KORBIN
Leave my loneliness unbroken!
- quit the bust above my door!
- quit the bust above my door!
It did not really matter who tried. No one got through to Korbin right now. Loren might force him to stay, Noah could sit around all he wanted, Kiada could rage and roar, Chulane weedle and coax, but he turned his back on all of them, if in different ways. Their presence made no difference. They did not matter, their feelings could not move him, their words held no sway. He just did not believe it when they claimed to care, said his existence had meaning. How could it? Their lives would go on whether he was there or not. The world would not stop spinning, the sun would still rise... and the unknown had lost all its wonder and delight.
Incurious. Apathetic. Indifferent. Hopeless.
The future was a desert, and the oasis of joy and peace were too few, too far in between to make the journey worth it. Korbin was tired. Bone weary, exhausted from trying so hard for so long, and all in vain. How old had he been when he first lost someone? Eight, maybe. Ten years later, and four funerals, he hadn't gotten anywhere. And all that lay before him was desolation. Lonely wastes where shadows stirred, faceless and nameless, shallow relations that would inevitably end.
Weaver once said that she would rather treasure the brief joy and carry the pain, because she never expected it to last. He had envied her that bright outlook. But he still couldn't share it. Korbin just wasn't that strong. He had never been able to love by half, or do anything without pouring all of himself into it.
And look where that left him. Trapped in a never ending spiral, where grief and pain, love and loss and hopelessness fed into one another until he drowned and couldn't breathe. There was nothing left in him. No more to offer, no will to accept anything from others.
Hollow.
What the reindeer wanted from him was beyond Korbin. Couldn't he see that he had nothing left to give?
Incurious. Apathetic. Indifferent. Hopeless.
The future was a desert, and the oasis of joy and peace were too few, too far in between to make the journey worth it. Korbin was tired. Bone weary, exhausted from trying so hard for so long, and all in vain. How old had he been when he first lost someone? Eight, maybe. Ten years later, and four funerals, he hadn't gotten anywhere. And all that lay before him was desolation. Lonely wastes where shadows stirred, faceless and nameless, shallow relations that would inevitably end.
Weaver once said that she would rather treasure the brief joy and carry the pain, because she never expected it to last. He had envied her that bright outlook. But he still couldn't share it. Korbin just wasn't that strong. He had never been able to love by half, or do anything without pouring all of himself into it.
And look where that left him. Trapped in a never ending spiral, where grief and pain, love and loss and hopelessness fed into one another until he drowned and couldn't breathe. There was nothing left in him. No more to offer, no will to accept anything from others.
Hollow.
What the reindeer wanted from him was beyond Korbin. Couldn't he see that he had nothing left to give?
Quoth the Raven,
"Nevermore."
"Nevermore."
