The Lost City of the South
Chapter 9 - A Day to Fall in Love
The bridge was crude and poorly made, just left to dangle over the lake of simmering lava and the mixing in pure water from the other side of the lake. The City itself stood in the center of whole thing, on a circular raised disk of earth and obsidian with the buildings made of a mixture of petrified ice and marble so that they all looked a special shade of white blue much more splendid than the architecture of their northern sisters. It looked like something from a dream, one that Asami had been having for years since she was little a girl and now that she was approaching the doors to the very city she had been dreaming of it was beginning to look more and more like she'd died and that the city was heaven; the Southern Princess leading the convoy down the wooden bridge being a goddess before her. Asami hadn't asked if the Fisherman's Account was intact or even in the truck; she was too mesmerised by the girl in front, the toned legs as she walked, left right, left right. She was barefoot still and even her feet looked beautiful, the tanned skin and all of the little muscles a little visible in the humidity. Her curves were even toned, her hips inviting Asami in as the truck moved slowly still as the princess led then to the inner city. Her arms were equally as enticing, muscular masses after her forearm and elbow that told Asami a mere embrace would keep her safe and destroy any intruder that would separate them; and all Asami had wanted since their little moment in the cave was be inside the Princess's soft and warm embrace, to belong with her and be kept safe by her. Her lips were the same, inviting and swirling messages of deep and romantic thought within the somewhat drowsy archaeologist, the way they were curved much like her own and prominent in their fullness. She wondered what it would it be like if the driller hadn't approached her in the cave, if the princess would have kept going and what she would have done to Asami, or what Asami would have let her do to her. If she had begun to find Opal cute in the two weeks of knowing her and being around her constantly she must have thought the nameless princess utterly irresistible and cosmical before her, appealing to both the eye and mind and everything else all over Asami's trembling body as they drew to the gates.
She could hear the faint sound of Bolin getting slightly less giddy than herself behind them in another truck with P'Li and Bumi. He was chuckling rather creepily. "I'm so excited" he let slip over the sliming magma below.
They headed straight to the throne room, no nonsense in between with Bumi, Mrs Beifong, P'Li and Opal staying with the convoy outside as Zaheer only needing those who were really necessary; Kuvira of course because he would never dream of a meeting or negotiation without her, Suyin because of her tender and caring nature to possibly soothe things over should they need to be and of course Asami, who would have protested she see the King and learn more of the culture even if Zaheer had requested she remain with the rest outside. Now that she was here and alive she was going to see and do everything under their artificial sun, absolutely everything she could.
Tonraq, as the princess had called the King by name, was rather old and frail but still had the muscular and sturdy figure of a warrior or old, torn apart and ravaged by the beast that time was. He had a black mane of hair coming from his head with a rough bear like beard of black, much like Asami imagined Zaheer could grow. He was guarded by two natives, bald apart from short and reserved ponytail buns and wielding spears and buckler shields, draped in the same blue and coloured cloth as the Princess was.
She was doting on him, setting a light aflame with a wisp of orange from her fingertips. Firebending too. She was still beautiful to Asami even kneeling before her waning father, kissing his forehead.
"I found these outsiders in the mountain. I think they may be able to help us" the Princess informed him in a hushed tone but Asami could still make it out while the rest of the team were looking around the throne room which looked more like a botanical garden from civilization, a large pond in the middle of the grand hall with stepping stones in a circular pattern vaguely familiar to Asami's eyes. She wasn't looking properly anyway. She was too focused on the Princess, still on the back of her though she wished to see that face once again, to see the sapphire eyes and those beautiful tanned lips and everything else, to never stop looking. The King forced his daughter away with a prolonged hand motion and addressed Zaheer.
The commander stepped forward and bowed before the King, who was struggling to get up or at least sit up to see his guests. Zaheer gestured to everyone to bow also and they did, Asami still keeping her eyes fixed on the Princess even while she was bowing. The more enticing thing was that the Princess was looking at Asami too, looking at her face and her hair that was now let down and flowing all down her back with that one same thick strand diverting and flowing down the right side of her face, her glasses on the tip her nose again to allow the Princess access to her emerald eyes and deeper, into her head and her thoughts that were consumed by the Princess and the city. Asami could feel her body heat rise as the Princess scanned her up and down and seemed to smile faintly, certainly admiring something.
"Your Majesty?" Zaheer asked, recovering from his bow and walking forward a little onto one of the stepping stones. The King grunted slowly. "On behalf of my crew," Zaheer began in his sledgehammer charming way that rubbed Asami the wrong way, "may I say what an honour it is to be welcomed into your city" he told him. It was creepy, a shark attempting to court his food before eating it. It was the exact same in tone and behaviour as how he was before the submarine submerged back on the boat; the bow, the kiss of the hand and everything else.
The King was hardly as forgiving as she had been, raising his hand again and speaking in a more gruff manner than Zaheer himself. "You presume much," he started, taking a gap as he breathed heavily. "To think you are welcome in the South" he slammed in Zaheer's face like a door, more alpha than Zaheer was trying to be. Asami knew however that should he want to the commander would simply have to move his vest and tuck it into his pants and the pistol would be revealed again, showing the King the full intensity of Zaheer's personality. He was like a storm really compared to the King's tsunami. Wind against Water.
However Zaheer kept up the pleasantries. "Oh but sir we have come a long way from the surface" he told the King, a sly and devilish smile across his brick like jaw. What's your game Zaheer? She was still looking at the Princess while the two men did business.
"I know what you seek, and you will not find it here" the King told them, waving his hand as he edged out the words. He sounded as if he were in pain, the chest being a tinderbox aflame like a roman candle and causing a fire in him that he couldn't escape. He was frail yes but his figure and his physique of boldness told Asami that he must be in some kind of medical haphazard limbo, especially with his struggling words from his lips. No wonder the Princess doted on him. Her eyes were promising Asami her sweet desires of embrace and more, telling her that she would tend to her every need. "Your journey has been in vain." Only it was hardly in vain for Asami, she had found the city and that was the dream, everything else, the audience, the Princess and the views were all a bonus for her years of waiting and determination.
Zaheer was having nothing of it. He was still in the running for his prize, his memento of the South and a small part of Asami knew then that it was bound to entail a dirty trick or something of the sort. She trusted his leadership only not his motives. A part of her wished that the King would force them from the city before she could get a chance to see what Zaher had in mind but then the Princess looked at her again, the gorgeous sapphire eyes again, and Asami couldn't bare the thought of leaving at all.
"But we are humble explorers, men of science" Zaheer protested, shaking his fist in the air diplomatically. And then the guns were in the King's eyes as if he'd seen their kind thousands of times.
He laughed at Zaheer calculatedly. "And yet you carry weapons" he observed, waving his hand towards Zaheer's belt. that was when Kuvira began to look displeased.
"Our weapons allow us to remove certain," he struggled for the word, making sure he chose the correct one for the sake of the meeting going sour and crumbling before him when he knew he could rope the King into making some form of conditions for them to stay. He was a man that could talk anything and what he couldn't he simply 'removed' entirely. "Obstacles in our paths." He elected for obstacles, emphasising the double edge to his word and stroking his ego again as he enjoyed to so much.
The King chuckled slightly again, catching the double meaning and seeing through Zaheer's charm and megalomania as if he were made of dust. "Some obstacles cannot be removed by a mere show of force." He sounded to Asami as if he were speaking from experience. She always prided herself on being able to see certain things in people, what they had done importantly in their lives or what kind of nature they truly had but the King was so shrouded she could only see the lines on his face and the whites of his eyes, noting deeper at all. The same was with the Princess,she too was a mystery but by far and beautiful one she would gladly devote time to deduce.
"Return to your people," the King finally decided, almost yelling so his words hit harder like a hammer to Zaheer's charming glass facade. "You must leave the South at once" he followed, this time certainly yelling so that Zaheer could feel the sting of his words.
Asami wasn't crushed, but the Princess gasped like she was, looking right back into her guest's emerald eyes once again with the terrified look like she was never going to see her again. To her it was unfair, they had just met and certainly had been a spark in the caves. She wanted to tend to it, to burn some wood on it and kindle a flame between herself and Asami Sato. Now she would not get that chance.
"Oh your Majesty be reasonable" Zaheer blustered, puffing out his chest almost to charm his way further in the exchange. He stumbled in his mind, thinking of an angle he could try until he stopped on a second stepping stone and looked at the King devilishly again. "May I request that we stay one night?" He asked, hoping he had something to work with there. "That would give us time to rest refuel, be ready to travel back by morning" he calculated before the King, his thoughts taking off from his mental runway as he had it.
The King scoffed, waving his bear like a hand around. "Fine. One night. That is all" he relented, his words echoing in a bass tone like gravel in Zaheer's eye. At least now Asami could see some more the city and it's people.
They left after Zaheer thanked the King, the Princess looking lost to Asami as they were ushered out of the throne room by the guards. They would see each other again within the hour but she was looking at Asami with eyes of wanting, wanting to talk and to sit and to look at her more than she had done. Like at the camp, like in the cave when they were semi alone and she could study every angle of her face.
Once the guests were gone the Princess blew a stream of air from her palms, extinguishing the light above her father's throne and scowled at him disapprovingly. He was giving her the same look already, his eyes hard and judgmental as he lay back down to rest his chest.
"You have grown soft Korra, your heart has become malleable" he told her but she was hardly listening to him. "A thousand years ago you would have slain the woman on sight." She knew he knew her, knew that she was looking to Asami Sato during the entire audience. She was the kind of girl Korra liked; fair and beautiful in the face and upper body with hair that would certainly captivate her given that Korra only had the short bob of brunette. He could tell by Asami's emerald eyes and red lips that Korra would be drawn to her almost and that was almost the entire reason she had brought them all to him, not because of Zaheer.
Korra turned to her father in a rush, her hair swaying in her water like motion. She was beginning to become annoyed at his close mindedness. "A thousand years ago our people were not scavenging for food on the edge of a crumbling city!" She yelled at him, her pain for her people defiant in her eyes for him to see. Her shoulders were so swamped and bogged down by the lives of her people, almost as much as his were but she believed she had to do something for them, that there was more for them than remaining in the state the City had been cast into for thousands of years. "We were once a proud people now we live in ruin" she huffed, falling to her knees before her father.
He moved his waning hand onto her shoulder, the other to her soft tanned cheek so he could look her in the eye. "Korra. These outsiders. What they have to teach us. We have already learned" he told her, sounding a little bitter but more understanding and consoling to her. He meant Zaheer, already seeing the man would 'remove' anything in his path if if hampered his progress to anything he wanted. Korra was referring to Asami, hoping and believing already that she could help them more than anything. And those eyes of hers.
"Our way of life is dying."
"Our way of life is preserved" he countered. "Korra, when you take the throne you will understand" he told her and insisted on his rest. She relit the light above him to make him comfortable and drew his blanket over his chest, snapping some water from the pond into a chalice near him for his gruff throat. She loved him undoubtedly, but she believed he was could not be more wrong.
Opal jumped them as soon as the four got back to the convoy parked aways from the throne room. Half the mean and woman had remained with the digger at the new entrance to the volcano, readying to hopefully blast their way back to the surface. The rest were present to refit and refuel under Zaheer's behest.
"So how'd it go?" Opal asked, hoping for some good news after the night they had all had.
Asami was already taking some notes about the culture in a small notepad, a pencil etching her observations as she remembered the scenery of the throne room and how the two guards looked, before long she was on another page gently scribbling the contours of the Princess's face, the sharpness of her chin and the bright sparkles in her eyes. Her eyes. Zaheer could see she was already carefully drawing the intricate lines of the face and an idea struck him and Kuvira simultaneously with an exchange of a glance.
"Well the King and his daughter don't exactly see eye to eye" Asami reported out loud, still thinking about the Princess as she carefully smoothed over the lines of her lips in the small notebook, the luscious curves she was already wishing were making sweet contact with her own. "I don't know I think he's hiding something" she added, moving onto the main body of her miniature masterpiece in the notebook. Suyin held back an observant giggle once she saw the drawing at another of Zaheer's glances towards the archaeologist. Anyone who was in the throne room noticed Asami blatantly stare and ogle at the Southern Princess the entire time and it was even more obvious that there was an attraction there already. It was simply psychology and observation, which Zaheer, Kuvira and Suyin all had a grasp of.
Kuvira was sly and like a fox with her index finger rolling on the bottom of her chin as she looked from Zaheer to the notepad with the doodle of the Princess then back to her commander with one idea in mind. "Someone needs to talk to that girl" she stated, more of a fact directed to the entire group except Asami while she continued to doodle with concentration.
Instantly Bolin jumped up with his hand raised in the air having remembered the face of the Princess when they were standing on the cliff and how he had felt his stomach flips somewhat when he did. "I will go!" He shouted to the circle. No one noticed him. They all knew he was going and who needed to go.
"Someone with good people skills" P'Li added, comically stroking her rather sharp chin as if to sell the fact that the group was really thinking about it despite Asami not even noticing and just continuing to doodle.
Again Bolin was jumping before everyone with his arm raised "I will do it!" He declared.
Suyin could barely contain her laughter. "Someone who won't scare her away" she said regardless as Bolin was continuing to leap gently off the floor.
"For the good of the mission, I will go!"
However Zaheer was already slapping Asami on the shoulder with casual gratitude for her obvious attraction to the brunette and tanned beauty. "Good job Sato, thanks for volunteering" he slithered and walked off with Kuvira and the convoy to ready up for the trip back tomorrow. Suyin was laughing gracefully in a blissful chuckles as Bolin was dramatically in a sulk.
Opal nudged Asami in the ribs with her sharp elbow like the jabs she delivered to her earlier when the rig failed only this was jokingly and playful not out of dominance. She gave her a slight wink to boot as she and rest of the team left in full to resupply and enjoy the city for their one agreed day. "Go get her tiger" she joked, kissing the air between them playfully and arrogantly. Asami's glasses had all but come off and her pencil was on the floor from when Zaheer had slapped her on the shoulder. She looked down at her notepad and saw that she had drawn the head and the bust of the Princess smiling at her with a full grin and teeth. Even as graphite on a sheet of lined A5 she looked amazing to Asami and then at that moment she realised what her reward was for finding the city; a chance at adventure with the girl who had saved her in the cave.
Within ten minutes she was still outside the throne room waiting for the right words to come into her head, the right combination of syllables and vowels and consonants that could at least allow her to not look like a bashful idiot who was so completely infatuated with a woman who was tribal and who had no idea what civilisation looked like. Why am I so stupid? She felt like an idiot in truth and she had since her outburst in the cave. You're beautiful? What the hell Sato? It was so unorthodox, she was a tribal and a Princess, and the first thing Asami Sato had said to her already was that she found her beautiful. But it wasn't just that, she found her more than beautiful. To Asami her face and body was splendid, amazing stupefying even and now was her chance to talk with her one on one and learn of the South, of the culture, the history, the Princess. Why was she so closed off to the idea of simply talking to her? Of learning about her, she was a part of the South and now that they had discovered it the location was bound to become public, she could come back and see her again. Or maybe the King would come round. She hoped it wasn't just wishful thinking as the audience entered her mind again and how the King seemed to hate all of them. But the Princess was different. It was time to found out how different.
She shoved her notebook into her trousers and stuck the small pencil into her vest pocket. She would be lying if she felt the bra was comfortable, and she had been in the same tank top for about three days. Her hair was flowing down her back but felt dirty and her boots were a little destroyed to say the least, hardly the correct attire for interrogation or otherwise wooing.
"Alright Sato now's the moment to dive in, grab life by the neck and.." Completely smother it from head to toe in sweet kisses. She couldn't just help herself, she slapped her own cheek over the faint brush of the stone door being opened; she didn't hear the light footsteps. "I've got some questions for you and I'm not leaving this city until they're answered" she practicing on the humid air in front of her. Suddenly there was a pair of cool and smooth palms over her glasses, darkening her vision. From the glance she could see they were the tanned digits of a native, hopefully her Princess.
Her breathe was also cool, dry and still soothing as it wrapped around and embraced Asami's ear under her crimson curls. "I have some questions for you and you're not leaving this city until they're answered" she whispered calmly and slower than Asami had blurted out. In her mind it was seductive and lustful in her ear, even if in reality it was the opposite; she hardly cared the action was so out of nowhere and caught her so off guard that it flipped her stomach and pressed against her like a sudden embrace.
The Princess removed her hands while Asami blushed. "Well," she began timidly having her stomach still flipped and her body heat rising to the woman's touch. Before Asami could say anything else the Princess covered her mouth with a hand, the faint smell of some exotic aroma filling Asami's nostrils and driving her insane. Why is she so perfect? She had still only just met her.
"Come with me" the Princess ordered her, yanking at her arm as she took her away.
"Of course" Asami breathed bashfully.
They were at a clearing, an open and faintly wooded area where the blue coloured ice and stone mixture was being claimed by the overgrowth and the vines from the deeper earth. It was so tranquil and serene as the Princess pulled herself up on a wall and just sat while the cool breeze from somewhere seeped in and blue her hair back a short bit. She smiled while taking in the aroma of the flowers growing nearby. Asami sat on the floor near a tree close by to her hostess and pulled out the notebook again and her pencil from the breast pocket; she soon continued her doodle of the Princess, drawing the curves and lines of her hips and lower chest having already carved out her upper bust from memory on their way to the clearing. The Princess sighed again, leaping from the wall and walking around the clearing in her beautifully bare feet.
She flopped her strong arms around. "There is so much I want to know about your world" she told Asami, looking into her face as she alternated between catching a quick look to the ripped chest and then back to the lines of the paper while she etched out her muse. She paced a little before turning back to Asami and demanding she look back with her loud an booming voice, the prominent grin that made Asami giggle inside returning to her face. "You're a scholar right?" She asked putting her muscular arms on her perfectly balanced hips.
"Huh?" Asami was somewhat baffled, looking up from her doodle.
The Princess scoffed a little. "Well by the way you look compared to the others and your large forehead you look like one" she explained. Asami was smiling, quite embarrassed almost that the woman had made her resort to what she was about to do. It hadn't mattered with the team, they didn't or shouldn't have known but she did want to show off a little to the woman in front of her with her six pack and large biceps on full display for Asami to admire, it was only fair she show hers.
She stood up leaving the pencil and pad on the floor and lifted up her tank top to the bottom of her bust, showing off the outline of a ripped chest from her physical history of martial arts classes her father made her take, the boxing class she'd taken in university and the countless weeks of tinkering her car and others while hunched over or else. She was almost as admirable as the Princess and thus the tanned woman was somewhat stunned. "Like what you see?" Asami asked, completely out of left field and out of her shell on a hunch it may work. It did. The Princess's sapphire eyes were consumed by the sight of the somewhat glazed over muscles Asami was packing. Now the Princess certainly liked what she saw as Asami had done in the cave and throne room. And it wasn't like Asami was relaxed, she was still so nervous and thus let of of her tank top and her stomach was covered up again. She was back in her shell right away, sitting down to draw. "Sorry, I just don't like being assumed to be one thing" she explained. It had been the same with Zaheer and the truck two weeks ago and it was one of the only things that ever got her to be bold, to be rebellious of others' assumptions of how Asami Sato should behave or look. She was her own person and that was how she liked it. Plus a small part of her felt good about showing herself off to the woman she was so blatantly admiring.
"What is your country of origin?" The Princess asked, moving on with the image of the rather strong archaeologist being stored in her out-of-time mind for later when the woman had left with the team. Although if she had her way they wouldn't have to.
Asami kept doodling, moving on to the slender and simply scrumptious legs of the Princess. "A place called the United Republic, near the Earth Government," she told, pausing her drawing again and looking back at the Princess, who had now sat down on the floor opposite to her with her bare legs folded. "Although I imagine it was the Earth Kingdom when this place was still up there she deduced and carried on the with curve of her calf in black and white.
The Princess looked stumped, confused as if Asami was speaking an entirely made up language. "What's an Earth Kingdom?" She asked, poking her head out to grab Asami's emerald eyes.
The archaeologist pushed her glasses up the length of her nose. "You don't know? Do you know anything about how the world was up top before the calamity?" Asami asked, completely intrigued and so in the dark for the first time on the trip. She closed the notebook with the drawing complete except for the arms of the Princess and leaned in forward, shuffling her whole body closer. "How did all of this even really end up down here?" Asami asked the question she probably should have led with. It was a huge fact that needed to be cleared up for the sake of the history books. She remembered the day all of it started; her reading her practice speech to the fake heads around her dungeon of an office. It all seemed so long ago, more like a decade to a month but it was coming back to her. She wished it didn't. She wanted to be pulled back to the here and now, the clearing with the beautiful Southern Princess with the short bob of brunette hair, the sapphire eyes that shone like two stars in the darkest of nights, the small face tattoo of equal colour and her barely clothed body that was muscular and looked as if it needed to be embraced and kissed all over by Asami's full lips. She pushed the thought of Mr Tarrlok and the rest of the board at the museum to the back of her mind and opened her eyes really again to see the sapphire.
Her hostess was looking saddened, flat from the past reliving itself in her mind. She could remember it like it was yesterday, like it had been yesterday for the past three thousand years or so, repeating itself to her every night and every day, every sleeping and fleeting second on repeat forever. There was a single flash of light, then people were running and screaming. The City was insane, chaotic while her mother and father led her away. She was just a child, a small child while she was being dragged off by her father with her beautiful and threatened mother was lagging behind. She looked to the sky to see the blinding light and someone being raised to it; a man with an arrow on his bald head. She was stunned as he entered an orb of light. She snapped back, returning to the clearing and to Asami's emerald eyes that looked so caring and inviting with their swirls or content and sympathy. They the Princess a dozen tales of warm nights by the fire and her sweet embrace that she too yearned to feel. She recalled the events to her.
"It's said that the Spirits became jealous of the South," she began, lowering her head to stare at her hands in her lap. "They sent a great cataclysm and banished our city and people here forever." She was out of it, in a lucid state between memory and reality, remembering it all in swimming detail as all the images flooded her mind from millennia ago. The next thing she noticed was the warm and glazed texture of a pair of hands gently covering her own. They were Asami's reaching out to touch, to console. "All I can remember is a bright light in the sky and people running. I remember a man going to the light and then there was a huge wall around me; my mother was trapped on the other side when the-"
Asami leaned in, grabbing the Princess with an embrace like she had been meaning to in the cave. She hugged her with everything she had. "I'm so sorry," she whispered in the Princess's ear as she nuzzled in close to make the embrace deeper and more intent. The Princess wouldn't cry as Asami expected her to. "For what it's worth I know what it's like to lose your mother."
She had never talked about it to anyone, not ever, no nobody. It was such an ugly affair she would never recall the events or anything proceeding about her beloved mother. She never even talked about it with her father, both were too scarred by the experience that had claimed her. Now was the first time she had ever even said anything at all on the subject, but a small part her simply couldn't keep it in as the woman in her arms had been able to tell about hers.
They broke off soon thereafter but not before the whole exchange had really touched them both deep down. It was such a touch, such a feeling that stirred in both of them. It was more than what Asami sensed between her and Opal. It was the beginning of deeper meaning, fueled by the attraction they both had. Asami may have been feeling foolish but really, at the forefront of her mind, she wanted so deeply to kiss the woman in front of her without even knowing her name yet. She hushed the voices screaming at her to do it and focused on the conversation.
"You remember? Like you were there when it all happened?" Asami asked, fitting the Princess's testimony together and arriving and mental discombobulation. But that was over three thousand years ago at least. It's impossible? And yet the Princess was nodding before her, the crystal necklace, that Asami could now see was filled with a dash of water, dangling as she nodded. Asami was stunned, confused and yet pleasantly surprised all at the same time, almost scoffing before her hostess. "Well, you're ah, looking good" she awkwardly complimented, making the woman blush a little and laugh at her own awkwardness.
The Princess stood up, returning from her sadness simply by the warm conversation with Asami. She was smiling, not gleefully but now almost smugly, the teeth bared grin taking up her smile with an eyebrow raised over the other making her look beautifully goofy. "How did you find us? How do you say it? Arc-ee-olo-jist?" She said pretty phonetically making Asami laugh and stand up herself, pulling the Fisherman's Account from her satchel and grabbing the notepad and pencil again.
"It's 'Archaeologist'" Asami helped her, stowing away the smaller pad and pencil while flicking to the center pages of the Account. "And let me tell ya, if it weren't for this book we never would have made it" she told her. The Princess instantly swiped the book from Asami's hands, staring intensely at the glyphs on the waning pages.
"You can read this?" She asked just as intense. Asami was about to confirm but the Princess was already shoving the book in her face and pointing to a center line. "This? Right here you can read this?" She asked again and again.
Asami calmly and simply lowered the book from her face and pushed her glasses up her nose again. "Yes I can read Southern Water Tribe" she confirmed to the Princess.
She wasn't convinced and gripped at Asami's arm. "Show me." In a swift motion she dragged her to the far end of the clearing. There was a stone object with overgrowth around and on top of it. It looked much like an elephant coy, with a gaping mouth and shorter tail with a seat looking like it was carved on the top of the whole thing. As Asami judged the whole thing he could see it resembled aspects of a car and yet a plane and yet something else entirely, like she couldn't simply decide.
They both pulled the vines and green from it and looked over the whole thing. There was a series of glyphs and inscriptions around a diamond shaped panel with the edges tapered and a small hole slot above it. The Princess was pacing around the head as Asami inspected the panel. "It's a vehicle like your boxes on wheels but no matter how hard I try I can't make it budge" she divulged. Asami was still trying to think of how it could even move without propellers or wheels or even a combustion engine.
She looked even closer to the panel, reading and deciphering the glyphs into basic language. Okay here we go," she had the first line, then the second and thusly. "Place crystal into slot,"
"I've done that" the Princess riddled off still pacing.
"Gently place hand on inscription pad, turn crystal quarter turn to the left,"
"Done those too."
"While your hand was on the pad?" Asami asked her, looking to see her vacant expression. She was about to say yes, and then stopped and shook her head relenting to her defeat. Asami smiled and held her hand out for the woman to give her her water filled crystal. She placed the blue in her palm and Asami inserted it into the slot, following the steps she had just red and the vehicle whimpered and then roared to life just like a car or biplane. She was suddenly very excited as it began to levitate before the pair. "This is awesome," Asami cried out. "At this rate I can see the whole city in no time at all." You rather see the whole of her in no time at all.
She placed her index on the glowing blue panel and it shot off like a bullet; the Princess pulled her arm back to save her from the rogue flying fish before it collided with the far wall and dug itself into the ground.
Asami laughed, shrugging the whole thing off. "So, who's hungry?"
They had decided to go climbing next, the large spire in the middle of the city provided the best view imaginable at the top the Princess had told her and thus they we more than enthusiastic to climb the whole tower and gaze upon the whole sprawling civilization from the top, to allow Asami to really see what she'd been dreaming of for most of her life. The Princess was ahead of her, the wind blowing her short bob to the side and making Asami's crimson curls flow in the air majestically whenever she looked down to talk to her. They were both beautiful.
The humid moisture on her arms and face was beginning to fade away due to the wind at such a height and Asami was feeling slightly cleaner being up so high. "We've never really been properly introduced-"
"That's because you were too busy looking in the cave" the Princess stopped and cut playfully, smiling her comical teeth baring grin down at Asami and making her laugh. It was such a cocky thing to say but yet it alluded to her being completely okay with it. Since the embrace they had both shared both of them were beginning to melt to the other until they both became the same piece of clay.
Asami gasped with a smile, stopping herself to admire the grin the Princess was presenting to her. "My name's Asami. Asami Sato, Phd" she always taped on the Phd even if nobody cared or in this case even knew what it was.
The Princess stopped again and looked down to Asami. "I'm Korra" she finally told her and carried on the little bit longer and reached the top. She offered Asami an arm and pulled her up gracefully to join her, seeing the sprawling vastness of the city amidst the sensational fog that lightly covered the borders to give the illusion that the city never ended.
Before Asami knew it or could contain it, she was crying from the sincere happiness and joy of finally being here, and finally being here at the side of the beautiful and warm Princess Korra. The moisture leaked from her eyes and she quickly had her hands at them to wipe it away, Korra noticing and placing her hands on Asami's biceps to comfort her. "What's wrong?" She asked as gently as she touched, unexpectedly running her fingers through Asami's tarnished red tinted locks only for them to blow around the back of her head. Korra had decided she loved Asami's hair almost the most; the way it was dirty and yet flawless and the deep black and crimson was sweet to admire and so different to anything down there. She loved Asami's fingers as she pulled Korra's away from her hair only to allow her to continue once she decided she liked the touch of Korra even more. Again it was bliss like the embrace.
"My dad used to tell me stories of this place as far back as I can remember," Asami told her, moving in a little closer to feel the warmth come from Korra's aura. "I just wish he was here to see this." It had been the first time she had thought of Hiroshi since they arrived. He would have simply salivated over the view, the culture and especially the hover-fish. In their bubble of sweet feelings and loveliness neither Asami or Korra kept track of what they were doing. Their fingers were acting of their own free will as they tangled and intertwined until the pair were suddenly holding hands as the cool and welcome air brushed past them. Asami loved the touch.
They had had lunch just as the lights above the chasm where the city was died down, transitioning into an artificial night time that could or could not have aligned with the cycle on the surface. It was hard to tell down under the world. The whole team was at the grand table eating the exotic and wild foods and Asami stayed beside Korra the entire time, the whole way through the day walking along the docks and the industry seeing all that there was to see of the Southern Water Tribe. It was like and the North and yet so unlike the North, so different and so polar South. It was a completely different world all around but Asami didn't even care. She dove head first into the language and the customs and the food and the Princess. She was engrossed wholly and at this point hardly even wanted to leave even if there was a possibility to return. It had been the best day of her life.
It was close to midnight when Korra finally took her hand again and said they would be going to be one place she really wanted to show Asami; a small oasis near the middle of the city where the fireflies gathered in the dark, where they danced and where the water was still and void, pure and tranquil. Korra was different to how she had been earlier upon their arrival. She was suddenly muted, her eyes not open all the way and the sapphires were slightly darker as the fireflies surrounded them in a cyclone.
"Korra? Are you okay?" Asami asked her while she sat with her feet in the pool of still water, staring at her reflection as the ripples past through it. Asami joined her, taking off her boots and rolling up her slacks and then sitting right next to her, placing her slender fingers on Korra's to feel the warmth again.
The Princess looked at her with wide eyes slightly moist, her deep blue looking past Asami's emerald eyes and staring deeply into her. She took both of Asami's hand into her own and gripped them passionately. "I've brought you here to ask for your help Asami" Korra revealed, her expression one of almost desperation while the archaeologist was calm and collected, still admiring Korra's eyes and lips.
When she spoke her breathe was wet and quiet, husky and hitching already now that they were alone and both exposed. "Anything Korra." She would do anything for her, anything in the world now that she had met her and the woman had all but seized her lust and heart.
"There's a mural here, with writing all around the pictures."
Asami smiled, scoffing again with pride. She stood and walked back to a slab of stone she saw upon arriving with some glyphs and writing around a strange picture. "Well you came to the right woman. Let's see what we got here" she said more to herself beginning to depict the glyphs in basic and then relay it back to Korra. She would have continued as well, had she not glanced back to where the woman was sitting to now she her standing up to her knees in the water and removing some of the blue cloth that covered her waistline. She was stunned. "Uh, Korra," she stammered as she could feel herself growing hot and somewhat weak at the knees. It wasn't as if she didn't want to look but it was so sudden and she didn't know why, and Korra was suddenly looking at her so innocently. "What are you doing?"
"You can swim right?" Korra checked, still innocently and tossing the half cloth piece to the shore. She was now standing in cloth that resembled a two piece bikini that made her look even more appealing and edible to Asami.
The archaeologist felt like she'd been hooked and knocked spark out before the gorgeous woman before her. "Oh I swim pretty girl. Pretty good! Pretty good-girl, pretty girl. I swim pretty good" she kept recovering from the blatant flub and exposure of her obvious crush. She couldn't deny now that she did indeed have a crush on Korra; so fast and it felt so good, especially now. And it was growing as it had done all day.
Korra walked deeper into the water until it was to her lower chest, her bust on prominent display now. "Good. It's a ways to where we're going" Korra explained. Asami didn't care, couldn't care, would never care with Korra looking the way she did. Asami was suddenly boiling on the inside as she began to remove the rest of her own clothing as if in trance. The tank top was first, leaving the pencil and notebook with the now finished drawing of Korra inside the breast pocket; she would have to swim in her bra and underwear but again she hardly cared seeing Korra was doing much the same.
Once she was as naked as her guide she felt better, still incredibly nervous to be showing much a stranger the more intricate and private areas of her. Only Korra wasn't a stranger; she was so much more even after a single day and getting in the pool all Asami was dying to do was leap out into her arms and kiss her unrelentingly. But Korra was still a princess. "You're talking to the belly flop champion of Camp Sokka three years in a row" she divulged almost proud of it. She was a wild infant. Korra was giving a smile and thus she giggled as she drew closer to her, her legs getting wetter as she walked until she was in up to her lower chest too. It was a little cold to her dread but Korra was still looking at her face. Instinctively the Princess ran her hands through Asami's luscious crimson hair again and then, even more unexpectedly, ran the the tip of her index finger down the jawline, bringing the archaeologist out in a bright blush. "Why don't you lead the way?" Asami asked, folding her arms to cover bust sheepishly. Korra smiled again and took a gasp before diving; Asami copied once she was under.
They swam for a while, maneuvering past the rocks and stones in their path until Korra led Asami to a small hole, an air pocket where they could catch a breath. They erupted from the water and both let out the stale air from the surface. "Are you okay?" Korra asked Asami, both their hair washed back and soaking.
Asami was giggling a little from the ecstasy of the swimming and the cold and semi-naked beauty with her. "Well I didn't drown" she settled, about to say more but was cut off again by Korra placing her index finger over her lips.
"Good. Follow me" she yelled and disappeared under the water again. She kindled her water crystal and it began to shine a bright and lighter blue amidst the darker sea-foam shroud. Asami was under after that and Korra led her to the mural way down under the pressure.
It was huge, colossal in fact, with pictures sprawling all over of what at first glance looked like the calamity. There was a bright light at the center top with a man inside the white with a glowing arrow on his head. There was then a huge wall of blue around buildings with the southern language glyphs surrounding every line of mosaic art. Asami gestured for Korra to swim near the top with her crystal to light up the words for Asami to translate. She read through most of the segment and what it was saying. A man rose to the sky and became a glowing star with an arrow over him. They took another trip to the air pocket to restock on air and then back down to the mural to read the rest. Korra shone her crystal near the wall, Asami seeing, reading and translating the glyphs that curved around the wall and the buildings. The Spirit of the South. It was just like in the Fisherman's Account. Her eyes beamed as she looked to Korrs under the water with realisation in her eyes.
They quickly returned to the air pocket. "The Spirit of the South!" Asami exclaimed, purely ecstatic that the book was right and she was right and the power source did exist. Korra was confused, very in fact, pulling a face. "It's the Spirit of the South!" Asami repeated, eyes beaming. "It's what the Fisherman was talking about in the Account. It wasn't a star or the sun it was something else. The man rose up into the air and became something else" she was rambling, Korra gently starting to get what she was saying and understanding it. "You'd think something this important would be in the Account" she concluded. "Unless it's on the missing page." It was all such a riddle now. The book had been in the Air Temple for thousands of years or so she believed and the Air Nation would have had it locked away and protected; it was highly unlikely that the page was torn out as a theft. And what even was the Spirit of the South? She was still no closer to finding it at all only that it existed in some capacity and may even still exist. But where? And why? All the more confusing to her. In her thoughtful haze she didn't see Korra crack a smile. She was giving the same look she had done earlier in the clearing.
All at once her tanned hands had a grasp of Asami's wet cheeks and she was pulling her in closer towards her own muscular body still smiling. Asami was gawking, embarrassed and awkward again but this was to a whole new level. It was like a novel or a mover and she knew the scene but could not imagine that it was reality.
"Korra? What are you doing now?" She asked with another stammer. Korra's eyes were smoky as she continued to pull them both closer and closer together. Asami didn't know what she had to do with her hands but Korra did. She moved them to around her waist as an embrace and suddenly they were really close, their chests making contact.
"You talk too much Asami Sato" Korra whispered before drawing closer again. Asami was at Korra's complete mercy as her lips parted and met those of the Princess's, warm and full the by far the greatest kiss Asami had ever experienced.