pulling on your heart to push my luck

all I can imagine is being in your arms

I didn't sleep well that night. I would just barely nod off only to shake myself awake again, feeling myself gradually sober up each time I awoke, and by the time the sun started to rise I had given up on sleep. I laid in wait for Korra to wake up and bided my time trying to think of a way for her to get to the Spirit World. I had no knowledge to go off of, but I figured we might find something at the library we had driven past the day before. I didn't give her much of a chance to fully wake up before I suggested that we go do some research.

The library wasn't at all what I had expected. The ones I'd been to in Republic City were massive and open, their ceilings high and wide enough to capture every noise before sending it back out again to bounce through the shelves. My favorite had a beautiful domed glass ceiling in the middle, its pieces fracturing the light that shone through into an array of colors.

My usual spot was tucked away in a dimly lit corner, but what it lacked in sunlight it made up for in privacy, and I had grown fond of the little lamp on the desk. It felt more and more familiar with each visit until it eventually became a little pocket of safety that I was happy to return to. I didn't realize that, though, until I arrived one day to find someone had claimed it for themselves and was forced to go elsewhere.

The library in the South Pole was much brighter. It was built of ice and snow and the windows were small and few and far between, probably to prevent it from getting too cold inside, but there was just enough light to make it feel surprisingly cozy.

Studying with Korra gave me a newfound respect for Tenzin's patience. We had only been working for twenty minutes before she crumpled up a scrap piece of paper and flicked at my forehead. She missed, and we made eye contact as I untangled it from my hair.

I glanced away to her book and back up at her again. She got the message, but fifteen minutes later used a little Airbending to carefully toss a folded piece of paper onto my lap. I opened it to find a small doodle of us as stick figures, watching the sunset at the edge of the cliff, and barely folded it back up again when another note fell into my lap with writing on the outside fold that read: "This could be us".

My gut clenched and I unfolded it immediately. "If we weren't stuck in here all day".

I should have felt relieved, but instead something about it ached. I flipped it over, wrote "get back to work", and flicked it at her without even looking to see where it landed.

She gave it another thirty minutes or so before face planting into the book in front of her. "This is a waste of time," she lamented.

"Are you actually trying?" I whispered, the words inadvertently carrying some of the resentment that had been accumulating in the back of my throat for the past half hour.

She lifted her view and propped her chin up on the pages. "Yes," she said in a low voice.

"Really?"

She scowled. "What, do you think I haven't done anything?"

"No-" Immediately I regretted spitting out my frustration at her. "Sorry," I sighed. "I'm just agitated."

Whether she was surprised or concerned, I couldn't tell, but her look softened and she asked me what was wrong.

"I'm not finding anything either," I said, resting my chin on my own book. "I thought I might've found something but it's starting to look like a bust."

"What is it?"

"I don't know, I haven't finished reading it yet."

Someone a couple tables away shushed us and Korra had to bite her lip to keep herself from laughing, and I shot her a look. We were going to have to spend a lot of time here, we couldn't risk our welcome.