Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As long as there have been games to play, people have tried to cheat them. As long as there has been life, death, and everything in between, a mind tries to overthink – conquer, and be the victor.

She takes in a whiff of the sweet air, filled with cigarette stench. The band is playing jazz accolades on their horns and drums. Strips of electric lamps illuminated the crowd around her, just enough for her to see her father’s customers, yet not overly bright. It felt like a mineshaft. A crowd of mostly men filled the tables and chairs. Some were dressed well, suits with polished buttons under a head of slicked hair, topped with shapely fedoras; others were in shirts ratty and filled with dirt, the sleeves rolled up to expose tanned arms.

Some women, too – but not nearly as many. Prostitution was the oldest trade, after all; and it oft found itself circling around dens of sin like this. Nonetheless most were proper and demure in appearance, their colorful dresses sticking out like cactus flowers in the desert of monochrome suits and shirts.

Perhaps that’s why this one patron in particular caught Miss Sato’s eye. A collared shirt adorned her shoulders, tucked into a set of trousers. It wasn’t normal to see a woman in pants – but it wasn’t the most gauche outfit to walk into La Bayou, either. Hepburn wore outfits like this, too, whenever Asami saw the actor in tabloids.

This woman didn’t share any other features with the famous actor, though. Her hair was a deep brown, pulled up into a half bun; her skin was dark – a native woman. Her round nose was pointed downwards, eyes on a poker game; a six and a four were laid on the wooden table by the dealer.

Asami leans against the stair rail to look closer at the patron, watching her slide ivory chips across the wood. That was when she saw the cuff of the stranger’s sleeve; she doesn’t know if it's a trick of the eye, or an unusual bracelet, but there was something different between her skin and the cloth of her shirt. It prompts the Sato woman to get closer, to know the truth.

The heiress weaves through the crowd of people, her shoulders brushing against others in the overpacked gambling hall. Most excused themselves from her presence, allowing her to swivel by tables, her immaculate dress swooshing around her. She’s close enough to hear the dealer at her target table – Tahno, she thinks his name is – finishing the round. The players at the table whoop in excitement and groan in dismay.

Asami’s focus shifts back to the mystery woman. She pulls her stack of chips in, a win under her belt. A round in her favor, fortune on her side as she wins a large pool of colored chips. Surely she would lose the next. A gambler winning twice in a row would be unacceptable for the house. Asami bites her lip and flips her long, dark hair back, watching the game with growing interest. The styles nowadays demanded short bobs from women, but she wasn’t ready to part with the long locks of her youth. She enjoyed the look of her long, lustrous hair as it was.

A fresh batch of white cards is dealt; the woman is close enough now to hear the enrapturing sound of thick cards bending and hitting the table, a new round in play.

The tan-skinned woman reaches forward, and this time Asami is sure of the white shade stuck underneath her cuff. There’s a card in her sleeve, tucked away like a baby kangaroo in its mother’s pouch. The black-haired woman watches, knowing she needs to grab Bolin and have the woman thrown on her ass onto Fremont Street. Yet, the Sato woman had never seen sleight-of-hand in person before - and she wants to. She’d heard the stories from her father of quick-fingered patrons breaking the system, but as soon as she was old enough to be in La Bayou, every night she’d been busy entertaining his favored guests.

Tonight, she had time to graze through the tables lackadaisically, and so she wanted to experience the famous magician slips with her eyes and not her ears.

She watched, and watched, and the woman flinched once like she was going to take the card out, but the onlooker saw nothing. Asami watches her stance sway as she leans forward and back with the highlights of the game, her colorful blue eyes darting between her hand and the dealer’s cards, her fingernails tapping the table in impatience while she waits for her turns.

The card in her sleeve slid out farther, and the heiress knew undoubtedly it was an ace of spades. Typical. It was enough to get her ejected, and so the heiress slides away, giving up on her sweet dream of seeing sleight-of-hand in person, going to find their strongman for the night.

Bolin stands in the back, a Lucky Strike tucked between his fingers, a simmering stream of smoke spewing from its tip. She nods him over, and he taps the end out and shoves it into his pocket before following her with a big smile. Bolin always smiled, even when he was shouldering drunkards out of their building.

They get back to the card table and she’s gone - a mirage, like the waves of summer heat in the desert. The woman Asami had been watching disappeared. It was as if, upon trying to capture the woman and make her real, the poker table appeared normal, standard, and cheater free. She looks around, her green eyes rapidly scanning the crowd - after all, a woman in trousers is far too unusual to blend into a crowd, like a pheasant in a flock of pigeons. But... she’s gone.

Several minutes pass, and she feels a big palm press her shoulder. Bolin shakes his head, tugging her back and offering her a Lucky Strike; she wrinkles her nose at her friend. Smoke made her feel nauseous; but he was right, there was no point in looking for their target any further.

Maybe the cheater was just a mirage. That’s what Asami thinks for two weeks.

Opal calls her all the time now that phones are a common fixture. She babbles and babbles about New York, where the Beifongs trade stock more often than a fish swims in water. Her twin brothers had enlisted in the army - Kuvira had cut her hair and tried to join as well, only to be laughed at and scooted out of the building. She’d been looking at jobs working on munitions lines – it wasn’t the gruff work the woman was looking for, but it was in the army, in a way. She’d have to accept it.

Junior, of course, was up on Wall Street with his father, learning which combinations of letters to trade. Opal tells her everything and anything about nothing in particular before finally asking–

“How are you, Asami?”

She hums a sweet tune that can’t be heard on the rough static of the phone. How was she?

She wasn’t sure. She told Opal about the books she’d been reading. She’d spent time tinkering on their slot machines under father’s purview yesterday, too. Las Vegas was quiet compared to the large cities on the east coast.

“How’s Bo?”

“He’s good. He’s smoking again now that he’s working here at La Bayou, but at least he’s not breaking his back working on the Boulder dam,” Asami tells her. Her friend giggles on the other end of the line. “Or they call it Hoover dam, don’t they? It's all he’s going to be remembered for, after all.”

“You think so? Well, Roosevelt’s got a better reputation already. He’ll be in office for a while, I’m sure.”

“Mm, we’ll see. With everything going on in Europe, we’ll see.”

“I bet he looks good with all that muscle from building it, though,” Opal sighs, and Asami takes a moment to realize she’s daydreaming about Bolin again and not talking about their president.

She bids Opal farewell, and the day passes into night. The Sato woman sees a familiar stranger at La Bayou, and she knows the tanned woman was not a fever dream. She’s here: the vivid memory made real in the world once more, this time playing a game of craps. Asami smiles and saunters closer, wondering what suit was in her suit tonight.

She eyes the cuff of the woman’s wrists, looking for the glint of a card, but sees nothing. Perhaps she only came prepared to play craps. The best way to find out was up close, so the superstitious heiress walks forth and sidles against the frame of the big, oval table.

The stranger is shooting currently, and Asami greets some of the other rollers crowded around the game before standing next to her target. Blue eyes meet her for just a fleeting second, looking up and down her deep red dress. She seems so lackadaisical for someone who was cheating here a few weeks ago.

“Are you betting?” the stranger asks. Asami tilts her head forward and raises her eyebrows; perhaps the woman didn’t know who she was. The Sato family didn’t gamble in terms of coins and chips, only in stocks and real estate. She wasn’t so arrogant to think every person ought to know her, but it was something unusual to not be recognized.

On the table, the chips are getting stacked on the pass line and against it, the men and one other woman in their presence mostly betting on the shooter and not against. Flattering. The shooter prepares to roll again. She looks at the jiggling dice in the brunette’s hand and she’s sure La Bayou’s craps dice were more of a brown shade than that.

“I’ll just watch, if that’s alright,” she answers.

The stranger grins, showing Asami a perfect set of white teeth. Unusual to see them in such perfect rows, but she looks gifted by the gods themselves, her face and features perfectly proportioned. Asami couldn’t deny how easy on the eyes she was.

Her tan hand reaches forward, just an inch from Asami’s face.

Asami doesn’t flinch at the sudden movement, but raises a black brow at the shooter. The stranger chuckles, shakes her head.

“It’s for good luck. A blow from Lady Luck – makes the dice land on the point,” she elaborates. Asami looks at the patrons around the table, eager for the game to start, eager for a good time lost in vices – that’s what La Bayou truly sold. She’d play this game if it meant entertaining their guests.

The Sato woman licks her lips, biting in before her grin can betray her intentions and kisses the stranger’s knuckles quickly.

“You’ve better roll then, stranger,” she quips. The men jeer at her display, and her eyes lock with the stranger’s, hoping she’d thrown the shooter off her balance, and knocked her off her pedestal.

The dice rumble against the table, and her curious emerald gaze follows their comet streak down the table, passing the painted squares for each bet, tilting left and right until…

A twelve. Well, call her Lady Luck, indeed. Too bad those weren’t La Bayou dice, or she’d truly feel like the Goddess Fortuna herself. The table cheers, hands gaudily assaulting the area around the dealer while they try to get their chips won that round. The sound of hands clapping and ivory clamoring around filled her ears. Those players on the field tripled their bet.

In the dim lighting, Asami focuses on the cheater’s face while she rolls again. Today, her hair was down, swept back with a hairclip in a style she’d never seen before. Asami was never one to stand out or look different – she had to play the part of her father’s daughter while she worked. Prim and proper were the two words her appearance should fit. She wondered if dressing so abnormally would draw the wrong attention, the ire of the mainstream.

It turns out, nobody truly cared so long as you were a good shooter, and the tan woman certainly was. Asami watched her play a few more rounds before hitting a seven on an unfortunate roll. There’s groans around the table. A man flicks a match to light a cigar, shaking his head in resignation for the good streak they’d had.

The struck-out shooter sucks in a breath, curses in a mutter, and passes the die on. Her turn was over, and it was up to another person to beat the house. The woman grabs her chips and begins to walk to the bar on the far wall. Asami immediately follows her, her thick heels barely audible in the rabble of the casino as she catches the woman’s shoulder in her hand. The guest turns around, raising an eyebrow.

“Pray tell your name, stranger,” she requests, eyeing the jacket pocket adorning the woman’s side. The Sato woman wonders if her theory is right. Nobody shoots that well for that long, usually.

“Well, I'm honored. The beautiful Lady Luck wants my name, is that right?” She teases, shifting her weight. Cobalt irises turn their attention to case the available liquor on the shelf. “I suppose I owe her a drink after her blessing today.”

Asami smirks. Quick witted, too – but cheaters must be. To cheat is to be faster and more cunning than those imposing the rules, after all.

The oak countertop was rubbed down recently with a wax varnish, giving it a nice gleam. Asami reaches out to feel the glossy surface. Glass tankards of all shapes and sizes and colors adorned the back wall behind the counter. Fresh raspberry wine, all the way from France, for her father’s business partners. Whiskey, made in a barrel with no mind to anything other than getting you drunk – but it’s enough to get the sulfur smell out of a miner’s nose, and there were plenty of miners around who needed that relief.

“Château Petrus, then,” she requests, and she giggles when she sees the blue eyes bulge from their skull.

“Do I look that rich to you, miss?” The stranger leans her hip against the counter, pulling up a wood-hewn stool and patting it for the other woman. Asami never gets caught drinking in her own castle, but relents for this jester. She slides up to sit on the offered seat while the woman leans next to her, elbow pressed against the bartop.

“Well,” Asami leans her chin against her palm, her other hand raising to summon their bartender. The stranger is smiling, head full of her false victory, surely. She leans toward the other woman, her long black hair swaying, intending to leer and make the gambler uncomfortable before her next sentence. “I think you stole enough from the craps table to be just fine.”

The cheater looks at her, and Asami can see the wavering in her eyes as she tries to deduce if she’d been caught, or if it was just a play on words.

She can’t help but guffaw at the way the grifter pouts, like a child caught with her hand in the treats jar. It was the drop of humility the Sato woman had been looking for.

The bartender comes over, his vest tight against his frame and his hair perfectly in place. “Johnson,” Asami greets. “Château Petrus, and whatever she’d like, too.”

The brunette just requests a glass of simple whiskey. With a polite nod, the blonde man walks down to find the specific drinks requested by the owner’s daughter.

“Do you come here often, then?” the tan woman asks.

“Hm?”

“You know the bartender’s name,” the stranger continues.

“Ah. You could say that. I am here… frequently,” Asami concedes. Moments later, two polished glasses hit their fingertips, filled with their drinks. Her drinking partner was one of the ones who wanted to feel raw sewage down her throat, it seems – some whiskey that cost five cents for the glass. She watches the woman take a sip between dark lips. She’d never understand the rage about whiskey; it tasted awful to the heiress.

“So you come to swindle the lonely gentlemen of Vegas into buying you a drink?” the brunette asks.

“Perhaps. Not only gentleman, apparently,” she gestures to the other woman. The brunette chuckled at the hand waving at her. It was somewhat surprising, to see how calm a cheater could be in a casino. Though, the heiress supposed that was part of keeping the ruse – you couldn’t rush immediately away with your stolen winnings.

“The beautiful Lady Luck can swindle me whenever she wants,” the tan woman answers earnestly; suddenly, an unwanted blush flushes Asami’s face.

It was irrevocable, and she raises her glass of plum-colored wine to cover the side of her features. How unusual to be called beautiful in Las Vegas by someone other than a leering man.

“Then I suppose I’m not who you’re looking for,” she replies. Her free hand reaches forward, and the woman frowns while Asami reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls out three dice. The Sato heiress felt their hard edges, her victory earned now that she’d caught the woman with her fake dice.

The heiress watches the tan skin on her face contort in shame, her face flushing even under the dark lights in La Bayou when the objects were pulled from her pocket. The humiliation of being discovered was wrought in her expression.

“Luck certainly played no part in your shoots tonight.”

In response the woman tilts her whiskey back, all its contents spilled down a willing throat, clearing the cup faster than a shooting star in the sky. She smacks her cup on the counter and starts walking towards the exit.

“Well then, you may have those,” she says as she backs away, raising her hands in defeat. A massive grin spans Asami’s face as she sees the woman waddle away like a scolded dog. The woman didn’t blame her – once you caught a reputation for cheating in Vegas, the mafia would skin you alive. Nobody stole from the mob bosses.

“Oh, going so soon?”

“Yes, you see, I’ve got a train, or something or other,” she stops and lets out an overdrawn bow like the British knights of yesteryear. Asami covers her mouth to stifle a laugh.

“Without even giving me your name?” she coos. Or paying for your drink, for that matter, you swindler.

“Oh, next time, Lady Luck,” she winks before scampering away. Asami watches her mold quickly into the crowd as she hustles towards the front door. The heiress can’t stop smiling, crossing her legs while she keeps her neck craned to see the fleeing woman.

Next time? The cheater squeezes out the door and out of sight. The Sato woman turns her head back and nurses the wine in her hand. Her hands move around the seized dice now that her drinking partner is gone. She lays them on the bartop and turns them to one side and the other, feeling the weights of each die’s favored side. The set would let a shooter pick and choose the outcomes easily. She knew she should tell Bolin, and get the woman banned from La Bayou.

Yet this was more enjoyable than any night she’d remembered in months. Perhaps the cheater would never be seen again – or perhaps she would return, and Asami could deduce what her new methods were.

Next time, then.

Chapter Text

Weeks pass. Asami reads the papers in the morning and drives her Daimler around the strip when she’s got nothing else to do. The car’s maroon paint is distinct compared to the other rusted roadsters out here; nobody else in this town had a foreign build from Austria. Ford was the hot motor company in America right now, but the woman had an eye for the finer engines and loved her car.

That was something she missed about being in New York for boarding school—there were plenty of unique cars, both foreign and domestic, to see. There were other students around, people to talk to, places to go, and libraries to visit. Here in Las Vegas, all that mattered was swindling the miners and rail workers out of the few dollars they had. It was a dreary place to be a young woman. A movie theater had been built in town, but she has nobody to go with; Bolin often worked the nights, and things had been unpleasant with Mako since she’d rejected his romantic advances.

On Saturday morning, she and Bolin walk to get tea. The sun was up and heat was starting to fill the air. Bolin was telling her about the last baseball game he’d listened to while they walked down the sidewalk to the diner.

When the duo hears the sound of fists punching skin in an alleyway, the man walks her to the far side of the road to avoid it. Asami can’t see it but knows what’s occurring, and she allows her friend to guide her by the elbow to the far side of the road. Somebody owed money to the mob in town – it wasn’t common, but it wasn’t the first time the Sato woman witnessed someone getting beaten for cash.

"You alright, Asami?"

"Yes, Bolin," she sighs. "We didn’t even see anything."

"I know, I know! I just don’t want Hiroshi to fire me because I didn’t, y’know," Bolin scratches the back of his head. Asami huffs. She doesn’t like to be guided like a lost little lamb, but she knows that Bolin has to observe decorum when they spend time together. Being friendly with his boss’ daughter was precarious. Hiroshi expected perfection, and Bolin had drawn his ire once for not standing when Asami had entered a room. It had seemed a frivolous thing to complain about to the two young adults, but the businessman had dressed down his employee for not having manners, to his daughter’s embarrassment.

Their friendship is like balancing on a tightrope. Hiroshi’s influence hung over them even when the old man wasn’t present. Bolin was used to bouncing between jobs, but so long as he worked at La Bayou, the heiress could keep an eye on him and make sure he was eating vegetables and smoking as little as possible. If keeping her friend’s job safe meant having manners in front of her father, Asami would comply.

Speaking of the smoky devil, the man flips out a cartridge with a red and green circle painted on the front.

"Those things aren’t good for you," she mutters.

"That’s just a myth. The docs back in the Navy gave me one when I broke my arm. Calmed me right down and I healed up just fine," the man grins and spins his arm around, making a show of the healed limb. "That's just something ladies say ‘cause they don’t like the smell."

Asami reaches over and swipes the stick out of his hand, pinching below the embers to put it out.

"You’re right, I don’t like the smell," she grins, holding up the squished Lucky Strike. Bolin lets out a too-loud groan, whining like a boy.

"Asami, those are expensive! Besides, La Bayou smells like a million cigars, and you spend every night there," he complains, yanking the stick back from his friend and picking at the end to see if it could be revived.

"Well, maybe I don’t like spending every night in La Bayou," she returns. They walk down to their tea shop, Bolin striking a new match onto the cigarette and trying to rekindle the ember. The old sailor was right; Asami hated the smell in the casino, but it was better than sitting at home alone every night.

—

A special guest is at La Bayou; her father’s favorite friend has come to play poker. He’s at the table, his slicked brown hair hurting her eyes and his foul breath stenching her nose. She’d always understood that business was business, but some of Hiroshi’s associates made her want to gag. Amon was one such man.

Her father had already left, leaving her in the casino, watching each hand while she chatted with the patrons. There was no band tonight, but a gramophone played music next to the bar.

She doesn’t see the stranger, but she hears someone whistling just behind her. A new player has joined the table, the sound of the upholstered seat creaking as their weight falls against it.

She’s turned towards Amon, intent on entertaining him in her father’s absence, but the whistle sounds too unusual in La Bayou’s atmosphere – its own tune, out of sync with the gramophone. She guesses who the sound might be coming from.

A round of Texas Holdem starts, a fresh version of poker that’s in vogue. Asami watches the three cards hit the table, knows Amon should fold, but doesn’t dare say anything. She’s here to be a friendly face, to congratulate wins and console losses only; that is her role.

She hears the tap-taps of a finger drum now accompanying the whistle, and she can’t help but turn to see the stranger. She’s in a dress tonight, her hair caught up in one of those flimsy bowl hats. The heiress thinks back to her first run-in with the stranger, when she’d worn a collared shirt with trousers. It had looked better. That’s not to say she wasn’t stunning in this navy blue dress, though.

She catches the tan woman’s eyes; there’s a little wink thrown her way, a greeting to her Lady Luck. That’s the only look she can give. Poker is a game played with the face and not the hands. The heiress can only think the woman was far too bold. She'd been caught cheating last time, and then she comes and sits down right next to the owner's daughter today.

Asami knows her attention should be turned to Amon; not only was he friends with Hiroshi, he was a notoriously high roller. Even so, she spins a bit in the chair, just to keep the woman’s frame in her peripheral – like if she looked away and lost sight of her, the stranger would disappear again.

Amon, wisely, folds this hand to keep his losses low. The brunette woman bet the first round, but folded when the fourth card was slid out by the dealer; she must have had a bad hand that she had to give up. Several more rounds are played, but no large pots go one way or the other.

The next round begins. Amon has the ace of diamonds and spades in his hands; already, he has a pair. The dealer, a blonde, lanky man named Tolles, played his cards out. The players begin deciding their bets. Tolles is one of the casino's better dealers; his skill on display for their big bidders, the three cards are flicked out with perfect precision.

An ace of hearts is on the table. Asami is surprised, but she didn’t dare make a physical show of it. That ace gives Amon a three-pair; more than likely, he would take the round. The heiress turned her head to see her stranger and, under the table, slowly reached her foot out.

The dim light in La Bayou played to her advantage. She tapped the stranger’s leg, and deep-sea eyes flickered towards her.

Everyone’s attention was drawn to the current player, watching a man in a vest bring more chips to the pot. Asami keeps her eyes on him like everyone else, watching his chips clank into the center, but her pale hand slides on top of the table, and she flips her palm over. She feels the grifter’s blue gaze watching her and hopes she understands the message. The woman’s turn came soon. If she didn’t fold, Amon would win her money.

Asami withdraws her hand from the wooden surface, hoping none of the patrons had seen the little signal. She watches, anticipating that the stranger will fold her cards, and she, she–

She slides twenty dollars’ worth of chips into the center lane. The heiress’ breath catches in her throat, and it feels sticky on her gums. Her heart was pounding even more as Amon matched the pot, and the player after him folded.

Her heartbeat only further threatened to destroy her ribcage when Tolles flipped his next card. It is the last ace. Amon has four of a kind. Amon has four of a kind, and the brunette woman next to her is still in the round.

Asami kicks the other woman’s shin, and she coughs roughly to cover up the wince of pain. Some eyes glance up, looking curiously at the gambler's noise; luckily the attention is brief.

The heiress feels sorry for the woman in the blue dress, wishing she could tell her what cards Amon had in his hands. If only she knew all the aces were in play, she’d fold.

It’s as if the stranger can sense her trepidation over the rumbling music and clamoring voices. The brunette leans back in her stool, tilting her palm to the left with a very slow movement that would put a snail to shame. Asami wished she could see the expression on the player’s face, but more importantly, she wished she could smack the woman upside the head.

She had a ten and a queen in her hands, both of them hearts. She had no sets with the current cards Tolles had dealt. No wonder she was a cheater! This woman was going to lose a week’s worth of money over this damn poker game!

Asami tried to think – perhaps she had a card up her sleeve, but even if she did, switching out could at best give her a pair. It was not enough to bring down Amon’s four of a kind. The only way the stranger could win is if Tolles played a king of hearts and gave her a royal flush.

Is that what she was betting on? The only two hands she could get in this round were a straight or a royal flush, and the straight wasn’t enough to beat Amon. A one in fifty-two shot is all that is left for this woman to win. This tan-skinned beauty was willing to risk it for the slimmest chance of winning. Asami’s heart hammers in her chest; another player folds, leaving just her and Amon competing for the pot.

On her next turn, she modestly checked an extra five dollars into the pot. Amon, emboldened by his four-of-a-kind, slid another twenty-five dollars into the pile. Asami bit her lip.

Even during the Great Depression, she’d never wanted for anything. Her father had done well; his industrial company had won the bid to put water pipes in Vegas. While others had suffered, they’d had everything they wanted. She’d heard stories of the bread lines, of little children fighting over quarters, and of men stealing just to feed their children. She never felt the pain of the era personally, but she knew what that amount of money in the pot meant to a normal person.

She cleared her throat, silently praying that the stranger was well off and that these high bets wouldn’t hurt her. Tolles plays his last card. It’s a blur as it slides into place, stilling at the center of the poker table. Asami Sato feels she could pass out right at that poker table.

It’s a king of hearts.

She can feel the waves of victorious energy pooling off the other woman like a massive typhoon on the ocean. Asami has to lean forward and cover her mouth to stop herself from giving anything away. The soon-to-be winner could wipe the table in this last round if she wanted, but she plays it modestly and throws only a few more chips into the pile.

The woman’s willingness to stay in the round makes Amon hesitate, but he’s still confident with his four of a kind. Perhaps he thinks his opponent has a straight – after all, the odds of a royal flush were miniscule. Even Asami, the princess who often loitered around the tables wishing their patrons good luck, has only seen a royal flush twice before.

The man checks for his final round; his large hand slides another twenty dollars' worth of chips forward on the felt. There is $195 on the table now. This was a table for high-rollers, but so much money in a single round was incredible. There was too much to lose; Amon was going to froth at the mouth in just a few moments.

Tolles waits, his eyes flickering between the last two players before gesturing for them to show their hands. Amon proudly flips his aces down, and the stranger slides her queen and ten down – not as pompously as the man had, but her chest was puffed with pride. At the sight of the royal flush, the table roars raucously. Men and women alike cheer excitedly, sharing in the joy of the brunette’s win.

Amon is livid as the woman scrapes in her chips. Tolles pulls the house’s percentage off the top, leaving the stranger with $176 to do as she pleases. There’s a big grin on her face as she stares down her money; her smile is contagious. The heiress wonders what she’ll do next. Though, what was better than leaving as soon as she’d stolen her winnings from La Bayou? The woman begins collecting her chips to cash out.

Amon is silent. Quiet. At least the heiress can’t smell his breath now, but the way his nostrils heaved in and out and the way his lips quivered showcased his true feelings. She turns her attention back to the winner, ignoring his rage. The other players who folded earlier congratulated the woman on her win.

She’s going to follow the stranger when she feels Amon’s hand on her thigh, and it stops her. She grits her teeth; unfortunately, this isn’t uncommon for her. Amon is waving away Tolles’ offer for another round, wanting to leave the table. The loser stands and tries to pull Asami with him. He’d have to win one way or another tonight.

That’s when she hears the stranger whistling again and the sound of chips stacking in time with her tune. She still didn’t recognize the song – it wasn’t anything the band or a record played. Asami looks to her right, her hand caught in Amon’s as he tries to yank at her again. She doesn’t want to go wherever Amon wants to take her – dancing, or worse.

She grabs onto the sight of the woman’s blue eyes, holding her steady in the storm while the man tries to pull her from the table. Her dad would surely be upset if she told Amon to sod off, but she had no desire to leave the betting tables right now. She feels calm, watching the stranger, who’s now focused on Asami, her whistle stopping again.

Asami doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask, doesn’t indicate that she’s even uncomfortable with the man’s grip on her wrist – but the stranger takes one look in her eyes, knows, and sticks a leg out.

It was unfortunate for the waiter boy passing by with a plate of drinks. Tahno just happened to be walking by at the most extraordinary of times. The woman’s stray foot catches the employee’s ankle, and he trips forward.

Asami watches, wide-eyed, as he stumbles right into Amon, the drink on Tahno’s tray spilling on his coat. Some of the wine and whiskies splashed onto her own dress; she can feel the wet splotches seeping in, though they were mere drops compared to the soaking on Amon’s clothing. Brown liquid immediately stains his buttoned shirt.

There’s unfettered rage in Amon’s dark eyes. He loosens his grip on Asami’s wrist, ire from the game forgotten, and instead turns to the tripped waiter. Tahno looked rightly afraid, struggling to stand up from his fall. She’s got no doubt the waiter was about to get his nose slammed in.

The heiress stands up immediately, turning and shoving the stranger away from the table, leading them towards the door before anybody else could see them fleeing from the commotion. They had just a few seconds to slip away while the focus was on the scene, hearing Tahno begin a string of apologies to the gambler.

She’s sure Amon would tell her father, and either she or Tahno – or both – would get a dressdown for misbehaving. Right now, though, she can only hear the sweet sound of the stranger’s laugh as they rush out the front doors, their shoulders bumping into the crowds of people while they escape.

Outside they went, into the sweet desert night of Las Vegas. The dry air sticks to the skin out here. Asami watches while the stranger doubles over and guffaws, wiping away little tears and holding her stomach as she laughs.

"Never tripped someone that well, I swear. Poor guy," she’s laughing harder and Asami giggles behind her.

"Tahno’s an ass; don’t worry about it," she smiles and shakes her head. The brunette gets control of her excitement, placing her hands on her hips as she looks out at the street lamps dotting Fremont Road. The last of her chuckles die out as the heiress stares at her curiously. She kicks at the gravel below, her dress swaying by her knees.

"Well, is this goodnight, then?" The tan woman proposes. She folds her arms and shakes her head.

"Not quite. You still need to cash out, and you owe me a name, stranger," Asami demands. She’d waited long enough. The brown woman grins, splitting her lips open with those perfect, shining teeth.

"You can’t ask a woman for her name like this. It’s shivering cold, standing out here on the strip," she says, gesturing to the night sky dotted with stars. Asami rolls her eyes and gestures to a bench against the side wall, the wood polished smooth. The stranger relents and joins her new friend, sitting so their shoulders are touching.

"How did you do it?" Asami asks as she sits.

"What do you mean?"

"The royal flush. Did you have a card up your sleeve? Did you pay off the dealer?" She continues, and the other woman laughs at her assertions. The tan woman lays an arm across the backrest of the bench.

"Would you believe me if I said I didn’t cheat?"

"Definitely not," Asami says, raising a brow. The brunette nods, reaching into her pouch where she’d put her winnings. Asami can hear the sound of the chips sliding around each other.

"I wouldn’t, either," she resigns, shaking her head. Asami leans towards her to see the inside of the satchel, marveling at all the cut and colored ivory in her bag.
"I told you to fold, you know," the heiress gripes.

"I know, but you said you weren’t Lady Luck. So I thought it best not to listen," she chuckles. Asami rolls her eyes at the silly logic. She waits a moment before continuing.

"Asami," she says, speaking her own namesake.

"Hm?"

"My name," she explains. The tan-skinned woman nods her head in understanding and looks up at the stars.

"Last name?" she inquires.

"Sato."

"...Oh." The blue-eyed girl looks at her, crestfallen. "Like Hiroshi, the mob boss?"

Asami frowns at this, shaking her head.

"His business partners might be, but that doesn’t mean he’s in the mob," she argues. "Find me someone that doesn’t have ties to the mob here in Vegas." The woman looks at her, a crease on her brow, but she doesn’t try to pick the fight.

"Sure, sure. Whatever you say."

There’s silence for some time, and after a bit, Asami rests her back against the woman’s arm. Finding friends her age was rare since she’d moved to Vegas with her father – if she could yet call this woman a friend. The desert crickets are playing a symphony. She enjoys their tune, not wanting to leave the bench.

"My name’s Korra," she says, finally. "I did promise, after all."

Asami lets the name ring in her ears. Korra. She’d never heard that name.

"Last name?"

"The last name given to me is Waters," she grimaces. The heiress notices her expression.

"You don’t like it," Asami surmises. Korra chuckles and shakes her head. She taps the side of Asami’s shoulder with the arm wrapped behind her.
"That obvious? My gran told me not to use it. Can’t do much of anything without one, though," she explains. Asami wants to ask more, but the tone of her voice dissuades the thought.

"Are you going to cash out?" the heiress asks the woman. Korra lets out a large, intentional huff.

"Perhaps later. What say we sit here for a bit longer, and you tell me about that man I just whooped in poker? What’s his deal? And… You’re not gonna turn me in for cheating, are you?"

Asami grins. She hadn’t even considered telling her father about their little pest; complaining about Amon to a new friend sounds like a better idea. She leans back and gets comfortable. Korra doesn’t move her arm but doesn’t press it farther against Asami, and they talk until the moon has moved to the top of the sky.

She asks Korra if she’s been to the theater lately, what her favorite games were in the casinos, her favorite colors and foods, anything she could think of. She tried to goad Korra into explaining more of her cheating methods, but the brunette laughed and changed the subject, shoving Asami’s shoulder lightly.

The times were rough in the western states, and she wasn’t quite sure what a native woman was doing swindling a casino in Las Vegas. Truly, Asami wasn’t sure what business she could have here; she’d thought many natives had stayed on their new reserved lands. The heiress didn’t know if those topics were polite conversation, however. She finally got the nerves together to ask her new friend. Korra pursed her lips. She held up a finger with her free hand, leaning forward to keep eye contact with the woman.

"Look, those reservations are a sham. What the Utes and Shoshones and all of the tribes are now is a complete mockery of what they were a century ago," Korra spit with venom. The stories her grandmother had told her of their traditional lives rang in her ears like a bell she’d heard but never seen. What was her home like before this? Korra never learned – she was never allowed to.

Asami looked at her with big eyes. What could she say in that moment that would sound appropriate? However, Korra’s attention turned back to the night stars, and she shook her head, letting go of her momentary anger.

"That said, I’d be on a reservation if I felt happy there. If I felt at home. My parents wanted me to come to them after I ran away from my boarding school, but going home didn’t feel right either. I wanted to be somewhere where I could be me… Does that make sense?"

Asami thought through her words; she thought about how she felt about New York, and how she feels now in Las Vegas. It wasn’t the same as what the other woman had gone through, surely, but she understood the idea.

"...Yes, absolutely."

They talk until La Bayou is close to closing time and Korra needs to collect her money. They amble inside together. Amon is gone – probably to drink, or maybe even home to sleep. Tahno, as she predicted, has swelling over his eye.

Korra collects enough money to last her a season. Asami asks what she’s going to do with her winnings; she shrugs. A story for another day, she says. The heiress nods.

"So you’ll come back to La Bayou?"

"Why not? They say Lady Luck roams the tables here, you know." Korra grins before swaying out the door with her wad of cash tucked away. Asami watches her go, her smile disappearing with the woman.

Days pass, and she catches Korra a few times at the casino; they stop and chat, have a drink when the patron goads her into it, but Asami doesn’t see her touch the gambling tables for some time. Perhaps she was satisfied with her last wins, or perhaps she was just laying low and preparing for another heist. She was too clever to say anything to the heiress if she was.

Instead, they chatter about news, hobbies, and movies. Korra asks what she does when she’s not at La Bayou. The woman tells her about the books she’s been reading, how she likes driving her car and taking apart its engine, and how she helps her father charm investors and businessmen into partnering with his businesses.

Asami looks forward to these nights, always hoping to run into her again. However, the next time she saw Korra wasn’t at La Bayou.

She, Mako, and Bolin all had a night off. Mako gave up on his tight-ass ways and agreed to come to a scrummy bar a few blocks from Fremont Street. It was bustling, even for a Saturday; all the men from the railroads and mines had come into town for booze, gambling, and women.

The streets are full of raucous; the sun had set long ago but there was plenty of energy in the city. A mariachi band plays tunes on the street corner, and plenty of people stop to appreciate the music before going to snag a drink or see what movie is playing at the theater.

The brothers and their friend sidle into a table, getting a round of drinks while they all caught up. Mako had gotten a gig shoveling coal at Union Pacific. He’s happier, supposedly, and says it pays better than what he was making before. The brothers get lost in Navy stories after their second drink, and Asami is happy to listen to them reminisce. It happened quite often. The older brother especially loved to share stories from his service, even though he wasn’t normally so talkative.

It’s not something she relates to, though; the heiress’ eyes wander, looking around at the other men and women who’d come out to dance and drink. She’s watching a few prostitutes – they're much more aggressive than the ones at La Bayou – swing around the dance floor and try to pull men in to be their partners. The establishment is so dark and dusty that if she hadn't tuned out whatever Mako was saying about the bolt action on their rifles, she wouldn't have seen her.
Korra is here too, leaning against the long bar top. It’s the first time she's seen the brunette outside of La Bayou. This was a speakeasy back in the twenties, and the bar had always kept its reputation for the underbelly of society. There’s a thick smell of marijuana in the air, as if to prove her point – the plant was just outlawed last year.

She smiles at Mako, unsure of what he is saying but pretending to listen nonetheless. Once his eyes are back on Bolin, she immediately turns her gaze back to her friend. Korra’s up chatting with a woman with dyed, movie-star hair. A group of men gets in the way of her view, and she can’t see the tan woman. The crowds and bubbling atmosphere are her enemies tonight.

The heiress clicks her tongue in annoyance. She gives the brothers an excuse, something she could leave the table for – the washroom, sure – and shimmies around the perimeter of the room until she’s up by the bar. She tilts her head over the bartop to look for Korra.

Down the line, she sees something unexpected. She can’t stop the wash of emotions that smashes into her. Her friend was at the other end of the bar, fingers stuck into the dyed hair of the woman she’d been talking to. Their faces are pressed together. Korra’s kissing that woman! She’s tilted the blonde’s head to the side with her tan hand, deepening their embrace.

Asami could almost say it was a mistake, a complete accident, but she realizes she’s been staring for several seconds and the two haven’t let each other go. The Sato woman gasps and turns away quickly, immediately retreating to her table with the boys. Had nobody seen it? Was it just far too busy and loud in Vegas for anybody to see it? To care, even if they did?

She falls back into her seat and tells the boys she didn’t have to go after all. Bolin smiles his big dopey smile, and Mako continues their conversation like she hadn’t left.

What was that? Asami clutches at her dress. More than that, what did, how did–

She calls the waiter over and asks for another glass of wine.

Asami crawls into her bed late that night, having barely said a word to her friends before they escorted her back to her father’s manor. Her head is pounding and she crawls into her bedsheets; different words are floating around in her head trying to describe her feelings.

Disgust? No, not nearly; it's not as if she hadn’t known that sometimes men kiss men and women kiss women. While she didn’t understand it, it certainly didn’t hurt anyone. No need to flay people alive for it.

Confusion? Certainly, she’d never seen it herself. It was odd, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? Her cheeks reddened, and she curled in on herself like a child under her cotton covers.

No, confusion wasn’t right. Surprise fits more than anything. When she'd seen Korra at the bar, she’d thought she could talk to her new friend and introduce her to Mako and Bolin. Or at least try; the cheater might be adverse to breaking bread with one of La Bayou’s security guards, but she'd love for her to meet the brothers. Then…

Jealousy?

She finds another bottle of wine in the kitchen and drinks herself into a stupor so she can sleep.

She hopes, but hates, to find Korra again the following week. She wasn’t sure when the grifter would return to gamble here. Asami sees her walk back into La Bayou. The air is especially thick with the stench of smoke tonight. She can hear the shouting of a good game of craps right behind her, but her eyes are focused on the brunette.

She’s wearing her trousers and a big overcoat. Asami watches her amble over to the slot machines. It's unusual since she usually went for cards or dice. Even though she isn’t sure why, Asami can’t help herself, can’t help her feet from moving until she is right in front of Korra. The brunette smiles happily upon seeing her friend.

"Well, if it isn’t Princess Sato," the tan woman chuckles as she takes a seat in front of one of the rickety iron slot machines. Asami has no idea what to say now that she’s here. She’d come up so full of confidence, and now she realized she hadn’t loaded any words to say. She was an empty barrel trying to put together a message. I saw you kissing another woman at the bar.

"Are you going to cheat tonight?" Asami says instead, the color draining from her face. That’s not what she wanted to say to her friend. Korra stops placing coins into the slot machine. The heiress wonders what she is thinking. She toys with a penny in her dark hand, gripping it fastidiously before meeting Asami’s eyes.
"...Is everything okay?" she asks, looking around nervously. The heiress sighs. Was she being that awkward?

"No, I–" she starts, but her words don’t leave her mouth. Korra yanks the lever on the machine, and the off-white wheels spin over and over. The woman stands up and pulls off her fedora, offering Asami her hand. Last week the heiress would have taken it without hesitation, but now she stares unabashedly until Korra rescinds her offer, the tan hand falling back to her side.

"I was just gonna take you up to the bar, Asami," she murmurs, stepping one pace closer. The heiress’ green gaze hits the wooden floor, unsure of why she even came over here to begin with. "I can leave La Bayou, if your dad knows I’m cheating."

"That’s not – I’m sorry, Korra. I didn’t tell him, if that’s what you’re thinking," she murmurs. The sound of her defeated voice can barely be heard in the loud atmosphere.

"That’s good, because I got you something," Korra grins, reaching into the inside jacket of her overcoat. Asami looks on with trepidation while the woman pulls out a thick book and hands it over. The taller woman holds out her hand so she can accept the gift. She turns the object over in her hands and reads the cover.
On the front of the novel, in black lettering, it reads: The Engineering Journal, vol. 23. The cover is teal green with a golden square in the center; its design is sleek but simple. Asami’s lip quivers.

There's, uh, I guess there’s this woman up in Canada working on airplanes, and she was kind of a big deal in the World War, and she wrote a piece in here. So I thought you’d like it." Korra scratches her scalp below her cap. "You were talking about engineering last I saw you, and I thought, maybe, this would give you an-"
Korra can’t finish speaking since she’s hugging the woman, throwing her arms around her shoulders, and she feels the brunette chuckling against her neck. Two hard hands wrap around her waist and hug her back. Asami holds the book up so she can see it and keeps hugging the gifter simultaneously.

Then she remembers she’s in La Bayou, and hugging someone like this isn’t proper in these circumstances. If her father saw it, it would raise questions, and there were plenty of his workers milling around to tell him. Nonetheless, she can’t fully part from Korra, leaving a hand at the other woman's hip while marveling at the book again.

She can't make her smile disappear, shaking her head in disbelief. Instead of going back to her previous thoughts, she decides to find something worth saying this time that isn’t accusatory. Korra was a friend, no matter what secrets she had.

"Next Friday is the Del Mar horse derby. It will take about four hours by train to get to the city. Come with me," she proposes. Brown eyebrows raise in surprise.
"In California?" Korra tilts her head, thinking about it. "How much are train tickets?"

"Hush. I know you have enough money from your win against Amon," Asami dismisses her.

"What if I lost it already? Hm?"

"Then I’ll pay for you. Please," the black-haired woman tries again. Korra looks like she might reject the request, but she rescinds the fight with a chuckle.

"Ok, ok. We’ll go together, then. I like betting on the races anyway. I wonder if there’s a way to swindle the bookies there," she grins. At the mention of her friend's tawdry ways, Asami looks twice at her big, bulky tweed overcoat, eyeing the woman up and down. It seemed far too unusual to wear such a large piece in the Nevada summer.

Without warning, she reaches forward to grab the woman’s cuffs, and sticks her hands into the coat pockets. Korra makes a whine of protest when the heiress pulls out a big rectangle of metal; Asami looks at it curiously while her friend pouts. It was heavy, like a bowling ball.

"What is this?" Asami asks.

"A magnet."

"For the slot machines?"

"Not anymore," Korra complains, knowing she won’t be getting it back.

"Mmm. Have a nice, honest night of gambling, Korra." Asami triumphantly waggles the magnet at her friend before walking away from the slot machine lane.

Chapter Text

The Sato manor is only a bed to Asami. If she’s not sleeping or reading, she wants to be out driving or socializing. Yet, she’s here tonight, sitting at the oversized spruce dining table. The building is so quiet she can hear the sound of the wind outside. Perhaps she is too used to the racket of a club or car engine; the absence of both is eerie.

On her lap she holds the book Korra gifted her, her hands running down the spine. It’s got a bumpy texture like canvas in the binding; she feels it over and over again, marveling that it's real. Unfortunately, she’s with company and can’t delve into it now. Her eyes flit up and she clears her throat.

“How was your day, dad?”

He’s reading correspondence for work, his fingers holding a tan paper blotched with typewriter ink. Silver glasses are tilted down on his nose. The lamplight reflects on his lenses and she cannot see his eyes.

“Good, Asami. How was yours?”

“It was good,” she murmurs. That isn’t a lie. She steals another glance down at her book. It is filled with fascinating tribunals from engineers that studied both electricity and engines. They awe her – locomotives, cars, airplanes, all of it. 

She’d been able to tinker with mechanics, at least inside of her Daimler’s hood. Her father detested her working with her hands and had never allowed her tools. Nevertheless, she had convinced boys in town to show her some of the ropes – a pretty bat of the eyelashes goes a long way here. With loaned wrenches and quick lessons, she knew the ins and outs of her own car engine, at least. 

This book had increased her knowledge tenfold. Previously shaky understandings of the metal machination were cemented concepts now; the journal is thorough in its descriptions.

“Good. Where were you this morning?”

“I went to go get tea with Bolin,” she answers. Her father puts his papers down. His lips are pursed under the graying mustache. The light doesn’t hit his glasses now and she can see his hard bronze gaze upon her. She feels her mouth dry up.

“You spend much of your time with that boy,” he asserts. Asami looks down while their housekeeper serves them dinner. The porcelain bowl is placed in front of her – she can smell the savory scent of turkey in the soup.

“He’s a good friend, that’s all,” she says. Hiroshi shakes his head, and Asami can tell he is unconvinced.

“I promise, dad. He has a woman he fancies in New York,” she explains. “He’s trying to save up to move there. He’ll be moving next year, I’m sure.”

Hiroshi grunts at this. “No man I know has ever been satisfied with one woman.”

Asami has to bite her tongue at the assertion. She knows Bolin and Opal; any time she spent trying to talk to either of the two was often chit chat about their long distance love. Bolin is a flake, and too trusting for his own good, but not an adulterer. His attention is already entirely taken.

“Are you sure you don’t want to meet with that Wu boy?” Hiroshi tries. “I know you said Amon was too old, but I sent Wu a picture of you and he sorely wants to meet.”

The woman does her best not to let her nose wrinkle.

“Yes, I’m sure,” she answers. Hopefully one day Wu’s name would permanently disappear. To her luck, he drops the topic and picks up his papers once again, refocusing on his business and leaving his daughter to her dinner.

–

A week later, she’s standing in the train depot with Korra. Korra is whistling that song again. 

True to the building’s desert roots, it’s built with mission architecture: a big arch around the entrance, clay spackle covering the walls, and orange tiled roofs that blend into the dry desert. Asami is resting peacefully on a shaded bench while Korra complains about the whole $5.58 they had to spend for fare to Del Mar.

“All I’m saying is not all of us have that kind of money,” Korra gripes.

“You have 176 dollars, at least.”

“I told you, it's gone already,” Korra sighs. She retreats underneath the roof overhang to get out of the hot sun. The wooden bench squeaks when she sits down. 

Asami looks at her friend with wide eyes. Had she gambled it away already? 

Then she catches sight of a jester’s smile and reaches over to smack Korra’s shoulder playfully. 

“Stop toying with me.”

“Can’t help it.”

The passenger depot has a dozen others loitering, also waiting for the westbound line to come. The majority are under the building overhang as well; the desert sun is equal parts beautiful and deadly, so most preferred to keep to the shade.

“What else shall we do in Del Mar?” Asami asks. She’d been enough to satisfy her wants for tourism, and decided Korra ought to choose the rest of their activities.

“We have to see the Ocean while we’re there.”

Just when Asami thought Korra would relax and hold still, her friend is distracted by a stack of newspapers inside the depot window. She shakes her head; it would be easier to herd a hundred chickens than keep Korra still. 

“Are you reading the news?” Asami asks when Korra returns, three cents down and one paper in hand. They retreat back to their bench, hoping the locomotive would come soon. 

The brunette unfurls the papers and immediately pulls out the funnies. She holds each side of the paper, reading the first page of comic strips. 

Asami smiles; she should have known. She picks up the leftover section of the paper to read while her friend peters through pages drawn by deft hands.

“Do you keep up much with European news?” Asami asks.

“No, not really. There’s quite a lot happening though, right?”

“Mm. I think there’s going to be another war,” Asami mutters. She turns the page to see a picture of the two men in a car with the top down, cruising through Italian streets. The Rome roadway had been covered with German flags. She frowns at it.

“Are you worried?” Korra asks.

“Yes. They could re-enlist Bolin and Mako; they’re young enough they could be called back to duty.”

“Weren’t they in the army before?”

“It would be different for this,” Asami nods her nose at the paper; Korra leans against her shoulder to see the pictures, the black and white painting of latent horror. “This would be far more devastating than their time in Nicaragua.”

Korra pats her knee, resting her hand for a moment to comfort her friend. “It’ll be okay, ‘Sams. They’ll figure it out. You’ve gotta believe the good guys will always come out on top.”

She smiles at the sentiment only. She was never a wishful thinker.

The train pulls up soon after - an iron beast en route to Del Mar. The massive smokestack atop the locomotive spews massive tendrils of slate smoke into the clear sky. It looks new; a sleek onyx paint job with brass rims. It could be seen a mile away, trudging through the red rock and orange sand.

The whistle blares across the desert to mark its stop in Las Vegas. Asami sucks in a breath and looks at her friend. Korra was bouncing on her toes excitedly; she had stood up from the bench far too early for the train, holding her briefcase in both hands. Asami watched her – trousers again today, pulled up with a belt around her cotton shirt, sleeves rolled up. The collar is ruffled.

“Korra, come here,” she commands. Cerulean eyes turn towards her with curiosity, and the woman walks to Asami, still on the bench. “Bend down.”

Asami reaches her gloved hands up, wrapping around the brunette’s neck and fixing the collar’s fold. She readjusts the fabric all the way to the front until the outfit looks proper. She ignores the tumbling in her stomach, having Korra’s face so close to hers, only briefly feeling a disturbance like seeing the shadow of a fish in the water.

Korra tugs at her shirt. “Thanks, ‘Sams,” she smiles.

The train pulls in, and Korra carries all three of their briefcases – one hers, two for Asami – in and sets them on the stowage rack. They settle in and wait to arrive at the sandy beach in Del Mar. Asami pulls out her engineering book, reading over and over a section on the formula for air drag until it was stuck in her head.

The racing began the next morning. Del Mar was alive, the stands bubbling with energy, voices, shouts; hundreds had come to the event. 

Korra whooped and hollered and placed bets. Asami watched her enthusiasm with great joy; inviting Korra had been a fantastic idea. 

They sat on the upper level of the stadium with rows of wooden seats – courtesy of Sato money – away from the throngs of people standing around the race railing on the ground floor. 

She was so overly excited for each lap the horses sprinted ‘round the stadium it drew the ire of nearby patrons. Korra can’t blend in – this woman in trousers excitedly shouting, unwilling to be contained to a seat. Asami stifles her giggle and forces her back into her seat so the people behind can see the race. She admires that the woman seemed completely unperturbed by the attention.

Korra had leaned in and told Asami which horse to bet on, her nose tickling black hair. Rounds of racing passed. They watched and kept their fingers crossed, moaned when one of their horses slipped and tangled its legs wildly, cheered when the steed got up and trotted away with no injuries.

By the end they came out with losses, and Asami teases Korra for not having any instincts for gambling. Korra gripes about their loss and says she’s been out of the derby game too long to be held accountable for her bad choices on bets.

They go back to the resort Asami normally stays in, back when Hiroshi brought her here growing up. The high vaulted ceilings and intricate paintings of this place make her feel like she’s in France. Korra wiggles eyebrows at her when the bellhop calls her Miss Sato. Right away, Miss Sato. Absolutely, Miss Sato. Let me take that for you, Miss Sato.

In the evening, they trot to a little shop on the road. 

“These palm trees are beautiful,” Korra murmured. “I’ve never been to the ocean before. This is very different from Nevada.” 

The setting sun bolstered above, and the salty smell of the beach a quarter mile from them wafted in their noses.

They walk across the resort town until they see a window lined with glass bottles. Asami claps her hands and skitters into the store, leaving the other woman in her wake. She finds a bottle she wants – Italiana, 1899. Korra searches out tan whiskey with the lowest price on it. They find a Soviet bottle with a frosted glass bottle; Asami looks at her friend in a question. Korra shrugs and places it up on the counter for their purchase.

The train ride back to Las Vegas would surely be interesting tomorrow morning – but for now, the beach. Korra had swiped a blanket from their hotel and laid it out while the sun set. They’d found apricots from a peddler and a box of Ritz crackers. Soviet vodka, packaged burnt crackers, and sticky apricots – a beautiful, ever-clashing array for their taste buds.

The beach is almost empty this late. There’s only a small breeze, but it was the perfect springtime weather. Asami basques in the last rays of sun while they watch the tide come in, roaring and crashing into the sand, the sound of ivory seagulls chirping above. 

Eventually, the last patrons leave the beach, giving them solitude.

They laugh and cry about the best and worst of the horse races. Korra threatens to charge her friend for her stolen magnet back at La Bayou, which she gets a cracker thrown at her for. Asami pulls her shoes and socks off to run up to her knees into the water – only to find that the ocean was too cold for swimming. Her friend laughs at her expense while she immediately retreats back onto the blanket with a screech.

They try the foods and wine. The apricots were messy, dripping down their chins. Korra tries a sip of the wine and gives it an average rating. 

Asami knows she’ll hate the whiskey and tells her friend so, but tries a sip anyways. Her face scrunches with displeasure from the sting on her throat, eliciting another round of laughter from Korra. 

They take a shot of the vodka together; both despising the taste and loving the memory all the more for it.

The night brings a more serious side out of them.

Asami tells about how her mother passed and her father had lost himself in his work, moving everywhere, chasing everything – the stock market, the railroads, steel. Any rabbit hole there was in business had Hiroshi’s hand shoved down it at some point.

“How did he have the time?” Korra asked. “Raising you without your mom, and doing all that.”

Asami smiled and bit her lip. “I know our housekeepers better than him, so I wouldn’t give him that credit.”

He found his niche in infrastructure after his company won some of the bids to put water in Nevada. The Satos never wanted for money again. 

More fondly, Asami talks of her time at boarding school in New York. It ended bitterly; her father had made her come home after the economy crashed. 

Korra listened the entire time, not interrupting, drawing lines in the sand.

“It sounds so ridiculous, doesn’t it? I love my dad, and he’s given me everything, but I don’t have any purpose,” she muttered.

“No, that makes sense. People aren’t meant to drift through life,” Korra answered.

She was lost roaming the streets in Nevada, like a wraith with no purpose. She collapses back on the blanket, tired from the day. Korra has leaned back on her palms; she turns her head over her shoulder, gazing down at the laying woman. Asami meets her eyes, swirling with compassion and reverence.

Then Korra lays back too. The sky was entirely dark now. 

“Maybe it’s my turn,” Korra laughs. Asmi reaches over and squeezes her hand. 

“Only if you feel comfortable,” she responds. 

She tells Asami about what her gran had told her growing up; how the Utes used to ride across the valleys on horses and hunted in the mountains. She smiles while explaining all of the ball games she’d grown up playing with the other kids. She reminisced about mornings spent helping her mother pick berries and collect firewood, and watching her father go hunt. 

Then, the day a man in a suit came and took her from her parents and she was forced into a boarding school and had to learn English. She didn’t see her parents again for years. All she knew for the next ten years was nothing she’d been taught, and everything they’d tried to cover her with.

“It became… nothing what we knew. More than that,” Korra’s voice sounded pained. “They didn’t want us to know anything but what they told us.”

Asami wasn’t sure what that meant until Korra started to give examples, stories, things that made her want to vomit.

Korra tells of the time she tried to do the Bear Dance with the other Ute kids and one of her school teachers had locked her in a dark closet for two days. How she’d get slapped if she spoke her native language or tried to go out collecting feathers. She wasn’t allowed to eat since she would not say grace, instead choosing to argue with the nuns and staff that the Utes came from Sinawav and the Coyote. Grace did not mean anything to her. 

“I gave them a run for their money,” Korra laughed. “I don’t think they had any kids as stubborn as I was.” She hadn’t eaten many nights because of her temperament, but even a stubborn child only has so much endurance, and eventually she had to cave in and let the rocks fall over the memories of her home, leaving her in the darkness.

Those days were spent washing away every grain of memory she had from her parents and grandparents. She’d run away from the school as soon as she was old enough to get a job working on a sewing machine.

When her voice wavers and chokes a bit, Asami asks if she wants to stop and wraps her hand around Korra’s. 

“Why don’t you go home now? You said your parents are on one of the reservations,” she says. She squeezes the woman’s palm in hers, trying to bring comfort. Korra’s face turns from her, looking onto the beach sand, pale in the moonlight. Asami sees the back of her head, her hair tousled.

“I forgot most of my language since I stopped using it when I was five. I feel weird being there now – I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I can’t help my mom around the house, I can’t hunt and fish with my father. It’s not my home anymore,” she monotones. Asami feels her stomach drop with sympathy.

“You’re not useless, Korra,” she argues.

“Asami, I steal money from casinos and bookies now.”

Asami yanks on her hand. “Yes, and you do good things with it,” she continues. “You bought me that book. Nobody has ever encouraged my interest in engineering before.”

Korra goes to disagree, but a hand covers her mouth.

“Stop. You’re a good person, Korra. Don’t argue with me,” she dares Korra to disagree with a pointed stare. Korra raises her free hand up in defeat, squeezing the one held in Asami’s. 

Korra sits up, taking another drink. Asami watches her throat bulge with the large gulps. The waves are still crashing mercilessly onto the sand. She frowns; if those were her memories of childhood, she’d want to drink them away too.

Then Korra tugs at her hand.

“You sure you don’t wanna skinny dip?”

Asami lets out a deep throaty laugh she hasn’t made in years. Her shoulders shake against their blanket. She looks over to see Korra yawning.

“No. I think we should go back to the resort. You’re yawning,” Asami says.

They pack bottles and leftover crackers into their case. Korra hurls their two uneaten apricots into the ocean, cocking back and throwing the fruits as far as she can. They disappear into the dark sky, lost to eyes moments after they left her hand.

“You’re a regular Babe Ruth, you know,” Asami teases as they walk back. 

“I am, aren’t I? It’s a pity he retired.”

Korra has their blanket and leftover bottles in one hand, shoes and socks in the other. Asami thinks to chastise her to put her shoes back on while they walk on the gravel, but if Korra didn’t mind, neither should she.

Perhaps it’s the alcohol, but Asami is miffed that neither of Korra’s hands are free and they’d had to stop holding hands; she leans over and wraps herself around the woman’s elbow to steady them both while they walk back. The sand falls from her swaying dress while the duo does their drunken best to find where their hotel was at.

They clamber into their room; Korra bemoans the horrible floral print upholstery on the chairs. She escapes into the washroom while Asami changes into her frilly, lavender night blouse. 

When Korra comes back in, the woman only removes her belt and lets her long hair down. The heiress is looking at her with a disappointed grimace.

“You okay?”

“You can’t get in the bed with those clothes. You have sand from the beach all over them,” Asami huffs and folds her arms. Korra rolls her eyes, to her friend’s chagrin.

“I don’t have nightclothes, remember? We did this last night,” Korra says. 

“I don’t mind that, Korra. I mind the sand,” Asami starts brushing Korra’s white cotton shirt off; true to her suspicions, some grains of the seaside fell onto the rug below. “ And you walked back barefoot.”

Korra huffs at the words, her head too dizzy from drinking to argue. 

Then, suddenly, she feels her blouse being unbuttoned. Her eyes shoot down, watching with interest while Asami’s pale hands take her shirt off. She doesn’t protest.

She’s got a bandeau bra on: a simple cloth wrapped around her chest that had become popular in the last decade. 

Asami’s eyes are tapering around the woman’s shoulder blades and collarbones; the moonlight from the window is highlighting the curves in her skin. 

Korra sucks in a deep breath and grabs Asami’s chin, tilting it up to redirect her gaze higher. She keeps moving it until their eyes are back together.

Asami feels unusual, unfamiliar waves crashing into her. She could hear ringing in her ears. Korra holds their stare for a moment longer before breaking it, looking away so her brunette hair covers her face. Quickly, she jumps back onto the bed, holding up the covers.

It seemed like a bump in fate. Asami didn’t understand why, but perhaps she’d had a different anticipation than what just happened. She focuses back into reality.

The room was monotone and dimmed in the moonlight, but she could see Korra opening the covers for her to slide into. She climbs in and turns on her side to face her friend. Korra sleeps straight as a board, not moving one bit.

-

They wake up to the sounds of seabirds and light pouring through the drapes; youth alone saves their heads from hangovers. Korra was snoring. Asami pulls her hand up so she can lean on her palm and stare at her friend.

Then she reaches over, slowly sifting Korra’s tousled hair around the frame of her face.

“Korra,” she whispers softly. Blue eyes flicker open. Asami appreciates the sight of watching another person wake up, slowly coming back into the world. She brushes through her brunette hair again and the woman groans.

“Hey, Lady Luck,” Korra grumbles, her voice graveled with sleep.

It’s quiet. It’s rarely quiet in Asami Sato’s life. However, this calm quiet is much more welcome than the cold silence of the Sato manor. Korra’s slow breathing just to her side, the sound of the birds squawking through the window. 

Korra yawns and turns over, pulling the covers over her eyes.

“I hate mornings,” she sinks further into the soft cacophony of their duvet. Asami huffs and forces her out of her slumber, dressed, and to the train station.

They ride back quietly, content with their weekend. Asami is pouring through her book again, almost halfway done with her second read of the engineering book. A quarter of the way back to Las Vegas, Korra falls asleep against the window. 

Back in Las Vegas, one of her father’s employees picks her up, and she watches Korra walk down the boulevard with her briefcase strewn over her back and trousers wrinkled from sleeping in them. She wondered if Korra would like to sift through clothing catalogs together. Her mind wandered about different things they could do together until she was out of sight.

Yes, going to Del Mar with Korra had been the best idea she’d had this year.

Chapter Text

As fate would have it, Asami has no opportunity to invite Korra to all the activities she’d fantasized about doing with her friend. Korra doesn’t show in La Bayou for two weeks. Asami begins to worry that perhaps something had happened, or she’d inadvertently upset Korra, but she has no way of knowing.

She realized she had no way to get in contact with Korra unless the woman was at La Bayou. Korra had never said where she lived, or what she did during the day.

Her father’s gone to Chicago on business, leaving her alone in the manor. The silence is suffocating. She thinks of taking off to the casino again, just to sway the emptiness perpetrating her brain, and to be there in case Korra shows up. 

A knock on her bedroom door interrupts her thoughts; she slides her book on the nightstand, opening the door and finding her housemaid waiting on the outside.

“Good afternoon, Miss. Mr. Bolin and a friend are here to see you,” she says with a demure tone, backing away from the door just a bit. Mako? He was on the train line right now, though, helping move cargo through Salt Lake City and Denver. 

Her curiosity pulls her downstairs like an insistent hand. She skips to the foyer and finds Bolin and Korra standing at her door.

Questions run rampant through her head; Korra and Bolin hadn’t met, had they? She’d never introduced them to one another, at least. They both have those contagious grins, and Bolin strides through the foyer and grabs Asami in a hug.

“Asami! You know this girl, right?” Bolin grabs her shoulders and leans toward her, side-eyeing Korra quickly. 

“Because, she said she knew you, kinda hustled me in poker and said the only way she was gonna let me off is if we all went to the movies tonight,” he stammers, biting his lip nervously. Asami rolls her eyes and pats his cheek.

“Yes. This is the woman I went to the derby with a few weeks ago, remember?” She explains.

“Oh! Oh, yes, you told me about her. Well, perfect! Let’s go see Robin Hood then, please?” Bolin clasps his hands together, lowering his head in a prayer towards his friend. “I really, really can’t afford to lose ten dollars tonight.”

“Then stop putting that much in the pot,” Asami quips before turning her attention to the other woman. Korra is wearing a dress tonight with a dark overcoat and a wide brimmed hat sitting atop her head. She looked dressed for a dinner party.

“Swindling my friends now, hm?” Asami asks, walking to the woman to fix the collar on her coat. It isn’t ruffled or unkempt, but Asami runs her hands across the fabric to flatten the already flat folds.

“Can’t call it swindling if they’re just horrible at bluffing. I didn’t cheat,” she smiles. “Do you have time for a movie tonight?”

“Yes, absolutely. Let me change.”

Asami comes back down from her bedroom after putting on a pale red dress with flowing sleeves. She adjusts her chocolate bowl hat with a red ribbon in the mirror a dozen times, trying to get it at just the right tilt so it sat perfectly crooked on her head.

Bolin and Korra are talking about baseball downstairs; the season has just started. He thinks the Yankees will take the world cup once more, but Korra is hopeful that another team wins it.

“The Red Sox have Foxx, though, and he’s very good. Plus, I’d hate to see the Yanks take it three years in a row,” she gripes. Bolin guffaws at her sentence.

“I know what you mean, but nobody is taking it from the Yanks just yet. DiMaggio is one of the best in the league! Guy hits like he’s got something to prove.”

Asami interrupts them when the sounds of her heels clack on the steps. Korra whistles softly at her while she comes downstairs, a satin-gloved hand holding the railing.

“Looking spiffy, Miss Sato,” she praises. Bolin opens the front door for both of them, and Asami scampers through before Korra can see the blush on her face.

“The Adventures of Robin Hood, hm?” Korra asks. “Who’s Robin Hood?”

“Oh, you don’t know who Robin Hood is?” Bolin swoons. “Oh, oh, Asami, let me tell this one,” he begs.

“Go ahead, Bolin.”

So the man recants the tale of the English folklore, the rogue of the forest who stole from dukes and lords. Bolin explains the Englishman’s great shot with a bow, running forward on the Vegas streets and posing with his fake bow and arrow to showcase the mythical talent of legend.

Korra is enraptured and far more excited for the movie, just in time for them to arrive at the Guild Theatre. Light shines upon the front of the building where its sign hung. The big letters on the front of the board showed names of actors, and the biggest black lettering spelling ‘Robin Hood.’ 

They sit down and marvel at the film - technicolor, is it? Asami swoons at the idea of films transitioning to color, the look of the reds and greens entrancing her like the fabled northern lights. She wonders how they managed to capture footage like this. Film was already a masterpiece invention, yet it was just a baby in the world. Who knew what could happen next?

Bolin and Korra are more enraptured with the plot itself, laughing as Robin Hood interrupts a banquet. Bolin awes as the ranger of old fights off swarms of Normans on his own, avoiding capture over and over again. Asami can’t help but roll her eyes when she sees Bolin punching the air along with Robin’s attacks.

She watches the sparkle of the movie’s light reflecting in Korra’s eyes and her shining smile. When Robin’s band of rebels swoops down Sherwood forest to steal unfairly taxed money, Korra can’t maintain good theater manners. Asami has her hands full keeping them both seated and quiet. 

All three of them had grown up with the raucous of a silent movie; the crowds used to be far more jittery and loud last decade. Nowadays, with sound accompanying cinema, it wasn’t proper. She hushes both of them as they groan loudly when Robin falls into a river.

The film was phenomenal, Asami decides. There was reason for her friend’s energy. An instant classic; they chatter excitedly about their favorite parts when the theater lets out and Bolin makes to walk them back to the manor.

“Bo, it’s okay. Korra and I will be fine,” Asami tries to get the man to leave them alone; she’d gone some awfully long weeks without talking to Korra. As much as she loved Bolin, she wanted to be without him for the rest of the evening.

“No way, Asami. Hiroshi would be livid if you walked home without a chaperone. See my head?” Bolin pats his sideburns with his palms. “Yeah, I like it where it’s at.”

She groans dramatically and looks to Korra for help. 

She entirely expects smart, independent Korra to take her side and deny the chauffeur. So, it’s to her great dismay when the other woman shrugs her shoulders to dismiss the quarrel.

“I don’t mind. Bolin is fun,” she says. Their feet patter against the dusty street; it’s not busy. Most everybody had either gone to bed, holed up gambling with friends, or nursing gin at a bar. It left the streets to the sounds of whistling wind, with few others pattering about the streets.

They arrive at the Sato manor - the structure was built with influences from the east, completely waylaying the normal mission style architecture found in this city. 

As Asami’s hands taper across the doorframe, she looks back to see her two friends standing in the dark evening on her porch. The electric lightbulb above her porch illuminated the front of the yard, leaving the darkness out in the desert.

“Alright, Korra. Where do you live? I’d be charmed to walk you home, too,” Bolin says.

Asami wants to bite her tongue, but it's too late.

“She’s staying here. No need to walk her home, Bolin,” she quips, reaching out and snatching Korra’s hand in hers. Bolin watches them curiously, his olive eyes moving back and forth underneath his fedora. 

Korra eyes her hand caught in the woman’s snare, but doesn’t say anything.

“Ok. As long as you’re both safe. You’ll send for me if you need anything?” Bolin asks.

“Yes, of course.”

With a tip of his hat, Bolin leaves and walks down the yard’s stone path back to the road. The way he walks always betrayed his military backround, back straight and evenly spaced paces. 

Asami turns to her captured guest, eyeing her, trying to understand her thoughts. In the aftermath she worries if she overstepped.

“Are you mad? We can go and get him if you’d like to go home with an escort,” she retracts. Korra chuckles and gives her a playful shove.

“You think I get an escort every time I walk around Vegas?” Korra grins. “But, that’s not the point. Sounds like I just got offered free board.”

Korra sidles past her and tries to go into the house, her hand catching the brass knob and turning it. She pushes against the door with her shoulder and it’s locked, causing the girl to abruptly stop and let out a grunt of pain. Asami giggles.

“You can wait for the hostess to let you in, you know,” she quips, producing a house key from her purse and opening the door.

The inside of the Sato manor was gauche compared to the rest of Las Vegas. The streets were flashy and bright in this city, despite its small population and size – casinos and hotels with electric banners hoped to catch the eyes of men coming in from the railroads, mines, and dams. 

This house looked more like what Korra had seen in movies. The foyer she’d seen before; the sheer size of all this space just for two people was boggling. 

Asami walked her across wooden floors with massive wool rugs, dyed with monotone floral patterns. There’s spruce tables and racks, each intricately carved on the legs, designs and patterns placed in every fold of the wood. Bookcases and paintings several feet wide cover many sections of the house; deep red and black curtains are drawn over full-length windows.

“I’d think Roosevelt himself lived here if I didn’t know any better,” Korra awed. Asami flips her hair over her shoulder, looking back to make sure her guest was following behind her. 

“Please, Roosevelt doesn’t have nearly as good a selection of whisky as my dad does,” she grins and yanks Korra to her father’s study. Korra laughs, barely having time to catch her hat before it falls off while the other woman runs her down a long hallway.

It felt bizarre to be in Hiroshi Sato’s study. Korra knew of the man who ran La Bayou, knew that everybody running the casinos and theaters in Vegas was tied up in dirty money. Hiroshi’s decor did not reflect that.

This room looked like a normal academia study plopped down into the desert. Large wooden panels covered the walls around a big desk made of darker wood. Books with bookshelves; some framed pictures of a young boy in a soldier’s uniform – Hiroshi? Had he fought in the World War? Korra examines everything one at a time.

Asami sashays over to a cabinet in the corner and produces a pin to wiggle open the simple lock in front.

“Oh? Who’s the thief now?”

“Hush. You’ll thank me when you try something other than that dirt water you drink.”

“Where’d you learn to pick, Lady Luck?”

Asami casts a devious smile over the edge of her shoulder and winks.

“It's not hard to take a lock apart and figure out how it works,” she explained as her hairpin slid up the last pin, and the lock clicked open. Korra had to choke back a retort -  yes, Asami. Most people would find that hard.

“Fine, fine. But just one drink, I don’t normally drink on the weekdays,” Korra folds her arms and watches Asami tug out a bottle from the lower racks. She’s still teetering across the floor with excitement, flicking on a lamp for a dull, low-light glow. She collapses onto the loveseat with the bottle tucked on her forearm like a baby.

“You’re in a good mood,” Korra states, pacing around the room to open a window. At night, Las Vegas gave a small relief from the tortuous heat; the air cooled well in the evenings. “Did you like Robin Hood that much?” 

“No, I missed you terribly, Korra,” she rolled her eyes like it was the most obvious answer in the world. She pats the red upholstery and Korra finally shrugs off her coat and hat, coming to sit down. 

Hiroshi had a fine set of crystalware already set out with a platter on the table; his daughter flips a glass over. It clinks against the wood as it’s smacked down onto its base, and she pours the accosted beverage in.

“I did like the movie, though. I can’t believe they’ve figured out color so quickly. First sound, and now…” she taps the crystal of the whisky bottle with her polished fingernail.

They clink their glasses together. The heiress wishes they were up in the cold nights of New York so she could light the fireplace – an unnecessary addendum to their house here in the western desert, unfortunately. Her father liked how they looked far too much to part with one in his study even though lighting a fire in this heat would be raw stupidity.

“Did you like it? You certainly seemed to leave your seat quite often,” the hostess teases. Korra laughs.

“What’s not to like? A brave rogue saves the country, helps the poor and injured, and gets the woman. Isn’t that the dream?” Korra states like it was obvious, like it was the sun in the sky.

“The dream? Which part is your dream?” Asami asked.

“All of it, if I could,” she answers earnestly, tipping back the whisky. True to Asami’s words, it went down like the slide of a card on a felted table. The taste was laced with apple and cinnamon and had the perfect amount of burn on her throat. 

Say what you would about the mafia; this was good bourbon.

Asami nibbles on her lip. She’s thinking about the night she’d gone out with Bolin and Mako last. An image of Korra and a girl with dyed blonde hair flicks through her mind. She shoves it away and leans towards Korra to focus on what was in front of her.

She didn’t want to think about when she’d seen Korra at the club, her lips locked onto another woman’s. 

She’s crazy, she must be. She’d spent too much time reading that engineer’s book like her father said, because she swears that Korra slides a bit closer too.

“Is Lady Marion your type, then?” Asami questions. Korra grins, thinking of the leading lady in Robin Hood.

“Well, for English dames she’s not so bad. Smart, and cunning, don’t you think? Quite the babe, too. What more could I want?”

“Babe, hm? You spend far too much time around those boys from the dam, I’ll have you know,” Asami sniffs. Korra laughs and sips on her whiskey.

“What? I commented on her other traits, first. Tell me, Asami, what I could do to tell a woman how perfect she is,” Korra muses. 

Asami’s hand shakes on her glass. She looked over at her friend, thinking to quip back – but the way Korra’s looking at her stops the joke on her tongue.

The lamp was dim, but it was enough to see the earnesty in those sea-strewn eyes, the outline of her soft face. Korra had leaned entirely towards the other woman, her whisky forgotten as she focused on Asami. 

Asami’s eyes flicker away. This was that same feeling she thought she’d left at the train station in Del Mar.

“I hardly think any woman is perfect.”

“This one is, I promise.”

Asami scattered her words while they boiled up in her throat, threatening to spill out before she could concoct a correct response. A correct response? What should she say?

She should push Korra back and reprimand her for sitting too close – it wasn’t ladylike. Tell her the joke had gone on too far, and switch the subject to how dashing Robin Hood’s actor had been instead. Change the subject – the weather, something, something…

She looks down at the woman’s lips instead, entranced, like the siren’s call had stolen her consciousness away.

Her mouth opens before she can think, and she feels her heart scream in fury as it’s denied its opportunity.

“I saw you kissing a woman at the Apache several weeks ago. I was with Bolin and Mako and I saw you.” Asami whispers. 

She watches all the little movements in Korra’s face: the slight furrowing of her brow, her back straightening as she pulls ever so slightly away. A hand clenching tighter around a crystal glass, almost so tight that it might break – stress was pouring out from her every motion. 

Then Korra shook her head and pushed her back straight.

“Does that bother you?” she asks in a broken voice. Asami doesn’t want to respond; her heart is thrumming against her ribs and she feels her throat clam up.

“I don’t know,” she whispers.

Korra’s breath is shaking while she sets her cup down. Then her hand slides forward with an open palm towards the heiress. Asami doesn’t think a moment before taking it. Regardless of the tensity, Korra’s presence always brought her great comfort. The physical connection seems to calm both of their nerves.

“I didn’t know you’d been at the Apache,” Korra sighs. “Why didn’t you say something sooner? And then, in Del Mar, you’d…”

“I wanted to bring it up, honestly, Korra,” Asami feels her eyes wetting and damns the Gods for giving her no control over her own tears. She feels a soft squeeze on her hand, a reassurance that the woman had heard her.

“Asami, I, I…” Korra can’t stop the stuttering in her throat and she looks up at the ceiling. “I’m not asking you to feel this way in return, but I’ve been dizzy with you since we first met at the craps table? And I’m not losing another part of myself because the world tells me it’s not acceptable.”

Asami can’t look up and face her friend. Korra keeps talking.

“But, if I’m making you uncomfortable, I’ll leave and you’ll never see me again.”

The tears flow from Asami’s eyes with no restraint now. “I don’t want that,” she sniffed.

“I don’t want that either, but if you don’t want me the way that I want you, I can’t be here,” Korra murmurs, her face filled with pain.

“I just…” Asami huffs and shakes her head. “I’ve no issue with you kissing women or being a homosexual, Korra. It doesn’t hurt anybody, even if it’s unnatural. I just never wanted to consider these things until recently.”

Korra nods slowly, her thumb rubbing the back of the woman’s palm. Asami sees a tiny grin slide on the woman’s face like a quick lizard on the desert rock. 

She purses her lips to keep the contagious smile from spreading to her; it’s a useless effort – she feels the tip of her lips raise, and she reaches her free hand up to wipe at her nose and cover her mouth. Korra watches her lips with interest, seeing the change in her features.

“Don’t make me laugh right now, I swear, Korra,” she threatens. With those words, Korra lets her grin run free and the smile spreads into her bright eyes and posture quickly.

“What?! I’m not even doing anything,” Korra bemoans. Asami giggles through her small sobs. She shakes her head; it was futile to try to be sad around this woman.

“Yes you did! You were holding back that little smile of yours,” Asami chastises. Korra held up her free hand in defense.

“Well, you said ‘until recently,’” Korra explains. “It got my hopes up a bit. If you’re completely against it, as I said, I’ll go; but, if there’s even a little chance…” She holds her fingers up, squeezing her thumb and pointer close together and leaving only a microcosm of space between the two. “Even a little chance, ‘Sams, then…”

Asami understands what she means. Even more, it brought her pleasure to hear it.

“I love it when you call me that,” Asami murmurs. Korra raises an eyebrow.

“‘Sams?”

“Yes,” Asami answers. She shifts her legs and hears the couch scrunch underneath her. Korra has another look on her face, and her fingers are shaking in the heiress’ own.

“Okay, ‘Sams…” Korra’s other hand comes up to push Asami’s black hair behind her ear. “Can I kiss you? If you don’t like it, you can simply pull away. I promise I won’t mind.”

She’s not sure what she’s thinking, but perhaps that was a positive - sometimes her thoughts brought more trouble than good. Before she can let the emotions manifest one way or the other, she speaks.

“Yes.”

Korra leans forward, and pulls her close, but Asami places a hand between their faces quickly.  Asami chuckles at the confused look on the other side of her palm.

“Not in my father’s study, please,” she stands up and walks to her room.

She sits on the edge of her large bed and the heiress thinks to stop, talk about it – prepare, perhaps? Yet Korra is already leaned forward, standing between her knees, taking the initiative.

She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. It was more gentle than any kiss she’d had thus far.  It was wet and electrifying; her nerves were all focused on this pretty woman kissing her. Korra sighs through her nose and tilts Asami’s head to make it more comfortable.

She feels Korra’s hands rub down her arms, and she suddenly has the most insatiable desire to get her own fingers stuck in the woman’s brunette hair. When she does, Korra pulls their lips apart, keeping their foreheads together.

“Was that okay? Was it horrible?”

This time, Asami is the one to take the woman towards her.

“Absolutely dreadful,” she grins and presses her lips back against Korra’s, intent on getting crimson lipstick stuck on her. Before long they’ve fallen back on the bed, Korra climbing on top of the other woman and peppering her cheeks and lips with long pecks and kisses. 

When Korra left the Sato manor, it was with a loud whistle and a confident stride.

Chapter Text

Asami spent her hours in turbulent thoughts. 

She ran her finger against her hair, around her earlobe. The narrow slide of her fingernail was so noticeable. Every little thing perturbed her thoughts.

Was La Bayou always this loud? Everybody was shouting around her. Her breaths in her chest were echoing. She had to look twice at everything just to make sure she’d seen it right.

“Asami?”

The woman jerked when someone grabbed her forearm. She looked up surprised, staring at green eyes, a round nose, and big eyebrows.

“Bo,” she breathed, placing another hand on her heart to try to calm the beat. The man had a cigarette on his ear that he hadn’t been able to finish on his last smoke break.

“You look pale. Real pale, Asami. Do you feel hot? Is your throat sore?” Bolin asked, his voice loud enough to be heard over the shouting gamblers and drinkers.

“I’m fine,” she shook her head. “I’m not sick.”

Bolin let go of her arm, but his eyes stayed on her, his back stretched out to make himself almost as tall as her.

“I know it's the weekend rush, but maybe take a night off. Go take your sleep early,” he tried.

“No,” Asami said, feeling the cold roll in her bones. “No, I don’t want to be alone right now.”

She walked away before he could continue pestering her. Bolin folded his arms and watched her, content not to pursue, but still watchful. That was good enough for her.

It’s not as if she’d been entirely out of contact with Korra. She’d simply kept it muted – excused herself under the guise of hosting some of her father’s guests over the last several weeks.

Korra had found a few more books of literature on engineering, automotives, and aeroplanes. Asami had confessed once that she couldn’t decide which new technology was more interesting. Once or twice, she’d gotten flowers, and another time a wind-up toy Hawker Hurricane. The airplane wings were painted green and the rotors made out of little strips of tin.

They’d kissed twice more since they’d gone to Robin Hood. Asami hated that she loved it.

Her eyes hazed over a craps table with younger men bustling around it. Two of them had girlfriends with them. They looked like they’d been dancing at the church tonight, unlike the other group that were obviously working lads in town just for the casinos.

Asami couldn’t take her eyes off them. Her sweating hands held onto the edge of the craps table.

The craps shooter changed, and the players started jeering at the new lad shaking the dice. He got an eight, and the game was on, everybody cheering him for motivation to keep on rolling lucky.

What had she done, kissing Korra? Not once, but three times now. Why had she done it? She shouldn’t do it again, obviously. It wasn’t right, and if anybody in this room knew, they’d–

Bolin was right. Maybe going home would be a good idea. Her breath burned like a sputtering engine. She turned on her heel, looking over to the door. Just up the small set of stairs, a walk by the bar stools, and then she’d be out the door into the fresh air. She could go home in her Daimler, then. Home was a good idea, after all.

But it wasn’t meant to be. There was Bolin, no longer staring at her with crossed arms. Instead, his hands were in his pockets, and he was laughing with Korra. 

When had she gotten here? Asami’s heart sounded like a machine gun. Korra was in a blue skirt and blouse with a ribboned hat. She looked like a normal woman. Normal.

That word buzzed in her brain until Bolin perked up, seeing Asami staring at him. He grinned, his teeth so clean they shined even in the dim light, and waved at her to come over.

Asami had a face like she’d just vomited; she tried to conceal it with a normal smile. Normal. There’s that word again.

She walked over, having to focus on the way she walks in her heels like she were a teenager again learning for the first time. She stood next to her friends, and Bolin gently rested a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey, Asami, lookit,” he tipped his head towards Korra. “She’s come again to take my money!”

“Thought you weren’t supposed to gamble on the job,” Korra laughed. 

“We’re not supposed to get swacked, either, but some of us do,” Bolin pointed over at another Bayou strongman, leaning against a railing with a glass of whiskey. 

“I see, I see,” Korra stroked her jaw. “You run a loose ship around here, ‘Sams. People could be stealing from you in this environment.”

Asami stared at her, too rattled to enjoy the humor. After a few beats Korra’s smile fell.

“...It’s just a joke. Sorry. Are you feeling okay?” She asked. 

“She’s not been well. Looking a little feverish tonight,” Bolin explained. A drunkard tried to shoulder through them and Bolin grabbed his collar and shoved him to arm’s length.

“Walk straight or walk out, joe!” Bolin shouted after the man.

“Do you need anything?” Korra asked Asami. 

“No.”

Bolin’s eyes were on the other man still, leaving them in a bubble. Asami didn’t want any attention, but least of all from Korra right now. She can’t believe she kissed the other woman. Every time she thought about it, her brain flipped a coin on feeling delighted or horrified.

“Actually, I need to get this man some water and get him out of here,” Bolin rolled his hat on his head. “Korra, can you get her a wine, or a strike, or something?”

“Neither of those will make me feel good,” Asami muttered, folding her arms. Korra tilted her head.

“What about fresh air?” She asked. “We can step outside for a few minutes.”

Asami nodded, and they pushed through the rear door to the alleyway behind the rows of casinos. It wasn’t cramped, but neither was it wide enough for cars to pass through. There weren’t any street lights and there were piles of trash waiting to be hauled out of the city from the dozens of casinos and clubs. A few men down the way were smoking in a circle, but overall, it was silent. The lack of noise was welcome, actually.

“You sure you’re not feeling sick?” Korra asked. Asami nodded, but she hugged herself and stared directly at Korra. This wouldn’t have happened if they’d never met, she’s sure.

“No, I’m fine. I wish you two would stop worrying.”

Korra folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. 

“We wouldn’t worry if you weren’t lying,” Korra shook her head. “I’ve never seen you so… tense?”

Asami pursed her lips. Korra held a hand out, waiting expectedly. She sighed and took it, though the angle was awkward facing one another.

She let her head tilt back to look up at the Nevada sky. It was wide, expansive, free. The only things out here were Korra, the stars – and the laughter of the group down the way, but she could tune them out.

When Korra tried to shuffle closer, she stepped back. She could see the annoyance on the other woman’s face when she was denied, but Korra didn’t voice it. She held still and didn’t try again.

“I’m sorry. I’m feeling out of it, you’re both right,” Asami muttered. She wiggled her toe against the dirt below, the hard pack of dust and small rocks crunching around.

“Well, maybe we could go somewhere in your car?”

“I’m sorry?” Asami questioned.

“You told me driving always made you feel right. So let's drive somewhere. A day trip, or another overnight, like Del Mar.”

–

They take off a few days later, her Daimler a streak of dark maroon paint complimenting the red rocks of the region. The hum of the engine was soothing. Korra had made a good call. Even if she was confused, at least she felt calm and in control here on the highway.

Her hands are free of gloves, and no hat is on her head; the whipping winds at this speed would blow it away. She fingers the leather steering wheel, thrumming her digits excitedly. The lined rainbow rocks guided them north, the blazing sun above them.

After they pass the border of southern Utah and hit a cotton-growing town, Korra starts to drum her knees excitedly. About an hour left until their destination. She pulled out their treasured map. It plotted all the newly poured roads in the states; fresh highways connected the directions north to south and east to west for cars. 

She directed Asami to turn on a winding exit. It took them into orange rocks that grew taller and taller. The road became dirt. Spruce trees sprouted around the roadway; in front of them were low mountains into the new national park. They’d been driving for almost four hours. At the sight of a tiny cabin-like structure next to the road, both women sighed in relief.

“Why did you want to come to Zion?” Asami asks as she hands a boy in the entrance two dollars to drive through. They’re handed a small pamphlet with a map printed on its canvas surface, which Korra excitedly unfolds. They left Vegas in the early morning, but this was already worth the wait. 

“You know, it wasn’t originally called Zion. It used to have a Paiute name,” Korra combs at her hair, blown out after driving several hours with the Daimler’s roof down. “But I wanted to see if I could find a place my father took me growing up.” 

They left the car with their briefcases, parked in front of the lodge. The building was made from white and gray stone wrapped around a sprucewood frame; behind the gentle inclines of the lodge roof were the slopes of mountains, trees cascading on any surface with enough dirt to grow.

Korra eyed the other woman. “Riding pants suit you very well,” she whistled softly while they walked in. Asami had known they’d be in environments not meant for dresses. The dark pants were tucked into mahogany boots laced up to her calves. It made her seem far more serious than she’d ever looked in her shimmering Vegas dresses.

“Thank you,” she answered quietly.

She was relieved nobody asked why they booked one bed, or where their husbands were, or any of the questions she was afraid the Utahns might have for them. 

Compared to the room they’d stayed at in Del Mar, this one was more quaint. She stared out the window at the mountains, the steep rocks and sturdy trunks on the trees, enraptured by the sights. It was gorgeous here.

They’d barely set down their baggage before going to roam outdoors, Asami following Korra down a dirt-packed trail that followed a river.

“Where are we off to?” she asked. The landscape shifted constantly between rough stone in colors of deep sunsets to dark evergreen trees and briny shrubs. The sun was grating, but nothing could compare to Nevada’s desert heat. It had hardened their tolerance.

Korra tugs her canvas backpack further up her shoulder, and they trot farther along the path to get lost in the rocky matrix.

“I’m not sure. I’m hoping this is the right place. Either way, I’m sure it’ll be beautiful.” Korra said. Gray bushes taller than them cascaded in with the vibrant colors, mixing and matching until every sight was completely exotic and varied. “It does look right, though. The way it follows the river.”

They walked until the sun touched the top of the sky. Asami worried about the mountain lions and bears in the region – she’d seen a bear once at a circus growing up. The beast was larger than her Daimler, thick and covered with rumpled fur. Korra had told her it was too early for the predators to be out, but she’d no idea if that was the truth or a comforting lie.

“We’re okay. Besides, listen,” Korra places a hand around Asami’s waist, cupping her ear and closing her eyes.

The sounds of birds chirping and lime green crickets creaking filled the air. The wind would blow and sway every branch in the forest in a beautiful symphony – only she and Korra were around to disturb it. Somehow, these sounds were more peaceful than simple silence.

Then the wind stops for a fleeting moment. Korra’s fingers grip her side, and she heard what Korra heard: the sound of falling water. It was different from the bubbling of the river, louder and more fierce.

“What is that?” Asami asked, wondrous. Korra slid forward on the trail and turned so she could keep eye contact with the other woman. Asami watched her slowly pace backwards with her hands behind her and a grin sidling half her face up.

“I think we should go find it,” she said, then bolted down the trail as fast as she could. The dust of the trail kicked up behind her boots. Asami, surprised by the sudden speed, ran after her, laughing a bit. They were like children in a schoolyard chasing each other.

The sound of the water got closer and closer. They both slowed as their bursts of energy ran out. Korra reached out and tangled their fingers together – Asami fought her worries about the intimacy. After all, sometimes friends would hold hands, so this wasn’t anything foolproof she could be accused with.

Plus, it felt nice.

They pounded down the slithering trail, waiting to find the end. The sound of the growling water grew closer with each bend in the dirt path. When they conquered the next curve, that sound became a vision.

A single blast of water came from a hole in the face of the plateau, up towards the top of the rock, long and powerful. It wasn’t very wide, nor was it aggressive like other waterfalls. Some would pour out with all the fury of a bullet from a rifle, furiously smacking into the ground below. This one was gentle in comparison. It sounded like a rainy night under a roof, and the water traveled like it was guided by a conductor perfectly down in a straight line.

Korra laughed excitedly at the sight, and Asami can’t stop her from jumping into the river close to the fall. 

Asami tensed, anxious that Korra might get hurt, but the water only went to her thighs. She grinned like a jackal. Her hands slapped against the water to make droplets pop into the air.

“The water feels great, actually. After all the heat,” Korra commented. She reached a hand out; Asami eyed it wearily.

Korra lowered it when Asami did not reach back. She tucked her fingers into her waistband on each side of her hips.

“Do you want to talk about what’s on your mind?” Korra asked, finally. “We’ve been busy planning the trip, getting to the lodge, hiking, but now that we’re here…”

Asami sighed through her nose. She folded her arms and looked down at the dirt. Korra was right. Nothing else to focus on other than why they’d come in the first place. She loved to be with Korra – that’s why she’d agreed to drive out for this trip, after all – but she wanted to ignore Korra, too.

“Is this the place you were looking for?” Asami asked instead of answering the question. Korra hummed and folded her arms. Asami notices her glowing eyes, free and happy.

“It’s the area, yes,” Korra answered. “Maybe not the exact spot, but that’s okay. I found something better.”

Asami smiled. “Well, what were you looking for?”

Korra batted her fingers against the rumbling water again. The sun had moved farther in the sky. It wouldn't be visible in a few hours with how massive the sandstone canyon was.

“When I was tiny, my father brought me up here on a horse,” she said, her voice almost getting lost in the water. “We rode around often. I didn’t have a care in the world when we were in the mountains. It must have been right around here,” Korra gestured to all the golden rocks and hardy trees. “This land looks so familiar.”

Asami looked around the curved rocks with bubbling clear water running through pebbled riverbeds. On the bank, she imagined a baby Korra on a horse with a large man that shared her features, trotting across the rocky landscape. 

She looked back at the now grown woman, with her bottom half soaked wet from jumping in the river, a sunburned face from cruising in the Daimler all day. 

“Now, why did you dodge my question?” Korra changed the subject, her soft voice growing a firm tone again.

Asami pursed her lips. “You’re too persistent, you know?”

“Heard that before.” Korra folded her arms. Asami frowned at her, standing down in the water looking so stern. “C’mon, ‘Sams. Spit it out.”

Asami shook her head. “Afford me some privacy, Korra.” She started walking back, leaving the woman. When she turned away, she heard Korra scrambling back onto shore to catch up.

“Sorry, sorry,” Korra grumbled, looking away.

They walked in silence for some time, only the birds and the wind curving in the canyon to comfort their ears. Korra didn’t look over at her for some time, but finally, tried to start up their banter again.

“Thank you for driving us all the way out here,” Korra murmured as they stared down the orange alleyways striped with time.

Korra picks up a piece of loose stone and throws it into the bubbling river. The sun was too hot and high today. The wind was whistling again, pure and true through the rock walls. It was a nice sound, swishing against the stone.

“It’s not so far away, but you’re welcome,” Asami answered.

“It’s far if you don't have a car,” Korra shrugged. “It's not like there’s a train to Zion.” Asami stopped and turned her pack across her side to reach inside for her tin of water. Korra petered to a stop ahead, her steps slowing down until she turned and looked at the other woman. Asami felt that tug of admiration for her perfectly sparkling eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was better or worse to finally understand what that feeling was.

“Why don’t you try to get one?” Asami asked. “With the money you get from poker. I’ve seen you walk out with ten or so dollars each night, sometimes more.” The pot with Amon at poker was the largest she’d ever seen Korra take, but no doubt the woman was mindful of her normal ‘winnings’ to avoid suspicion.

Korra’s lips turned on her face, pursing uncomfortably.

“I can’t drive. Even if I could… I don’t keep much of that money.” Korra looked up at a soaring brown hawk in the sky, her hand covering the sun from her eyes. It soared against the gale in the sapphire sky, looking as if it were floating like a leaf on a river.

“What do you do with it?”

Trepidation ate Korra’s expression. The woman didn’t want to share; Asami goaded a response anyway.

“Korra, it’s okay. You can tell me,” Asami said.

“It costs money to hire lawyers,” Korra said. Asami raised an eyebrow. That wasn’t the response she was expecting. A lawyer?

“You need a lawyer? For what?”

“For our land. Your government signed an agreement with a collection of tribes to preserve our land – millions of acres of it that are sacred to us.”

Asami looked down; at this point, she was fairly familiar with the stories of abuse she’d heard from Korra, so it was no surprise to her anymore. It still made her throat hurt.

“And they just steal it back in the night or force us into poverty so we have to sell it back to them. So it was a lie, again, just how they’ve lied every time,” Korra’s voice grew tight.

“The only way my parents can protect it is with lawyers who can make the government honor its own promise.”

Asami sighed. “You send them your money.” She pinched her nose. It should have come to no surprise – now that she thought about it, Korra did not live lavishly. She’d never seen the woman splurge on much other than some drinks, movie tickets, and other small niceties. If she was keeping her dollars, there would be signs of it.

“It’s basically chump change for what they actually need. I couldn’t get enough money to hire a lawyer for a second working at the sewing plant; I’d get a dollar a day there. I had to figure out something better.”

Asami nodded, feeling guilty that she’d never felt the stress of giving hours of her life for a handful of coins.

“My dad tries,” Asami saw her wiping at her eyes, though her head was still turned so she could only see the back of her head. She shook her head and bounced on her toes, like she could energize herself enough to force the tears down. “But the truth… when you asked why I didn’t return home to my parents?”

Asami finished the sentence when Korra didn’t.

“It’s too late, isn’t it?” Asami murmured in understanding.

“The policies and other stuff they’ll come up with can’t undo it. The restoration act is a nice gesture, but what’s done is done. My home is damaged beyond repair.”

She stopped speaking, leaving only the whistling canyon for their ears. Asami can tell the woman doesn’t want to talk anymore, so she stares into the deep shadows of the tapering rock, appreciating the quiet ambiance here in the crevices of the earth.

Asami tucks some stray curving hairs back behind her ear, lining them with her loose ponytail. She walked up and hugged Korra, holding the woman’s head against her chin. Korra hugged her back after a moment.

A hug was all she could offer. She didn’t speak, because she didn’t have words that could solve the problem. Comfort was the only choice when there wasn’t a fix. After they’d been holding for quite some time, she turned her head and pressed a kiss to Korra’s temple.

“You know, you told me you weren’t a good person in Del Mar. I just want you to know,” Asami pulled away and offered a hand to her, which was taken quickly. “You’re horribly wrong.”

Korra smiled, but she’s not as chipper as she was before, so Asami worked to change the subject while they hike through the golden canyon. 

“How often did your father take you riding growing up?” She asked while their hands swung together. 

“Every time my mom let us.”

And soon enough, with enough questions – a few segways into baseball she’d normally find boring – Korra began to relax. It was perfect timing, because they were coming out of the canyon, almost back to the beginning of the trail. Korra looked back, pointing over a ridge at a massive mountain range.

“Do you see those mountains way over there?” Korra points northeast; Asami nods, stopping, squeezing Korra’s hand.

“Well, behind those mountains are another set of mountains – the shining mountains. In the winter they turn pure white from frosty snow,” Korra murmured. “Those are the mountains where Sinawav put our people. They’re the mountains where my people come from, where we were born.”

“This is the story with the Coyote, right?” Asami asked, their hands swinging back and forth between them.

“Yes.”

They tread south towards the lodge, kicking up dirt and sliding through bends and curves that followed the enormous plateaus and mountains around them.

“...Can I tell it again?” Korra asks. 

“Of course,” Asami answered. She would always listen. This time, Korra’s tone is much more powerful and happy. She speaks of her childhood not in a lament for its loss, but in a fire of remembrance and celebration.

–

They crept back into their room after a tiresome day of hiking. The lodge was new. The wooden beams in this building were recently hewn and still smelled like fresh lumber. Asami dabbed a light cream across Korra’s burned face, smearing the translucent yellow wax on her burned skin.

Korra had turned on the radio to listen to a game. The reception was lackluster, however; she could only get one of the talk shows on. 

Asami smiled, rolling her thumb down Korra’s jaw with the last of her wax. She let her hand linger for a moment longer. Then her fingers pushed through brunette hair, rolling it back behind Korra’s ear while the woman griped about the talk show on the radio.

Asami watched her, observing how nonchalant she was. It didn’t bother Korra at all, being here with another woman, having Asami touch her in such gentle ways.

She pulled a book out of her luggage – an annual service manual from Chevrolet. It was another gift from Korra. She wanted to keep reading it, her finger dragging down the closed pages, feeling the miniscule rivets between each page edge. 

Korra had been honest with her earlier. It was her turn.

“Korra,” she said, turning the book over like she hadn’t already examined each side of it more times than the number of days she’d been alive. “The reason I’ve been moody is you.”

“Gee, thank you?” The woman made a face. “What did I do?”

“No,” Asami giggled. “Not like that.” She sat on the edge of the bed, next to where Korra was cross legged, fiddling with the radio on the nightstand to try to clear the reception.

“How do you act so normal with…” Asami sighed and looked away. “Doing these things you’re supposed to do with a man?”

Oh, if her mother knew what she’d been doing, she’d die again in her coffin. 

The radio serial plays softly in the background, a man’s voice reading a story. Asami made herself focus on the conversation and ignore everything else. Then, a hand covered hers. She focused on it.

“Don’t listen to the guilt and the fear, ‘Sams. If it makes you happy, then it's worth doing,” Korra answered. Then she jumped back, throwing herself onto the bed, making the mattress spring and rumble.

“Practice makes perfect, too,” Korra tried, making her smile again. “Come lay down, see if you can get comfortable.”

So Asami did, and Korra pushed her head against the other woman's shoulder, closing her eyes and listening to the radio. Asami tried to follow the advice; each time the guilt would pick at her, she forced herself to ignore it. After all, Korra was right; it did feel wonderful to be close to each other like this. 

Asami turned the pages of her book. She slid her fingers across the pages. Each spot was filled with mechanical drawings or descriptions of the parts. She can feel extra eyes gazing into her book. Korra’s curiosity was piqued too.

“What is this?” Korra pointed to the drawing on the bottom of the page. The black and white block caption had a font style like a telegraph’s.

“A ball bearing water pump.”

“What does it do?”

“It helps reduce friction between moving parts in engines.”

The talk show wasn’t enough to keep Korra entertained. So instead she looked at the pictures and read parts of the book. Both of them were far too tired from hiking to do anything but lay still, now.

Asami’s eyelids were drooping. Korra got up to turn off the radio, sidling back into the bed and wrapping an arm around the woman’s shoulders, feeling the red satin nightgown under her arm.

“Are you ready to sleep?” she asked curiously, seeing if she could prompt Asami to put her book down.

“I… can I finish this section on the ignition coil? You can lay down, if you’d like,” Asami hummed. Korra sighed softly, reaching her other hand over to brush through black wavy hair.

“You know so much about this stuff, y’know,” Korra murmured.

“That’s because you’ve bought me several of these books. I swear, I don’t know where you find the time to track them down.”

Korra laughed, squeezing her shoulder. “I’m glad it makes you happy.” A kiss was pressed against her cheek. “Why don’t you go be a mechanic or something? That first book I got you, there was a woman–”

“Elsie MacGill. I read her pieces in there a dozen times,” Asami murmured with reverence.

“You should do what she’s doing!” Korra snapped her fingers, a big grin on her face. The heiress flips a page, starting on the next leaf.

“I would need a degree in aeronautics to do what she’s doing.”

“You’re smart enough to get one, I bet.”

Her green eyes lost their focus on the pages. She’d always wondered, in the back of her mind, if that was something she could do. Could she get a degree – perhaps, in mechanical engineering? It wasn’t often women got engineering degrees, but it had happened.

“My father already paid for me to have top of the line secondary schooling in New York. There’s no need to spend hundreds of dollars on a university degree just for a hobby.”

Korra chuckled, snuggling closer to her and sliding a finger against the Chevrolet manual.

“I don’t think it’s just a hobby. I’d think you like them a bit more than you even like me,” she teased the woman, whose brow creased together at the accusation.

Asami opens her mouth to argue and stutters accidentally. Korra raises an eyebrow.

“You like engines more than me,” she surmised. Asami shakes her head, hoping she wasn’t blushing, though she could feel her face heating up. She liked Korra quite a bit, but engines were an unrivaled muse. They were ethereal; a perfect collection of parts, shaped iron and filtered oil, working harmoniously under the care of an expert technician. 

“I’ve fallen for the most beautiful woman in the world and she doesn’t like me back,” Korra moaned dramatically. Asami thwacked her playfully with the manual.

“Don’t say such things… I care equally for you and mechanics,” Asami smiled.

“I guess I’ll have to take what I can get, huh?” 

Asami re-opened the book. Korra settled her arm across the woman’s shoulders again, holding her close. 

It’s quiet for a few scant moments before Korra interrupted once more – bound to happen. Korra wasn’t one for quiet pondering. Asami stopped reading again to listen to her words.

“Would you get a degree if you could, though?” Korra asked.

“I couldn’t leave my father.”

“If you could leave your father.”

“I wouldn’t have the money.”

“Let’s say you have fifty thousand dollars.”

“All of the good universities are on the east coast. I'd have to go back there.”

“I just said you have fifty thousand dollars,” Korra said. “I know the trains are expensive, but not that expensive.” 

Korra eyed the woman laying against her, so enraptured by printed words on a plain page. She waited for an answer, but realized that the book had drawn Asami’s attention away from her again like a receding tide. 

Her hand brushed through Asami’s raven hair. She looked angelic, illuminated with soft orange from the lamp on the bedside table.

Asami didn’t want to answer the question, even though it was so easy; so feather-light, one simple agreement. She shouldn't say it, wouldn’t say it, couldn’t dare to light the fire despite her thoughts being stacked in a perfectly flammable pyramid of wood.

Once Korra realized the conversation wouldn’t continue, she tugged the service manual out of Asami’s hands and set it on the table. She clicked the knob on the lamp’s stand. It left them with only the moonlight glowing against the window curtains.

“C’mon, ‘Sams. Engines have gotten their fair share tonight,” she griped, pulling the Asami against her. This time, Asami barely has to fight the guilt.