Chapter Text
Yue Bay had an ugly quality to it that Iroh couldn’t quite put his finger on. There was something unseen, something deep beneath the surface of the water that he didn’t like. He had no idea what though. The idea danced at the edges of his mind, just out of reach, like a dream too long after waking.
He stood in the crowd that had gathered along the narrow park by Republic City’s waterfront just after sunset, both hands clasped comfortably behind his back. He was the only one. Nearly everyone else held a candle, the few exceptions being firebenders who had either lit a finger or cradled a small flame in their cupped hands. From his position he could see the docks of the Industrial District, the few remaining United Forces battleships gleaming beside the fat freighters like fire swans among goat geese. To the north, the hazy coast of the Mo Ce peninsula loomed purple in the gathering dark. Beyond the white spires of Air Temple Island the flat waters of the bay sparkled with the last pink and orange of the faded sunset. Objectively, it was beautiful. Yet the scene left Iroh with a feeling of deep disquiet.
He scanned the park, a faint frown on his face. He was sure he’d been doing something a moment ago, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what. The little fires cast long shadows across the faces of the silent crowd. The situation was familiar enough though, even if Iroh couldn’t quite remember how he’d gotten here. In his line of work he was hardly a stranger to memorials to the fallen. It was no one he knew, but the scene gave him a pang all the same. A comrade was a comrade, even unknown.
A long low horn sounded. Iroh knew it immediately. Every United Forces ship had one for signaling in low visibility. Two more blasts followed. The crowd seemed to take a collective breath. Then all at once people began to extinguish their flames. Iroh furrowed his brow, puzzled. The thrice salute was clearly part of the memorial, but the UF hadn’t seen any action, at least not anywhere near Republic City. Yet he was certain that horn was from one of his ships. Either someone was getting busted down to ensign or Iroh had missed something important. Regardless, it was time to go back. He’d been gone long enough. Although, how long was that? When Iroh tried to think of it, the knowledge kind of… slipped.
He pulled his gaze away from the water, hoping to jog his memory as to what he’d been doing just before, and was surprised to see a young woman standing next to him, so close he was almost touching her. Iroh didn’t recognize her. There was plenty of space, too; though the park was crowded, no one was precisely jammed together. Maybe she was only using him to make it look like she wasn’t a woman alone at dusk? Well, there was nothing wrong with that. In fact, a small part of him rather liked the idea that she’d chosen him for safety.
Iroh studied the woman out of the corner of his eye. She looked about his age or perhaps a few years younger, her long black hair pinned part way off her face. On closer inspection, she was very pretty. She was slender, though too tall to be called petite, with the kind of long, coltish legs that had always turned his head. Her pale skin and delicate features made her look almost Fire Nation, but the eyes above her extinguished candle were the light green of the northern Earth Kingdom. It was a beautiful combination. A somber white skirt suit that seemed expensive; bold yet tasteful makeup. Iroh bit his lip, thinking. It was in terrible taste to hit on a woman at a memorial, but he was single and looking, and Bumi had teased him more than once that his odds of not dying old and alone would improve dramatically if he’d actually open his mouth around a pretty girl once in a while. And she’d picked him to stand by, so she must feel at least somewhat comfortable with him.
Damn it all, but the timing was terrible.
Iroh pursed his lips. Well, if the woman was alone and using him as cover, he could at least make sure she got home safely, couldn’t he? There was some honor in that. His gaze dropped to her throat, then fingers, looking for any kind of claim before he made a complete fool of himself.
He got as far as her right hand, then froze. There was no ring though, nor any sign of betrothal that he knew. Instead, what he saw was something far stranger. For some reason she’d tied a long red string around the little finger of her right hand. A string that was, inexplicably, leading behind his back.
Iroh unclasped his own hands to look at them, somehow already knowing what he would find. The string moved with them. Sure enough, the other end was knotted in a simple bow around his own left thumb. He frowned down at it, thoroughly confused. The string itself seemed ordinary enough, but how had she gotten it on him without his noticing though? And more importantly, why?
He turned to the woman, hoping for an offered explanation, but she continued to stare in front of her. In fact, she didn’t so much as twitch. Her pale green eyes stayed fixed on the bay. Up close it looked like she’d been crying. He tried again, this time leaning a little in her direction and wiggling his hand. Nothing.
“Excuse me, Miss?” he finally whispered. “You seem to have misplaced your, um, string?”
She just watched the water. The smoke from her empty candle swirled slightly in the soft breeze. Thoughts of perhaps walking her home started to fade.
“Miss? Hello?” This time Iroh actually waved in front of her face. The woman didn’t even flinch. There was always a chance she was blind and deaf, but if so why was she here alone? Old Toph might have been able to do it, or even Lin, but seismic sense was rare enough and anyway in that case she’d have felt his movements. The only conclusion was that she was deliberately ignoring him. That was rather rude considering she was the one who’d come to stand by him in the first place.
Iroh pulled on the thread attached to his thumb. It came untied easily enough. Still the woman didn’t react. He dropped the end of the mysterious string with a huff just as she seemed to shake herself out of a thought. Finally she lowered her candle. Iroh opened his mouth to say something again, but abruptly the young woman turned away. She walked off without so much as a glance at him.
Iroh watched her go for a moment, nearly as hurt as he was angry, then started in the opposite direction towards the elevated tram that would take him south to the docks. Of all the insufferable… But he hadn’t gone ten feet when he felt a tug on his hand. He looked down to see a red string tied to his thumb in a neat bow. It stretched out behind him about thirty feet where it ended on the young woman’s little finger.
What? That made no sense at all. He’d dropped the string, and the woman hadn’t been close enough to tie it back on. What’s more, he’d have felt it for sure if she had. Iroh shook his head, baffled and more than a little unnerved, then quickly untied the string again. He didn’t get three steps this time before he felt it pull him back.
Iroh whirled and stalked back toward the retreating woman. “Hey!” he called, untying the string for a third time as he went. “Hey, you! Stop doing that!” Predictably, she ignored him. So did everyone else. It was like Iroh wasn’t even there.
Suddenly he recalled something he’d heard on a radio show once, a kind of gag whereby a host pulled pranks on innocent passersby while a microphone recorded them. That must be it. Iroh had chuckled in the moment, but he wasn’t laughing now. If this was some kind of joke, they were going to find out they’d picked the wrong man entirely. And at a memorial, no less. Well, he was certainly going to give them a piece of his mind, though he doubted whether any network would air it and damn the demerit it got him if they did. Some things were over the line.
“Hey, I’m talking to you!” he called when he was nearly upon her. “You, in the white suit, hold up!” He reached for her shoulder, determined to haul her around bodily to face him if he had to. This gag had gone on long enough.
His hand passed right through her.
Iroh staggered backwards with a yelp. No one stopped. No one in the crowd so much looked at him. But surely… there must be a thousand people here in the park! They chatted amongst themselves in twos and threes, subdued, somber. They couldn’t all be in on a radio joke, or even if they were they wouldn’t all be such good actors. It was impossible.
“Hey!” Iroh shouted. “Hey! Anybody! Anybody!” He started running from person to person, yelling in their faces, trying to shake them, anything, but each one was the same. No one saw him. No one noticed.
No, Iroh thought, his mind whirling. This isn’t a joke, it’s a nightmare. I just have to wake up. Now that I know that I’m dreaming, all I have to do is wake up. He reached up and slapped himself as hard as he could, but nothing changed. The pain felt distant, muted.
“Wake up, Iroh!” he growled and hit himself again. And again. It didn’t hurt the way it should have, but that was expected if he was asleep. Yet he also didn’t wake.
There was a light tug on his hand. He looked down. The string was back. Of course it was.
Iroh followed it with his eyes to where it connected to the young woman. Then, terrified and out of options, he started walking after her.
***
Asami drove home in silence. She did a lot of things in silence these days. Partly this was by choice. If she’d turned on the radio she might have had to hear a broadcast speculating about Amon’s whereabouts or her father’s upcoming trial, or recounting the numbers of men and women dead by their hands. If she’d gone to the United Forces memorial with someone—spirits knew who—she’d have had to face their pitying looks alongside awkward excuses for small talk. No one seemed to know what to say to Asami these days. In a lot of ways, Asami wasn’t sure what to say to herself.
The Equalist rebellion hadn’t been her fault, but she’d still been living at home. She could have seen something, or at least listened to Korra. All those people who’d been killed, the soldiers being remembered today, she might have prevented that. Asami had no idea how, but she knew she should have all the same. Why hadn’t she seen it? Her father’s obsession, the secret factories, all of it. Spirits, he’d stored the mecha tanks right under their house! Amon had led the rebellion, but Future Industries’ money and technology had been the engine that fueled it. How many of the United Forces dead might have been kissing their loved ones instead if she’d only been a tad more observant? Was it all of them?
No. Asami was better off alone.
She glanced over at the empty passenger seat as she crossed the bridge. Usually she put her purse there when she was by herself, but for some reason tonight she’d thrown it in the back. It hadn’t seemed right to put it there. In fact, the longer she drove, the more Asami felt that something was off. She couldn’t shake the feeling that her sato was somehow different than how she’d left it, and kept throwing uneasy glances at the empty seat next to her. It wasn’t a creepy feeling though. More like a heaviness. The air felt thicker than usual, and warm. Perhaps she was just tired. It had been a very long month.
Asami parked in the circular drive at the front of the house, not bothering with the garage, and went straight for a bottle of wine. She thought briefly of changing, then decided she didn’t care and flopped on the couch in the study instead. It wasn’t the largest room in the house by any means, nor the nicest, but it had a small, self-contained feel that she’d always liked.
After a while she picked up the book she’d been reading, a horror thriller called Night Falls in Hira’a. It was exactly the kind of book her father had hated. What do you expect to learn from that, darling? he’d ask, frowning over the edge of his newspaper. You’re wasting your brain. Well, Asami could waste her brain all she wanted now, couldn’t she? No one cared enough to stop her. She wished she had someone to talk about the book with though. Her father was wrong. Night Falls in Hira’a raised all kinds of interesting ethical questions. Maybe he should have read it himself.
Asami glanced around the empty room and sighed. As much as she was glad she didn’t have to suffer company, a part of her missed people all the same. Not the kind of people who would throw her sad glances and ask in hushed tones how she was doing. Regular, ordinary people. Company. Sometimes her house felt very big.
Eventually she got up and walked back into the kitchen. She gave the bottle of wine a long look, then opened the refrigerator. There was nothing inside but mustard. Asami closed it in a huff and poured herself another glass. She didn’t feel like going out again any more than she had the energy to try and make something out of whatever dry ingredients might be in the pantry. It wasn’t like she was hungry much these days. If all Asami had for dinner was wine again, well, no one would know but her.
There were perks to living alone.
***
Iroh found himself alone in the kitchen of an unfamiliar house several hours later. It was airy and bright, with large vaulted ceilings and what looked like the latest appliances. It was also spotless. Aside from the woman’s handbag and an open bottle of wine on the counter, Iroh wouldn’t have known anyone lived here at all.
“Wake up,” he muttered, but his heart wasn’t in it. He’d tried everything he could think of back in the park, from physical abuse to running around screaming at people to throwing himself against parked satomobiles. None of it worked. Not only did he not wake up, it seemed like he could barely interact with his surroundings. Everything he touched went right through him. Everything, that was, except for the red string. Even more disturbing, he’d found he couldn’t firebend. When he’d tried to send up a standard distress flare all that had come out was a kind of shimmer. The sensations were all there, but no fire. It made Iroh feel oddly naked.
The red string now stretched from his left thumb and disappeared through a wall to his right. He’d at least managed that much. Iroh couldn’t get rid of it—though he could untie the string easily, as soon as he looked away or stopped concentrating on it it reappeared back on his finger—but he’d found that if he was stubborn enough he could put some distance between himself and the mystery woman all the same. It was a start.
He still had no idea where he was though, or why. The young woman, who he’d nicknamed “Pretty” just to call her something, had eventually walked up to an expensive-looking burgundy satomobile and gotten in. Scared of being somehow dragged behind it by his thumb, Iroh had done the only thing he could think of: he’d stepped through the solid passenger-side door. It was a bizarre sensation, mostly in the fact that there was no sensation at all. First he was outside the sato, then he was in it. At least he could sit. Iroh tried not to think about it too hard lest he suddenly sink through the seat and spill out onto the asphalt.
Pretty had started the vehicle without a word and driven off in silence. Iroh sat morosely next to her and stared out the window. Every once in a while he gave his leg a half-hearted pinch. He could feel himself, of course, but it didn’t really hurt. The pain was dull and far away. It was hard to hurt yourself in a dream. They’d driven south, through the Industrial District and up into what must be one of Republic City’s ritzier neighborhoods. Before long they were through a wrought iron gate and pulling up to one of the largest mansions Iroh had ever seen.
“What is this place?” he’d asked before remembering she couldn’t hear him. In truth, it reminded him a bit of the palace back home. Whoever lived here must be one of the wealthiest people in the United Republic.
The woman parked in the drive and turned off the satomobile. But she didn’t get out, nor did any staff come to meet her. Instead she just sat there, staring at the steps leading up to the front door, a faint frown on her face.
“Back again,” she said quietly. “Just go in.”
Iroh blinked, stunned. It was the first thing anyone had said to him in over an hour.
“Where are we?” he asked quickly. “Who are you? What is this place?”
Pretty looked right through him. Then she sighed and opened the door of the sato. It took Iroh a moment to realize she must have been speaking to herself.
“Dammit,” he hissed as he felt the familiar pull of the string. Iroh took a breath and stepped through the door to follow her up the stairs to the house.
Once inside, he was certain he’d never been here before. Iroh didn’t spend much time in Republic City, and when he did he was usually at the docks, on council business at City Hall, or visiting family friends on Air Temple Island. He hadn’t recognized anything once he’d gone past the downtown limits. Had there been a gala here once perhaps, or a meeting? Not that he could recall. And he was convinced he’d never seen Pretty before, either. Spirits, he would have remembered a girl who looked like that.
Yet he was tied to her all the same.
Pretty hadn’t spoken to him or anyone else the rest of the evening. Instead, she’d poured herself a large glass of wine from a bottle in the kitchen, then spent a quiet evening curled up with a book on one of the massive couches in the adjacent study. Iroh would have given anything at this point for the ability to do likewise, but as with the satomobile and everything else when he’d tried to pick a book up off the shelf his fingers had gone right through it. It was incredibly frustrating. This was quickly turning into the most boring dream he’d ever had.
At first Iroh had passed the time looking around the study to see if he could figure out where he was supposed to be. The house felt too real and detailed to be a simple figment of his imagination. For one, it was truly enormous. This small study alone must contain a thousand books, some of which Iroh hadn’t read or even heard of. And this was a single room—a house of this size would have dozens. He must have been here at some point, or at least seen a picture. Iroh wasn’t sure he could have invented such a place if he’d tried.
But for all its size, the house, or at least the parts he could see, contained very few clues as to its owners. Pretty was clearly the only one home. There were no portraits of family or ancestors, no written names or signs. The closest he came were a few framed pictures laying face-down in one of the corners, and what looked like corresponding blank spaces on the wall and fireplace mantle. That was interesting, but hardly helpful. Iroh couldn’t turn them over.
Eventually he had settled for standing behind Pretty and reading her book over her shoulder. He’d long ago given up trying to talk. But even that had gotten old after a while. The story was interesting, if rather unconventional—there seemed to be a lot of monsters with tentacles terrorizing a lonely campsite—but Pretty read too fast and Iroh found himself missing the last third of every other page. Also, hadn’t he heard something once about not being able to read in dreams?
So, bored out of his mind and not a little bit terrified, Iroh had once again gone exploring. This time he’d focused on testing the string, trying to understand its properties and whether there was a way to free himself. In short, there wasn’t. No matter what he did, the string was back on his finger as soon as he stopped concentrating on it entirely.
He could, however, with some effort kind of stretch it, up to a point. The maximum range seemed to be about a hundred feet. Which was why he was now standing around the corner in the unused kitchen. There was nothing enlightening about the room, however. It was just a kitchen. He wasn’t even hungry.
“Wake up, Iroh.” Iroh put his face in his hands and massaged his temples. “Please just fucking wake up.” That’s when he spotted the telephone. It was down the hallway in a kind of nook. Iroh wasn’t used to home telephones, but he supposed someone this wealthy might have one. Was he supposed to call for help? That didn’t make a whole lot of sense in a dream, but then why add the detail? It was out of place enough that it might be important. Iroh couldn’t get to it though. Not yet.
He was about to try for it anyway when he heard the soft pad of footsteps behind him. He turned to see Pretty come into the kitchen. She stared hard at the bottle of wine, then set down her empty glass in the sink instead. She rinsed it carefully, shoulders slumped, then stood it upside-down in the rack to dry. It was the only thing in it.
Something about the whole scene suddenly struck Iroh as rather sad. He valued his own solitary time and always had, but if this dream had taught him anything it was that there was a difference between quiet reflection and isolation. This felt like the latter. Pretty didn’t look like she was having a relaxing evening away from the frenetic pace of the world. She looked lonely. Iroh had been so wrapped up in his own distress he hadn’t stopped to wonder why she hadn’t interacted with anyone all night, either.
He walked across the kitchen to the sink, hesitated, then tried to put his hand on her shoulder.
“Are you all right?” he asked as his hand went right through her. Iroh made a frustrated noise as Pretty turned away and started walking down the hall. “Fine!” he yelled after her. “I don’t want to be here, either!”
A moment later he felt the pull of the string.
Iroh trotted after her as she made her way down the opposite hallway and up a narrow set of stairs. There was no point in fighting it. He must outweigh Pretty by 60lbs at least, but the times he’d tried digging in his heels he’d simply been dragged after her. Like his sudden ability to walk through doors, it seemed in this particular dream Iroh didn’t have much substance.
The stairway led to a long hallway with green patterned carpet and rows of doors on either side. Pretty walked into the second one on the right and closed the door after her. Iroh followed by walking right through it. He was getting more and more used to that.
The room proved to be her bedroom. Like the rest of the house it was huge and lavish, with a large four-poster canopy bed, fine white wooden furniture and its own private bathroom. Yet there was an elegance to it. The furnishings in the rest of the house were heavy and a tad ostentatious, but this room struck Iroh as distinctly feminine. The tall white curtains added a lightness to it, and the furniture was thin and delicate. The walls and carpet were a pale purple. Like Pretty herself it was, well, very pretty.
Pretty made her way over to a large walk-in closet and started unbuttoning her blouse. Iroh’s eyes snapped to her fingers, then trailed eagerly down the rest of her body. Okay. Now at least his dream was getting somewhere. He briefly thought about turning away anyhow. It was only polite. But this was his dream, right? Maybe this was his reward for putting up with the strangeness of the rest of the evening. Pretty was gorgeous, and just his type. Like as not he’d wake up alone and frustrated, but for the moment Iroh intended to enjoy this.
He felt a stirring below his belt as she stripped out of her shirt, then the white camisole beneath. Pretty didn’t seem to be putting on a show though. She deposited her clothes in a hamper, then stepped out of her skirt and hung it up somewhere inside the closet. The beige underclothes she wore were hardly the stuff of fantasies, but Iroh found himself painfully aroused anyway. A woman like Pretty could make a paper bag look like lingerie.
“I don’t suppose you can hear me now?” he said. She didn’t look at him. Instead she unfastened her bra and dumped it in the hamper along with the rest. Her breasts were modest but firm and round. The perfect size for hands. Her pale skin looked very soft. Pretty couldn’t have been much older than twenty. Iroh walked over, unable to help himself now. It was his dream, dammit. It was time to participate.
He hesitated, then reached out and caressed Pretty’s naked shoulder. His hand passed through her.
“Fuck,” he cursed. “Come on.” He tried again, this time running his fingers across one pale cheek. Despite the temptation, it didn’t feel right to touch her anywhere more intimate than that without a reaction, even in a dream. But his hand found only empty air. Iroh growled in frustration. If this was a sex dream, it was the worst one he’d ever had.
Pretty walked through him to a set of drawers and pulled out a short purple nightgown.
“You don’t need that,” Iroh said, without much hope. She put it on anyway, then disappeared into the bathroom. He rolled his eyes and walked over to sit on the bed. What the hell kind of nightmare was this? Iroh swore as soon as he woke up and settled this mess in Republic City he’d double down on getting a date. It had been a while. Clearly he had a lot of pent up frustration in this area.
Mess in Republic City. He stopped. That had tickled something in the back of his mind. That’s what he’d been doing, of course. Before. Iroh had been on his way to Republic City. Avatar Korra had sent the fleet an emergency message, and he was on his way to help along with the entirety of the First Division. They had been set to arrive tomorrow. For some reason the idea now filled him with a deep, pulsing dread.
“But the Equalists are just a street gang,” he muttered to himself. The fact that they’d somehow sent the Council running for the hills had come as a total shock. They were politicians, not fighters, but still. Republic City had a very effective police force. Yet he could reach no one in command via radio. The situation was disturbing enough that Iroh had ordered the entire fleet to set sail for the United Republic. It couldn’t hurt to be prepared. At the very worst he’d get a reprimand for wasting fuel.
Iroh rubbed at his face, trying to remember more. He’d spent the evening finalizing the city stabilization plan with his staff. It was fairly straightforward. Use overwhelming force to secure City Hall and augment any policing efforts. Secure the Council as well, and aid the Avatar if there was still fighting to be done. Establish a perimeter and assist with civilian safety, or evacuation if necessary. Make contact with Amon and his people and try to wrestle negotiations away from that snake Tarrlok so they actually stood a chance. Iroh had wrapped up the planning that night with his senior staff and then… nothing. A blur. That must have been when he’d fallen asleep though. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately. At least he’d finally remembered something. There was some comfort in that.
Iroh shook his head as Pretty came out of the bathroom. The lack of makeup did nothing to dim her beauty. If anything, he liked her better like this. Her dark hair fell loose around her shoulders in dark silken waves. All of her looked very touchable. There was something intimate about it all, too. Iroh had the distinct feeling he was seeing a side of this woman that few others did.
His eyes followed Pretty as she moved towards him, his insides squirming. He didn’t know what to do. It was clear he couldn’t touch her. She couldn’t see him, wasn’t naked, and it now seemed unlikely that either of those things was going to change. But it wasn’t like he could leave. Even if the red string hadn’t tied them together, he had no idea where he was or how to wake himself up. There wasn’t much Iroh could do besides sit here and watch her.
Pretty peeled back the blankets on one side of the bed and snuggled inside, pulling the covers all the way up to her chin. It was actually kind of cute. Iroh looked around, shrugged, then stood and unbuttoned his uniform jacket. When he hung it up on the back of a chair, it surprisingly stayed. With that small success he took off his boots, breeches, and shirt until he stood in the bedroom in nothing but his shorts and undershirt. His lingering interest in Pretty was rather obvious in this state of undress. For the first time all night he was grateful she couldn’t see him.
Iroh took a last look around the room. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do now. He wasn’t exactly tired, but he was certainly tired of this nightmare. Maybe if he fell asleep in the dream he’d finally wake up? Iroh walked barefoot to the bed, then climbed in the other side. It was a little odd as he couldn’t pull back the covers, but there was no reason he couldn’t lay there for a while. It didn’t seem like there was much else he could do.
“Is this okay?” he asked the back of Pretty’s head. She didn’t respond. Iroh reached out and tried to run his fingers through her hair. The odd red string stood out bright against his pale skin. “This is very strange,” he said to no one. “What am I supposed to do?”
There was no answer.