#anyway um i'm going insane rn about all of this i need several days to recover

[cybervigilante]

she remains a silent sentinel to his dawning acceptance, watching with lamenting eyes how he sobers and picks up the fragments of his emblematic charisma, piecing them together with the final vestiges of optimism his still-beating heart could produce. of all the times she's been fortunate enough to watch him be reborn from his ashes, from the undying valor of youth which Robin so expertly wielded to the seasoned resolve of a veteran Nightwing, this was by far the most disheartening. she knows, as he does, that the mantle of his predecessor, with it's obligatory reliance on severing the heart to sharpen the mind among much darker aspects, was never what he wanted for himself but what he had always been preordained to become.

there could be no one better to wear the cowl, or to do justice to the creed at the heart of what the symbol brandished upon his chest truly stood for, and as such, dick must forsake all pleasures, whims, and personal ambitions to serve his ultimate purpose and become a myth. koriand'r understood better than most what it meant to sacrifice want for duty, giving up love for her political marriage to karras in order to assure peace for her planet ⸻ effectively driving a wedge between herself and dick, one that they never seemed to have mended very well. as she's struck by the dour reflection of their threadbare fates, and how their ties to each other seemed to loosen the more time passed, dick begins to stir, a measure of surety regained as his posture becomes heroic once more. he pulls away from her after a final firm clasp of their hold on each other, and she understands that her purpose here had been fulfilled.

koriand'r unfurls gracefully from the equally elegant dip of her neck and curve of her spine she had thoughtlessly employed to be closer to dick as he folded into himself protectively. a hand sweeps across the air like a caress as she takes a light stretch, preparing herself for yet another awkward goodbye before the conversation is continued, attention, this time, solely on her. ‵ oh. ʹ she half gasps, half exclaims with honest surprise. her ethereal beauty softens all the more, head tilting to rest upon her own shoulder as she regards him with renewed endearment. here she stood so certain of his prompt dismissal, of an immediate adoption of his mentor's callous habit of disappearing once the conversation had served it's purpose, and yet he reminds her immediately that he was still the man she considered to be the great love of her life; an extraordinary human who cared, more than any creed or oath he'd made to another man's quest for vengeance, about humanity, and life, and the belief that it deserved to be respected, honored, and especially saved time after time. dick grayson was no batman, he was resolutely, unmistakably ( at least to her ) better.

‵ i ... am well. ʹ she settles for neutrality after initial hesitation; loneliness plaguing her the same as it always had, and always would as a being from another star system living amongst those who were not of her kind and more inclined to misunderstand her than not, but it was nothing to complain about. the team, however ... her lips turn down slightly to think of their disconnect, yet knowing it had been bound to happen in light of dick's departure. how could they possibly persist for long without a head or heart ? and yet the improbability did not stop them, dismayed as they were. ‵ donna is trying to keep everyone together, and because i love her, and the titans, and have pledged myself to helping you all since our meeting, i have been at her side through the effort. we still want to help foster the youth, so our efforts have been mostly in guiding them moreso than it has been fighting our own battles. as you know, with what's happening with Roy and you having duties to attend to here in Gotham, our unity has waned but it has not withered yet ... and if i have anything to say about it, it never shall. ʹ

EVERYTHING ENDS. doesn't he know it. the good, the bad, everything in between. he's been trying to swim against the current for too long, drowning in his mistakes, maybe it was time to simply . . . float. to accept the path he himself pushed into and stop pretending like there was anyway out but through. that he'd want it any way, HE CHOOSE THIS. dick could HELP. maybe not gotham, not nearly as well as bruce at least, but bit by bit they'd escape the rubble. everything ends. it's up to them to REBUILD. his frown is small --- he's had to hide more of his emotions recently, mute himself a bit more with damian watching him & the cowl framing him, but he's slipping into old patterns more and more. dick wasn't insecure enough anymore to think the sentence ended with 'bruce didn't trust him', he was mature enough now to know bruce trusted him more than most. but the cowl, gotham, HIS LEGACY meant more than dick could EVER shoulder. . . . and he's been stuck on that, stewing in a simmering pot of anxieties, waiting patiently to overflow when kory's words tame the boil over. kory's eyes, when he looks into them for that steadfast STRENGTH that flamed even the oceans that settles his mind just enough to think past the shroud of grief. CHANGE. dick's good at that. saving gotham, he could focus on. it'll always be about HELP. maybe he can't save gotham. but maybe with some help, with the people HE trusted --- alfred, tim, steph, cass, damian, THEY could. his grip tightens on their hands before eventually, EVENTUALLY letting go. after all, every great leap started with a FALL. " i'm going to do everything i can. " because it's all he had to give. and for all the belief that kory had in him, all the impossibilities of her mind, he had to promise this would be WORTH IT. he takes a few thoughtful breaths. one hand running through his hair, maybe in an attempt to break the tension, maybe an old habit of a decidedly un-cowled vigilante before wanting to ask the same of her. how reminiscent this was of older days where they could speak this freely often. " and you? are you alright? " --- because he knows what gotham means to others. metas, especially, and dick's closest friends and confidants like kory and wally specifically. THE CITY was never their intended destination, if they could help it, and there was an ache in dick's chest at knowing he wouldn't be returing with them this time. " i haven't heard anything from the team for awhile. "