versusnurture | fifth ♢ private + voice + spam

fifth ♢ private + voice + spam

private/voice } ben

[She contacts her warden as soon as Hannibal makes his announcement. Last night, when she checked in, she was distant; this morning she seemed more confident. This afternoon, she's shaky, uncertain, every bone in her body trembling, it feels like.]

Ben. I lost time. [This is an excuse, she knows.]

He made me dinner, Ben.

public } voice

[She cuts the feed on, then off. On/off, on/off, in strange but rhythmic patterns like Morse code.]

[She's fishing. Questions, accusations will come - she remembers that much from last time, with her real father, with Garret Hobbs, the Shrike. She wants them now. She doesn't want to wait.]

public } spam

[She doesn't change her routine, not even slightly. Which is not to say she's not afraid: she's terrified. There's no Freddie Lounds here to publicly doctor this story, to minimize her shame. Even if there was, she honestly isn't sure she'd want that anymore.]

[So she walks the halls and accepts what comes, goes to the art room, goes to lunch, visits Ben on his shift. Sometimes she goes to the CES and forgets where she is and how time passes. Hours and hours go by as she sits under a tree with her knees pulled up to her chest.]

[This is the only vulnerability she shows, and it is accidental.]

private } zane

I know what he wants from me so I can ask him for information if that's what you want.

[It's about the Emperor, of course; she no longer has the privilege, in her own mind, of contacting Zane for any reason other than business.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He didn't come looking for her, but he finds her. He tends to carry at least a few snacks all the time, and after a few moments of consideration, he drifts nearby, and wordlessly offers her a plum.]

[She covers her eyes when she sees - not Marsh, but the plum. It's an inherently childish gesture. But it only lasts a minute, because she hates it and she wants to kill it off.]

[With trembling fingers, she takes the plum and inspects it carefully, turning it rapidly in her hands and squeezing it until she's satisfied that it is what it looks like. Then she holds it close, with no apparent intention to eat it.]

[He waits, has no discernable expression in response to her reactions. When she seems to have settled, he just asks,]

Am I imposing?

[A less personal question than do you want to be alone, the vulnerability required to answer either way, for all that she has put herself in a public place.]

[She doesn't want to be alone, but does, but doesn't. So she shakes her head.]

No.

Why do you carry fruit?

When I was a child, sometimes there wasn't enough food.

[He feels a little safer, carrying some, even though everything is different now, even though it makes no sense.]

And my world didn't have any fruit at all. I like it.

Oh.

[She looks down at the plum, then back up at him. He doesn't scare her. He probably should, but he doesn't.]

I can't eat it now. I'm sorry. [It feels a little absurd apologizing, but she really can't. She wouldn't be able to keep it down.]

That's okay. Keep it. Just...to have. In case you want to later.

[In his mind the having is at least as important as the in case. He should probably not be encouraging other people to have hoarding issues. But he doesn't really care.]

Thank you.

[She will live on things that she can consider the component parts of. She isn't sure why she never thought of it before. Figure out where everything comes from and you can figure out how bad you should feel about destroying it.]

I'm sorry.

[She doesn't know what she's apologizing for, and rolls the plum over in her hands.]

Why wasn't there fruit?

[Tell me a story.]

[He's not quite as bad at telling stories as people would think. Kelsier demanded them, constantly. He wasn't as good as their mother, but he learned out of necessity. He recognizes the tone, too, and - well, he knows this one. Sazed liked filling in the history for him, as a way of pretending Marsh wasn't brooding.]

There were two gods. They were sort of people, and sort of just - forces. One that wanted to break everything down, and one that wanted to keep things whole. They balanced. For ever and ever and a day. And then things changed. They made a deal. Together, they would make people, creatures that lived and thought, that built things up. The one that protected things wanted that. And in exchange, the one that destroyed would - someday - be allowed to destroy everything that was in the world.

But the one that liked life cheated, and trapped most of the destructive one in a magic well. Every thousand years, its power would overflow, and a person could take it, and use it - or set it free. It was tricky, too. It used the stories people told, twisted prophecies, so that one day a hero came, seeking power to save the world, believing that to avoid disaster, he must be selfless, must let the power go. But a priest who studied the records very closely realized they had been changed, and he made sure that the hero was replaced by someone else - someone mean, small-minded and short-sighted. Someone selfish enough to keep the destruction imprisoned. And for one minute he had the power of a god to himself.

He changed the world, trying to fix it, roughly and rashly, and he made a monstrous place. Very few plants could grow there, and flowers not at all. So he changed the plants, too, to live and sustain people in the world as it was. No flowers, no fruit. And then the power flickered out for another thousand years.

[They balanced, he tells her, forever and ever and a day, and she wonders at the concept of good and evil ever truly being equal in power. Evil cheats. It always does. But then she understands: the good one, the one that liked life, cheated too. Cheated first.]

[Her eyes open wide in wonder.]

And then what happened?

Horrible worlds need heroes. There was a new hero, kind and brave and selfless, who set it free.

[He pauses, but there's nothing final in his cadence. He's just - pondering.]

I said they were people, as well as forces. The people in them, the - deliberation, the minds - no one ever figured out where they came from. But they were something very like human, and they were...grafted on, almost. And those parts of them could die.

The mind of the god that like people was dying. It was - using itself up, you see. Some of it went into people, to make them different than animals. And some of it went into the binding that kept the other god caught. So when it was finally free, it was stronger, and smarter, more coherent. And it had had a very, very long time to plan. Things collapsed very quickly. Two years later, it was on the verge of turning what was left of a warring world into a charred, empty rock.

But the protector had that time to plan, too. And at the last moment, the power - mindless, formless, only force and concept - attached itself to a new person. The same hero from before. They fought. And because she was still brave, and kind, and selfless, and because it did not understand any of this, this time they did not balance. They were still equal. But she destroyed the mind of destruction, at the cost of being destroyed herself.

The power is still there. It can't be destroyed, it can only change form. But in that moment, opposite but not opposed, without ego or enmity, both powers settled on someone else, someone the god of preservation had planned for, prophesied all along. Someone who had studied the way the world used to be all his life, who carried more knowledge than any one human should be able to. And he destroyed what was left of the world the selfish man made, and he protected the people who were left in it, and brought them safely to a world renewed.

It is - better, now. Green and bright and not so cruel. There are flowers, and fruit, though everyone is still discovering which ones are actually any good to eat. I'm not used to it. It doesn't - feel real, some days. But it is.

I think I see. I understand. You - [She inhales sharply, then lets it out, like she's exhaling toxin.] You tell a good story. Very clear. Easy to follow.

[As if this isn't his life, his home, his world he's describing. After some further consideration:]

Zane is from that place, too, isn't he.

[--and then she remembers Zane and his anger and that he must hate her now and that, most importantly, he protected her for an entire lifetime that never existed - she remembers that he worries about her still, or at least did before now, and that Hannibal has damaged him despite her efforts, which really weren't even close to being good enough.]

[She presses her face into her knees and clutches the plum to her chest like it's her own heart, squeezes it tightly until the flesh bruises and juices run down her fingers and wrists to tremble at her elbows. She keens like an animal in pain.]

[He doesn't even really have a chance to say yes before the realization crashes down on her, and then he has no idea what to do, but the sound is so awful and raw, cut from somewhere formless and familiar, helplessness and despair and self-loathing. In the end, he puts an arm gingerly around her shoulders. If she tries to bolt, he can bolt faster; if he cannot help, at least he will not expel her from the place she chose in her suffering.]

[She can barely feel his touch, she's so far away. It's forced to filter through the layers of her perception as the sound dies away slowly, as though the animal she is (or was) is finally giving up. In the end she slumps, exhausted by her own ugliness, but doesn't move away from his touch.]

Abigail.

[Loudly, for how close they are, heavy and clear.]

I can. Lessen your distress. If you allow it.

[He should have thought of it before. But he hates it, still feels twisted and torn for using it on Riddick, even to prevent him from hurting himself further. Normally he tries very hard not to think about it at all.]

[His voice is as precise as a church bell. She hears. She doesn't understand.]

I don't want drugs.

Not that. It is an ability I have, to reduce the intensity of emotions, temporarily. I do not know whether that resembles - the tonics you expect.

[She looks up at him now, red-eyed and tearstained.]

It shouldn't all be gone.

[It's hard to say why, other than that she feels she deserves at least some of it.]

It wouldn't be.

[He's not subtle with it. But he can manage that.]

You could tell me to stop at any time. It's - the effect doesn't linger.

[After another moment's thought, she nods. She can't be out of control like this, it's a terrible idea.]

Please.

[If he does something he shouldn't, she'll get him back later. But she doesn't think he will.]

[He starts burning brass, just a little, very tentatively, aims to brush away the sharp edges of fear, sorrow, guilt, and its fiercer twin, self-loathing. He thinks about listening to it from the other side, about the subtle changes in timbre of soothing different emotions. Then he burns a little more. His arm is still around her, and - he doesn't think that should make it less horrifying, but it does. A little.]

Better?

[It helps. She's surprised. It doesn't blanket her and smother her, like the psilocybin did. It pulls off the damaged skin of her psyche and leaves her fresh, raw, but quietened. His touch, his presence, is all aloe.]

A little.

[She breathes.]

A lot.

I'm glad.

[And he is, not just for her sake. He feels a speck less monstrous, wielding it in a way that is - if not healing, then comforting.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

fifth ♢ private + voice + spam

CES

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject