tushanshu_logs | Closed;

Entry tags:

Closed;

Characters: Korra (

alphatar), Jack Frost (

wintershepherd)
Date: Aug. 8th
Location: Metal Sector (For now)
Situation: Fishing business
Warnings/Rating: N/A

After reading Finnick’s network post regarding his absence, Korra contacted Jack about where to take her catch now. She waited at the café she always stopped at after her fishing trips with her usual mug of hot chocolate, now topped with whip cream.

Part of her wanted to just run back home and leave the fish there since they had last seen each other, but that wouldn’t have been fair to Jack, or Finnick. That and she wouldn’t have gotten paid for the day either. With that thought now on her mind, she was dreading the topic of her pay.

Slumping her back against a wall, she began to sip from her mug.

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Jack left his suite shortly after finishing the conversation with Korra, not wanting to leave her without recourse for any longer than he needed to. He'd be lying if he said there was no trace of trepidation given their last conversation but he pushed that away and focused on the more immediate. He didn't want her to detect anything amiss in the way he treated her going forward; he had genuinely meant it when he said he wanted nothing to change and to remain friends as they had been.

He spotted the Avatar and her baskets of fish from the air and adjusted the angle of his descent, touching down to the ground lightly nearby, a gust of cooled air coming down along with him.

"Hey Korra!"

During her first sip, the wind caught Korra by surprise. For some reason she had been expecting to see him walking, which seemed all too silly now. She looked up just as he called her name and she gave an awkward, almost robotic wave back. Whipped cream on her nose and above her lip.

"Hey!"

Straightening back up, Korra put on her best normal face she could gather. Even managed to muster up a smile. "Did you want some?" she offered her mug out. "I get them for free. Frequent customer perks."

He chuckled a bit, pointing at the whipped cream on her face. "You've got a little something there," he motioned. "And I'll pass for right now, but thanks. It doesn't taste quite as good when it's cold."

After a moment, Korra just automatically said “Right.”

How she had completely forgotten that he couldn’t drink it while it was hot made her feel incredibly stupid. She quickly wiped her nose and lip with her wrist and licked off the whipped cream.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have ordered this, huh?” Taking one more sip, a little too quickly since she burned her tongue, Korra managed to avoid getting anything on her face this time. She set it down on a nearby table for the staff to pick up after they left.

“Um, I can carry these.” Giving a basket with a nudge of her foot, Korra grabbed the rope that was knotted to the handle of each one and pulled it over her shoulder. “I used to earthbend, but that ends up with lost fish. So this is better.” She explained while awkwardly avoiding eye contact.

"We don't have to leave before you've even finished it," Jack said, embarrassed. "I don't want it to go to waste. And I can carry one of those, if you want."

She gave him something between a grimace and smile. Jack had no idea how much Korra wanted him to not be nice to her, this was hard enough on her as it was. Of all the times for Finnick to need time away, it just so happened to coincide with all the other things that life was kicking Korra with. The month of August had not been her friend so far.

“No, it’s okay. I’ll just give a tip the next time I’m here.”

Giving a strong push forward with the rope on her shoulder, the baskets that were weighed down with fish and water scraped against the pavement behind her.]

“No, it’s okay-“ She closed her eyes for a moment of patience with herself, she had just repeated herself. Re-orienting and focusing on the task at hand shouldn’t have been this difficult. Not when it was a daily routine, something that can be done without much thought.

“They’re heavy and it’s part of my job to bring them. Can’t earn my pay if I don’t do it myself, right?” The instant she said the word, she just tried shoving the thought of her pay from her mind.

“Which sector is it in?” Getting an idea of the distance would help her not focus on Jack’s presence like she wanted to.

"It's in the Water Sector," Jack answered, frowning a little. Korra seemed really uncertain and he reached for one of the ropes supporting the basket closest to him.

"It's all right, you're still going to get paid."

"One sector over isn't so bad." Korra glanced at him grabbing one of the ropes. "I don't need the money really. I've been saving mine up too, remember?"

As quickly as she finished the last word, Korra abruptly asked "Why did you split the cost with Finnick? Never would have guessed you to be the fishing type."

Giving a strong exhale, she hauled the baskets behind her and followed him.

Jack blinked at the sudden question. "Actually I like fishing and Finnick does too. He used to do it a lot when he was younger, he said. We've been a few times, out to the turtle's edge. Actually that was where he was first able to hear me."

"I didn't know that. About you, I mean." The question was just to avoid any reference to other day, but she got an interesting answer. "Finnick told me he used to fish with his father. Said this kind of made it like the family business." Leaning forward, each step she took drug the baskets along and caused them to grind against the pavement in a sort of beat. "Katniss said that wasn't what he had always done though. At least on their world."

That actually made her feel for Finnick's loss of Katniss. While she seemed a bit hostile, Korra could tell she wasn't a bad person.

"I hope she remembers everything. I wouldn't want to forget any of this. Not again." Continuing to walk, she began to alternate which shoulder the rope was on. "Would you rather it just be like it was before you got here? Not knowing anything from here?"

"I... don't know," Jack answered quietly, the words almost lost in the sounds of the baskets. "I haven't really decided yet. I'm not the best person to ask about memories anyway, though."

Concerned with the change in his usual tone, Korra stopped and baskets went silent. "Was- was that something I shouldn't have brought up?" Everything seemed like a verbal taboo to her now, and she was never the type to walk on eggshells. "I was on Tu Vishan before and I don't remember any of it. Damian had to tell me that."

She pursed her lips and looked down at the ground. "A lot of people don't know what that feels like. To have someone recognize you and you don't recognize them."

A solid beat before she looked back up at Jack and she turned her head to the side, unsure if she was blundering into bad territory.

"...Were you around when I was first here?"

He nodded slowly in response to her first statement. "No, it's... sometimes people here go and come back, yeah. Like Tony has... Zatanna's friend did too."

Then Jack shakes his head. "It must have been before I arrived, I got here right at the start of the new year. Or, what would have been, I don't know. Sometimes knowing exactly when you are is really confusing, here."

“Tony gave me this thing called a slinky when he left.” Korra admitted. She was quite sure he didn’t remember that, or her. “It helps me think, reminds me of him.” Korra gave the first honest grin all day, and it was a wry one that had more life than she had shown since the last time they talked. “Zatanna has a lot of friends, so that’s not a big clue.”

Giving a defeated sigh, Korra gave a half shrug. “That’s alright; no one seems to have known me back then.” Damian merely saw her posts and had only been a friend of Asami’s.

“Well, I know we’re here right now. Pretty far away from silly English scribbles and a sad emote face that used to look like a moon and stars.”

She gave a small laugh and after a beat, Korra’s lips bunched up under her nose and she gripped the rope, throwing her back into it. The baskets practically hopped instead of skipped and her biceps showed the definition she maintained.

That made him smile. "Slinkies are awesome," he proclaimed. "I guess you don't have them at home, huh?"

( He gave me an air conditioning unit and 12% of SI, but I'd rather he'd stayed than have those things... )

He followed her and before long they made it to the part of Finnick's suite that had been used for the store. "Here we go..."

"No, never seen one until now. Is it a toy? Because it feels like a toy. The way goes down the stairs." Not that she was admitting to having spent waaaay too much time playing with it when it arrived at her suite.

Once they arrived at Finnick’s suite, Korra blinked a few times and looked at Jack with a squint and a raised eyebrow. She had been so internally involved that she hadn’t even paid attention to the fact that they had just gone along her daily route.

"Wait." Tossing the rope onto the baskets, Korra folded her arms over her chest and leaned back so she could look at Jack in the eye.

"What are you doing?" Her tone wasn’t angry. It was frustrated and confused, but not angry.

"What?" Jack stopped, surprised by the shift in Korra's voice. "I'm... not doing anything? What do you mean?"

Rubbing the back of her neck she looked from her baskets, to Jack, to Finnick's suite, and then back to Jack again. Her brain was not up to trying to figure out why Jack had agreed to lead her to the store when they just ended going to where she always deposited her daily catch.

"I- You-" She sighed and rubbed her arm. Convincing herself that Finnick's sudden sabbatical coming not even a week after her confession to Jack wasn't some karmic cosmic deity's idea of a cruel joke had failed. "Look. I think I'm getting really confused and I have no idea what to do about it."

Jack was so utterly lost as to what was going on. He glanced at the building and then back at Korra, hoping that metaphorical lightning would strike and explain why she seemed suddenly upset.

"This is the fishing shop..." he said slowly. What he didn't know was that it was also Finnick's suite, the same as Korra apparently didn't know that Finnick's suite was also where he ran the shop from.

When he looked just as confused as she was, Korra’s shoulders slumped and her neck followed suite so she could hang her head for a moment.

“This is where I go every day, I leave my catch right there in front of Finnick’s suite.” She pointed at the door as she straightened herself back up.

“He takes it to wherever the heck he sells it from after that, doesn’t he?” she had never gone beyond leaving her huge baskets and simply picking them up later when they were empty.

She looked at Jack with a pained and puzzled look. Being so soon after her spontaneous display of affection and friendly rejection made the unnecessary excursion seem like it was some kind of excuse for something.

"But this is--" Jack began, when it finally clicked and he uttered a wry laugh. "It's both, Korra. This is Finnick's suite? He must have been running the store from one side and living on the other. We were both right."

“You’re kidding?” She looked up at Jack and then over at Finnick’s suite. Not once did she ever ask him how he sold them or where he sold them from. Worse yet, she’s only been inside once to help bring in her last catch before the depowering.

“That explains everything.” Jack didn’t know this was Finnick’s suite and Korra didn’t know this was the store.

“Wow, um. Okay. Sorry I kind of wigged out on you. I was just-”

Being stupid. She stroked her ponytail and exhaled enough to puff out both her cheeks.

“I’ll take these in I guess.” She sure did just kind of make an ass of herself.

He waved his hand, her apology unnecessary. "Don't worry, we both made a mistake. No harm done."

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