006 - Sour Apple

[deadly_ned]

What do you do when you're living in a wide-awake nightmare and every single breath you take you wish with all the desperation you have that you could undo something you once did but didn't mean to because you didn't understand the consequences?

I know things are better now that I'm on the Barge but I don't know how long it's going to be until I can wake up without feeling panicked that it's all been nothing but a dream or that the Admiral will look at me and think I don't deserve to be here any longer.

And I don't know how precarious my position really is. We're all just...teetering, waiting for gravity to catch up with us until we take the final plunge and I know this is morbid but that's who I am. Morbid...Ned, who's surrounded by death and can't get away from it.

Maybe I just need sleeping pills.

[Ned is Affected by the flood and is more of a basket case than usual. He's been an unwilling guest of the American government since he was nine and revealed his secret gift and for the last twenty years has been a neurotic shut-in with limited access to non-military personnel. And he doesn't bake pies.]

Comments

[deadly_ned]

Why in person? What's wrong with a little distance?

[godsays]

I'm just... not familiar. With this kind of communication. We don't have anything like it in my world.

[deadly_ned]

Oh. Right, that's not...very accommodating of me, is it?


Should I meet you somewhere?

[godsays]

You don't have to be accommodating. [ Just pointing it out, in case Ned really doesn't want to be in his presence. ]

Wherever you want. [ Since Ned is the nervous one, after all. Zane means: wherever you feel safer. ]

[deadly_ned]

Can you come to the kitchen?

I just...like being there. In the kitchen. It smells nicer and something as simple as a smell can turn your day around.

spam?

[godsays]

Yes. I can.

I'll go there now.

spam!

[deadly_ned]

I'll, um.


I'll look for you.

[And the Piemaker will, although he'll be significantly more distressed than usual, propped up against a counter with his hands stuffed nervously under his arms]

[godsays]

[ He steps into the kitchen. Moves smoothly, gracefully.

He's burning several different metals, in his stomach. Tin, to enhance the senses. (Any loud noises will stun him, most likely.) Steel, which lets him track the presence of all the sources of metal in the room. (Except for aluminum.) And brass and zinc.

It's brass that he leans on first, reaching out and subtly Soothing tension in Ned. The power operates blind; he cannot tell what emotions Ned is experiencing. He can only choose which to affect. And this is subtle, as he doesn't want anyone to realize what he can do with his other Allomantic abilities. ]

Ned, isn't it? I'm Zane. [ He doesn't remember if he said that. ]

[deadly_ned]

[The Piemaker glances up, and hops off the counter so as not to be rude. But he doesn't immediately shake the other man's hand, too wound up and anxious to try anything so personal.]

Zane. We, uhm.

We spoke over the network. Right, I'm...Ned.

....which you already knew.

[godsays]

[ Continues with the Soothing. He doesn't reach out for a handshake. He's not the type to touch other people either. ]

You wanted to know what it was like to be forced to do something against your will.

[deadly_ned]

I know what it's like to be forced to do something against your will.

I just wanted another perspective.

[godsays]

What it was like for me, then.

[ His mouth thins. He considers how to begin. Leans back against a counter. ]

In my world, certain children are born with the potential to abilities. Allomancy. A way of using metals for power. The abilities don't manifest naturally. When children reach a certain age - puberty, generally - they are beaten almost to the point of death, so that they Snap and the abilities manifest.

Every noble child is beaten. Very few of them are Mistings. Even fewer are Mistborn, more powerful than several Mistings combined.

I was... nine. Ten.

[ He burns zinc, now, and cautiously Riots, enhances confidence, understanding. Empathy. Trying to make Ned feel connected to him - or, at the very least, if there is a feeling of connection, making it slightly more acute. ]

[deadly_ned]

[If he's beginning to feel better, the Piemaker can't quite tell immediately, and he's so wound up and usually stressed that not feeling that way is alien and strange as is]

...That's....awful.

That is awful. Beating children? That's close to the worst thing I've ever heard.

[godsays]

It's the noble's dirty secret.

Mine was early. My father was impatient. I was illegitimate. The product of an affair - he wanted Allomancers for children, so he had as many children as possible to ensure it.

[ He says all this matter-of-factly. ]

The men with guns can't reach you here. And someday they won't be able to reach you at all. [ This he says with certainty, a strange confidence. These are the kinds of words that feel like they can make things come true. ]

[deadly_ned]

[The Piemaker wanted to tell Zane the truth. He wanted to tell him that he too was nine when he discovered his gift, that he didn't know if his father had ever loved him, that despite not being beaten he had felt the sting of abandonment and rejection and loneliness because of what he was.

But instead, all he said was; ]

Thank you for telling me your story.

[godsays]

I think it's what wardens are supposed to do here.

[ He's not really sure. He's new to this 'doing the right thing' thing. ]

...I mean. You're welcome.

I hope you'll consider telling yours.

[ Gently. He's surprised how easy gentleness comes to him, when he has had to be hard-edged his whole life. Perhaps his father was right; perhaps this is the part of him linked to the weak heart, the scars on his chest.

Perhaps Vin and Elend were right, and this is what makes him stronger.

Time will tell. ]

[deadly_ned]

I think it's what wardens are supposed to do to their inmates. Not to each other, and I know I should be...stronger than this, but some days I can't always put myself together as neatly as I'd like.


...I can't.

[godsays]

[ A tight nod. He understands the feeling. He is much better at pretending to calm, but his paranoia bleeds through. He's always burning metals, after all. He manipulates other's emotions too often. ]

We're all just pieces.

[deadly_ned]

And yet somehow I'm feeling...better about this.

Why am I feeling better?

[godsays]

[ He's pushed too far. He eases back on the touch.

A tilt of his head. ] Is that a bad thing?

[deadly_ned]

It's an unusual thing. I don't know what it means. My emotions are jumping ahead of my logic and it's a little...


Troubling.

[godsays]

Tends to be what emotions do.

I can go, if you want.

[deadly_ned]

Please don't go. I don't know why but I'm feeling..better. And if you leave I have the sinking feeling that this feeling will go away.

[godsays]

[ He nods, once. Agreement to stay.

It's true enough. Soothing and Rioting may create bold feelings in the moment, but the effects are always temporary. It's not at all a reliable way of manipulating someone. His instructions always impressed upon him to rely on other methods too. ]

You can ask me more. I don't mind telling my story.

[deadly_ned]

...All right...Zane.


How does the story go? After you were...ten, I mean.