poly_chromatic | Melancholy Rage: Video/Action;

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darker than black - yin

Melancholy Rage: Video/Action;

[Seeing as she had told Jinora she would, the next day after her distressing run in with Hei, Yin sets up the piano and her device to record.]

[While she isn't the type to pick a cheerful tune, Yin's pieces are usually tinged with a little sadness, but never do they have anger in them, no matter how slight. This time, it feels as though her fingers move a little faster, and she hits the notes a little harder, and the chords are deeper.]

[Yin looks as listless as ever, not a trace of emotional turmoil to be found, for the most part. For those who know her, however, who have seen her often enough, it might seem her shoulders droop just a little more, her lips are curved just a little more towards hurt, and her eyes give away to some pain in their half-lidded state.]

[When she finishes, she soundlessly turns the recording off.]

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[Pai moves quietly, seeming to appear out of nowhere. She sits down next to Yin as the song wraps up.]

You're very skilled.

[She's not considered herself skilled since turning into a Doll, and before that she couldn't properly gauge, but it was fun. Still, Pai did pay her a compliment.]

Thank you.

[ As a rule, Hei dislikes most classical music. Ambient white-noise is more his thing, cool electronic beats that hang around the room like a whiff of air-freshener. But the post is hard to ignore -- mainly because of the Why and the What. It isn't like Yin to make spontaneous musical performances. Nor do her arpeggios ever sound so -- overwrought. It's as if his face is being rubbed in the fact that the music is all soundwaves and atoms of emotion when you strip the Baroque wrapping paper off it. But too much sonic emotional nakedness isn't good for Hei's nerves. Especially in light of what's happened. ]

[ There's a beat, before he speaks. Contacting her feels, enormously, like a presumption. But this isn't the sort of thing he's been trained to ignore. ]

That's an angry tune.

[ And likely matches its player. ]

That's really beautiful. Kind of mad, but pretty.

[Hei was someone she wasn't expecting to hear from at all. She hadn't even considered communicating with him, yet. But once she hears any words from him at all, and sees his face, her tepid fury melts.]

[He doesn't get a response to his observation, however, just a much softer:]

Hei.

Would you like something else?

[ Hei's face is carefully blank, but the gaze is soft. Questioning. He feels like an arachnid crawling out into the sunshine -- tentatively, as if feeling out the parameters of the dawn; expecting to be plunged back into night at any moment. ]

[ He keeps his voice quiet out of caution, not apology. ]

Should I leave you alone?

[ It seems enough of a presumption, contacting her without a practical purpose. If she tells him Yes, it'll sting, but -- that's how life goes. ]

I'd love to hear anything! Could I watch you play?

I've been trying to play this piece. [She pulls out a piece of sheet music and sets it on top of the keyboard.] I need some help.

[She feels quite the opposite. There's never a need for an apology between them, and the last thing she wants is for him to leave her alone. That, however, was something Yin didn't realize until they were speaking.]

No.

[Yin nods her head to that and starts to play a softer melody. One she is very familiar with.]

[Yin looks the sheet over, her mind putting finger placement into play as she does.]

Where?

[ Hei blinks once, then again. By the third time, something in the set of his jaw has softened a shade. It's not relief, exactly, but it comes close. ]

I know you're upset with me.

[ It's said as a fact as much as a reminder, his gaze shuttered. There's a certain deliberateness to the way he speaks, a gentleness that's cut with solemnity. (It's true that something in him has collapsed into an aching, untidy gratitude at her No, but it's too small to balance the foundation for an entire conversation on. Especially one that's so painfully real. So unscripted.) ]

It doesn't sound right when I play it.

[The girl listens and watches intently, openly impressed.]

That was so beautiful. It's like your fingers are dancing.

[Yin gestures to the piano, giving Pai room to play. It might make sense if she hears her play it.]

Edited 2014-02-17 01:45 (UTC)

[Yin looks at her fingers as they move. Is that what it is? Dancing? She's not sure what to make of poetic language. To her they are simply moving to make sound. But the sound is pleasant, and she enjoys making it.]

No. [She shakes her head. That's not quite it. That's not exactly what she was angry about, or she would have been angry from the beginning, when she first found out about Hei and Korra.]

[And while they will never say as much as others might, or cover everything outside of subtle gestures, Yin knows one thing:]

We need to talk.

[ We need to talk. There's a feeling of deja vu, something giddy and raw and unbalanced. He wonders if Yin knows ... how many times he's said those words to Korra? Presumptive, offhand, cruel, like he's doing her a favor by condescending to address her like a human being. His brain sways and jangles over the memories now, feeling unanchored. Wondering if this is some sort of karmic payback. Coincidence, Hei doesn't believe in. Irony? Very much so. There's a premonition that anything Yin says can only forecast disaster. (After all, it's led to nothing but misery and confusion everytime he's spoken those words to Korra.) But despite the fear slithering down his spine, Hei is never one to succumb to paralysis. ]

We do. [ There's something thick in his voice that grips and doesn't want to let go. He shakes it off. ] Over the Network, or face to face?

[ It is -- it always will be -- her choice. ]

[She has no idea, of course, what his conversations with Korra were like. Yin witnessed the more physical side, then quietly stopped spying and hadn't seen another thing, leaving them to their privacy.]

[There's only one choice here, but it is still hers.]

The pond. [The place the first met up when she arrived in the City.]

Give me fifteen minutes.

[ It's terse, steady, operational -- although the purpose of this meeting is anything but. ]

[ He's on time, of course, bundled up in a hat and a blue scarf and a big coat: it ripples and flaps in the wind, slicing up the quiet rustle of the grass behind him with swathes of navy-black. The pond is a flat opaque sheet; nearby, a murder of crows congregate on a tree shattered under a weight of snow. ]

[ Any symbolism in the scenery, however, is lost on Hei. All he can feel is that cold-hot prickle of something in his belly, his movements pulled by a cord which seems to reach in under his ribs, to draw him toward the shape of Yin -- a delicate snow sculpture in the gray-scale of the winter scenery. ]

[She's bundled up warm, not that it helps. Still, she doesn't shiver, her face just focuses on the pond. When Hei approaches, Yin tilts her head up. She greets him with a hug, albeit a loose one that she attempts to pull back from rather quickly.]

[ The hug startles him -- enough that something shutters across his face, almost imperceptible, there then gone with a startled flicker of his choppy eyelashes. He's not sure if the hug signifies a greeting or a reconciliation, and tries not to read anything into it, his mind so disjointed when it comes to these intimacies, and his heart with no desire to be sucked into her calming orbit -- knowing it can happen, wham, that fast -- but it feels so damn good. His fingers flex as if to reach for her. But he slips them into his coat pockets instead. Breathes slowly, a tall dark pillar in the snow, his expression unreadable. ]

[ He doesn't prompt her with a terse, Well? Doesn't order her to Start talking. This isn't an assignment; the buzz at the base of his spine tells him that much. ]

[ Instead he stays silent. Waits, with an infinite patience, for Yin to speak. ]

[Yin had wanted to show Hei there were no hard feelings. If they were to continue the small friendship they had cultivated here, the other beautiful feelings that came from knowing Hei, Yin knew any worry or concern about anger needed to be handled.]

[It's easy to say a decision of whom he should be with is Hei's to make, but he's already made his choice. He sleeps with Korra. Kisses her outside of curses. She's alive, vibrant, and opposite of just about everything Yin is. There's only one thing left to say, her voice barely a whisper, but clear and unyielding.]

Go be with Korra. [As soon as the words leave her mouth, it twitches. It's slow going, and when they finally upturn, it's barely noticeable, but she smiles, soft and sad.]

[ Go be with Korra? ]

[ The words, for a moment, make no sense. They're white-noise; a blank space. Hei stares at Yin. Watches her lips twitch, curling and reshaping into something he's never seen before. He knows his expression is one of flat-gazed horror. He tries to right it but it keeps slipping. His mind spirals, a dozen thoughts caught in its fabric, and the most pellucid ones are How is she smiling? and Oh God, is she cursed? In his pockets, his fingers twitch, trigger-sharp, and his skin prickles though his brain has yet to register the cold; Yin's words seep into his system and make him feel both hollowed-out and heavy, his blood thick and slow in his veins. There is a pressure in his head. Twenty three years of remembering every detail pressing in behind his eyes -- a long corridor stretching out, choked full of imperfect shreds of emotion and the shattered knicknacks of old trauma. ]

[ He slams the lid on those thoughts, with a mental clang that shapes smoke-gray words into one thought: This isn't a curse. She's serious. ]

Yin ...

[ There's a tense edge to his voice. He's not sure, exactly, what he's supposed to say. ]

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