ZANE . house venture

[ spam ]

[ Find Zane on a meadow in the CES, his rabbit leashed and on a little harness next to him. He sits against a tree and eats an apple and she noses around in the grass.

He makes the transmission from there. Leaves rustle softly in the background. ]

[ voice ]

[ For a moment, there's just the sound of wind and leaves.

There are a lot of questions he wishes he could ask. Has anyone ever defeated the need to kill? - foremost, among them, but he can't just ask that. He can't say it publicly. Nor about the peculiar relationship between pain and control.

Finally, he speaks. ]

I withdrew from the school. I think it's best.

[ Which isn't anything he intended to tell people. Let them find out on their own.

He isn't asking to be convinced otherwise. But maybe he wants to reassure Touko, say that it's safe there. Not that her other self seems to care much. ]

I'm sorry.

[ The last words are quiet, almost inaudible, and he cuts the transmission on the heels of them, like ducking out of a hostile room. He doesn't know what he expects from it. ]

[ Private to Chris ]

Do I have to kill him?

[ Guess who just woke up and saw the kerfuffle. Zero to rage in thirty-one seconds. ]

[ Private to Cassel ]

Are you well enough to make metals? Because if so, I'm going to ask for pewter, iron and steel.

If not...

[ He doesn't finish that. ]

I have questions.

Can something that used to influence you exert a stronger pull when it's not there anymore?

Why do people stay loyal when loyalty hurts them? Is it insanity?

[ Private to Kelsier, voice ]

There's something wrong with my powers. I think it always has been but I didn't notice before.

[ Private to Charles Xavier, voice ]

I. . . did some damage to the wall of my cabin.

[ On a totally unrelated note... ]

Do you have any bandages? Small ones.