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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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)

[He can imagine. But it isn't surrender he's contemplating so much as admitting he never really wanted to fight in the first place.

Zane's life would have been better if everyone had left him alone.]

I'm not going to meet you.

But you can talk to Charles all you want.

[She feels ten again, twelve, grappling to haul someone heavier than she was out of bed each morning, literally and then only figuratively. She takes a deep breath, because however frustrated she is, she doesn't need to add her issues to Zane's. He's not her mother, she doesn't love him. She can walk away without leaving poisoned pieces of herself behind. She takes a heavy breath, blows it out.]

You ever want to yell about anything besides hopelessness, my door is open.

Edited 2013-08-16 01:10 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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