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[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]

"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."

[faithfulflame]

"That you've done something, you mean?"

She feels that way too. Recognition is a pain.

[fadeling]

"Yes. It doesn't matter if they remember me, What matters is I helped." If the both of them forgot, then they weren't tied together. He could help someone else and they could keep going.

[faithfulflame]

"Very true. That's...generally the way I like to think, too." It helps that she has spells to protect her identity too.

"Do you ever need help, Cole-san?"

[fadeling]

"I don't know. I never asked." He's the one who's supposed to help other people and he can usually forget what he doesn't want to remember himself. Maybe he did need help. Maybe this was one of those times he did. It was hard to say.

[faithfulflame]

"Well, you should. Ask me, if you think there's even a chance you might need it. I will do what I can for you."

[fadeling]

"Thank you. Most people wouldn't." They'd already talked about why.