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Nov-08-13, 08:52 PM (EDT)
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"Prelude/Trailer: S5M7-TbS3"
 
   LAST EDITED ON Nov-10-13 AT 12:15 PM (EST)
 
[FYI: This is labeled as it is, as a prelude/trailer instead of a teaser, because this particular scene is not in the movement itself. It comes from the "cut, but happened" pile, having been removed from the story for length reasons and because its point of view is slightly cross-grained with the rest of the narrative. Compare those other-perspective short films the BBC have taken to putting out before selected Doctor Who episodes, which they will insist for some baffling reason on calling "prequels" when they are clearly no such thing. --G.]

                       WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 2410
REPUBLIC CITY, DIQIU

Emily Wong was one of only a very few Section 4 writers to take
her own photographs, and the only one who processed her own film. When
asked why, she would usually say that she found it relaxing, or that
she'd had to do so in her first job, at the perpetually cash-strapped
Desert Bluffs Gazette, and the habit was now ingrained. The truth was,
she just didn't trust the Tribune's photo editors, and besides, their
lab wouldn't have known what to do with Minox film.
So, after her brush-off from Watari Karasu (which she was fairly
sure wasn't his name) and Avatar Korra outside Narook's, she'd walked
home in a minor dudgeon and cleared her head in the little darkroom
she'd made out of a walk-in closet. She hadn't taken many photos at the
noodlery, not because she was worried about being discovered, but
because she'd started to feel like a voyeur. Occupational hazard in her
line of work, of course, but the feeling had been especially strong
tonight.
The whole odyssey with the mystery couple and the new Team
Avatar had been a curious thing, but tonight it had plain gotten weird.
The mystery couple, so obviously honeymooning in town just days before,
had evidently gone their separate ways. The woman with the pink hair
was at Kwong's, dressed as a man (albeit obviously not trying to fool
anyone into thinking she was one; a strange style, but Emily had to
admit she made it work), dining with another woman, identity entirely
unknown. And Watari Karasu, whoever he was, was down at Narook's, a
place he obviously knew well and was comfortable in... dining with the
Avatar.
There were other people at the table with them, of course - two
of them were unknown to Emily, apart from the fact that she'd seen them
at the group dinner at Chau's, and one was the firebender from the
Temple Island Fire Ferrets bending team. Emily wasn't very interested
in them, though. Korra was the Fire Ferrets' franchise owner, had been
for an age, and her dining with one or all of them was in no way
unusual. The other two were obviously martial artists, which stood to
reason if they were members of the new Team Avatar, and they weren't
doing anything that cried out to the reporter's instincts the way Karasu
and the Avatar were. Because whatever the other three women at that
table were doing, it was obvious to Emily Wong that -those- two were on
a -date.-
She couldn't hear their conversation from over here (and
probably wouldn't have felt comfortable listening to it if she could've;
she did have limits), but from their body language as they chatted and
laughed with their tablemates, Emily felt she didn't really have to know
the words to recognize the song. They were plainly the sort of couple
who had a lot of inside jokes, and the kind of rapport that enabled them
to tell them instinctively. There was a lot of elbow-nudging and
shoulder-bumping going on over there, a lot of little touches (in
particular, she couldn't seem to keep her hands off his hair) and
smiling eye contacts, and the kind of laughter that came from shared
experiences. And at one point there was some kind of competition
involving Super Noodle Bowls.
For a person of Emily's age and education, seeing the Avatar
acting like a teenager with her first serious boyfriend had been more
than a little unnerving, and that was -before- you took into account the
fact that the man involved was (recently!) married to someone else.
Now, though, developing the few frames she had taken, she found
something that turned all her expectations sideways on her: one frame so
affecting she didn't even think of sharing it with her editor, let alone
the world at large. In it, Karasu had turned to address some cheerful
remark to the teenage swordswoman across the table from him, pointing
his chopsticks at her. Turned that way, he couldn't see the look Korra,
right next to him, was giving him.
That look had lasted for less than a second, so fleeting that
Emily hadn't registered it herself while her minicamera was committing
it to film. Now, as she stood in her darkroom at home and watched the
ghostly image resolve at the bottom of her developer tray, she realized
there was far more going on here than the usual crap she had to cover.
She waited for the picture to develop fully, then tonged it out
and moved on down the line, taking comfort, as she always did, in the
well-worn rhythms of the ritual: stop bath, fixer, a final wash. Job
done, she hung the print up to dry and stood looking at it in the red
glow of her darkroom safety light, minutely examining the expression on
the Avatar's face as she glanced at the man sitting next to her.
It was a loving look, yes, that much was unmistakable; but one
so sentimental, so... so -wistful- it was almost heartbreaking. That
wasn't the face of a woman looking at her lover. Emily didn't know
-what- it was.
The realization, when it came, was like a slap to the back of
the head. Something -had- been going on over at that corner table, but
it wasn't the sordid little icon-with-feet-of-clay business Emily had
automatically assumed it must be. She'd been looking at Korra and
Karasu from the perspective of - spirits help her - a society page hack,
looking for the drama. The sensational angle.
The dirt.
That fleeting instant of time, captured by the lens of her tiny
camera without the eye behind it consciously registered what they both
had seen... that wasn't dirt. That was something else, something her
instincts told her was more deeply personal than she had ever suspected.
Emily shook herself, feeling vaguely unclean about what she had
believed. "Right," she said to the drying photograph. "It's time I
remembered how to be a reporter again."


Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
will present

Undocumented Features Future Imperfect
Symphony of the Sword No. 5

Seventh Movement:
Taken By Storm, Part 3
Goodbye and Hello, As Always

sometime fairly soon, we hope


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
Prelude/Trailer: S5M7-TbS3 [View All] Gryphonadmin Nov-08-13 TOP
   RE: Prelude Trailer: S5M7-TbS3 JeanneHedge Nov-08-13 1
      RE: Prelude Trailer: S5M7-TbS3 Proginoskes Nov-15-13 4
   RE: Prelude Trailer: S5M7-TbS3 Mercutio Nov-09-13 2
      RE: Prelude Trailer: S5M7-TbS3 Gryphonadmin Nov-20-13 6
   RE: Prelude Trailer: S5M7-TbS3 Verbena Nov-10-13 3
   RE: Prelude/Trailer: S5M7-TbS3 Offsides Nov-19-13 5


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