poly_chromatic | video / action

Entry tags:

darker than black - pai

video / action - the beach

[ action ]
[Everything had started going wrong in the cave.

She had gone to the beach to do a little snooping on her brother's newest toy, but the Beach House was full of animals. Killing them would have alerted Hei to her snooping, which she doesn't want, especially after she went through all the trouble of removing his tracking devices from her clothes. So she had explored more parts of the beach instead, because she had never really been to a beach before. Inside a little cave, in the water, she had found a bottle of spirit gum.

That. That is when things went wrong. Sand began sticking to her feet, even though the water should have washed it off. At one point she slipped and found herself covered in seaweed, seaweed which she couldn't get off.

She tries returning the spirit gum to where she found it, but that doesn't fix the problem. So she picks it back up again, in case she needs it for whatever foolish ritual may be required to end this. (And then it's stuck to her, so she can't exactly dump it anyway.)

She can't get home like this. She's too vulnerable, and the last thing she wants is to kill someone attacking her and then get stuck to a corpse.

She pulls out her device, resigning herself to it being stuck in her hand.]

[ video ]
[A sad little seaweed monster appears on screen. There's only so many buttons she can push, considering she gets stuck to them.]

Brother. [Halp.]

[ooc: Anyone who touches Pai won't stick to her.... but you'll start sticking to everything else! The effect lasts 24 hours.]

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That does bring back childhood memories of Saturday Morning.

[blank stare]

Looks like you're kindly in a fix honey.

[Just a bit, yes. But you wouldn't know it from the calm, collected tone of her voice.]

You're one of the Anonymous members. The new City leaders.

Sure am but we aint leaders so much as just the ones tryin to get things calmed down around here. And it looks kindly like you're helpin us on that account. Thankya honey.

Guess I'd better get down to where you are so we can get this done with.

You know what's causing this? [She keeps the bottle of spirit gum hidden in her hand, curious to see how much the dog will tell her without her having to give up any information in return.]

Sure do. We had a curse blow up on us and bits of it went all over the City and it looks to me like you might have just found a piece honey.

Is it dangerous? [She's not actually scared, but it wouldn't hurt to have people thinking she's just a timid little teenager.]

If we don't get it all back together again it will be.

What will happen?

More explosions and more curses. Suchlike.

That doesn't sound any different than now.

I said more didn't I?

[She's still not impressed. Regardless of how many more explosions or curses hit the City, it will still seem remarkably peaceful to her.]

How do you put a curse back together?

Like you put anything else back together honey.

[You can't see it, considering her face is covered in seaweed, but her eyes narrow.]

That doesn't answer my question. [It's a bottle, whole and complete, not a shard of something.]

You feelin any symptoms yet honey?

Other than being sticky?

No that's the symptom. You sit tight and I'll be right there.

No. My brother and I will meet you. [insert location here]

Yeah all right. That's close enough.

[ This is why he never lets you go anywhere alone, Pai. ]

[ It's a moment before Hei speaks. Something flickers on his face, like a trickle of chemical which might contort his features into amusement or relief. But he settles on neither; instead a sharp twitch of anger, too instantaneous for him to suppress, passes through him. How strange, that he's learnt to witness all sorts of unexpected deaths and disappearances with perfect composure, here or at home -- people vanishing into black vortexes, continents enveloped in white light, friends taking off in phantasmagorical children's rockets -- but, Pai absent for more than three hours, unannounced and impossible to detect, provokes him to fury. Schooling his expression into something calm, self-possessed, he exhales to exorcise the anger. ]

[ He doesn't snap I was looking for you or Where have you been? Instead he focuses on the issue at hand, ]

Generic curse, or some other City magic?

[ Anarchic mentioned a curse exploding, bits and pieces going missing. He wonders if this is an after-effect. ]

[You were supposed to be working, brother! She's not an idiot. She was supposed to be home before you had a chance to notice that she had tampered with your little stalking tools.

But. Things didn't turn out as planned, and the only thing Pai can do is deal with the consequences. She puts just a hint of pathetic nervousness in her voice; she doesn't want to oversell, since her brother knows better than anyone else in the City what a Contractor is, but hopefully enough to make him forget his anger.]

It's a piece of the curse that broke. I'm sticking to everything.

[ Like most siblings, Hei can tell when he's being wheedled and played on. At the same time, almost like a parent, that doesn't matter as much as ensuring that Pai is unhurt. For a few moments (none of Hei's negative emotions with Pai last very long) he's furious with her. Then, as his eyes skate from point to point, taking in the tangled snarls of seaweed and the sandy detritus clinging to her, his simmering temper deflates. She looks so ridiculous and sullen-eyed, it'd be almost funny -- if it wasn't also such a dangerously sticky situation. ]

[ Sticky. Hah. (He really needs to work on his sense of humor.) ]

[ He takes in the explanation with a nod. Figures that of all the people who'd find the enchanted pieces, it'd be Pai. Both siblings gravitate towards disaster -- or maybe vice versa. It's quiet and calm when he says, ] Give me your exact location. I'll be there in twenty minutes.

[She does, quickly and precisely.

Also --]

A member of Anonymous is looking for me. Blackdog.

Not surprising.

[ They'd put up a post, claiming they needed help in retrieving the curse's missing fragments. Privately, Hei thinks they're exaggerating the dangers of each item. But he refuses to take chances where Pai's concerned. ] I'll come with you, if you want to meet them. [ There was a reward mentioned for cooperating -- almost like this is some volatile, impromptu scavenger hunt. He wonders if the payment still applies if you stumble upon the goods by accident. ]

[ Aloud, he says, ] Stay where you are. I'll be right over.

[ It takes him considerably less than twenty minutes to arrive. The sun is starting to turn pink; slats of orange and gold glitter on the sand. When Hei approaches Pai, it's with an umbrella dangling from his hand. His expression is mild, but there's a tension in the line of his shoulders, something that suggests a peculiar energy being reined-in. He wants to touch her, but he's also aware he'd be useless to help her if they end up glued together. ]

[ Carefully, he extends the umbrella to Pai. Says, in lieu of a greeting, ] So you don't stick to everything you brush against.

[She senses the tension -- how could she miss it? -- but since he isn't lashing out, she ignores it.]

Hand it to me from above. The plastic will stick to my hands if I touch it.

[ Hei isn't lashing out, no. But he isn't feeling particularly amiable (patient?) either. Then again, he's never really sure when he feels much of anything, except for the fact that Pai is one highlight in his life that he'd die for. The war has distilled all his feelings into a handful of bottled up emotions, stowed away and gathering dust in the cellar of his psyche. It's only during a crisis that they smash open. Little incidents like these ... he can only handle them with either irritability or indifference.]

[ He does as he's bid, unfurling the umbrella. Drops it carefully over Pai from above, making sure the plastic skirts don't brush against her. It's almost like lowering a circus tent onto her -- or helping her into an underwired ballgown. When the handle is secure in her grip, he steps back to regard her. The picture she makes -- with the dripping seaweed and ridiculous umbrella -- is amusing enough that he softens a degree. ]

Like a lovechild of Mary Poppins and the Swamp Thing.

I don't know what those are. [The calm, quiet tone of her voice hasn't changed, but there's a distinct lack of twinkle in her eyes that indicates she is none too pleased with her current circumstances.]

It doesn't matter, [ he says, his tone reassuring, if not dismissive. The dullness in her gaze, even through the slimy corkscrews of seaweed and the translucent sheet, is apparent. He can't slip his arm around her; instead he extends a hand, silently coaxing her to walk with him. He has no idea how Anonymous plans to reverse the curse's effects. But the sooner they manage it, the better. Sand crunches fine-grained and shimmery under his shoes as he drifts towards the street with Pai. In the background, he can still hear the sloshing waves. It's always a strange novelty for Hei; not the vastness of the ocean, because he's grown up with vastness, but the sound of it. It's soothing the way only Pai's company, or a night of stargazing can be. ]

[ He listens to the dull ambient gurgle for a few moments, before asking, ] What were you doing here? [ He has suspicions, but he'd prefer them confirmed. ]

[She had seen this question coming; an idiot would have. Doubtless he already knows the answer; the clues are all laid out to anyone with two wits to rub together.]

I wanted to explore. [Not untrue, and better not to confirm any suspicions he may have. (She would rather not get lectured.)]

I see. [ A quirked brow, even as the rest of his face remains impassive. He can't take her indifference to Korra at face-value, if she's skulking near the Beach House. Something that deliberate would only be driven by curiosity. Perhaps suspicion, or outright dislike. What exactly had she hoped to accomplish? Was it a surveillance run? An attempt to better understand the patterns of ... not the 'enemy' but the nuisance. Hei has no idea, but her evasion is feeding little sparks of inklings. ]

[ He has no choice but to ask, ]

What did you learn, from your 'exploration'?

[She makes a little face.]

To be more careful when picking things up out of the water.

[She is the most saddest, most forlorn, most seaweed-bedraggled little sister in all of creation.]

[ Yes. Yes. Seawedy sadness, thy name is Pai. ]

[ His eyebrow crooks higher at her deflection. It's late afternoon by now, almost dusk. The sun is disappearing behind the sea, casting a flickering glow over the beach. All around Hei and Pai the picture quality of the world is being adjusted as if by contrast and brightness knobs on a remote control; the sharper contours of rocks and sand are sharpened further, almost luminescent, while the duller stretches are retreating into darkness. Leaving off his instinctive visual scans, he edges closer to Pai. Drops his voice, into something approaching sincere that turns genuine halfway, because there's no need for artifice with Pai. ]

Nothing else?

[ As in: If something's bothering you, then you need to tell me. ]

And I don't like beaches much. [The way the sand sticks to her skin is very irritating, and the water is colder than she would like. She doesn't understand why people are so enchanted with beaches.

Nope. That's not a metaphor at all.]

[ [ It's been awhile since Hei's shared a conversation within a conversation with anyone. Then again, there's a subtext to every dialogue, something that's often too complex in its molecular structure to follow or direct. The dialogue between him and Pai, him and Amber, was doomed from the start in Heaven's War. It's what led to the omissions and misunderstandings, the secrets and the ultimate blindsiding knowledge of different individuals with different choices, with ideas about each other that didn't quite mesh with reality. Amber had believed that Hei would overlook the massacre of millions of people, to be reunited with the stars, with his sister. She'd been wrong. Hei believed he'd go on killing for Pai, without baggage or scars, so long as he kept her safe. He'd been wrong too. ]

[ Here, in the City, he has a second chance. He'd prefer not to screw it up with endless silence and guesswork and misconstrual. ]

I see. [ He slips both hands into his pockets, glancing at her with mild, half-shuttered eyes. ] Beaches have their uses, though. For some people, frequent visits are therapeutic.

[Pai shrugs carelessly. To roll her eyes would be to acknowledge that there was another level to this conversation, and she's not ready to do that yet. She doesn't want to discourage Hei from making friends. He needs to make connections with his own kind. ~~But does that have to include her?~~]

[ Even if she doesn't roll her eyes, her shrug says volumes. Hei's familiar with those deflections -- verbal, physical, psychological. Has used them, enough times, in the war. A solid barrier of indifference to shut out both other people's bullshit, and his own festering concerns. It was his job to stay focused and cool-headed, yes -- but that had less to do with the competency of his reflexes (those have never failed him, even in the worst moments) and more about Hei's complete inability, in the early days, to know when to say when. Weakness was something he used to define much too broadly and in ever-changing variables. ]

[ It's still an effort sometimes, to understand his own limits and to address hangups. It's probably very different for Pai -- but that wavering skein of familiarity remains. ]

Would you prefer I stop visiting the beach?

[ Inherently sarcastic, but completely sincere. Hei is fond of Korra -- more fond, truth be told, than he'd expected to be. But Pai is always his first priority. ]

You have to take care of yourself. [On anyone else, it would sound passive aggressive, but Pai is wholly sincere. She wants her brother to be happy, and to do what is necessary to be so. It would be ridiculous for her to interfere. (And if Amber ever comes, it will be a moot point anyway, she's sure.)]

[ A part of Hei knows it would be a moot point, if Amber ever arrived. The other part... isn't as sure. He doesn't know when Korra became such a fixture of his life -- he doesn't know when his life started to have something so permanent that he decided it was worth keeping -- but apparently she hovers on that list. He knows how dangerous the idea is, in and of itself. But he also knows the only time he'd been ... not happy but content -- since coming to the City, barring the arrival of Pai, Yin, and even Mao -- was the times he'd fooled around with Korra. Not the sex; just the satisfying meaninglessness of the shared moments. A satisfaction he hadn't recognized as such, until she'd sent him that card and he'd beat the hasty retreat, wanting to be unencumbered and free. ]

[ Free, all right, free to be anxious, solitary, angry, stuffed full of longing for a girl who was far far far too clean and all wrong for him. ]

[ If Amber ever came here, Hei would go back to her. No question; he knows it in his bones. Her hook is in his heart. But he'd still think of Korra, all the same. He closes his eyes and his mind against that realization, which feels like a blasphemy, pushes it firmly aside. Quietly, to Pai, ]

She isn't a replacement for Amber.

[ Neither a non-sequitur, or a lie. Nothing could replace Amber, just like nothing could fill the void when Pai left. But no two relationships are the same, either. ]

[No relationships are the same, but that doesn't mean they can't do the same things. Water may not have the same effect as milk in a recipe, but it still gets the job done.]

She's a substitute. [Pai won't admit, especially to herself, that she still resents it. That her resentment has less to do with Korra taking Amber's place with Hei, and more to do with the fact that Pai has no substitute of her own. It's easy for Hei to find women to fuck, but there are no other Contractors in the City. (She doesn't count the Dolls; they have all the personality of a brick, as far as she knows.) Pai is wholly alone, even more than Hei had been in Heaven's War -- he at least had the comfort of knowing that other humans existed in the world, even if they weren't a part of his team or his day to day existence. She has no such comfort here.]

She's not. [ Quiet but flat, as if he really means that, is willing to speak in absolutes when nothing about the City, about himself, about any interaction is absolute. But it's true. There's no comparison between Amber and Korra; they're different in every microbe and pitch and vibe. It was Pai who Korra reminded him of. Still does, in fleeting moments, especially when she gets that strange, distant, old-young look in her eyes. Pai is like Korra, (or maybe Korra is like Pai?) in the sense that once her mind was made up, it's unstoppable, impermeable, an energy bolt which could destroy anything in its path. ]

[ (Then again, isn't Hei the same way?) ]

[ He knows Pai's resentment isn't so much at Korra, per se, as it is at the solitude of being what she is. But perhaps she doesn't realize, how far from emotionally enmeshed Hei is, with anyone here. How difficult it is for him, to connect with the simple and wholesome. Contractor and human, that's what he and Pai are. But they're both also soldiers who've found themselves too altered by the environment of the war to lasso ties of intimacy around perfect strangers. The distance between who you were and who you have become is unbridgeable, and the dissonance attempted repatriation creates is a constant reminder of the very changes you're supposed to forget. ]

[ In the end, they're both little islands unto themselves. ]

[Pai gives him a sideways look, clearly disbelieving. Not that it matters what Hei tells himself, as long as it makes him happy.

This would normally be the point she'd take his hand, but that isn't an option at the moment. Instead of wishing things were otherwise, she says:] We should find Blackdog. [The sooner they return this cursed piece to Anonymous, the better her chance to have this cursed effect removed.]

[ It's something Hei's told Korra too: He's left behind happy, in the concrete, ineffable, absolute sense, years ago. It's only around Pai that his whole being concentrated on happiness, or on at least remembering what that word is, on reinventing it into new words that'll suit his altered self. He wishes he could tell her that; his refutation seems to have hit her like a badly-sailed paper-plane, landing with a useless crumpled thunk at her little feet. Wishes too, that he could gather her in -- weaving words may be Hei's particular skill, but not if the words aren't lies. Physicality is so much simpler -- to fake, but also to reassure. ]

[ Instead he nods, hands still stuffed in his pockets. Starts off in the direction of the main road, thin-lipped and high-shouldered, almost as if he's angry -- but at a slow clip, so Pai can keep up with him. ]

Edited 2013-09-21 04:21 (UTC)

What is it? [Something is vexing him, and she can't tell if it's the reminder of the trouble she got into, or the conversation they were having.]

[ Hei shakes his head. It's not a dismissive It's nothing. It's more that he has no idea how to explain it to her, because his thoughts are such a jumbled blur that even he can't make sense of them. The ability to penetrate them with logic, insight, thuds hard and unyielding against his brain, like a sack of entrails, oozing blige and blood. The street has fallen into darkness around them, the streetlamps flickering on and the tiny stars twinkling distantly above. A peaceful ambience, all things considered; he tries to let it seep into him the same way. ]

[ At length, ]

I'm not angry with you. [ Not answering her question, but also offering up something that isn't untrue. It's at himself, his ambiguity in moments like these, his inability to make the smart choice, that pisses him off. When will he learn? Or maybe the better question is, when will he stop picking his every motivation apart, trying to sketch sharp lines and solid distinctions in matters that are rarely so black and white? (The answer to both is probably: Never.) ]

[ He doesn't tell Pai that. Offers her a twitch of a smile instead, gesturing for her to keep up with him. ] Let's get moving. [ He has a lot to think about. Not now, but when he's alone. ]

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video / action - the beach

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