[ The words come with a quiet flatness. Like a doctor making a bedside assessment: diagnosing someone as terminally ill, beyond the hope of saving. ]
[ He's silent for a moment, doing a good imitation of a pillar of salt. Nothing moves except his eyes, slewing sideways to regard Korra, to absorb every little visual detail of her with a greedy intensity. Her profile is clean-cut: the soft blue gaze downcast, the soft curves of mouth and chin and cheek outlined by the pale silver moonlight. Yet her expression is so dark. Bittersweet. ]
[ What a strange thing it must be, Hei thinks, to be so pretty even when sad. There is no charm in unhappiness. Yet Korra lends even that a burning allure. It makes Hei envious even as he tries to puzzle out why she's troubled. The intensity of emotions available to Korra, the freedom to feel so purely and absolutely -- he's all but lost that. He'd loved Amber once, it's true. A part of him still does -- and will never stop. But he's not that person anymore. Is too hollowed-out, too atrophied, by everything he's endured. ]
[ Yet somehow he's managed, like a single sprig of green unfurling in a burnt wasteland, to make a connection with this girl. Not a wholesome one. Not right or rational or simple. Yet Korra is as real to him as Pai and Amber had once been, and it strikes him that she means something to him. ]
[ In whatever capacity he is able, she means something. ]
[ There's a beat, in which the silence weighs heavier between them. Finally, in a different tone, not gentle but somehow less hard-edged, he asks, ]
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Date: 2014-11-08 12:25 am (UTC)[ The words come with a quiet flatness. Like a doctor making a bedside assessment: diagnosing someone as terminally ill, beyond the hope of saving. ]
[ He's silent for a moment, doing a good imitation of a pillar of salt. Nothing moves except his eyes, slewing sideways to regard Korra, to absorb every little visual detail of her with a greedy intensity. Her profile is clean-cut: the soft blue gaze downcast, the soft curves of mouth and chin and cheek outlined by the pale silver moonlight. Yet her expression is so dark. Bittersweet. ]
[ What a strange thing it must be, Hei thinks, to be so pretty even when sad. There is no charm in unhappiness. Yet Korra lends even that a burning allure. It makes Hei envious even as he tries to puzzle out why she's troubled. The intensity of emotions available to Korra, the freedom to feel so purely and absolutely -- he's all but lost that. He'd loved Amber once, it's true. A part of him still does -- and will never stop. But he's not that person anymore. Is too hollowed-out, too atrophied, by everything he's endured. ]
[ Yet somehow he's managed, like a single sprig of green unfurling in a burnt wasteland, to make a connection with this girl. Not a wholesome one. Not right or rational or simple. Yet Korra is as real to him as Pai and Amber had once been, and it strikes him that she means something to him. ]
[ In whatever capacity he is able, she means something. ]
[ There's a beat, in which the silence weighs heavier between them. Finally, in a different tone, not gentle but somehow less hard-edged, he asks, ]
What's wrong?
[ As in, What's really wrong? ]