Curse of the idle mind

An idle mind was his worst enemy. There was only so much of Kia's attention he could hoard for himself, though he had slowly become more familiar with the Grounders under her care, and helped them where he could. He helped anyone he could - it was in his nature, to support, to help, to take on their burdens, for in comparison his seemed to small, so insignificant, so pointless to waste energy or time on.

The people of Halo had endured so much recently, so much wanton destruction, death, change. And for Chuy, being thrust from a stable, comfortable happy life into this place of turmoil, of chaos and pain and grief - it evoked a different, if similar, emotion from him.

So he sought out jobs to do, things to keep him busy, lest he stew on those emotions too long and become lost amongst them. A local needed wood moved from a shed farther back on their property to under a lean-to shelter against their house - it was physical labour, drone work that could be done with his mind switched off, disengaged, and he gladly accepted the work. So with a wheelbarrow of wood he trekked a path in the snow, back and forth, back and forth, not knowing how much the man wanted or needed but deciding to do as much as would fit beneath the shelter by the house anyway - at least it would take up most of his day; another day to survive the pressing numbness.

chulane

Lonely shadows following me
Lonely ghosts come a-calling

Rumors had a way of spreading, in a small town where idleness was forced on people. There was little else to do for many but talk, and in the evening wagging tongues spread the latest news with equal parts pity and pleasure. By now, everyone knew that the new Warden was dead. Their Warden, their Weaver. The Hale girl, who had gone through so much. And now her brother was all alone, and had lost it. Gone snow crazed and burned down the family house. Almost burned in himself, but was saved at the last moment.

Of course, no one talked about it where he could hear. But conversations hushed whenever he appeared, and Korbin felt their eyes on him wherever he went.

He was being watched. Maybe it was Loren's doing or some unspoken agreement of the villagers, but there was always someone around. And if he went outside, one or two discreet shadows trailed after. To keep him from doing anything stupid, perhaps, or maybe from genuine concern. Once, not so long ago, he had loved these people for the solidarity.

Now, Korbin hated it. All of it. The looking, the talking, the way every voice grew soft and tender when addressing him, the pity in their eyes. He hated that they kept him 'safe', and loathed every breath he breathed. No longer did he run around with firewood and blankets, nail roofs or distribute food. From being everywhere and doing everything he had gone to doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. The expression on his face was dull and listless, his clothes unwashed, face haggard and sleepdeprived.

Stalking aimlessly through the town, he showed utter disregard for the cold, with far too little clothes on for the bitter temperature. The hair was singed by fire and uneven, the dark leather coat too thin and tattered, burned as well... Ice was settling in his hair and on the clothes, but Korbin didn't care if he was frostbitten. His gaze passed over Chulane when the man caught up to him with the wheelbarrel, but there was no real spark of recognition. He just stopped to let him pass, without saying anything.

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

Stacking wood into the wheelbarrow, re-stacking it into a new pile, trudging back to grab more wood - it was a dull routine to get into, but he welcomed it. The movement kept him warm, though he still wore many layers against the bitter cold. One had to, in this region, else one would lose their nose, their fingers, their toes, to the frozen tundra's favourite disease - frostbite.

Rumours may have travelled, but he had kept himself carefully guarded from them. Though he and raven-boy had struck up some kind of pained, polite amicability, Chulane was not so fooled as to think that the kid looked to him as a friend - at best, they were acquaintances. Korbin had made it quite clear he wanted nothing to do with him, and he had done his best to grant those wishes.

He knew what Korbin had been through, in the same general sense that the rest of Halo did - the last of his family to survive in a region where tragedy struck suddenly and seemingly all at once. It wasn't fair, but then, life wasn't fair. Chulane's path came up alongside the boy's in silence, his icy gaze flicking to the boy's face, his voice murmuring a low "Korbin," in soft greeting.

When the boy stopped, he took it to mean that he wanted something from him, not that he was stopping to let Chuy pass. So Chuy stopped too, leaning on the handles of the wheelbarrow as he raised a brow to the boy in question. "Korbin?" he pressed, a touch of concern growing within him as he truly saw the listless boy before him, the unkempt well, everything.

He waited for a response, for a hint, for anything, his thoughts churning slowly, as he tried to reach the boy with his words without overstepping the careful barrier of politeness they both had built.

chulane

Lonely shadows following me
Lonely ghosts come a-calling

The obstacle in his path stopped too, and now the way was blocked. The young raven just stood there, waiting. Didn't return Chulane's greeting, or say anything at all. When it became clear that this was a mental collision of misunderstood purpose, he turned to go back in the direction he had come from. It didn't matter where he went.

But his name was repeated, and like a puppet on strings the tall youth stopped again, and turned sluggishly back.

"Yes?" he responded, quiet and dull. There was no bite in him, none of that annoyance or stiff politeness from earlier encounters. No snark, or mischief... nothing. He was a sleepwalker trapped in a waking nightmare, and the dark hue of his eyes reflected no emotion at all.

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

Korbin had always ignored him if the occasion didn't call for them to interact directly, so he was pretty used to that. What really piqued his concern was the dead, numb, almost blind way that the boy was navigating the world. Even his reply is given with none of his usual moodiness - this was how Chuy knew just how unwell the other must be.

He wasn't surprised. Grief was a bitch, and it manifested in everyone slightly differently. He himself had broken down, had leaned on Kia for support, had got himself out of his funk and put himself back to work, though he still felt like shit, it was clearly nothing compared to that which rocked Korbin's psyche.

"Follow me," he commanded, before leaning into his wheelbarrow again and picking up his trail. He didn't really have a plan, but he had to try something. "Follow!" he said a bit louder, over his shoulder, in case the boy had other ideas.

chulane

Lonely shadows following me
Lonely ghosts come a-calling

Any other time, Korbin might have been amused and aggrieved both to know that his mood could be read by a lack of ill temper. As a kid, all he wanted to do was make people around him laugh. But that boy had faded more and more over the years, and was but a dimly remembered ghost now. Recalled only by Weaver and... No. Only by himself. His throat constricted, tears threatening to overwhelm him again.

Chuy told him to follow. Started to walk off with that wheelbarrow. Korbin watched his back, not moving. Not until the command was repeated. Any other day he would have blown a fuse to be ordered about. Now he found his feet moving on their own, numbness overtaking the mind. A defense against overwhelming grief.

He followed, aimless, heedless. Nothing mattered; there was no point in resisting. Just a useless waste of energy he didn't have.

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

Footsteps followed him, he realised with a quiet satisfaction, though it was pale and weak when compared to the sorrow and grief that otherwise ruled him, that ruled them. The event had affected the whole town, a cloud of depression that everyone dealt with in different ways - some healthier than others.

Chulane couldn't blame Korbin for his feelings, present or past. He didn't know him well enough to guess why the boy felt he way he did about him, and he certainly couldn't blame him for almost any reaction he's had to the loss of his sister. Grief was something that never left, it only got easier to carry over time, and Chulane had had a few months to realise his initial loss of his entire world.

Idly, he thought at how he and Korbin had the same amount of biological relatives on Caido now. It wasn't a comforting thought, just a flickering interlude in the otherwise staticky background fog. He breathed the cool air in deeply, as they arrived at the side of the house.

"Stack the wood," he instructed, pressing a piece into the boy's middle, holding it there until he took it, or otherwise reacted.

chulane

Lonely shadows following me
Lonely ghosts come a-calling

Oh. So that was the plan. Make him work, make him engage with things, to bring him out of his own head. Exhausting the body, so that sleep would come at night and heal the mind. And slowly, steadily, time would pass, he would get used to the pain, and they would all move on.

Korbin's gaze dropped down to the clab of wood pressed against him. "No," he said, and took a step back. Made no move to reach for it.

He didn't want to get used to it. If Weaver was no longer in this world, he wanted nothing to do with it. He did not want the sun to burn, or the world to turn without her. Let everyone else bear the pain and move on. It probably made them stronger than him but Korbin didn't care. He had never been strong.

It was always Weaver who brought it out in him, who made it seem that way. And for her, he could be.

But she was no longer here. And he was empty.

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

Chulane didn't have a plan. Not for Korbin at least. And barely one for himself. He was just doing the next thing that felt right to do, keeping his mind busy, lest he turn into… something like the husk of a boy who stood before him now. The raven-boy declined, stepping out of the space where Chulane held the wood to him, and the farmer knew that he could go a few different directions from here.

He could try to force the point, to make the boy do it - but Chuy had never been the confrontational sort, or at least, never been one to press something upon an unwilling participant. He could try to reason with the boy, to explain how it didn't really mean anything, how the grief he carried was a shared load, and together they could get through it - but he could guess at how well that approach might go down.

So the farmer simply sighed, his breath dancing before his lips in a chilled plume of fog. "Fine," he shrugged, pulling the wood back closer to himself and proceeding onwards with the task, stacking each bit with a practiced efficiency.

The world was going to keeping turning, keep churning, the sun rising and falling, whether or not Korbin wanted it to. It was going to get on with it, and though it sucked that Weaver was gone, one day Korbin would get on with it too. It wasn't going to be easy - grief was different for everyone, and for some it took years to process completely - he also didn't have to do it alone.

"It's normal to feel the way you do," he said quietly instead, his voice breathy as he picked up another piece and stacked it, his eyes glancing over to Korbin.

chulane

Lonely shadows following me
Lonely ghosts come a-calling

The man did not insist, and Korbin stopped retreating as soon as it became clear that he wouldn't be forced to do anything. That alone kept him from leaving immediately.

Yet as Chulane kept talking, wariness crept over Korbin's face, and his eyes narrowed on the other man. "Oh? And how is that?" Fists closed in the pockets, and his tone had become tight, tense. Waiting for whatever words of wisdom that would be heaped upon him.

He highly doubted that it would make a difference. So what if every person in every world wished for nothing more than to fall asleep and never wake up again? So what if they too would trade anything to go back and change just one irreversible act? Korbin was sure everyone else was fucking brave and strong and capable of enduring whatever shit the world kept throwing at them. He had been strong too. Once, when he still had something worth living for.

But she was gone. And he was fucking sick and tired of this meaningless charade.

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

A shift came over the scene, a new tension, an icyness that wasn't there before. Chuy noticed it, but didn't acknowledge it openly, as the raven-boy's gaze narrowed on him, honing in like a needle piercing a spot on a cloth. At least that sort of expression, that behaviour was somewhat familiar, something Chuy has experienced, had received from Korbin before; he had stopped flinching at those hard stares long ago.

"I'm not going to pretend to know what you're going through, Korbin." He gave the words quietly, pausing only a moment to deliver them, before resuming his stacking. "No-one can," he added sadly, shaking his head a bit. Losing a sister after having gone through so much loss already was unfathomable to him, at least in the sense and format that Caido delivered such experiences.

Caido had extracted losses on him as well, losses of his entire home world. But still, he knew that comparing stories would serve no purpose except to piss the boy off, and Korbin seemed well on his way to that particular emotion all on his own.

"Keep following, if you want. Or not." He said, having finished unstacking this load, and now leaning down to grasp the handles of his wheelbarrow once more, turning and wandering down the path to the shed once more.

chulane

Lonely shadows following me
Lonely ghosts come a-calling

Korbin bit his jaws together. The steaming breath froze in his hair and on the eyelashes, graying the dark strands. His body felt stiff, but the numbness he so desperately wanted to cling to - it was safe, it was comfortable - slowly gave way to anger. Seething, roiling, an impotent fury with no place to go.

"No? You just said it's normal to feel like me. Clearly you have some idea. Go ahead, say it." He didn't doubt there was a lot of thinking going on. Everyone had their opinions on what was happening to him, whether they voiced it or not.

Korbin stalked after the other when he turned to walk off with the cart. Not to help, not because of any reason he could put into words. But follow he did, even if the line of his mouth had become twisted into a grim and bitter grimace.

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

The tension only rose, as sharp words pierced the scene, a challenge issued. Chuy let the words roll over him, let them try to stick, try to stir up his own heated, angry, response, and seemed to watch with a quiet, observatory stare as they simply fell short. The farmer and the vet had dealt with grief in others before, had long ago learned to shield himself from it, lest he react poorly, or inappropriately. While he was grieving too, he was also actively seeking ways to alleviate the feeling, rather than the raven-boy's chosen method of wallow in it. He knew grief was a different journey for everyone though, so he didn't begrudge the raven-boy his.

"Alright then," he agreed to the challenge softly, his voice steady even as he walked a bit slower with the wheelbarrow along the path, a thought of surprise that the boy chose to follow him fluttering across the back of his mind briefly. "I imagine you feel like shit. Like you're lost. Hopeless. Like you can't be fucked living anymore because what is the fucking point, if everyone you ever bother to care for just up and fucking dies." His words were spoken clearly, softly, delivered without a lot of emotion behind them. It was as if he was giving a lecture about some droll scientific subject.

He shrugged. "That's just a guess, though." And he kept on walking.

chulane

Lonely shadows following me
Lonely ghosts come a-calling

Korbin too was surprised at this following along. He couldn't have said why. Even as he grew aware of it himself his steps faltered and became reluctant, as if it wasn't his own choice at all.

Chulane's words struck too close to the mark. The boy visibly flared up, then deflated again, emotions storming like private fireworks behind the eyes. Once upon a time, he had been masterful at masking his feelings, hiding them away behind a smile. But that was too much now, and everything that went on inside lay open for anyone to see. Naked. Raw. And he clearly did not like being read like this.

"Close. What of it?" he asked, barbs all out, looking ready for a fight. "If this is the part where you say 'it gets better' or 'you're stronger than this' or some other bullshit, then I'm leaving." Possibly after punching Chuy in the face. Fair warning.

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