatched a look at where he had finally slunk out of view, before training her gaze back onto Korra, look at me.
She wanted to see her face, to see something in it that would tell her everything was going to be okay. Suddenly she remembered what she had thought when first acknowledging these feelings for her best friend, that through it all she couldn't put this on all on her. That Korra isn't responsible for her happiness.
They entered the kitchen to find it full, a lunch buffet on the island, kids darting in and out of Kya's many guests. Only Opal, Kya and Kana had noticed the activity outside. When Korra caught her aunts gaze she shook her head, we'll discuss this later, her eyes said, when there's less people here.
Kya beckoned them in and starting piling a plate for the nearest of the foursome, Bolin being the closest, he seemed to bounce out of his stupor after a few potatoes were stuffed in his cheeks. Asami watched as Korra half-smiled at him, only to be handed another smaller child belonging to one of Meelo, Jinora and Ikki's exhausted looking parents.
On the sidelines Asami watched Korra interact with the family, slipping back in despite not seeing them for months. She felt like an outsider to this world, and in part recognised that this had been everything she had wanted for herself. She also recognised Iroh leaving her left her perhaps decades away from her goal of ever having it. Acute misery befell her and alone in a party, she sidled herself to the edge of it.
Asami hadn't had to visit her happy place in a long time. When one has no emotions, it tends not to be necessary, but after all that had happened, how her immediate vicinity felt crowded and the one person she clung to drifted so far away, eyes open she drifted and let her mind take her in search of serenity.
Back in the day happiness was laying on a patch of grass with a good book, but when she found herself returning after so many years, much had changed there. For example, she realised she'd automatically placed her head in Korra's lap, and her fingers were combing gently over her scalp. She ripped herself away before letting herself linger in its beauty. She couldn't depend on Korra for this, frankly it wasn't fair on her.
So she shifted her dream into a new one, seeking calm serenity, but finding again something else.
The next place was adrift, in the cave with the glittering ceiling and bioluminescent algae swirling around her. A foolish place to pick really, when Asami felt the boat netting clutched beneath her fingers, and Korra rise out of the water in an echo of the memory they had shared not long ago. Gripping her hair, kissing her when it felt like her salvation.
When she tried to push out of this memory she rushed down into another, between the archipelagos in scuba gear, tangled with Korra in the sea.
Dammit.
"Uh-Sami," She snapped out of it, realised on the edge of the party, she wasn't alone. Mako stood at the door beside her, still clutching his nose. He didn't know anyone here, and his trusty friends had both found themselves roles in this new world and forgotten to introduce him into it.
She grabbed his hand and pulled him upstairs and into a bathroom.
"You sure this is okay?" he asked as Asami opened the medicine cabinet and piled supplies into his hand.
"Kya won't mind."
"She's the aunt?"
"In simplest terms."
The pair shared companionable silence as Asami worked, mopping blood, and navigating a band aid over the bridge of his nose. Mako waited as she disappeared and threw a white t-shirt his way.
"It's the last one," she explained as he opened it to find ember island is for lovers, emblazoned on the chest.
"I see," he balked, before placing it on his lap and unbuttoning his work shirt.
"So," his tone was once again loaded, and he didn't make eye contact as he postulated a somewhat awkward concept, even for him, "You and Korra."
"You really are a cop,"
"Is that the reason the wedding blew up?"
"It didn't blow up - he left me and Korra was there, she caught me like she always does…but it was different this time, than before, I could see her,"
"Differently?"
Asami only nodded.
"I think I messed things up." she sniffed, eyes closed and leaking and suddenly pressed into the plastic of the lovers on Mako's shirt.
Mako thought himself as a man of few words, truthfully he was one of few useful words. Pressed against him Asami heard him say, "You've just started," he began, "Give it time to breathe,"
She wanted to scathe him about comparing it all to a fine wine, but he was trying to calm her which was awfully nice of him.
"Maybe she's seeing me for the first time too," Asami mused, dabbing her eyes, "Maybe she doesn't like it as much as she thought she would."
"If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the ordeal of being known," Mako recited his hallmark wisdom, in flip flops and nerdy t-shirt, rocking her absent-mindedly as she gathered her heart up from the floor.
"I'm not even sure I know myself anymore," Asami extricated herself from his arms.
"You think maybe Korra knows that?"
Asami only smiled, shrugging, knowing the answer, of course Korra knew her, it showed every bit in every interaction. The more she wondered who she was and what she wanted, she was distracted over and over by the Ice Sculptor's kiss, trapped under her gaze, and the study Korra had begun of every inch of her body.
"It's like a dam broke," she lamented, "and now she's all I can think about."
"That's Korra for you."
"You felt the same when you two dated?"
"Seriously? She was everything, even when we were arguing it was like fighting with the sun. She was headstrong and gung ho, don't get me wrong, it was thrilling, but when you start at 10 where do you go?"
"That's because you were her first anything," Asami remembered, "She's been through it since and well, for Korra, with me she's been… terrified of doing anything wrong."
"Like what?"
"Being open too soon. Telling Iroh too soon."
"That worked out," Asami punched his arm, "Hey! Sorry, sarcasm is my default."
"I love her." it just slipped out, "she won't let me say it, she won't believe it,"
"I mean it is an abstract concept-" Mako deduced, reaching.
"Because it happened so fast." Asami scooped her hair behind her ears and perched on the edge of the tub, "And she's stubborn when she wants to be."
It sounded harsh, but at the words she said it with warmth. Her stubborn Korra. It tasted a luxury to think it, but it consumed her as she tangled her fingers at a criss cross over her chest.
"Love is a big word Asami," Mako chose his next sentence carefully, "You guys have a history and this, this could change all that, for better or worse."
Asami flinched then, and Mako apologised.
"Sorry, I'm just saying since the wedding you guys haven't had a minute by yourselves."
"There was an evening where I…read Iroh's letter alone and became catatonic and Korra went on a date with a local which ended with a fight with…actually she never said if the guy she punched was another local. We ended up spooning…it was nice."
Mako blinked at her. The kind of look that one would give a telenovela when watching for the first time, and then he shook his head.
"I take it back you two are made for each other,"
Asami blushed as she ran her fingers through her hair. Recalling the emotions she's locked away for so long with an ease too complex to name. Jealously, rage, a deep well of ennui and despair, and at the end of it, guiltily twisting her body into Korra's on the bed they had slept in but not fucked in, yet.
"I feel like I'm stealing her. She's being this great friend who happens to have feelings and I'm… taking advantage."
"You're not, you know she'd do anything for you, and it's not like you don't have feelings either."
"But Iroh and this being my honeymoon… It's not fair on her is it?"
"It's gotta come from you." Mako told her simply, "But for the sake of your friendship, you gotta be honest with her,"
Asami studied the words internally, comparing them to the vow the girls had made more than a decade prior.
Best friends come first.
This was all well and good when the pair would compete on a national stage, pitted against each other in the spirit of competition. Where did that leave them when the best friends start sleeping together? When those feelings of hormonal flight or flight were replaced with raw physical attraction and inescapable chemistry?
It was too easy to fall into those fresh memories, pinning Korra to the bed, the look on her face after she kissed her, hair mussed and lips glossy. She'd never seen peace on Korra's expression before, and never felt herself lose herself to the intimacy that came with it. Friendship, while important, could never come close to those moments in the heiress mind.
Perhaps that was the problem.
"Hey guys," The pair snapped to attention at the voice of a brother, Mako's to be exact. "The competitions starting."
Bolin beamed at them beckoning them out.
It was then Asami remembered she'd not long been in the water with Korra, and hadn't seemed to notice in all the adrenaline and argument that she was wet and dripping from the submersion.
Already she could hear the speakers commentate on the first set of competitors. Upon descending the stairs, the trio found the house empty, the commotion of Kya's many guests now occupying the beach outside. Many more were pouring in from the street out front, locals by foot, guests to Ember Island in cabs.
Bolin whisked his brother over to the leftovers on the kitchen island and began piling a plate of everything he'd missed out on.
The heiress took her leave.
Asami scanned the crowd for Korra, only to find her leaning against the side of the house on the back porch, gazing out over what used to be her domain.
"Scoping out the competition?" Asami greeted casually, but kept her hands held behind her back not knowing exactly where they stood.
"Oh I'm not competing," Korra chagrinned arms folded, only looking down when Asami approached.
"You seemed in pretty good shape earlier," Asami watched a newcomer bail on the waves before stealing another look from Korra, "Why wouldn't you?"
Korra shrugged.
"I'm here for you."
She met her eyes then, blue encompassing jade in such a way Asami had to remember the mechanics of breathing.
Inflate lungs, ingest, deflate…deflate!
"I got a kick out of watching you earlier." she shot back, "and swimming with you after…was nice."
Korra pursed her lips, remembering the after for herself.
"How are you feeling?"
"I'm ok," Asami answered swiftly, to which Korra raised an eyebrow.
"Your ex fiancé pledges to win you back after you confess an affair with me and you're just ok?"
"It's not an affair Korra." Asami shot back sternly, fighting the urge to kiss her, and kiss her hard in the next moment.
"Hey lovebirds."
If they were tense before, it paled in comparison to the ice that shot through them at the sound of that voice.
"How's your little drama going?"
The pair stared at the goddess with the board under her arm in front of them. Asami's eyes raked up the long muscular thighs, board shorts, six pack and under eye beauty mark of one Kuvira.
"We're going for the Oscar this year," Asami shot a smile at her, quick and forced.
"Good, good, what's a story without some good old fashioned rivalry? Korra - you game?" she lifted her board and nodded toward the water, "Care another dance?"
Asami felt jealously like a brand on her stomach. Which was ridiculous, all for temporarily losing a dancing partner.
"Not this time." Korra shook her head.
"Oh come on - Aang would do it."
"She said no." Asami snapped, shocking them both.
"I guess your best friend has spoken, I'm sorry fiancé, no wait, that was Iroh."
Asami was stunned to silence as the bartender gloated and sneered.
"Say hi to him for me."
She didn't know she had lunged before Korra held her back by the shoulders. She was lost in the crowd before Korra let her go, but Asami could swear she could spy a smug black head bobbing in the weave.
"She just wanted a rise." Korra surmised.
"I can't believe you dated her. She seems nice, she likes ice!" Korra slid her hands away then and immediately she found her missing the touch.
"That's not fair." Korra mumbled, "You said to go," she picked at the paint at the wall, deflated and defeated.
"I…" Asami trailed off, choosing her words carefully. "Didn't understand what I felt,"
"Do you now?"
"Of course," Asami replied unflinchingly, "Do you?"
Korra gave a heavy sigh and ran her fingers through drying hair.
"I don't buy that you're over him."
"I never said I was,"
"Then what are we doing?"
"How many times do I have to, kiss you, confess to you or fuck you in closets before you see that you are everything to me-?"
"Right now?" Korra tacked the sentiment onto the end of her sentence.
"Korra!" Another voice from the crowd, this one was hip-height and dragging a board behind him much larger than his own spindly little body, "We entered you in the next heat!"
"Meelo I'm not-"
"Listen, listen, listen, Korra," the eight year old dropped the board to tick reasons off his fingers, "My whole family didn't come all this way to see strangers win the cup and the glory - I am not old enough to compete so you gotta do it."
"I appreciate the sentiment-"
"But nothing!" Meelo shot back, tiny and tyrannical in his debate, "Koov, Kuuv," he huffed, "Vera is up your competitor, she works for aunt Kya, but I don't know her from Meelo,"
It took Asami a moment to recognise he had replaced the 'Adam' in the phrase with his own name, but when she focused on the matter being proposed she urged.
"Do it." Korra looked at her quizzically, "Crush her." Asami answered the look, and surprised her by leaning forward and kissing her on the cheek. "I'll be waiting."
"Thank you beautiful lady," Meelo bowed to her, before grabbing Korra's hand dragging her through the crowd.
"Come on," Asami jumped to find Ikki and Jinora had been listening in, "We'll show you the best spot to watch from." Both girls took a hand each and led her left, far left away from the crowd and over a set of cliffs, low enough so that the surfers could be seen closer than any point on the land.
A collection of sodas, towels and camping chairs had been gathered there for the occasion, and Ikki pointed at the middle seat and said.
"We saved you a seat."
Asami balked and blushed nervously, she'd never warranted this amount of care from strangers before, let alone child strangers.
"Thank you."
Jinora cracked open a soda and handed it to her.
"You're welcome."
"This is all so nice and unnecessary, the chairs are enough really."
"We like you," Jinora shrugged.
"We like the way Korra likes you."
"Ikki!"
Ikki fled behind Asami and stuck her tongue out at her sister.
"We're best friends." Asami shrugged, vying for a chair, desperate to extricate herself from the questions of two tween girls.
"If you say so," Jinora took the seat beside her and Ikki the other side.
"She fought that man for you!"
"You saw that?"
"Was he your ex?"
"I-yes,"
"He seems mean."
"I'm glad Korra could protect you."
"I can protect myself," Asami protested.
"Which means you can protect her too." Ikki leaned her head on Asami's arm on the chair, contorting herself into a lying cradle position with her legs slung over the other arm of her own.
"I guess it does." Asami mused, looking over as the green and blue competitors skimmed the water below for the first round.
As they waited the darkening sky opened, and rain poured down on them, growing stronger with every second.
Jinora produced an umbrella and sheltered herself and Asami, Ikki didn't seem to mind and sat perched on the edge of her seat.
"What'd I miss?" Meelo came skidding to the cliffs edge and perched himself next to himself.
"Well it's raining." Ikki pointed out and he gurned at her.
"Bigger waves - Go Korra!"
Asami's heart constricted as she waved up at them as though she could hear.
The ocean started to swell harder and eventually large enough waves caught their interest. Soon enough Asami was standing with the siblings on the edge, desperate for a closer look as the boards soared and ripped along the tunnels and swirl.
It seemed they were evenly matched. It was as though every technique, every move, every path onto the greatest surf were obvious, and the two of them were neck and neck reading the waves as though it were a book. Before Asami could fathom the skill of it all the waters wracked more unevenly and furiously than ever. Her eyes followed the pair as they entered the final tunnel of their heat.
Kuvira came out.
Korra didn't.
Asami swore she saw the rain stop pouring, frozen mid air as she searched the cloudy blue angry surf below. Finally she watched directly below her feet, and saw the brown and blue shape tangled with the netting before the cliff face.
She couldn't tell you what happened from this moment to the next - the face of the sea rushing toward her as she dived.
It took a moment to get her bearings, as it was raining above a sandstorm had broken out below. Korra's ankle was tangled in the netting, that much she could make out and as she floated toward her she could see the board on the other side of it, under the current and yanking her under the surface.
Asami clawed her rope and velcro at her ankle desperately to free her. When she finally did she hooked her from under her shoulder and pushed them up toward the air following the bubbles as she had once before in a dream.
But she couldn't think on that now, she was acting on instinct, the words tumbling from her lips.
"Korra look at me baby are you hurt?"
"That was so dangerous." she coughed, "You dived from the cliff!" Korra gripped her by her arms, beaming and shaking.
Asami rolled her eyes and kissed her fiercely, and as the rain that shielded them from view began to dissipate and sea calm, she kissed and kissed and it felt like breathing. This was all she knew for certain she wanted. I can't let her go.