[ The remark bounces off Hei like a ball of wool, landing with a noiseless mushy plop at his feet. He isn't sure what he was expecting. A strangling, muscle-bunching rage, maybe. Curses, blows, tears. Anything that demonstrated that this was still Korra. That there was still a person in that dull-eyed body. He thinks of a line he once heard -- a song lyric or a poem, he isn't sure. After such knowledge, what forgiveness? But this isn't blame or forgiveness. It's resignation. He wishes she'd be angry; there is something too reasonable in her despair, as if she doesn't feel entitled to her own feelings. It reminds him, dimly, of his own rationalization for killing targets after tailing them. Admittedly rather simplistic ones, but they were especially true of fellow professionals. If he really wanted to live, I wouldn't have been able to get at him. He wouldn't have permitted himself that weakness/wrong move/slip up that did him in. ]
[ For a moment his concentration feels like it's ebbing, his thoughts stumbling out of order. Then he absorbs the implications of Korra's words. Understands, blink by blink, where her real anger is directed. ]
If you believe that. [ Not a dismissal, but not an acknowledgement either. Quieter, he says, ] But it's not your fault either.
no subject
[ The remark bounces off Hei like a ball of wool, landing with a noiseless mushy plop at his feet. He isn't sure what he was expecting. A strangling, muscle-bunching rage, maybe. Curses, blows, tears. Anything that demonstrated that this was still Korra. That there was still a person in that dull-eyed body. He thinks of a line he once heard -- a song lyric or a poem, he isn't sure. After such knowledge, what forgiveness? But this isn't blame or forgiveness. It's resignation. He wishes she'd be angry; there is something too reasonable in her despair, as if she doesn't feel entitled to her own feelings. It reminds him, dimly, of his own rationalization for killing targets after tailing them. Admittedly rather simplistic ones, but they were especially true of fellow professionals. If he really wanted to live, I wouldn't have been able to get at him. He wouldn't have permitted himself that weakness/wrong move/slip up that did him in. ]
[ For a moment his concentration feels like it's ebbing, his thoughts stumbling out of order. Then he absorbs the implications of Korra's words. Understands, blink by blink, where her real anger is directed. ]
If you believe that. [ Not a dismissal, but not an acknowledgement either. Quieter, he says, ] But it's not your fault either.