#ryland:kimoon004

[ofviolentdeath]

@babyitsmagic sent 🫴 - late but ki-moon to ryland :)

"Don't," he mumbled, tensing at that oh so gentle touch. His lip was split, one eye bruised badly, and he was pretty sure he had taken damage to the ribs. Honestly, he was just glad it wasn't the side that had been pieced back together with metal. That was usually where his dad aimed when they crossed paths and Ryland managed to piss him off. "It's not as bad as it looks."

[ofviolentdeath]

"The rest of the world does a good enough job ignoring shit like that." They had ignored it when he was a kid, people always looking the other way instead of ever trying to help the small boy cowering when his father even looked at him. "I don't...understand. I don't understand why it matters to you."

"So you do not. But you are still a person in need of help, and that is... difficult to ignore." Especially when it was clear that Ryland had so few resources available to him. "I would not call this fun, no. Frustrating, certainly, but not fun. ...I want you to find happiness. Whatever that may look like for you."

[ofviolentdeath]

"I really don't fall into that kind of category," he pointed out. It all sounded nice on paper, but he couldn't bring himself to ask to see such things. What if it was a trick? What if he gave in and was trapped there or, worse, subjected to the same kind of treatment that had already stripped him of any sense of self-worth. "What do you want from me? Because this can't be fun for you."

"Not always. And rarely from the mortal realm, though my family is quite well-known for getting mortals out of other courts. I have multiple human cousins who were freed or taken from other fae who were unkind to them, and plenty of humans not in my family live in our court under similar circumstances." This was only different in that Ryland hadn't made a bad deal that had trapped him in the fae realm. He'd been dealt a bad hand in the mortal one instead.

[ofviolentdeath]

"Do you always go out of your way to try to coax broken strays home with you?" There probably wasn't a good answer to that question but he was just trying to make sense of it all, to figure out what the hell Ki-moon wanted from him or even saw in him.

"Sometimes answers aren't particularly interesting or enlightening." He wasn't sure he could give a solid answer to that question, and certainly not one that would make sense to Ryland.

[ofviolentdeath]

"Now who's dodging questions?" Even if he did think he was worth caring about, he still would not understand Ki-moon's attachment to him and he wasn't sure he would ever get a straight answer out of him about it either.

"It's deeply saddening that you don't think you're worth caring about."

[ofviolentdeath]

"I don't understand why. Why do you seem to...care?" He wasn't even sure if that was the right word, but it was the only thing he could really figure.

"Yes, you are... painfully young. And should have many, many years ahead of you. Consider this a puzzle that I am very determined to solve." He was beginning to suspect there was no solution here that wouldn't involve some sort of debt. A deal with someone sturdier than the fae, or a favor bargained with another court.

[ofviolentdeath]

The age thing should have been enough to make him step back, to put distance between the two of them, but he was just so damn tired. "God, I'm not even 30," was all he managed to mutter in response to that revelation, feeling even more out of sorts. At least this was slightly easier to deal with than questions about who had busted him up.

That drew a raised eyebrow. "Ryland. I am several thousand years old at this point." That was probably news to the other. He had never bothered to mention just how old old was. But he was bordering on ancient. Maybe even would be considered ancient by standards outside his court and realm. "If you think this is the biggest challenge I've ever faced or you happen to be the most difficult person I've ever met, you are vastly underestimating humanity on the whole."

[ofviolentdeath]

He opened his mouth to argue before closing it. He had done a lot of things wrong. Maybe not in this moment, but in others and he knew it. "I'll understand if this is the last time you show up. I know I'm a lot to deal with," he finally settled on, avoiding apologizing again but barely.

"You should not apologize to the fae. It implies a wrongdoing, which leads to debt." Not that Ki-moon operated by strictly the same rules, but it was worth pointing out. "And you have done no wrong here, so on those grounds alone you need not apologize."

[ofviolentdeath]

The loss of that warmth had him taking a small step forward before he stopped himself. "I'm sorry..." He knew he was difficult, even when he didn't mean to be, and he hated that he couldn't just allow himself to have even a friend outside of the essentially pre-approved list of other hunters close in age.

He sighed, pulling his hand away from Ryland. "I do not think I know how to help." At least not in a way that Ryland would actually like or want.

[ofviolentdeath]

"Probably not." The program had, as far as Ryland knew, been shut down since the handlers had started ending up dead in some truly horrific ways. Not that they didn't deserve it, really, but it had still been hard to look at.

"Do I want to ask any follow-up questions about that statement?" He wondered how much information the hunter in his court had on Ryland's family, and how well it would go over if he asked her to share it.

[ofviolentdeath]

"You mean the hunters well aware of my family's werewolf hybridization program? You'd be surprised how many of the families use magic for their own gains and then kill the witches they tricked into working for them."

"Those ways are mostly magical themselves. Just how hypocritical is your family, exactly? And how well do you think more traditional hunters might handle that information?"

[ofviolentdeath]

"There are ways to see through that kind of magic." There were work arounds for most kinds of magic and the idea of using any made his skin crawl.

He considered that for a moment. "There is magic that could disguise you. Make you look like a different person entirely, for the time of your meeting, at least. Perhaps even make you look like someone else she knows, someone she would already have reason to be meeting with."

[ofviolentdeath]

"I'd never be able to see Peri again if I did that. She's the first person they'd keep tabs on waiting for me to resurface." The thought of not being able to see the only friend he had left made him feel sick in ways he didn't have words for.

"Not if you didn't leave at all, but I know that isn't truly an option." At least not one that would make him happy. "You, perhaps, stay away longer. It would be harder for them to find you when you returned."

[ofviolentdeath]

"It would be worse when I came back. This...this isn't even that bad compared to everything else he's done." The words were whispered, that fear gripping him tightly and making his stomach clench. "And you know I couldn't stay."

"You could be safe, even for a time. That would be a good thing." He knew Ryland didn't value himself enough to see it that way, but it was still true.

[ofviolentdeath]

"My family would catch up to me eventually." And it would be a death sentence when they did. Peri would be the first person they put surveillance on if he disappeared.

"It would be worse when I came back. This...this isn't even that bad compared to everything else he's done." The words were whispered, that fear gripping him tightly and making his stomach clench. "And you know I couldn't stay."