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.
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
