A few hours had passed, and Korra and Asami had mostly managed to calm the girl down. Asami held her in her arms for a long time while Korra tried to divert her attention and make her laugh, every bubbly smile a ton off the women's chests.
But the uneasiness didn't disappear, even as they sat on the couch watching Akemi play with Naga as if nothing had happened, they couldn't shake the feeling of a ticking bomb about to go off.
"Do you think they did something to her?" Korra whispered when Asami filled her in about what triggered Akemi's fit. Asami lowered her head, staring at her hands.
"I am not sure, but she is definitely scared of something" Asami fidgeted with the hem of her shirt "Do you think it has something to do with that new triad?"
"It has to" Korra shuffled in the couch, suddenly restless "I have to see Lin"
They had both abandoned their idea of this day being like any other, Asami deciding to take a day off and Korra opting to stay home, but she began regretting the decision, needing answers sooner rather than later.
"She'll want to talk to Akemi, I'm surprised she hasn't dropped by yet"
"I'll tell her she is not ready" Korra said "We know plenty already, she is probably Fire Nation, her name is Akemi, and how hard is it to find a child that firebends blue flame?"
"Maybe that's why the triad had her" Asami guessed "She is powerful enough at her age, maybe they were trying to weaponize the kids"
"But she seems to be the only bender of the bunch, and most are too young to show any promise of bending yet" Korra clicked her tongue in frustration "It's useless, we can theorize all we want, but that won't get us anywhere near finding out what happened to her, and how to fix it" the Avatar soften her gaze and looked at her wife "I need to do something about it, or I'll go crazy, I need to see Lin" the question was implicit.
"Go, I can take care of her, we'll be okay till you are back" Asami gave in "But please be back... soon"
Korra leaned in to kiss Asami, slowly, almost longingly, cradling her face as she caressed her cheek with her thumb.
"I will" she said, still holding Asami's face, foreheads touching. "I'll bring dinner" Asami gave her a peck on the lips before Korra stood up. She took her glider and hurried towards the door, the black ring on the burnt wood still smoking slightly.
She was about to go out the door when she remembered she had another person to say goodbye to. Akemi had forgone of her and Naga's play and was now looking at her inquisitively.
"I'll be back, tiny, don't worry" she said, kneeling down to Akemi's height, caressing the back of her head. The girl jumped onto Korra and held on to her in a tight embrace, looking distraught. Korra was taken by surprise and almost lost her footing, letting go of the glider that fell open on the floor. Akemi had never hugged her before.
She wrapped her arms around the girl, slowly returning the embrace, one hand on her back and other at her nape. She seemed so little and fragile between Korra's arms. She felt rage building up at the thought of someone ever wanting to hurt Akemi, but it wasn't only anger she felt, there was also this other sweeter kind of feeling at the sudden sign of affection.
"Korra will be back Akemi, she promised" Korra's eyes were closed, so she didn't notice Asami approaching, but thanked the intervention, a few seconds more and she wasn't sure she would have been able to leave the house without crying herself.
"Yes, I promised, and I don't take my promises lightly" Korra said shakily, smiling at Akemi, before doubtfully kissing her forehead. It seemed like something her mother would do. She shook the thought out of her head, and went out the door in a hurry, not leaving time to change her mind.
And just like, that Asami was once again alone with Akemi, the girl still somewhat upset about Korra leaving. To be honest, she was kind of upset about it as well, burdened by the fact that right now, she was all Akemi had. But only until Korra comes backshe thought to herself Only temporary. The mantra helped her calm down.
An idea popped into her head.
"Do you like drawing?" She asked and the girl nodded enthusiastically. Asami relaxed just a little. "Come, we'll fetch some paper and colors from downstairs" Akemi held her hand unprompted again. Asami smiled involuntary, maybe she was starting to like it.
They went downstairs to Asami's workshop, and it was like entering another dimension. Not two days ago, that was the place Asami craved being at the most, second maybe to her and Korra's bedroom. But now, she hadn't even thought about the place, not even in the blueprint still rolled up, forgotten on her desk.
To Akemi it was something akin to a playground, judging by the look of sheer ecstasy in her eyes. Asami was pleasantly surprised when she ran towards the model she had been working on for the past few months. It was a scaled down prototype of a sand sailer, meant to be propelled without bending. Future Industries had been commissioned to create a small float of them, apparently for cheaper and more efficient transportation of goods through the Si Wong desert. It was a project Asami felt proud of, she had worked extensively on it and supervised the process all the way through completion, unlike most of the other projects she just got to greenlight. Turns out being the CEO came with a whole lot of work outside the workshop.
The girl stepped into the sand sailer, and Asami came back to reality, suddenly painfully aware of how dangerous the whole place was for a child.
"Where is the sail?" Akemi asked, frowning at the model, critically. Asami raised an eyebrow.
"Those are the sails, actually" she pointed to the two D shaped pieces of cloth tensed over a thin metal structure that gave it its shape. The girl seemed to mull it over, not completely convinced about the modification and placed a hands over the shaft one of the sails was propped on, making it pivot and change direction. "That way you don't have to sandbend to change the rafter's course" added Asami, joining the girl on the sailer.
"So even I can drive it?" Akemi said with glee. Asami didn't know what could possibly be so interesting about a sand sailer to a child.
"Yes, in theory, but let's wait until you are older" Akemi jumped off the rafter looking rather disappointed.
"They wouldn't let me drive it anyways" the girl said, roaming around the workshop looking at the sheets of paper plastering the walls, Asami following her "They said I would only burn it down to a chisp" Asami wanted to know who these people Akemi was talking about were, but didn't want to keep pushing her after today. She could only hope the girl would keep talking as long as she remained distracted.
"That's a voltage tester" Asami pointed to the tool Akemi was looking at on her desk. It was a wooden box, with a bunch of knobs and a little scale behind a glass screen.
"What does it do?" Akemi clung to the edge of the desk on her tiptoes, trying to get a better look at it. Asami helped and held her up.
"It measures the power of different kinds of energies" Asami tried explaining as simply as she could. The girl played a while with the knobs, watching how the needle on the scale moved "Who said you would burn the sailer down to a crisp?" Asami ask subtly.
"The sandbenders" Akemi answered mindlessly. Well, that isn't incredibly specific Asami thought, she had guessed that much. But it was useful nonetheless, maybe she was smuggled from one of the Fire Nation colonies to the Si Wan desert and ended up with the sandbenders. How she made it all the way to Republic City, though, was a harder guess.
Akemi grew tired of the tester and asked Asami to get down. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she ran to the opposite end of the room, towards the most dangerous device on the workshop, Asami choking on her own heart.
"What's that?" Akemi pointed at the welder machine, keeping her distance. Asami placed a hand on Akemi's shoulder to keep her away, but figured she was better off teaching her than to scold her for getting close.
"It's a welding machine, it produces blue fire, just like you" Akemi turned around and look up at her, her face glowing with mirth.
"Really?" she said, and Asami wondered if she had made a mistake, watching the girl's spike in interest. "But why would you need blue fire?"
"Well, I use it to join pieces of metal together, It's quite useful, actually" the girl came closer to the welding mask that laid near the machine "But it's dangerous if you don't know how to use it, so don't come close without me, I don't want you getting hurt, understood? the girl backed off and nodded. "What do you use your blue fire for, Akemi?" Asami asked after a while.
"I heat the sand and make it rain diamonds" she said, spreading her arms up at the end of the sentence. Asami didn't know if she was being serious or not "Can I draw now?"
Asami gather some paper and every marker she could find and settled the girl at the coffee table near the couch, eyeing the blueprint, wondering if she could get some work done while Akemi drew.
She sat at her desk and stared at the the blueprint that took over half the surface, a shiver going down her spine. She looked over some drawers for her notes, and looked at it again, confirming what she already knew. It was pretty much done, there was nothing more to add, or nothing she could think of anyways, as she had kept it pretty much a secret from the other engineers of Future Industries. She told herself it was for practical reasons: she needed to figure it out on her own, make sure it was viable and ethical before she was to disclose it to the rest on the company and started to pour resources into it. But now facing that next step, she rapidly realised that from the beginning something didn't feel right.
Maybe the distrust came from her own past experience with a similar technology, after everything General Guan and Dr. Sheng put her through. Despite all of that, she felt the need to pull through the discomfort, and keep working on the project, needing to make something good out of that past trauma. But for that to happen, she had to actually tell someone about it.
Not now, she thought, closing her eyes, and then looking at Akemi still drawing, a few feet away from her. She had enough to deal with for now. So she grabbed a ruler and started taking measures for the untenth time, writing down each number on her notebook, making sure she was using a consistent scale throughout before she started making plans on building the first prototype.
Asami had the habit of getting caught on her work, hours passing by her unnoticed, but she knew she couldn't let herself do that while looking after a kid, so every once in a while she would look up to check on Akemi. That was Until she found a discrepancy in her notes and got distracted: the next time she remembered to look at the coffee table, no one was there. But before she could panic, she felt a tug on her clothes. Akemi was besides her, drawing in hand, calling for her attention.
"What are you doing?" She asked sheepishly.
"Working" Asami answered with a smile "Wanna come here and take a look?" Before she could finish the sentence, Akemi was already climbing up her lap, without letting go of her picture.
"What is this?" She asked, tracing her little fingers along the lines of the blueprint.
"It's a drawing of a machine" she explained.
"What does it do?" Would Asami ever get used to this many questions? She sighed before she responded.
"It helps people remember or forget memories" That's to put it simply, but she couldn't come up with a better explanation.
"Does it work?"
"Not yet, I'm working on it" Asami waited for more questions, but silence fell upon them. She expected Akemi to jump off her lap and resume her drawing, but instead she turned her head to look at Asami and asked one last thing:
"Can I work with you?" Asami half smiled, her whole body feeling warm and fuzzy. The girl didn't really care about what she was working on, she was just looking for an excuse to be near Asami.
"Yeah, why not" Akemi smiled wide and placed her picture on top of the blueprint, resuming her drawing.
Despite her companion taking over most of the space on the desk, Asami managed to get some work done, making sure no other project got neglected or delayed because of her skipping work. But from time to time, the sight of Akemi would caught her eyes enough to stop what she was doing, her profile lit by the warm glow of the desk lamp, her eyes painted a deeper hue of blue as she focused, trying to replicate Asami's writing, wobbly lines barely resembling letters and symbols smudging the paper. Asami wanted to ask what she was drawing, but found that it would disrupt this new peace they seemed to be surrounded by, so she kept working alongside the child, in silence.
After a while slumber fell onto Akemi, drowsing off right then and there, reluctant to give up her privileged spot at Asami's desk. The engineer noticed the marker trailing off the paper, still on the child's hand, her head slumping heavily to the side. Asami cradled her, ready to put her down to sleep on the couch, but with Akemi's head weighting on her shoulder, and her arms idly laced around her neck as she slept, suddenly Asami didn't feel like letting go of the child either.
So she stayed, a hand on Akemi's back, holding her in place as she worked, feeling her breathe deep and steady. She stayed, even when there was no more work to be done, she stayed, humming a lullaby she didn't know she remembered. Asami stayed, until she too fell asleep.
A/N: A more lighthearted chapter after last one. Also, Google Drive decided to stop saving midway through, so I had to write it twice.
So, specially for this one: hope you liked it.
Next one on Monday.
Oh, to the guest reviewer: Good catch! it is not him, though, but you are on the right track. Hope you keep reading!
-TypingMitten
