life's an ocean, through the motions

[futureinventor]

Who: Asami (futureinventor) & Friends
What: event prompts and september catch-all!
When: throughout september!
Where: various!

Content Warnings: sept event warnings probably apply here, will update if there are any additional ones!

Comments

[arclightning]

This has Deerington written all over it.

[ Which just figures. It figures that the horror and all would follow them here, and it's only minorly helpful that Asami is here in the boat with him, very much alive. It proves that the figure up there on the pole isn't actually Asami, which also proves that Trench's gods are equally determined to mess with them.

Mako swallows and shifts closer, drawing himself up like he's going to be a shield between Asami and the smell and the sight. ]

This is—this kind of thing happened a lot in the dream. We have to... I don't know. Figure out why, or we're probably stuck here with...

[futureinventor]

[She looks up, steeling herself so she can try to figure out where they are and how to not be here anymore. That's when she spots the slumped but still somehow proud familiar figure on the bank over Mako's shoulder.]

Oh no, Mako... Mako, it's dad...

[arclightning]

What?

[ Asami's face looking like that is never a good thing, and Mako knows that tone in her voice, has heard it too many times for his own comfort. He twists, his brow furrowed, and comes face-to-face with gray hair and glasses and so much rot. A crow perches on Hiroshi's slumped shoulder, yanking at his face.

Mako's breath catches.

Hiroshi Sato is a complicated person for him.

He'd been so accepting, so willing to help, a lifeline, even, when he and Bolin were firmly in the dark. He'd extended a hand covered in poison and then used it against his own daughter and everything she'd worked for, and Mako still, in some part of himself, hasn't gotten over the stinging reminder of the true fact he'd forgotten: never to trust things that seem too good to be true. He'd gotten caught up in the fantasy, and it had hurt to crash to the ground.

It had hurt so much more for Asami, though.

Mako's hand lands at her back, either holding her up or holding himself up or both, it's unclear. His voice is a rough, low thing. ]

I don't know what this place is playing at but I'm not into it. You hear me? [ The pitch of his voice rises, carrying over the awful river, bouncing off stone. ] I'm not playing! Get us out of here!

[ He knows it isn't going to work. He knows that there's always a catch to these things, always something they have to do or solve in order to leave. It's never as easy as opting out, but his feelings are a tangled mess. There is so much hurt on this river, staring them both in the face. What's the connection? Think, Mako. There's a pattern, and he just needs to find it. ]

You, and Korra, and your dad. You're both alive, so it's not dead people, and it isn't people who are here.