Curse of the idle mind

Apparently he had struck a nerve, his ability to read the emotions of others, or at least guess at them, proving fairly accurate again. He took some kind of solace in that, somewhere in his mind, that his talent for that had carried over from one world to the next, that the people here were similar enough to the people from his previous world that he could still apply it.

He watched the boy out of the corner of his eye, still walking, still half-concentrating on not losing control of the inherent awkwardness of pushing the wheelbarrow. "Sounds to me like you've heard enough of that." He said instead, his voice quiet again, his steps not slowing - Korbin would have to want to keep up if he wanted to hear him.

"Sometimes it doesn't get better." He admitted softly. He had known tales of lovers who couldn't physically take living in a world where their partner wasn't, whose heart gave out and sent their soul into the abyss to follow them. He couldn't help but think of his own situation, as one often did, of how sometimes he remembered that his entire home world was lost to him, permanently inaccessible - for all intents and purposes, dead to him.

It never got better. It just got easier to carry. To hide.

He kept walking.

chulane

Lonely shadows following me
Lonely ghosts come a-calling

Finally, someone who would admit that much. Korbin nodded to himself, knowing the other wouldn't see. He stopped. Let Chulane push his wheelbarrow. It was rather pointless to chase after him. This was not someone he knew, or even liked. They absolutely did not get along. Wouldn't matter even if none of that was true.

It wouldn't get better. Days would come and go, and Weaver would be gone in all of them. In no version of the future would she ever smile at him again. Or jab a finger in his side. Or kick his ass, then offer him a hand so he could get back on his feet. Or call him out for being a grouch. He would never see her again.

"No," he said, and turned his back with tears burning hot in the eyes. The pain cleched around his chest, and just breathing was painful. How long since he had eaten? How long since he had slept? The anger fizzled out and drowned in the weariness. "Sometimes it doesn't."

Sometimes, all you could do was to wait for the end. So far, running to meet it had not gone too well. Too many busybodies around.

Korbin started to walk off.

Thousand voices dead at my feet
Now I'm gone, now I'm gone, now I'm gone

He heard the words, even if Korbin spoke them with his back to him. He heard the hitching breath, the pain behind them. He had wanted to like Korbin, to be his friend, but such a thing required both parties to be on the same page - and Korbin had made it quite clear he was reading a different book. Still, Chulane was a caring individual, behaving this way only because past experience with Korbin told him if he tried to show he cared about the boy in any way, the boy reacted… poorly.

He stopped walking, and reached into a pocket. Before Korbin could get out of his reach, he stood in his path, proffering the biscuits he had plucked from the depths of his own jacket. "Try them," he said, pressing them into the boy's hand, looking over the frozen-tearful face of the boy before him, with a frown on his own face. He sighed. Was he really going to let the boy wander aimlessly still? "Why did you follow me, just now?" he asked gently.

chulane

Lonely shadows following me
Lonely ghosts come a-calling

Footsteps chirruped and shuffled after him, and he hadn't taken many steps before Chulane was blocking his path again. Intentionally this time. Korbin stopped. Looked down at the biscuits, and was reminded of the first time they had met. He had been a bird then, and the crumbled cookies Chuy offered had gone to waste in the snow.

He took one. Turned it over between gnarled fingers, numb with cold, and nibbled at it. It was dry, and in his parched mouth it tasted like ash. Most things did, these days. He didn't try to eat more.

"No reason. No reason not to." he said hoarsely, with a shrug. Korbin looked away, gaze flitting everywhere but at the man. "Why did you tell me to come?" It had never worked in the past. Did the guy really expect anything to be different not?

Well, why not. Everything was different. All Korbin's reasons for thinking and acting, doing and being had been taken away. He should feel liberated and free, now that he could remake himself however he wanted... but the cost was just too high.

Thousand voices dead at my feet
Now I'm gone, now I'm gone, now I'm gone

He was surprised, again, when the boy actually took the biscuit offered, and lifted to his lips to try. They weren't Chuy's best batch, but he was still getting used to the subtle differences in available ingredients between this world and his last. He was surprised again when the boy answered him, when he actually offered a response - he wasn't sure what he was expecting. Korbin wouldn't meet his gaze, and Chuy didn't mind, he didn't push the issue of eye contact, knowing it to be an arbitrary measure of one's engagement anyway - some people just preferred not to look at another's eyes, others did. Chuy wouldn't hold it against the boy to feel overwhelmed by the notion at such a time as now, of all times.

"No reason. No reason not to." He says back, his voice softer and smoother than the boy's. He shrugged nonchalantly. He hadn't really had a plan, hadn't expected to run into the boy, assumed that the boy would never seek him out intentionally. "But you can follow me back to the lodge. Get some real food in you." He paused, looking over the boy, finally taking in all that was presented to him. The unkemptness, the ash, the state of disrepair. He looked like a boy grieving, there could be no doubt. "You could stay there too." He added, softer still.

chulane

Lonely shadows following me
Lonely ghosts come a-calling

No reason. No plan. No intent, at least none revealed. Arbitrary acts of kindness; Korbin had always been allergic to them. Loren's casually offered healing kit had sent him into a towering fury once, because it came free of charge.

His stomach turned at the mention of food. Whether from hunger or nausea he didn't know; possibly both, cause and effect. Flitting images came to mind of the places he had woken up in lately. The Kraai - he couldnt stand the sight of it - the lodge of the elders, the raven aviary, the crappy room at the old tavern... He'd spent that morning heaving his guts out in a snow drift, with sledgehammers pounding the inside of his skull. His own home was a burned out husk, it's charred remains an echo of his heart.

It was Loren's fault he needed a place to sleep at all. A pile of snow in an empty alley would be his preference, but too many watchful eyes prevented that.

"Why?" he asked, voice as dull as it was suspicious. "Why are you offering this?"  Korbin wanted to rage against the niceness, the consideration - he didn't want it! - but it would require more energy and committment than he possessed. He was tired, and constantly fighting these people wore on him.

Thousand voices dead at my feet
Now I'm gone, now I'm gone, now I'm gone

Why? Korbin kept asking, and Chuy only wanted to ask the question back at him. Why not? Why shouldn't he be kind, be caring, be open to supporting those he barely knew? Why shouldn't he want to see if he could affect positive change on the world around him, even in little ways?

Why did Korbin resist it so much?

"You did the same for me, not long ago." He said instead of issuing a challenging barrage of questions back.

Some might view kindness as a weakness. Others might view accepting kindness, or aid from others, as a weakness. Chulane saw both as a strength of character he could only constantly strive to achieve. He would be kind, even when the world was on fire. And he would accept help, even if his pride, and ego warred against it.

He would continue to be kind in this unkind world, even if it killed him.

chulane

Lonely shadows following me
Lonely ghosts come a-calling

The boy scowled but faltered, taken aback by the response. He never thought of it as a kindness, the things he did for Chulane. No one was left to die on the Tundra, or to starve while there was food to share. That's just how things were here. Korbin had done his duty and washed his hands of the man's fate once Loren took over. Tried to, because he didn't want to get close. Didn't want to care about people. It was an inescapable fact that everyone died, and the pain he was in now only served as further proof why it was better to stay away.

Weaver had been his exception, the last remnant of the naive child who loved freely and easily. He would never let anyone get that close again.

If he didn't get involved he wouldn't come to care. If he didn't care it wouldn't hurt. It wouldn't matter if they stayed or left or died. And if he pushed them all away, they wouldn't care about him either. No one would bother him, or be hurt when it was him who died.

Because he would. They all would. It was only a matter of when.

"Oh. Well. I'm not hungry. And I have places to sleep." Not a home, but... Korbin felt no need for one. It would be a waste of effort to find somewhere.

Thousand voices dead at my feet
Now I'm gone, now I'm gone, now I'm gone

Just as no one was left to die on the Tundra, Chuy couldn't leave someone who so clearly needed help to wander aimlessly about, not without at least trying. But you couldn't help someone if that someone wouldn't accept it. He had tried that method with Korbin before, in his own way, tried to get him to just enjoy a meal with him, to engage and share and maybe even smile. He had learned from that experience, and recognised that he himself had been behaving poorly - he hated the idea that he had ever forced anything, even something as trivial as company over a meal, on an unwilling participant.

He nodded to the boy's reply, before taking another biscuit from his pocket and biting into it for himself. He frowned a bit at it - they were terrible. "Can't say I'm hungry for these either." He tossed it into the snow unceremoniously over his shoulder, before shrugging. He had done enough stacking of wood for today.

"Well, in any case, you're welcome to follow again. Cook sure knows how to make even the unhungry hungry." He didn't press the issue any further, and after stowing the wheelbarrow quickly beneath the shelter, began making his way back to the lodge.

chulane

Lonely shadows following me
Lonely ghosts come a-calling

Korbin had eaten worse than the biscuits. Frequently, especially as a raven. Compared to the aftertaste of carrion, this was banquet fare. A bit dry, sure, but if he had been of a mind, Korbin would have downed it all the same. Now, he kept turning the morsel between his fingers, aching as much from the cold as from the heavy emotions that plagued him. It was not the taste that kept him from eating.

When Chuy chucked his own piece, the boy frowned slightly, Korbin's  disapproval of the waste as reflexive as breathing. The people of Halo might still be forced to go hungry before the season was over, and this man threw away food?

He shook his head, and pocketed the nibbled biscuit. Would give it to the messenger ravens later. When Chulane put away the wheelbarrow, Korbin hesitated for a bit. Watched the man's back, weighing his options.  Part of him wanted to follow, pining for even a fraction of the warmth and comfort he and Weaver had shared. But it would not be the same. And this person could never fill the void she had left behind. Only remind him more of what was missing. Who wasn't there. What he could never have again.

So the boy shook his head and turned in the other direction, shoulders slumped in the too-big coat. "No," he simply said, just like before. Scolding himself for the loneliness, for the weak impulses to give in - he already knew it wouldn't end well - Korbin walked off. To find a fire, or a quiet place, or maybe back to the old tavern where foul drinks could numb the pain for a while.

It really didn't matter.

Thousand voices dead at my feet
Now I'm gone, now I'm gone, now I'm gone

He was disappointed.

Mostly in himself, for not being able to be there for the raven-boy, for not being able to get through to him. But then, he hadn't been able to get through to him before the world started falling apart either. Should he be so surprised that he was unable to do it now as well?

Perhaps he had gotten his hopes up, as the grief had almost let Korbin engage in a complete conversation with him, which was an improvement on what had been happening prior.

But Chuy had never been a manipulator, never been one to purposely twist a situation just to get a desired specific outcome, or to force something on another against their will. He almost wished that he was a master manipulator, that he was able to get the boy to a place where he could be pointed in the direction of a way out of this dark place of grief and despair.

But he wasn't.

Normally Chuy wasn't one to waste wantonly either. But he knew some bird would pick it up, or otherwise some other wildlife. The biscuits were barely fit for human consumption, but he didn't turn the ones left in his pocket out to the snow, also keeping them to feed some farm animal that he would come across on his journey eventually.

"For whatever it's worth, Korbin, I am sorry you're feeling like shit." Sorry that you're hurting, that you have to go through this, that you won't let me or anyone else near you so that you don't have to go through it alone… The list could go on and on, but he didn't elaborate his spoken words any further.

One could only help another if that other wanted the help.

So they parted ways, Chuy to the lodge that Korbin had secured for him, and Korbin to whatever comforts (or punishments?) his grief-addled-self thought he deserved.

--

Fin!

chulane