[ Is he trying to manipulate her? Is he being honest? That's like asking a colorblind man to paint a rainbow. He can't grasp the subtleties, because for him dishonesty is an inherent way of operating. (Yet ... it doesn't necessarily mean his words aren't ingrained with a seed of truth. He's kept her -- carefully, deliberately -- on the outside margin of his life. Still, his sense of responsibility, always sore, has dogged him -- he'd dragged Korra into this mess, and she's had a way of getting into worse trouble since then. Her continued existence is as a victim that Hei has silently added to the long bill of his conscience, though he knows he was as powerless to stop her recruitment as she was. Her fate was sealed the day she became a Contractor. ]
[ There is no reaction when Korra says She kissed me. Yet disquiet spreads through his chest like black ink dropped in water. ]
You don't, [ is his only answer, and to anybody else it might sound mild but -- there is a coded warning in that tone. To tell Korra about an inkling of his and Amber's history, the war, the vanishing Gate, would be to hand the girl a faulty grenade that could erupt at any time. ]
[ Eventually, with a cruelty that conceals the extent of the lie, ]
Amber takes an interest in whoever I value. Or whoever she perceives I do. You don't qualify. So stay out of it.
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Date: 2015-03-25 01:15 am (UTC)[ There is no reaction when Korra says She kissed me. Yet disquiet spreads through his chest like black ink dropped in water. ]
You don't, [ is his only answer, and to anybody else it might sound mild but -- there is a coded warning in that tone. To tell Korra about an inkling of his and Amber's history, the war, the vanishing Gate, would be to hand the girl a faulty grenade that could erupt at any time. ]
[ Eventually, with a cruelty that conceals the extent of the lie, ]
Amber takes an interest in whoever I value. Or whoever she perceives I do. You don't qualify. So stay out of it.