poly_chromatic | ♦ ♦ 29TH CONTRACT

Entry tags:

darker than black - hei

♦ ♦ 29TH CONTRACT - Video/Action/Text

[ It happens as it's just getting light, at six in the morning. At the City's mountaintops, the vista is bleak, almost apocalyptic. On a flat stretch of rock, the harsh treeless beauty of the landscape opens out on both sides, making Hei feel small, less than himself, yet at the same time pleasantly calm. His form, outlined in a blue glow, is preternaturally still. His eyes are fixed on the meteor shard he holds up, between a thumb and forefinger. ]

[ It takes a moment before he channels his ability and focuses on periscoping it skywards. But when it happens, the scent of ozone floods the air like a thunderstorm. The abrupt blue light glaring off him is intense; it's hard to see anything beyond it, and when you blink, pink and orange spots blind you. ]

[ In a perfect funneling arch, the light shoots straight for the City's barrier. ]

Options For Run-Ins:

1) Mountain-top (After): [ Have you spotted the source of the disturbance? Then arrest him. We suggest wearing shockproof gear and sunglasses. Rubber boots are also a plus. ]

2) Hiking (Before): [ He's plotted out a careful route. He's marked a spot with a perfect trajectory to target the Barrier. Now all that matters is reaching there. In his thick clothes and heavy gear, he seems like an explorer. But if you see him -- and recognize 'Li' -- you might be surprised at how spry he is with a coil of rope on the towering rocks. ]

[ ooc: Barrier Plot post! Characters who can withstand the horribu blinding light -- and climb the mountain he's sitting on -- are free to run into Hei. Tags can be Before or After the energy-blast itself, but please title them as such! Backtag friendly as always.<3 (...c-curse my slow ;;). ]

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[She doesn't yet know enough about the City to see a connection between City rebellions and their ability to stay together.]

How is this supposed to help?

[ Gaze shaded, Hei regards her for a moment. Surely she must realize ... ]

[ But no. Clever as Pai is, she's still new to the City. More than that, it's in her nature to stay in the moment. She's a creature of expedience, as all Contractors are. A mindset Hei tries to emulate, but to a lesser degree of success, because the need for control and comprehension is still such a strong facet to his nature. He doesn't like the idea of being in an environment where he doesn't know the rules. Where the rules, such as they are, shift with each sunrise. It's too much like being back in Heaven's War. ]

[ Worse than Heaven's War. At least there, he was in his element, however much he despised it. Here, it's like the rug is always being yanked from under his feet. ]

There's a theory that the City's connected to multiple timelines. Hundreds of dimensions and universes. [ His eyes are very dark in the anemic tube-light. More black than blue, like an oil spill. ] If I can understand how this place works, I could find a way for us to stay together. Otherwise there's no point. You could leave at any time. Or I could. Even City Dead, who're supposedly stuck here forever, vanish without a trace. It's too unpredictable.

[She finishes her food and snuggles up against him. She can accept what he's saying, even though she still doesn't like it.]

You're in trouble now.

[ He hesitates at first, then passes an arm around her. Her hair is cool and smoothly-slippy against his cheek. The texture reminds him of something laminated; even in the war, despite the poverty of their diets, it had such a pretty sheen. Against the grime of the safehouse, it's easy for Hei to perceive her as shining. Is more amazed than ever, that in the midst of so much downpour of loss and strangeness in his past, he's reunited with her here -- free to enjoy the one connection in his life that's always been real and solid. ]

I am. [ Another set of tremors spreads beneath them, but they barely last five seconds. He times them to the rhythm of his and Pai's breathing, waiting until they fade. Then, ] I'm going to turn myself in. Running is a pointless option.

[ His hand lifts to smooth the hair from her forehead. It's an unspoken I'm sorry and Don't be angry and Don't do anything rash. ]

[She wants to shout "NO!!!!" but he's right. In a city this small, there's no way he can hide until the trouble has passed. Still, she is not so coldly logical that she can be comfortable with his plan.]

I won't let them hurt you. [She will kill however many people she needs to kill in order to protect him.]

[ Anyone else would take it as a touching sign of devotion. But for Pai and Hei, it's something dangerous and matter-of-fact. When you grow up together in a backdrop of bodies and explosions and red sprays of blood, when you're trained from childhood to eliminate threats, to fuck with minds and lives, to fight until your last breath ... it's a mindset, not a conscious choice. Most would call it unhealthy, the way neither Hei or Pai hesitate to cut down what threatens the other, the way they destroy and nurture in tandem. Too close or not close enough -- at the end of the day, it's how they've survived so long. ]

[ Hei squeezes her tighter, eyes slipping shut. ]

I'd be amazed if they could hurt me. [ In several ways, he's beyond that point. Physical agony is a relative impediment. Mental agony, more specific but also more elusive. Half the discomfort is rooted in fear -- and that's something he's learnt to wrench from his psyche years ago. Gentler, he adds, ] Pavel will be keeping an eye on you. Try not to ... scare him.

[She pulls back from him a bit to look indignant.]

I don't need a babysitter!

[She's a soldier, a Contractor, a future destroyer of continents. She doesn't need someone to keep an eye on her!]

[ She still has the pout. The pout that kills. ]

[ Soldier, Contractor, destroyer of continents ... she may be all those things. But fundamentally she's a fourteen-year-old girl. She may have stayed in a world where lives ended with a snap of two fingers, but that isn't the only balance of power that existence allows. Much shakier bargains are sometimes necessary, to safeguard your interests. ]

He won't stay with you all the time. Just stop by with meals. Proper ones -- not the kind that start out microwaved. Take you for outings, so you aren't cooped up indoors.

[ He's letting you hang around with a cute boy, mei-mei. Don't look so dismayed. ]

[Like she cares about cute boys. Pai is categorically uninterested in "boys", or girls, or anything like that. Chekov's attractiveness does nothing to mitigate the fact that he is being appointed her "caretaker." As though she's not perfectly capable of watching out for herself.]

I can cook for myself. [Not as well as Hei does, but she can!] And I won't be stuck inside just because you're not around.

[ It's not as if he isn't aware of it. Why else would he trust Pavel to hang around Pai in his absence? There's not a glimmer of physical interest between the two. But that's besides the point. Between the curses and the City's dubious population, even a powerful Contractor needs back-up. Someone has to ensure that Pai isn't caught up in the supernatural undercurrents of a curse, or tangled up in shady business she's better off avoiding. ]

[ He fights to keep his amusement at her refreshingly normal reaction off his face. ]

I never said you couldn't. [ Leaning in, he drops a kiss on the whorl of her hair, so she won't see his lips twitching. ] But I'd feel better if you weren't alone. [ A beat. ] Be glad I didn't tell Korra to babysit you.

[ As if he's that ignorant of the possessive mechanism of female psyches -- or that addicted to brewing disasters. ]

I wouldn't mind. [She doesn't care one way or another about her brother's latest fucktoy. She doesn't feel threatened, or awkward, or intrigued. The only thing she feels is that Korra is not Amber.]

But she would.

[ Gentle and matter-of-fact, although his exhale is tinged with ruefulness. It's hard not to miss Amber, especially when she was the framework for so much of Hei's vital concepts, the ways he navigates through life. He knows, in her own way, Pai feels her absence too. It has less to do with a positive female figure in a young girl's life, and more to do with who Amber was. She had that charisma, that charming effect on people, she shone on them and they grew a little less ... full of tangles and barbs. A little clearer on what their purpose was. ]

[ Hei fights a downward tug at the corners of his mouth. Murmurs into the top of Pai's shining head, as if to seep the words into her skull, ] It's just for a short time? All right?

[No, it's not all right at all. But it is what it is. She can't change what's happened.

She can, however, put systems in place to make sure it never happens again. She knows Hei spies on her, but she's realizing now that she needs to spy on him too. Him being in prison will give her time to figure out and establish ways of keeping an eye on him, so something like this can never take her by surprise again.]

[ No, she can't change it. Even so, he knows there are ideas brewing in her head. He can sense it in that little crease between her brows, the shape of her mouth, even in the way her fingers are curled, like a kitten with strategies to pounce on a butterfly glowing in its kittenish brain. But he doesn't ask. ]

[ For now, it's enough to have her closeby, to listen to the quiet lilt of her breathing, before the tides turn and this lull is washed away by the chilly undertow of responsibilities and imprisonments. ]

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♦ ♦ 29TH CONTRACT - Video/Action/Text

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