It’s not dying I’m afraid of
”Gods, Korbin,” she rolls her eyes at him. ”Fuck, who cares if they are entitled assholes as long as they are entitled assholes who do a decent job?” She takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly, trying to collect herself. Because honestly, she couldn’t do this. She couldn’t listen to him rail against the world as if there was something to change about it. Send them out into the tundra for a week? Sure. Ask them to run laps with an ursur? Hell, why not. It changes nothing in the end. But if it would make him shut up about it, she’d back the idea all the same.
”I’m going to teach you what mom would have,” she says instead. ”Except I’m going to do it way worse than she would have, because she taught it to us over years. You get the crash course. Shit in life will rarely go your way, Korbin. You won’t like half the people you meet, maybe more. You’ll look over your shoulder at every dark turn and alley. So either you can run scared, angry, hurt, whatever, or you can learn to see what else might be there.”
She pauses for a moment, still walking, but her eyes turned to him to see how he might take this lesson. Straia would have sat him down at the bar, given him a better version of this speech, and would have hammered in the lesson at every opportunity. He would be given no such luxury now. ”Or, instead, you can find the opportunity. Hotaru may or may not stay here, but does it matter? We get a spa, which means more business, which means better livelihoods for a lot of people that do live here. The same is true of the Kraai, whether you like Sunjata or not. He helped make a thing happen and gave it to me. That bar is mine Korbin, and we’ve hired caretakers and chefs and eventually another bartender or two, people who otherwise might end up begging in the streets to make it through Deepfrost.”
She stops again, giving him a moment to think about it in a different way. ”I’m not sure what the opportunity is with Neron yet. Sometimes it’s not so obvious at first, but I promise you, Mom would have found one. She also would have made us try to find it, and told us that sometimes these things take time. Sometimes you just roll with the punches and you wait. There will be an opportunity.” She already knew one path through, though it wasn’t fully open yet. There may be others she is unaware of. ”While you wait, you play nice, you collect information, and you use it. We have each other, and we can learn what we need and decide what to do. But you damn well can’t do that if you chase those potential sources away with your shitty attitude.”
”I’m going to teach you what mom would have,” she says instead. ”Except I’m going to do it way worse than she would have, because she taught it to us over years. You get the crash course. Shit in life will rarely go your way, Korbin. You won’t like half the people you meet, maybe more. You’ll look over your shoulder at every dark turn and alley. So either you can run scared, angry, hurt, whatever, or you can learn to see what else might be there.”
She pauses for a moment, still walking, but her eyes turned to him to see how he might take this lesson. Straia would have sat him down at the bar, given him a better version of this speech, and would have hammered in the lesson at every opportunity. He would be given no such luxury now. ”Or, instead, you can find the opportunity. Hotaru may or may not stay here, but does it matter? We get a spa, which means more business, which means better livelihoods for a lot of people that do live here. The same is true of the Kraai, whether you like Sunjata or not. He helped make a thing happen and gave it to me. That bar is mine Korbin, and we’ve hired caretakers and chefs and eventually another bartender or two, people who otherwise might end up begging in the streets to make it through Deepfrost.”
She stops again, giving him a moment to think about it in a different way. ”I’m not sure what the opportunity is with Neron yet. Sometimes it’s not so obvious at first, but I promise you, Mom would have found one. She also would have made us try to find it, and told us that sometimes these things take time. Sometimes you just roll with the punches and you wait. There will be an opportunity.” She already knew one path through, though it wasn’t fully open yet. There may be others she is unaware of. ”While you wait, you play nice, you collect information, and you use it. We have each other, and we can learn what we need and decide what to do. But you damn well can’t do that if you chase those potential sources away with your shitty attitude.”
weaver
it’s dying without ever having lived
