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

[godsays]

If I wasn't Mistborn, I don't know what I'd be.

[ It's part of his identity, right down to the heart. He is a creature of the mists. ]

That's why I stayed so long. I could have run away, but my father, terrible as he was - he was all I knew.

[deadly_ned]

That's the problem when you're nine and you're told you need to do this one thing all your life and that ends up being all you ever know.

[godsays]

[ A slow nod. ]

So you know how it feels.

[deadly_ned]

Only in relative, unspecific terms.

[godsays]

Is it a power that you have? The reason they keep you.

[deadly_ned]

I..no, I can't...talk about that. It's too specific and I.

I'm human and I don't have powers.

[godsays]

Why can't you talk about it?

[ He actually wants to know. He's listening. ]

[deadly_ned]

It's something I was told never to talk about. Talking about it put me in this situation to begin with.

[godsays]

I won't hurt you. I won't use you. And I keep secrets.

[ These are just assurances. He's not trying to force Ned to talk. ]

[deadly_ned]

I don't know if I can believe you.

..I'm sorry.

[godsays]

I understand.

Really.

[ He has an advantage: he doesn't have to trust people. He can manipulate them, nudge them. He can defend himself against most anything. ]

[deadly_ned]

...I think you do.

Which is strange because I've never known anyone before who could say they understood and mean it. I must be worse than I thought.

[godsays]

[ A hint of a smile. ]

Not hard to understand paranoia. Not with the kind of life I've lived.

[deadly_ned]

It can keep you alive, paranoia, on the best of days. Even when it steadily makes your life worse and harder to live with.

[godsays]

Living beats dead.

[deadly_ned]

Usually.

[godsays]

Always. Because while you're alive there's always another chance.

[deadly_ned]

I've been waiting for that chance for twenty years.

[godsays]

What are you waiting for?

Perfection? Safety? For your fear to disappear?

It never will.

[deadly_ned]

I was only waiting for things to get marginally better than they were.

[godsays]

Maybe you'll have to make it happen.

[deadly_ned]

I wish I knew how.

[godsays]

When I figured it out, it turned out I knew it all along.

[deadly_ned]

Do you think I could cheat off your life's test sheet?

[godsays]

I'm not sure it has the right answers for yours.

My answer was turning on my father.