[ The confession gets a raised eyebrow until he remembers: Right. South Pole. A mental image always comes to him in these moments, probably wildly inaccurate but vivid, of turreted igloos and sparse roads across a frozen tundra, a town of thickly-swaddled inuits guarded by wooden spires of boundary walls. He'll have to ask her for clarifying details at some point. To Korra, he says only, ] You'll doze off in a minute. It's just lots of gurgling and splashing.
[ Dimly, he thinks she'd have enjoyed the hot springs he'd once visited an age ago, in his own homeworld. Craters of lava rock, fed by a constant natural surge of hot water and sulfurous mist, out in Reykjavik. You could swim there even as the snow fell and the temperatures dropped to 0º C -- wonderfully warm, shrouded in mist, buoyed by the hot water. ]
[ He lets the tub fill as he steps out of his shoes, the tiles cool beneath his bare feet. He's long made his peace with physicalities, so there's no fuss to the way he undresses; he strips off his coat, his shirt, then sloughs off his jeans, clothes piled up neatly and set on the rack at the corner. In his shorts, he pauses at the bathroom doorway to regard Korra, ] Strip. I'll get drinks. [ Yes, he is deliberately ignoring all medical advice about alcohol in hot tubs. The small indoor bar -- stocked but likely obnoxiously pricey -- is nonetheless something he plans to make use of. ]
[ (The idea of what Korra might have on under her hoodie and jeans doesn't even occur to him.) ]
action;
[ Dimly, he thinks she'd have enjoyed the hot springs he'd once visited an age ago, in his own homeworld. Craters of lava rock, fed by a constant natural surge of hot water and sulfurous mist, out in Reykjavik. You could swim there even as the snow fell and the temperatures dropped to 0º C -- wonderfully warm, shrouded in mist, buoyed by the hot water. ]
[ He lets the tub fill as he steps out of his shoes, the tiles cool beneath his bare feet. He's long made his peace with physicalities, so there's no fuss to the way he undresses; he strips off his coat, his shirt, then sloughs off his jeans, clothes piled up neatly and set on the rack at the corner. In his shorts, he pauses at the bathroom doorway to regard Korra, ] Strip. I'll get drinks. [ Yes, he is deliberately ignoring all medical advice about alcohol in hot tubs. The small indoor bar -- stocked but likely obnoxiously pricey -- is nonetheless something he plans to make use of. ]
[ (The idea of what Korra might have on under her hoodie and jeans doesn't even occur to him.) ]