Chapter Text
The Spirit World hummed around them, pulsing with colors that didn't exist back home. A waterfall of liquid gold poured from a floating island overhead, dissolving into silver moths mid-air. Korra wanted to point it out, to share the wonder, but her tongue felt heavy. Instead, she stole another glance. Asami's head was tilted back, lips parted slightly, the golden light painting her throat.
They stopped to set up camp at a clearing where the ground shimmered lightly, almost like polished glass, reflecting the spiraling trees above that covered the sky almost perfectly. Asami stretched, her jacket riding up to reveal a sliver of skin above her waistband. Korra looked away so fast her neck cracked.
"You okay?" Asami's eyebrow arched, fingertips brushing Korra's elbow. The contact burned through her sleeve.
"Perfect," Korra lied, rolling her shoulders like she could shake off the electricity sparking under her skin. The spirit fauna trilled in the branches, their sounds echoing Korra's pounding heartbeat. She busied herself with untying their supply bag, fingers fumbling the knots.
Asami knelt beside her, close enough that Korra caught the scent of her usual amber perfume, dimmed by their long hike. "Let me," Asami murmured, reaching for the tangled cord. Their hands brushed.
Korra's breath hitched — and then she noticed the way Asami's fingers trembled too, her lips pressing together like she was biting back words. Korra had already been as certain as she could've that this wasn't one-sided, but this felt like a confirmation she wasn't expecting to get.
The glowing moss beneath them pulsed, casting Asami’s face in shifting greens and violets. She wasn’t meeting Korra’s eyes anymore, dark lashes fluttering against flushed cheeks.
Somewhere overhead, a cluster of luminous blossoms detached from their stems, drifting down around them like misplaced stars, shimmering in the shadows cast by the large trees. Korra caught one without thinking, its petals danced around her fingers inexplicably, unlike anything she had ever seen.
Before she could second-guess herself, Korra reached up and tucked the stem gently behind Asami’s ear, her fingertips lingering just a heartbeat too long against the warm curve of her skin once Asami turned to fully look at her. The flower glowed faintly, its light catching in the loose strands of raven hair.
Asami’s lips parted. She looked stripped of her usual poise, and so terrifyingly beautiful. The air between them hummed, thick with something unspoken. Korra’s pulse roared in her ears, louder than the distant chimes of the spirit wind.
Then Asami exhaled, shaky, and curled her fingers around Korra’s wrist, thumb pressing into the racing pulse point there.
"I’ve been—" she started, voice barely above a whisper, and Korra leaned in without meaning to, drawn like the tide to the moon.
The spirit flower pulsed brighter between them, its glow tracing the sharp line of Asami’s jaw, her parted lips. Korra could count the breaths between them before Asami’s fingers slid from her wrist to tangle with hers, palm pressing warm and insistent against her own.
Korra’s throat tightened. She should say something, but the words either tangled in her chest or died as they tried hopelessly to climb up her throat, all the carefully rehearsed confessions dissolving under the weight of Asami’s green eyes.
Instead, she squeezed back, stupidly grateful when Asami didn’t pull away, didn’t laugh, didn’t do anything but exhale short and shaky against her cheek.
Then, Asami moved. Her free hand lifted, hesitant, fingertips skimming the edge of Korra’s jaw like she was testing the waters of a boundary Korra might set, simply clueless to how Asami was the one person who Korra wanted no boundaries with. Not in that moment, at least.
Korra shuddered, pulse wild where their hands clasped, and the last coherent thought she had was that she’d take a thousand dark spirits to the ribs if it meant keeping this moment from ending.
Asami’s fingers slid up her jawline, fingertips brushing briefly on the curve of Korra’s bottom lip. She swallowed hard, feeling the flutter of Asami’s pulse against her own palm, realizing with dizzying clarity that Asami was perhaps just as wrecked as she was.
The spirit flower behind Asami’s ear brightened, casting shifting shadows between them as Asami leaned in, close enough that Korra could taste the sharp-sweet scent of her breath. The world, right there and then, narrowed to the hitch in Asami’s breathing, the impossible warmth radiating from every point their bodies touched.
Then, all Korra could think about was this softness. Asami’s lips brushed hers, feather-light and tentative, a question more than a statement. Korra’s free hand found Asami’s waist, pulling her in before she could second-guess it, and the answering noise Asami made against her mouth felt like enough to make her knees buckle.
The kiss deepened, Asami’s fingers threading into Korra’s hair, maybe a little messy, definetely desperate, like she’d been waiting for this for as long as Korra had. The flower behind her ear flickered wildly between them, illuminating the way Asami’s eyelashes fluttered shut.
Korra tasted the lingering sweetness of berries on Asami’s tongue from their break much earlier, felt the way her breath hitched when Korra nipped lightly at her lower lip. The world didn’t fall away in the way Korra had half a mind to expect it from all the silly novels she had read, it just didn’t matter anymore.
When they finally broke apart, foreheads pressed together, Asami laughed, beautifully breathless, and Korra felt it vibrate through her own ribs.
"I wanted to do this for so long," Asami murmured, her thumb tracing the curve of Korra’s cheekbone, her smile achingly fond. Korra grinned back, dizzy with it, and kissed her again before she could think of something clever to say.
Korra didn’t know how long they stayed like that, trading soft presses of lips, the occasional nip, the quiet gasps between, but she knew she wouldn’t have cared if years slipped past them. Asami’s fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of her neck, sending sparks down her spine each time they tightened.
The flower behind Asami’s ear kept pulsing brighter each time their lips met. Korra laughed when the petals brushed her nose, and Asami chased the sound with her mouth, kissing her until Korra forgot how to breathe.
Somewhere beyond them, the winds chimed, and the leaves rustled. But Korra barely registered it — how could she with Asami’s weight warm against her? Or with the way her own hands slid up Asami’s back, mapping the dip of her spine like she could memorize her by touch alone?
Their foreheads touched lightly, breaths mingling, and when Korra finally opened her eyes, Asami was already looking back, gaze soft in a way that made Korra’s chest ache. There was no teasing quirk of her brow, no half-smirk.
Korra swallowed, pulse stuttering as she blurted out, quiet and stupidly nervous, "...Hi."
Asami laughed — really laughed, head tilting back type of laughed — the sound bright and unrestrained. Then she leaned in again, nudging their noses together before murmuring, amused and impossibly fond, "Hi."
The spirit flower behind her ear pulsed once, then twice, its glow flaring bright enough to cast their intertwined shadows across the mirrored ground. Korra barely had time to marvel at it before Asami tugged her back in by the collar, her mouth warm and smiling against hers again, and Korra thought, wildly and with amazing certainty, that she’d never get enough of this.
That she’d never get enough of her.