pulling on your heart to push my luck

Asami Alone (Part I)

I wasn't aware that my arm was dangling off the edge of the bed until Naga nudged at my hand with her nose, and I scratched behind her ears for a few seconds before tucking it back underneath the blankets with the rest of my body. She tried to follow, crying when she realized they were wrapped tightly underneath me. I rolled over to Korra's side of the bed and unravelled my cocoon to let her in.

"Well, come on, then," I said when she didn't join me. Instead she sniffed around the bed, and I had to remind her that Korra wasn't here. "If it's not too early we can go visit her at Katara's?" I offered.

She let out a heavy sigh and curled back up again on the floor. Any other day I would have rolled over and let myself sleep in a little later, at least until the sun had fully risen, but I was already wide awake. I was up for hours the night before and it would have taken just as long to fall back asleep again. Naga was confused, I was trying not to worry, and Korra was still gone.

I groaned as I got out of bed, but Naga stood and wagged her tail in excitement, nearly knocking the lamp off of the nightstand. I shushed her as I changed out of my pajamas and I went to pull my hair into a bun when I realized I'd lost my hair tie.

Seriously, I had it last night, I thought as I felt along the top of Korra's nightstand and underneath the pillows.

I figured she had to have one somewhere, seeing as her hair was almost never down. I made my way to her dresser and began carefully lifting up piles of letters. Most of them were still sealed, addressed from Mako or Bolin, and there wasn't a hair tie in sight.

I glanced at her nightstand. I could try the drawers, but that would have meant rummaging through her stuff. I wasn't comfortable with the possibility that I might come across something she purposely kept hidden, and I especially feared that I might come across something that I didn't want to see, even though I couldn't articulate what it was that I didn't want to find. It would have been easy to leave a journal untouched, but what if I found a drawer full of unsent love letters to Mako?

I was annoyed with myself for even thinking that was realistic enough to dread over. She hadn't even been reading the letters that he had been sending her.

I knew I wouldn't mind if she searched through my stuff for a hair tie, so I pulled it open the drawer and peeked inside only to find it almost completely full of opened letters from me. I scooped up the stack of envelopes, hoping to find a hair tie somewhere amongst them, when something hard slipped out and clanged as it fell back into the drawer.

Naga yelped in fright and I turned on the balls of my feet, one arm extended in a plea for her to be quiet, the other holding a handful of envelopes against my ribs. "It's okay," I said as I lowered my arm, willing her to settle down. She followed, but I stayed still even after she'd laid back down, only reaching for whatever I had dropped once I was sure that the coast was clear.

It was my hair barrette–the one that I put in her hair the day of Jinora's ceremony. She had kept it all this time and I hadn't even noticed it was gone. I shoved everything back into the drawer and kicked it shut as I spun around. "Ready?" I asked Naga, who was waiting patiently behind me. This would be our secret. I would act as if I'd never seen it, as if I'd never even gone through her stuff, and Korra would never find out.

I arrived at Katara's as the sun rose above the horizon. There was little moonlight, it was low enough that its rising counterpart had stolen the sky. It hurt to look at directly, so I turned around to see the last glimpse of it. I'm glad that I did. It was hard to place, but it was still there.

I was hesitant to let myself in. There was a good chance nobody was even awake yet, and if Korra had returned she'd definitely still be asleep. I waited until I could hear movement before opening the door, letting Naga in before me.