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KORIAND'R IS THE SUN.
The thing that claims the name Hal Jordan would do well to remember its last encounter with the sun.
She is fury and fire and glaring at him, the heat radiating outwards and scorching his skin. There will not be a reprieve, not a second where an inferno of green does not stare him down.
He doesn't bother trying to dissuade her. He can see it, from all their suspicious looks, from the way they back away from him ━━ there isn't a single member of the Justice League that believes he's innocent.
He knows how it looks. He does. He wouldn't have the black hole of nothingness gnawing away at his chest if he didn't, but . . .
Hal doesn't know much about himself anymore. No longer the Green Lantern, no longer the man, no longer even human, he's had every aspect of his identity ripped away and torn apart. He will never know himself the way he did with a ring on his finger but he is sure of this: he would not hurt her.
He couldn't. He has flashes, sometimes, of times when madness gripped his soul and drove him towards the unspeakable and he still refused to hurt her. All he could do was save her, pull her back from that entropy that had swallowed him whole, and now he doubts he accomplished that.
He sent her back to Earth to find some peace. Koriand'r's glare confirms that she never did.
"Well?" She says, arms crossed. "Where is she?"
The truth has never not hurt to admit. "I don't know."
"You're the Spectre."
Is he the Spectre? Is the Spectre him? "I can't find her. She's not . . . she's not in this place anymore."
Nightwing frowns. His hand finds Starfire's, draining some of the furies from her. "Then what place is she in?"
If he says it, it's an admission of guilt. "A place beyond the Spectre's reach."
"Specify", Starfire demands. Negotiation should come easy to the princess of Tamaran, but she's always been driven more by her emotions. Delicacies fall to pieces in the face of tragedy and this one looms above them all.
And what is he? The greatest Green Lantern of all, the epicentre of ━━
"I don't know", he repeats and the lie falls so, so easily. It's all been easy. So easy, to just let that fear in. So easy, to close his eyes and let someone else take the reigns.
He is and he is not. He knows and he does not.
(A soul should not be shared. A soul should not be halved ━━ doesn't he know, the things that lets in? Bugs creeping all over, sharp teeth burrowing further and further in as that rot spreads, maggots bursting from the skin ━━ doesn't He know?)
Nightwing ━━ the catalyst of change, didn't you know? ━━ steps in at the right time, the imperfect moment. "So this is less mystic, more . . . science?"
