There is no such thing as selflessness in this world. You have to fight if you want to live, and steal if you want to eat. There are no in-betweens.
Emerald balled her hands tightly into fists, barely managing to steady her swimming vision enough to make out the figure standing before her. Her ears were ringing, likely from when she'd banged her head on the ground earlier, but it was a small issue in comparison to her inner turmoil.
She could register vaguely what was happening right now, and become certain when a kind voice filtered through her muddled ears and processed through her brain.
"Hold them off for a bit. I'm checking Emerald for injuries."
"No problem." A softer, more vexed voice replied.
Pulling a face, Emerald felt it when a hand gently placed itself on her head looking over the abrasions she knew had formed over her forehead above her left eye. Instinctively, she tried to wrestle away, her lips pursing as pain shot up her leg and bruised torso.
"I'm not here to hurt you. You need to relax."
Relax? Relax?
She blinked up to look into concerned bronze-coloured eyes from behind a featureless mask; they were windows that expressed more emotion than mere words could ever convey in this moment.
It was Archer, the one that had been the most vehement about not letting her join in the search for the woman who shot her.
In the end, the one who came off as dismissive and judgemental of her habits as a thief was the first to come when troubles ailed her.
She looked stunned to see him at all like the concept was alien to her, and then she couldn't hold the torrent back anymore.
"Why'd you come back and let her get away?!" She demanded, pushing him back if only to corner herself with her back against an alley wall.
She didn't understand it. She didn't want to understand it.
The concept that letting go of one's own objective just to help a stranger was too foreign in her mind, and frankly, it was shattering her sense of normalcy.
People weren't supposed to be like this. People weren't supposed to be kind especially to the dregs of society.
They were supposed to be two-faced, selfish, and greedy.
Of course, she knew that she was being biased in her views, but it had always been easier to perceive things in this way:
That this gnawing feeling of guilt after every theft had nothing to do with her; that it was only right to have stolen from beggars and malnourished street rats that were sure to die as they would have done the same if she was any weaker.
When kindness was shown and even showered over her, it made every crime and action that she'd undertaken to survive feel that much more like a mistake; like she could have found another means, but opted for an easy out.
She bit down on her lips before her shoulders drooped and she just stared up at Archer in exhaustion and disbelief as she stewed with her inner grievances.
"Was it wrong to come back to help you?"
That was the wrong thing to say.
"Yes! Yes, it is!" She shouted while pointing at herself, then at Summer fighting the hired bandits and gangsters. "These bastards were my problem. As for us, we're nothing. We're strangers. If you were normal, you wouldn't have helped me again!"
"But I did," Archer replied evenly, cutting the wind of Emerald's sails.
"You did," she said subduedly, eyes drooped before staring back up with more strength and fire. "You did! And I still don't know how to feel about it!"
YOU ARE READING
The Huntsman of Red V2
AdventureGuardian, Protector, Hero, and perhaps something more, that was what he had always meant to her, but to others he was simply known as the Huntsman of Red, Remnant's final hope. This story is not mine, it belongs to Parcasious
