OPEN

[fadeling]

Who: fadeling & Whoever
When: IC 8/1
Where: Shopping district
What: Cole has been avoiding people, if you want to talk to him now's probably the best time for an ambush
Rating/Warning:G/PG - No warnings so far

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It isn't hard for him to avoid people--they don't see him if he doesn't want them to. And it was easier for everyone if he did for a while. He couldn't help and if he tried he might have put his hurt on them. Then he would be worse than what they'd already said he was.

And that circular logic ran itself around in his head until he was dizzy. He can't hurt anyone or it wouldn't be him. He's still him so he can't have hurt anyone.

But what if he had? He helped and he left them healed behind him, he thought, but...

But.

But he can't stay to see, there are too many others who need help. And if he hindered instead of healed, that was hurting them too. He was supposed to help people. Was he helping people? He couldn't tell anymore. It was all cluttered, unclear and clouded, cloying and clawing and clutching coy at clinging. It was hard to see through, hard to think through, hard to see, hard to hear. It hurt to look at but he couldn't look anywhere else.

He's not the one who's supposed to hurt, to be conflicted. He was only one thing, how could he do that wrong?

He crouched in the middle of the street, passersby flowing around him, not noticing that they even moved around him, but not seeing him either. That was part of it, too, and he didn't want to be noticed. He could still hear the hurting, but he hesitated, trying not to listen, trying to lose himself in the sounds of it. Maybe if there was too much to listen to, he could forget himself for a moment. Maybe if he couldn't pull it apart, he wouldn't have to try and then he wouldn't hurt anyone.

It really wasn't working.

"Touch and try and hurt or don't touch and don't try and don't hurt. Or touch and don't hurt. Too many threads, tied together tight in tiny tangles."

But they'd caught him in them, too when he was supposed to be clean. He couldn't even tell if he was that anymore.

Comments

[fadeling]

"How they need it. It's different for different people." Some were easier than others. Some people wanted help and some people didn't.
But the balance he'd struck before was what he was questioning now. What help now would hurt later? And how would he know.

"Sometimes it's a thing, food, blankets. Sometimes it's a person to listen. Or...or sometimes when it gets stuck they need to forget."

[faithfulflame]

"You mean you just sort of...watch them and find out what they need?" Rei asks, honestly a little amused by that. It's actually sweet in a strange way, though...there's something that sticks out to her. Really sticks out.

"And you can make them forget bad memories?"

[fadeling]

That was always the part the stuck, and he curled himself closer, closing himself off and even pulling away, just waiting for the yelling to begin again.

"Sometimes. If they need it. It shouldn't be stuck forever, so I shake it loose and I let them forget."

[faithfulflame]

Rei? Doesn't yell. She doesn't even come close. She just sort of crouches there, looking at him.

"That's actually very nice of you," is what she does finally say. Speaking as someone who has seen some incredibly nightmarish things, and who's used her powers to make humans think that it was a dream or...never happened? She doesn't think this is bad.

[fadeling]

When the yelling never came, he relaxed a little, but still continued staring at the ground, speaking almost too softly to hear.

"Maybe. The bird was angry I tried. His friend said it hurt people later." And he'd made him believe it, too. That he couldn't forget no matter how much he wanted to.

[faithfulflame]

"It can, yes, but it can also heal. I've made people forget before. It's sometimes less hurt than remembering," Rei said quietly. "Sometimes people see things that they shouldn't, monsters and beasts."

[fadeling]

"Yes." That's what he had always thought, and it was comforting to hear someone agree. He almost reached out toward one of the hurts he could hear surrounding him, until he almost touched it...

But what if...

He pulled himself back in and shook his head.

"No. I don't take it. I don't make it mine. I don't make them less and I don't make me more. I don't hurt. But...but is losing learning? I-if the pain pulls pieces apart and they forget how do they know later if it comes back?"

[faithfulflame]

"I didn't say you did, Cole-san. If you took it, and kept it, then you'd be a thief. And I don't think you're a thief."

Honestly he seems a little too otherworldly to be one, with no real care for possessions except probably that hat.

"I don't know if you can learn something by losing a memory, though. Maybe that's one problem. But sometimes there are secrets nobody is meant to learn, don't you think?"

She's actually pretty confused, not following his train of thought, but she's trying to keep up.

[fadeling]

"No. If they lose it then maybe they don't learn it and it could hurt again. I help them forget so I hurt them, maybe. I don't know. It's...hazy. Clouded and covered and hidden." And the more he thought about it the more confused he got. He was only one thing, what was he supposed to do if he did it wrong?

"I...I don't make them forget it happened, I let them forget it hurt. I don't do it always, only if they need it."

[faithfulflame]

"Ah. That's different," Rei says with a little shrug. She thinks she has a handle on what he does now. Makes it foggy. Removes the bad parts.

"There's nothing wrong with that. You just...do you ask first?"

[fadeling]

"They tell me." Which, really, isn't the same thing but he doesn't take things they don't want to lose. That would be cruel and he wasn't that. He'd seen what that did and he wanted nothing to do with it.

[faithfulflame]

"How do they tell you?" She asks in all seriousness, curious how he communicates.

[fadeling]

"I listen. I hear what they say without saying. Sometimes they can't." Sometimes it hurt too much and that's why they buried it.

[faithfulflame]

"You hear their thoughts?" Rei assumed that was what it was, and that was...interesting. Somewhat disturbing, but interesting.

[fadeling]

That was where things started to get tricky, complicated. "Yes. But no. It has to hurt." He couldn't hear everything. Sometimes that helped people be more comfortable with it.

[faithfulflame]

"Oh!" Rei smiles in understanding, bobbing her head happily. "I understand. You can feel pain, in a way. Does it...hurt you too?"

[fadeling]

"Sometimes." He had to know what they felt to help. Before he used to get tangled in them and he forgot what was him, but now he knew how to keep himself apart.

"I forget later, so it's alright."

[faithfulflame]

"If you say so. I think that's a rather extreme act of kindness," Rei says simply, patting him on the shoulder.

"In my world, we have people like that. Or did. They were...celebrated, in a way."

Certain kinds of shrines used to have similar occult practices, after all.

[fadeling]

"Why? They need help and I can help, so I have to." That's as obvious to him as saying the sky is blue. "Uncaught, unfettered, unbound...I forget to fly free, clean."

[faithfulflame]

Rei nods slowly, thinking that she understands. A human might have a choice but Cole is a spirit. He may actually not have that power.

"A human might not choose to help, is all. That's why we venerated the monks that could do that in my homeland."

[fadeling]

"Yes. Too centered, too selfish, too lost in their own self to see others." That's really how it was for most people. Some of them tried to help, but most were too lost in their own pain to hear anyone else's. It wasn't bad, usually, it was just how people were.

[faithfulflame]

"But they can't help that," Rei says with an air of understanding. Humans she did get, now. She wasn't one of them, not strictly, and it made a big difference when it came to perspective.

"They try to do what's right, though. Most of the time."

[fadeling]

"Yes. They aren't bad, usually." Some of them were. Some of them hurt people, but the important ones didn't. "Those ones try to see but can't. But they try and that's enough."

[faithfulflame]

"Sometimes they even get it right," Rei answers, nodding cheerily. "Most people are just happy to know that someone cares enough to even think of them."

[fadeling]

"Sometimes." They did their best. He could help even more if they let him touch them. But would it hurt later?

"They don't have to know, always."