godsays | private . 19th metal

private . 19th metal

[ private to anya ]

I think I need help.

[ private to kelsier ]

I want to ask you to keep Vin away from me, but I don't trust you to put my safety over her comfort.

[ Bald and honest. He cares about Kelsier, and Marsh, and it is unbelievably painful to understand that he would be betrayed. ]

[ private to iris ]

You've been killed before. By people here.

[ private to morgana ]

How did you die?

[ a couple days later, private to Cassel ]

I'm sorry I've been so afraid.

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[She wants to sit him down and diagram it all, dissect him and deal with each organ individually, measure the length of the sinews that tie them together. The woman, helplessness, self-control, Cassel. She isn't sure where to cut first. But the woman is the only new factor, and he opened with death.]

To be perfectly honest, of all the terrible things that have happened to me on or because of this boat, getting killed doesn't crack the top five.

[She doesn't mean it in a dismissive way; she's intimating, or trying to, that the thing he's afraid of is, ironically, survivable, is bearable.]

I mean, it's awful in the moment, it is, the helplessness especially. But you come through it and then it's not as scary. Or it wasn't for me.

And there are. Ways of making yourself safer, that don't all involve being the strongest.

I'm helpless now. It doesn't end. I don't come through it. I just get more helpless.

I think you have a skewed perspective. You could probably still break me in half without trying very hard, for instance.

[By skewed perspective, of course, she means: he thinks of his powers as the default, he relies on them overmuch. This is not entirely fair of her, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have a point.]

On the flip side, no amount of godlike power prevents someone from being helpless in every circumstance. No one can control every variable. We are all weaker than someone, we all die.

[She's musing rather than lecturing, almost idly. There are rustling sounds as she moves around her room, gathers a notebook and a pen, settles back into her seat.]

But it wouldn't be like Touko. People would choose you over me.

A lot of them would. Not Babs or Iris or Cassel, though. And if I - or this woman - killed you, it'd be the other way around.

All of which is to say: this is one of my ways of cultivating safety that doesn't involve skill at physical violence. And you're better at it than you think you are.

Cassel is leaving me behind anyway.

Oh, that's why he's been a miserable wet sock lately.

[It's so clear now. Boy stupidity. She should have known.]

You two need to make up, stat.

He promised he wouldn't. And I don't - I can't hold him back. But I don't want to think about it either.

What did he promise, exactly?

That he wouldn't leave me behind. Wouldn't graduate without me.

Well, that was sort of dumb of him.

[But she says it gently.]

It doesn't really change as much as you probably think. Ben and I - do you know Ben?

Not well.

Well, he's. We're really close.

[She sounds awkward, so much less self-assured than she usually does with Zane. She loves Ben so much, and she doesn't always know what he needs; it makes her cautious.]

We have a lot of things in common, and we connected to this place in some of the same ways, and we took care of each other when we were hurt, or when I was going out of mind, and - all that. He graduated six weeks ago.

Nothing changed, Zane. We're still the same people, where it matters. He still needs me in the exact same ways. He's still scared of me leaving him behind, even though I literally can't go.

He'll have power. And I still won't.

So ask him for above-decks perks? Do you really think so little of him that you think he'd hold that over you? Because otherwise, the way to deal with disparity like that is to make it work for you.

Power changes things. You can't pretend it doesn't add shades to you and Ben.

Only if it's wielded, ever. I don't have to pretend. He's not my warden and he doesn't have any more power over me. I mean, hypothetically, he could throw me in zero, but he never will.

Literally the only difference is that if I need him, now he can come running at his full speed instead of half.

He already has his powers back. Charles took more of mine away.

[Okay, let's talk about that.]

He was doing that already, right? But now it's a lot worse.

Why? Just because of her, or is there another reason it scares you?

I don't think I'll ever earn them back. [It's impossible. The cost is too high, and his control too fragile.]

I don't - I don't have hope. Anymore.

Okay. Charles needs to give you a schedule, then.

A schedule?

It's supposed to be an incentive system, right? But if you don't believe you can achieve anything in that system, then you don't have reason to try, and it's not working.

So you two need to decide on a specific time period after which good behavior results in metals, and then he has to stick to it. Or maybe it isn't just days, maybe it's days where you leave your room and talk to people, so it involves resisting temptation or whatever, or something else that's difficult but positive, I don't know, the details are up to you guys.

But the answer to 'I don't believe it will ever happen' is to impose time limits you can rely on.

Edited 2013-08-15 00:46 (UTC)

Haven't I waited long enough? Hasn't this been enough? The ship threw me into a coma and it hurt Cassel and it brought in one of the two people who could make me feel powerless. I don't want to wait for weeks or months or years at the schedule of someone else to get back powers that don't work as well as they should and that chew through metals too fast. Ben was at half his strength? I'm not at a quarter. I would be at a quarter if I had metals all the time, and I don't. I'm crippled, and slow, and alone, and I'm not even in control of myself! Why should I care anymore? Why should I try? I have nothing. All this Barge has done is given me the chance I always wanted and then shown me that all that happened to me was because of my failures.

I'm finished.

[She waits for a few beats, then slowly, very calmly -]

I want you to imagine. That you arrived here, confused, powerless, terrified, and then discovered, as your next-door neighbor, beloved and befriended by a pack of wardens - your father. Only he can crush you with a thought, and he always could.

[She lets it sink in for a second.]

I don't really comprehend surrender. If you really don't care, I can't make you, and I'm not going to try. I'm going to tell Charles you need concrete dates for power return because I'm right about that, and if you want me to keep fighting for you, then I'll meet you tomorrow after dinner for meditation lessons. I think they might help.

If not - I'll fight for you, Zane, but I won't fight against you. If you're alone, it's because you are choosing to be. Let me know.

Edited 2013-08-15 03:16 (UTC)

[private]

godsays - 2013-08-15 19:16 (UTC) - Expand

[private]

fridgetothefire - 2013-08-16 01:10 (UTC) - Expand

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