come, let's talk

Delphine

Delphine had heard that the Hale boy had been kicked out of the old tavern, and while their last and first confrontation had not ended nicely... When she caught sight of the man on the streets, heading somewhere fast, though in Halo it was never smart to stop moving for long.

The person who'd passed on that the boy had lost favor with the tavern owner hadn't said where Korbin was staying now. And she sped up, pulling her furs tight around herself. "Korbin! Hey," She hoisted the bag of vegetables she'd just purchased over her shoulder, trying to catch up.

"Hey." In her free hand she held a small bag of warm pastries, she'd just made, and had been bartering for the vegetables. They wouldn't be warm for long, though, the bag had no insulation. "Pastry?" She offered the bag, "Just baked this morning."

There was a reason Noah was worried about getting fat. Delphine had a deep-rooted love for a house that smelled like baked goods, all the time. And it was another hobby, to ease the wanderlust. She needed to see the rest of Caido, to visit each place, and learn as much as she could. Noah's agreement to travel with her on short trips had only fueled that need; but until the season was over, she'd have to distract herself.

Korbin

How can I begin again?
How can I try to love someone new,
someone who isn’t you?

KORBIN

But what does it take to break you, to awake you?
To make you bow and spit it out?

After Chulane's 'intervention' Korbin had been cleaned up a bit, but that was about as far as he had allowed things to go. He still wore his tattered black coat, and his own washed clothes, and fading bruises colored the skin around his eyes in hues of yellow and green. He threw the woman a quick glance but did not slow down to accommodate her, and the offered pastry was ignored.

He wasn't really going anywhere, but that did not mean he wanted company. Korbin never did, these days. The exceptions of broken silence had been few and far between, and none could be said to have been pleasant. Or permanent.

Long legs stretched out to increase the pace a little more, hoping that the woman would fall behind, or at least be too winded to talk. He really was not in the mood for inane babble from a stranger. Nor for anything else, really.

Doesn't matter if I hate you or embrace you
Nothing makes you turn around

Delphine

Delphine scoffed, and continued after him. "Korbin, take the pastry." He was trying hard to lose her, and while Delphine wasn't used to snow, she was certainly not out of shape enough to be lost this easily.

"At least wallow in your despair with a warm dessert." She's managed to get up next to him, deciding she might as well get a workout for the day, and try to do some good while doing it. Besides, moving keeps the cold at bay.

Another attempt to hold the bag of pastries out, as she drifted into silence. Sometimes, she'd learned, silence was the best thing a person could offer. Just their presence.

How can I begin again?
How can I try to love someone new,
someone who isn’t you?

KORBIN

But what does it take to break you, to awake you?
To make you bow and spit it out?

And sometimes a mere presence could drive a hard pressed person over the edge. Korbin's patience had been non existent for a good season and a half now, and Chulane's intrusion into his grief - or wallowing, as this woman so eloquently put it - had left him unbalanced. On edge, tense, already worked up.

Without warning Korbin spun on his heel and stopped dead, so abruptly that the girl was in danger of smacking into him, or forge way ahead of him unless she had good reflexes. His hand snapped out, grasping not for the pastries but for her wrist, in a way that was none too gentle.

"When will you get it into your thick head that I don't want you around?" he snarled, and leveled flinty eyes on her, cold and hard as the ice around them. "Take your prattling and your sweets and fuck off to someone who gives a damn."

Part of him was horrified by what he was doing. Would this end up like with Chulane? A person unconscious on the ground, and him standing over them, absent all illusions of control? Why could they not see that it was better to stay away? Better for everyone, and them most of all.

Doesn't matter if I hate you or embrace you
Nothing makes you turn around

Delphine

She ran into him. She'd not been expecting this reaction, nor the reaction it gave her. Delphine flinched, just momentarily, when the man's fingers curled around her wrist. Standing there, she fought the urge to draw back, to do as he said, like a dog beaten one too many times.

In her mind's eye, all she could see was the tall, bulky guardsman that had raised her, beat her, taught her. He'd called her thick-skulled, stupid, said she talked too much.

Her face had simply blanked, hazel hues glazed over. It felt like years, to her, reliving the last time she'd been in the same room as Alder. It had only been seconds.

He was not her brother. He wasn't Alder. She had to remind herself, chanting the words mentally. She'd composed herself, quickly, and hazel hues met flint grey. Her free hand, the one he'd not grabbed, was flung toward his face.

She was going to slap him if he didn't stop her.

He was not Alder.

She was not the same Delphine, the little girl who never cried never had friends.

Delphine does not speak, she's too busy trying not to panic, whether she managed to hit the man or not.

How can I begin again?
How can I try to love someone new,
someone who isn’t you?

KORBIN

But what does it take to break you, to awake you?
To make you bow and spit it out?

He was not anyone's brother anymore. And it made him cold, hard, cruel. Korbin had been saying 'I don't care' so many times now that it began to feel true, as though the ice of Halo was slowly creeping in to take up residence where all the soft and kind parts had been. They weren't gone, not yet. Not completely. But too big a part of him relished the satisfaction of seeing her flinch, even as guilt and sickness roiled at his own reactions.

It was the part of him that he hated. That he shunned. That he had turned from all his life, going so far as to let his sister and brother beat him in spar after spar, refusing to strike back with all he had. He did not want to hurt anyone. Did not want relish hurting anyone.

But he had. Had strangled someone to death with the very hand that held this girl, and the thing that really got to him was how easy it had been. How easy it would be now...

Her palm connected with his face, with a force that jerked his whole head aside. The scab of a half-healed cut on his lip broke open and a dark trickle of blood began a slow descent down his chin. Korbin released her hand. The tip of his tongue searched out the stinging cut, his head ringing with the residual echo of the slap. Leaning slightly aside, he spat crimson into the snow beside the road.

"You really should leave," he repeated, more quietly this time. Half pleading; his hands had begun to shake, and Korbin was too dazed to know if it was shock or rage or if he just really needed another drink... yeah, that might be it. A glass or two would make it better.

Doesn't matter if I hate you or embrace you
Nothing makes you turn around

Delphine

Her chest is tight, cold has settled in. Or perhaps that's panic. She'd hit the man and he had let her go. But he was hurt. She shivered, reaching out without thinking.

Even fear couldn't stop the instinct to help. She wasn't even sure where the pastries had gone, her hands were empty now. But she reached out, to try and touch the man's face.

She hadn't meant to hurt him.

It doesn't connect, in the moment, that she hadn't hit him hard enough to make him bleed, without a wound already being present. It doesn't connect that she should just leave, run home to Noah while she can.

He's not Alder. He's not my brother, the chant's convinced her that, while she would never heal her brother, he's not her brother and she hurt him.

If she's able to reach his face, her hand would press against his cheek, and then she'd freeze. She needed to focus to heal him; and right now she was anything but focused. Fear still surged through her veins, a vivid memory trying to force itself to the front of her thoughts.

How can I begin again?
How can I try to love someone new,
someone who isn’t you?

KORBIN

But what does it take to break you, to awake you?
To make you bow and spit it out?

Korbin took a step back. Shied from the outstretched hand like a feral wolf, a skittish horse. He knew that kind of reaching hand, had been healed enough times without permission granted to be so easily accepting of touch. Korbin didn't even know if she actually had magic, but that weak, pitying attempt to soothe a hurt made him physically sick with revulsion. His lips curled, baring teeth that should have been sharp, but weren't. Yet the growl rumbled quietly in his throat all the same, and his eyes were cutting, shards of ice gone astray.

Another step away made sure she couldn't reach him. Korbin's gaze dropped to the bag of sweets she had dropped on the ground. They would be going cold now, and he really could not care less. The woman seemed lost in some reverie, speechless for once, and it was the only thing he might thank her for.

But like the idiot he accused her of being, she still did not leave. So he turned his back on her and shoved those trembling fists into the pockets of his coat, and started walking again. Away, fingers clenched, jaw set. Words were crowding on his tongue but he kept them unvoiced. Licked the blood from his lips and made it a reminder of what happened when people came close, when he lost control.

He didn't say anything. Afraid that she might take it as an invitation to follow.

Doesn't matter if I hate you or embrace you
Nothing makes you turn around

Delphine

It was his turn to shy away, to try to scare her off. Delphine's hand was drawn to her, and she studied the scarred flesh. Broken.

She was broken. He was broken. Was everyone broken and she didn't see it?

She watched him walk away, frozen in place for a moment more, before she started walking, after him. Chilled hands shoved deep into furred pockets, she moved slowly, simply following.

No words, no attempt to keep up with the man. The pace she's chosen allowed her to trail behind him, contemplating.

Was this man like her brother?

Or had that been a mistake?

He was acting how someone who'd lost a sibling should. Not gleefully celebrating as Delphine had when her husband had told her.

After a few minutes of walking behind him, she spoke up, her voice quiet, "Did you like when I flinched?" She knew what it felt like to hurt someone, there was a point in time where she would have killed anyone her husband ordered her too; without batting an eye.

Of course, Delphine had never killed.

Unless you counted her children.

How can I begin again?
How can I try to love someone new,
someone who isn’t you?

KORBIN

But what does it take to break you, to awake you?
To make you bow and spit it out?

The sound of her footsteps picking up behind him was a crawl of demons beneath his skin, of snakes slithering along his spine, cold fingers poking and prodding and pestering until he wanted to scream and thrash and break something someone just to make it stop. It was madness, a ringing in his ears, rage a poison in his veins that infected anything it touched. Korbin fought to keep his hitching breath slow and steady, to channel the sizzling fury - sprung from helplessness, from pain, from grief and frustration but no less his own, no less his responsibility just because the source wasn't - into the increasing pace of his feet.

But she kept following even when he had made it perfectly clear that he Did. Not. Want. Company. At what point did this become self defense from a stalker? He began to gather his thoughts to shift, to fly off and save them both from this because it would never end well.

But her words, her quiet question made Korbin flinch like he had been struck, and the shimmer around his form died away.

"No!" he snapped, the response immediate. As instinctive as the revulsion whenever he recalled the feeling. His denial was so vehement it could only be a lie.

But it had to be true. He had to hate it, had to rage against it, or he would become the worst kind of monster.

How would he ever face Weaver again if he didn't remain at least marginally good, somehow, somewhere? He had killed, and he did awful things to the people around him in his attempts to reject their help... But  if he ever started to enjoy the suffering he caused he would truly be lost.

Doesn't matter if I hate you or embrace you
Nothing makes you turn around

Delphine

Delphine tilted her head, as he snapped his answer. How often had Alder told her that 'it hurts me more than it hurts you', that he did not enjoy hurting her, right before he did? Her lips pulled down into a frown, and she spoke, again, "There's a certain... power, a rush, that comes with hurting people. So I've been told." She stepped in place, not wanting to get too much nearer to the man. She probably should turn around and go home.

"Most people, when they find they enjoy that rush... get in a profession that allows them to get rough with others..." She's staring at the man, hazel eyes like polished stone, "My big brother was a member of the guard, back home. But that didn't stop him from... enjoying his power while at home." She drifted into silence for a few moments.

The man, covered in raven tattoos, beautiful tattoos, was hurting. "Do... you reject help because you're afraid that you might become like that too?" Now she was simply trying to understand.

A curious mind never rested; and she wanted to piece together the puzzle.

How can I begin again?
How can I try to love someone new,
someone who isn’t you?

KORBIN

But what does it take to break you, to awake you?
To make you bow and spit it out?

He knew that rush. It was in the cussing, in the refusal of helping hands, in the rudeness and the outbursts. It was in his persistent denial and twisting of everything people told him, in the refuge of his anger...

It was a sweet sensation of being in control. Ever so slightly, of at least one small thing. His life was a ruin, a smoldering pile of refuse where a happy life should have been, and the only thing he could still decide was whether to rise up and step away from it or not. He had tried to kill himself, but that had been denied him. He had tried to drown himself in booze, and that too was being taken away. So if he refused to live and was unable to die or forget, then what was left?

Nothing. Nothing but these small acts of vengence, where the inflicting of pain on those around him awarded a twisted sense of accomplishment. See? Told you I was no good. Told you it wouldn't work, that it would hurt. You didn't believe me and now it's your own fault that you're bleeding.

"I already am like that," he said hoarsely, voice thick with self loathing. "I don't want help because there's no point in fixing what is already broken. I have no reason to stay in this fucked up, pointless world, so. You really would do everyone a favor if you stopped trying."

Doesn't matter if I hate you or embrace you
Nothing makes you turn around

Delphine

Delphine shook her head slowly. "If you were like that, you wouldn't have stopped when I flinched. You would have hit me back." She spoke from experience, while every abuser was not the same... They tended to seek our displays of weakness and fear from their targets.

"Why not fix what's broken? It won't ever be perfect, because even glue cannot fix everything," she's thinking of Noah, and herself, and how they piece each other back together with careful hands. "But you mean something to someone. If you're serious about not being... someone who enjoys seeing and causing others pain, you've got to stop."

She spoke louder. Clearer. "If you leave, then you hurt the people left behind. But staying, and being broken, isn't something bad either. I'm broken, too."

She was probably a hypocrite.

How can I begin again?
How can I try to love someone new,
someone who isn’t you?

KORBIN

But what does it take to break you, to awake you?
To make you bow and spit it out?

His pace slowed, grew hesitant. Korbin staggered under words he didn't want to hear, ideas he didn't want to consider. The power in refusing was sweet. The belief that he meant nothing to anyone was firm, even when the actions of so many screamed of a dichotomy, of a flaw in the logic somewhere. Unless they really did keep him alive out of spite... Korbin wouldn't put it past them. He probably deserved it.

The shuddering breath sounded choked, insufficient. Far too shallow to do any real good, and the next one came quicker, fainter. The tremble of his hands spread through the limbs until he had to stop, had to stagger off to lean against a house wall so as not to fall.

He didn't want to hear it. Didn't want to be that monster, but if he accepted her logic as truth then... then he would be stuck here. Left well and truly without a way out, without Weaver, left to drown in this awful maelstrom of unspent love and loss and pain for years on end. A whole life of it, never ending, with only more piling up on top.  

It was too much. Too overwhelming, more than his starved, haggard body could take, more than his fraying mind could endure. The anger disappeared in the despair that washed over him, and as the rising panic made his knees cave, Korbin slowly skidded down on the cold ground. It was freezing, but the cold didn't reach him.

A monster, or condemned to drown for a lifetime? What a choice to make. Why were pain and darkness his only options?

"Stop," he whispered, cracking, fracturing - he had never been strong - "Please, just... go away."

Doesn't matter if I hate you or embrace you
Nothing makes you turn around