23rd metal . CTS spam

[godsays]

[ It's after Cassel's announcement that Zane can be found in the CTS.

The scene is medieval - or, ancient, anyway. Armor, swords, horses. A battle. As the door out of the CTS closes behind him, they surround him, weapons braced. He blinks back anguished emotion, and tosses back a vial of metals, and touches steel, pewter.

He launches into the air, and the fight begins.

There are hundreds of them, and only one of him: and yet. He slaughters them. He uses the metal they carry to Push and Pull himself; he is always faster, always stronger, and he is the utter picture of grace.

He kills them all.

And when they are dead, the bright green hill of a battlefield strewn with corpses, he goes into the forest. Braces himself against one tree and flings metal at another, a thud-thud of swords, knives, shields whipping and burying themselves into the bark. He Pushes, and Pushes, until finally the tree splinters and collapses, crashing slowly and mightily into the ground.

He keeps destroying the trees, over and over, until someone interrupts - or another army shows up. ]

Comments

[godsays]

I don't think I've ever climbed a mountain before. I would do that with you, in CES.

[Not CTS. It seems the sort of thing best left uninterrupted by raging beasts or invading armies.]

I wouldn't use powers.

[fridgetothefire]

You could use them if you wanted. I don't mind people having powers. Just -

[She bites her lip, turns neatly away, tossing the used cotton swabs and cracking a chemical ice pack for the burgeoning lump of the worst bruise.]

[godsays]

I mean it wouldn't be very fair or very interesting with them. With pewter.

[fridgetothefire]

It's a mountain, not a race. It's not about fairness. I mean, they wouldn't do you a lot of good. The point is to go sort of slowly, to see the wild as you go. But you could use it if you wanted and not be tired at the end.

[godsays]

That's what I meant. The point isn't to do it fast.

[fridgetothefire]

[She snorts softly.]

Yes, well. That never stopped my brother.

[Always running off, always, and now again. She wishes she could trip him.]

I'm just saying, I don't have delicate sensibilities about it, or whatever, if you feel the sudden need a dramatic wilderness detour, or something.

[godsays]

I think I'd like it better than meditating.

[fridgetothefire]

[She's surprised, for a moment. She hadn't been thinking about it. She breathes, and even considering it as a topic centers her again, a little.]

...they're different tools, for different purposes. Hiking was a release, a way to tire myself out and see a little more of the sky. Meditation isn't about joy, or at least it isn't for me. It's about finding calm and self-control in a way that doesn't require shutting my feelings into a tiny vat until they ferment into poison.

Anyway, I'd be willing to do either one with you.

I'm sorry I got huffy. I just...I still expect people to make assumptions, sometimes.

[godsays]

[A shake of his head. He had thought she wouldn't like him using powers, in all honesty. He'd thought she might be jealous, or just resentful. Or that she'd try to push herself to keep up in a way that wasn't good.]

No, you were right. I did think that. It just wasn't the only reason I said it.

[fridgetothefire]

You dork.

[She says this completely without any actual disdain, winding gauze around the cold pack to keep it in place.]

[godsays]

[He gives a little shrug, not enough to dislodge.]

I think I do best pushing outside myself when I get caught up, or out of control. I don't want to know what I'd find if I went inside my mind instead.

It might change. But that's my decision now.

[fridgetothefire]

[She raises an eyebrow.]

If it weren't hideous in there, we wouldn't need to sit down and sort it, would we?

[But she shakes her head afterward, and it isn't a denial or a dismissal, just letting it lie.]

Sometimes it's not even that. It's just...being still, and letting the things you aren't ready for go past you for a while. And they're still there afterward, but it's easier to go on.

If you do decide to try it later, let me know. Or ask Barbara, I'm pretty sure she knows a several styles.

[godsays]

She probably does.

[A beat. The cold from the icepack seeps into him, and he relaxes the tight, tense muscles.]

Do you feel better? [After taking care of him.]

[fridgetothefire]

[It takes her aback for a moment, that passes in silence. She was calm, when they started. Now she feels - frustrated, useless, more isolated than before, discouraged, more fake. She tries to be someone smooth and sympathetic who knows what to say, and usually she does. But Zane is like a staircase with uneven steps - she thinks she's got the pattern of him, and then suddenly realizes she's misjudged something. Only by an inch, sometimes, but it throws her off and she doesn't know if she can do any good at all.]

No.

[Honest, blunt but soft around the edges, a little lost but not bleak. She's really not on form these days, but she doesn't regret trying. And at least he won't end up with any infections.]

[godsays]

Are you upset about Cassel?

[Or about him. About Zane.

He would assume that Cassel has more power to upset her than he does. He doesn't believe he has much ability to influence her, one way or another.]

[fridgetothefire]

[Her jaw clenches, for the smallest moment. Then for long seconds, she is smooth-faced, not blank, but utterly unremarkable, innocuous. Contained. She kind of wants to hit him, the way she hit Touko in the dining hall, a mindless flash of rage. But Zane is not Touko, and Anya is in control of herself.]

I am upset. About Lua.

[Her voice is smooth, firm, steady. Not devoid of emotion, but above it.]

She was my warden for eight months. She was the first person who ever knew me and didn't despise me. I love her more than I know how to say, and she vanished without a chance to say goodbye. I am upset about Cass, who was my first real friend, who taught me how to forgive, doing the same. I am upset about my brother, and Sokolov, and Felix, who as good as told me a month ago that when he graduated he wanted nothing more than to go back to his death, and now he can. I woke up four times last night and had to check Erik's door every time before I could rest again, because it feels like I have been set up to lose absolutely everyone and the debt is finally coming due.

And I'm upset because you are a self-involved twit and I don't even know how to help you, so what good am I, anyway.

Christ. Cassel graduating is the only ray of hope I've got right now.

[godsays]

[He keeps his gaze level on her, eyebrows a little furrowed. He hadn't expected her response. He hadn't thought much about Lua at all, lately, and he should have.]

I'm sorry.

[It's a true apology, an admission of wrong.]

But there's more to you than how much you're able to help me. You don't have to be - of use.

[He realizes this as he says it, flinches a little back from her.] Is that why you think I came here with you? Because I wanted you to be useful to me?

[fridgetothefire]

[She looks away, then moves to sit on the windowseat beside him, drawing her knees up to her chest. She knows it's a word that means different things, strong things, to each of them.]

I think you came here to humor me.

[This is flat, and dull.]

I do need to be of use. You were used, and you hated it, and I get that, but I was - discarded. If I can't help, if I don't matter to someone -

I'd make an awful hedonist, is the point here.

[godsays]

Because I care about you. And because you make me think. Healing me - letting you touch me - might be humoring you, but I don't just let anyone touch me.

I don't care about you just because of what you do or don't do for me.

And I'm sorry about Lua. She was - good.

[fridgetothefire]

I care what I do for you. Making people like me is easy here, it only counts if I - deserve it.

[Her voice wavers, on the last words. She knows how bad that sounds, and she closes her eyes, breathes slowly a few times. She still can't come up with a better way to say it. Harvey doesn't count, and Zane does, because she actually wants to take care of him more often than she wants to rip him apart. She isn't always a good person to care about. She wants to be worthwhile. And that means doing things.]

I'll be okay. I'll graduate, and I'll find her, and I'll give her my warden deal if she still needs one. Nothing is impossible. I just.

[Anya misses her, fathomlessly.]

I didn't expect it.

[Quiet, hideously understated. Of all the people she loves, Lua had been the one she most came to rely on.]

[godsays]

Anya, it's the same thing! You were discarded, I was used, but both mean the same thing. They make us believe that we are only worth the amount of use that we have. It's not different. And it's not right that you feel that way. That someone made you feel that way.

If you want to know you deserve it, then stop making people like you. When they still do, you'll know.

And you do still have options to help her if that's what you want. You aren't deluding yourself, if that's what you're afraid of.

[fridgetothefire]

[She takes another slow breath, perches her chin on her knees, but doesn't hide her face. She settles, a little.]

No. I'm not afraid of that. I know what I'm capable of.

He didn't make me think that, exactly. He make me think I was worthless by definition, as a human. And being useless was a consequence of being worthless, instead of the other way around. And I know he was wrong, most of the time.

[She sighs.]

It's not about people liking me for...whatever other reasons. I know some people do. It's about liking myself enough to agree that they should.

[godsays]

And my world made me think humans were worthless. By definition. That I was only worthwhile because I was powerful.

[There are more similarities, more mirrored images here, than there are differences. Zane truly believes that, and his tone shows this, and the way he leans towards her, and the way he keeps eye contact.]

...then maybe you should just accept that other people are inexplicable and they can make their own decisions on whether to like you or not.

[fridgetothefire]

No one is inexplicable. People are people. I just have to pay enough attention.

[She sighs, and she leans into him, too, eventually letting her forehead rest against his, moving her hands to grip his arms. He's less stable than she is, mentally, but physically he's strong and solid, and she appreciates having someone to hold on to, for a moment.]

Of course people make their own decisions. And my decision is that I want to be good. To me, that means doing things. Making the lives around mine better instead of worse. And I don't like failure.

[She accepts the love of others, but it doesn't stop her harsh judgement of herself. If she fails, then her decision is pointless. She doesn't quite logically believe that if she fails, she is worth nothing - she has past accomplishments, future attempts. But the feeling is there.]

[godsays]

[He folds one elbow to rest a hand on hers. And he relaxes. With this kind of proximity, he would be able to tell if there was ever movement towards an attack - at least that's what he tells himself, that it isn't just that he likes this physical contact.]

You have to pay attention. You have to know exactly what they think. And you have to match what they think perfectly, or you're useless?