Private Tales Carrion for Crows (Completed)

[Larkin]

Depression was an evil thing. It pulled and plucked, and destroyed everything inside you. Larkin had no clue that was his affliction. He was hurt, he was angry, he was many things he could not even begin to understand.

In a fit of anger, Larkin had ripped his room apart. Tore everything off his walls, his desk lay on it's side, all his notes and started songs torn to shreds.

He grabbed a bag, shoving all his instruments inside. The clattered and jarred together, sounding of unholy music as strings slid against strings.

He left his room, slamming the thick door behind him. His gaze unfocused, and his heart heavy. He made his way through corridors, the courtyard he first fell in love with her...his eyes were pulled to the spot he first held her, and he gripped his bag tight, grinding his teeth.

He brought himself out to the forest, a pond he knew well. Swans slid over the surface, barely disturbing the water. He sat on the ground, slowly pulling his instruments from his bag. And then, he broke them.

One by one they shattered beneath his hands, bits being thrown into the water and angry tears slid from his eyes. This would be their resting place, he had no more songs to write.

Kor

 

[Kor]

The last few months of Kor's life had been far more interesting than he could have anticipated in his wildest dreams. For one who had dedicated their life to becoming the unquestionable Master of Masters, the road to his goals was long, arduous, and unforgiving in its layout. By any stretch of logic, his dreams could be considered broken, and unachievable.

It didn't matter to the lost Pirian son if his dreams were broken. Kor had every intention of willing them true, forcing them into being no matter what it took. The boy's sight may have been stripped, but he made up for that in raw, boiling, silent determination. There would come a day when all would heed his call; man, woman, child, and beast alike would hear his words as gospel.

The emotions he'd experienced for the first time when Soleil Verdane had called him a friend, the rush of feeling he now realized had been affection for another, had brought to him a broadening realization about his classmates: He was not the only one who wished to break his shackles and rule his own destiny. He was not the only one who loathed what this Academy threatened to make him, its walls a suffocating vice around his neck.

There were others. Zephyrine, the recreator, had been the easiest to spot. Her facade of contentedness over her place was simple to chip away at, and in no time at all she'd revealed the disillusion that irked her at every minute of every day.

And now, his flock sent word of another. A male, one he'd not seen hide or tail of in months in a fury, breaking his possessions, drowning his memories in a pond, sobbing like a child.

He'd thought it an exaggeration before he stood there himself, watching through the Raven on his shoulder as Larkin raged at himself, at his belongings, at the world. This was not the Larkin he'd found so infuriating in the past. That man had been confident, obnoxious and cocksure. This was a broken person. Another soul choked by the world around him.

"Does that make you feel better? Punishing yourself? I don't think it's truly you that you're angry at."

Larkin

 

[Larkin]

He watched silently as the pieces slid under the surface of the water. It hadn't helped, he was still angry, still broken. Not a soul on this godforsaken earth had even thought to check on him, had realized that he had vanished. No, despite his care for others, they had all let him rot.

He festered, and picked every little memory in his brain, ripping them to shreds in his minds eye. None of it had mattered, perhaps the pond would welcome his bones too.

He had not heard the approach of another as he sat in his silent lamenting. He was completely unaware, until the words of Kor slithered into the spaces of his grief.

He turned slightly, his mismatched eyes meeting the Ravens. He knew better than to try and stare down the man himself. "Does it matter?" He narrowed his eyes, Kor had never deigned talk to the bard, no, he was too good for everyone else. "Why are you here, Kor."

Kor

 

[Kor]

Kor shrugged at the rebuke as he stepped out into the open, watching the boy through the eerily glowing eyes of his feathered servant. He hadn't been expecting the warmest of welcomes from Larkin, especially given his obviously compromised mental state. That wasn't to say he was at all concerned for his safety though. The pathetic thing was too busy fighting himself as it was.

"Whether or not I believe it matters... Well, doesn't matter." The slightest hint of a smile pulled at the corner of his mouth as his boots crunched against the soft ground surrounding the pool, his legs the slightest bit unsteady, that smallest vulnerability in his gait, given his blindness. "It's your possessions, your livelihood that you're drowning. Why would that matter to me?"

Kor stopped and turned with the Raven's head as he looked out at the broken and soaking pieces of Larkin that he'd discarded so frantically and manically. He shook his head, and one could almost hear the 'tutting' under his breath.

"But that's your problem. You care so much about what everybody else thinks of you that you've discarded your own self-worth. You invalidate yourself because you believe the world has invalidated you, but that's a fool's gambit, Larkin."

Kor crooks his head to Larkin.

"The world has no power over people like us."

Larkin

 

[Larkin]

Larkin stood at Kor's approach, golden eye glowing slightly under the dark of the trees. He wouldn't let the boy stand over him, despite the current unstable mood he was in. The bird never took its eyes off Larkin, and his frown deepened.

"It doesn't matter to you Kor, and yet you still question me on it." Larkin was normally the least argumentative person you'd ever meet, but he was at the end of the rope, and it seemed Kor was trying to push him even more.

He let out a bark of laughter, bitter and angry as Kor explained to him what his problem was. He stalked towards Kor, now just inches from him, his face full of anger, an unusual expression for the amicable lad.

"And do you know what your problem is? You think you're better than everyone else. You're so goddamn full of yourself it's disgusting."

Larkin's face was contorted with a sneer, his scarred face only making it worse. He wanted to grab that bird of Kor's shoulder and strangle it, or was it the other intiate he wanted to strangle?

"The world can go fuck itself."

Kor

 

[Kor]

Kor didn't know Larkin well; He didn't know if this behavior was normal for him, a behavior born of his anguish, or a combination of the two. It didn't matter, as he remained stoic throughout the scarred Initiate's infuriated outburst. He could bark and yip and complain all he liked, the fact of the matter was that his rage was misplaced.

"I touched a nerve. You're wrong though. I never claimed to be better than everybody else. Not yet, anyways." He would deny that such a feat was his aim, but ambition and ego were two different things. Kor knew well not to get them confused. He slid his hands into the pockets of his coat, almost boredly. "From what I hear, you used to have quite the big head yourself. Then what... you got scarred? Is this fury of yours over some minor disfiguraion?"

Kor leaned forward, his forehead inches from Larkin's as he stared ahead at him with his blind eyes.

"I can't see your physical scars, but I can hear the mental ones. You're not angry at me, you aren't even angry at the world. You're angry at yourself. That you can't get over this hurdle, that you can't let go."

Kor understood that anger. He'd felt it himself, at one point.

"But I didn't come here to be your therapist. I came here to offer you a chance to do better."

Larkin

 

[Larkin]

Larkin attempted to cool the spewing anger that trickled from his delicate lips, a feat that seemed to fight his every attempt. Kor seeing him like this was toying with his delicate ego, and it made him rash and flustered in the presence of his blind peer. As Kor once again pushed against his anger, Larkin felt a sneer slink across his lips. "I did my best to get along with everyone, make them feel good about themselves. I wouldn't consider that egotistical." It was a pointless remark, and Larkin knew it. He knew how he had been perceived, though he knew in his heart that everything he had done was to bring kindness to those that were around him.

Kor leaned towards him, and he made no move away from him. Kor was challenging him in a way that he almost needed. "It has nothing to do with the scars themselves, just how I got them." He sighed, the last vestiges of anger slowly being put to rest. He was tired, he couldn't keep up the energy required. He pressed his hands to his face, shame and the last dredges of his explosive behavior written on his face.

"What do you mean a chance to do better?"

Kor

 

[Kor]

Kor didn't know the specifics of Larkin's scars, but he did know who'd purportedly caused them. The lack of interest he had in silly relationships aside, Kor did know of the hurt caused by one you've grown to trust leaving you behind. It was a pain he'd experienced in some capacity quite recently.

Larkin's breath was as hot as his rage against Kor's face, and his lips tightened as he listened to the boy attempt to temper his fury. He wouldn't have blamed the musician for striking him, for lashing out in the presence of such biting and bitter truths thrown in his face, but he'd also been prepared for it, and the flock of birds waiting in the treeline stared at the ready.

"I mean a chance to do more than wallow around in self-pity. Ysobel is gone. She broke from her chains and sought her own destiny." Again, it was a small bluff; Kor knew only that Ysobel had left, he wasn't privy to her reasoning. Still, Kor leaned in, creasing his brow. "What is stopping you from doing the same? What ties you here, beholden to wake and live in the misery she left behind for you? I don't look at you and witness a failed man with nothing left. I see a man who's yet to set upon his own path."

Kor stepped back and turned away from Larkin, shrugging his shoulders.

"When the time comes, I'm leaving. I'm taking Zephyrine with me. I want to know if you'll come as well."

Larkin

 

[Larkin]

Larkin looked at Kor as if the other boy had slapped him in the face. Insult upon injury in almost every sentence Kor spoke. What did he mean? Speaking of Ysobel in such a way scalded him. So, she had just left him to die after all? He could taste bitterness on the tip on his tongue, his eyes dropping to the disturbed ground beneath him. Each sentence was a blow to Larkin, and he could feel himself deflating, the anger and fight receding from his veins.

"You're right, there is nothing left for me here." He was speaking to Kor's back now, but it that didn't matter to a blind man, now did it. "I'm no fan of the Academy or anything it stands for. I don't have anything to tether me here. All I can do is question you now. Why me? What are you trying to accomplish?" At his mention of Zephyrine, he tilted his head. He had a mission with her soon, perhaps he could question her as well, if the time was right. "I don't want to be led blindly by the nose Kor, I've already been down a road like that."


Kor

 

[Kor]

"Why me? What are you trying to accomplish?"

Kor's posture stiffens a bit as Larkin attempts to press for more, a nagging annoyance in the back of his mind magnifying those questions, repeating them in his skull over and over again. Hearing the other Initiate ask him such things only served to remind him that he himself still sought those answers, that he worked towards a goal he'd not yet set in stone.

Initially, he'd merely sought a distraction from the wound left by his only friend, departing without so much of a goodbye. Kor had found another girl, one suitably isolated and disgruntled in an attempt to kindle the kind of chemistry he'd had with Verdane. It had been an abject failure in that regard, but then he'd seen something else in Zephyrine. He'd seen the potential she had, that this institution was stifling.

Kor aimed to be mighty, Zephyrine had the potential to be mighty, and Larkin too, held similar promise.

"Truthfully, Larkin..." Kor uncrossed his arms and clutched at one of his sleeves, a nervous habit of his. "I don't know. I just think there are those of us being wasted here, when we can accomplish so much more without these limits placed on us. Our chances of getting there are much greater if we align with one another."

Larkin

 

[Larkin]

Larkin slowly released his breath; he was tired and depleted at this point. There was nothing left, he had nothing that was worth any value to him anymore. It was his own fault really, and he knew it. He had behaved as a child would, but his wounds were indeed deep. He was well aware of the many eyes that stared him down, it encouraged him to be less hostile, for in numbers, they would rip him apart.

It seemed that Kor did not intend for violence either, as he uncrossed his arms. He could feel that Kor had at least a well-intentioned offer, and Larkin tilted his head as he got his response. A slow nod accompanied quiet contemplation as he lowered his head in thought. "I appreciate the honesty behind your words." He stood silent for several more beats, letting the entire conversation sink in. He sighed, suddenly very weary. "Alright, I will join you. When the time comes."

Kor

 

[Kor]

A pleasant surprise. Larkin had been spoken highly of by Zephyrine, and that was the driving factor behind this invitation being extended to him. That he could listen to reason was, at the very least, a sign that perhaps his partner's confidence was not misplaced. The scarred bard could have easily struck the blind Initiate down with a swift blow and faced little to no resistance, and Kor wouldn't have blamed him for it.

Instead, he kept his head on his shoulders and noted the many around them that were represented by the singular in front of him. Blind as he was, Kor felt the searing anger radiating against him slowly diminish as Larkin collected his thoughts and considered the words offered to him. It was more than Zephyrine had managed, at least.

"And what do you intend to do until then?" Kor tilts his head quizzically. "Zephyrine and I have been meeting regularly, preparing ourselves. I suggest you join us, and begin thinking about what it is you truly wish to accomplish. When you leave this place, when the Academy no longer binds you, what do you wish to be remembered for?" It was not a simple question, nor one that Kor expected her to have the answer to immediately.

Larkin

 

[Larkin]

There was a quiet moment between the two, a silent recovery for Larkin. He was starting to grow a bit of a different opinion of Kor than the one he had held before. His opinion hadn't been based on true facts of the blind boy in front of him. Instead, they were built upon rumor and the solitude that Kor kept only had cemented a distaste towards him. He needed to learn who Kor truly was, if they were to trust one another they would need to know one another.

Kor spoke then, the silence of the moment gone. Larkin tucked his hands inside his robe as he considered the questions posed to him. "I will join you both, it makes sense to me that we would all work together." He paused, quiet thoughts hidden behind his eyes. "The question you pose is not an easy one to answer, I will think on it, and when I have the answer you will be the first to know." Perhaps he was finding his place in the world, perhaps this would lead him to his own salvation. he stretched out a hand to Kor, waiting for the grip of a handshake that would be slow to follow. "We will figure things out, the three of us. Together."

Kor

 

[Kor]

Perhaps the last thing that Kor had expected to come from this meeting was a friendly handshake. There was little he knew about Larkin, but he had heard of how troubled and unstable the man had become, in whispers, anyway. Kor had thought extending this offer to him to be a waste of time, but Zephyrine insisted upon it if she were to be cooperative with him.

It seemed that he may have underestimated her intuition. Consider that noted.

Kor didn't appear to realize the hand had been extended, though. Not until the bird on his shoulder gave a sharp chirp and lept onto one of Larkin's fingers. The Initiate raised an eyebrow, his blind eyes following the bird, before he understood, and reaching out to take the Bard's hand, albeit with a small amount of hesitation. "I want to make it very clear to you, Larkin, that I don't trust you yet. Zephyrine's insistence is the only reason I've extended this branch towards you."

It seemed a backhanded thing to say to one he'd just had a relatively peaceful resolution with, but after shaking Larkin's hand, his voice lowered, and he acquiesced. "However... This is a start. I look forward to seeing you, very soon."

Larkin