permutates | 5th transformation . spam & open video

[ spam ]

[ She's been working herself hard. Maybe too hard: she spends hours a day in the gym, sometimes as many as eight when she's not sleeping. She's read books on how to get in shape quickly and safely - more or less - and she's pushing herself as far as she can go. Trying to find her limits.

Today, she can also be found coming out of the CTS with Kelsier, bruised and mussed and a little bloody, and grinning ear to ear. If you're trying to impress me, it's working, he tells her, and she kisses him on the cheek and flushes bluer and makes her way to the Infirmary to make sure she's got nothing worse than bruises.

She hasn't reached her physical limits yet, but emotional is a different story. Being a child again, with that faith in Charles, has shaken her. Her conversation with Charles before that shook her. And sometimes, even when she's feeling fine - maybe when she's feeling the most fine, paradoxically - she starts crying. And sometimes she can't stop. Tucking herself into a corner of the gardens and trying to muffle the sounds of it so no one catches her at it. It's embarrassing, and she can always eventually manage to pull herself together and make it back to her room. ]

[ video ; open ]

[ Raven is blue, with red hair, not hiding. ]

What's something you've done here, for the first time? Or thought or realized, for the first time.

[ She's not sure what she's looking for. Maybe a little hope. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ She makes it voice, which seems more parallel with text somehow than video is. ]

I just wanted to know if this place really is new opportunities, I guess.

Is your world really different from here?

Depends on how you mean different. There are a lot of people from my world here.

Even if everybody from your world was here, the place is different enough to make it new in some ways, isn't it?

Oh, yes, it's definitely new.

So what have you done that's new?

[Show him yours, he'll show you his..?]

I...

[ Well, why not. ]

I thought that maybe I deserved to be rescued when I was little, instead of feeling like I owed my whole life to someone else.

I found out not all prisons have bars.

[It's both an answer to her statement, and admitting what he himself has learnt. He'd been imprisoned by Manticore's standards, he knew, he hated them, but they were the only tools he had.]

No, they don't. Sometimes you don't even know they're there until you try to push.

How much did pushing hurt?

[ A breath. ]

A lot.

[He exhales, at his end, and the message comes through after several minutes.]

Do you think you're out yet?

Edited 2013-08-24 03:54 (UTC)

It's not that simple. For me, it wasn't just a cage - it really was home.

It looks that way from the inside.

The inside can be a little bit of truth too. It doesn't have to be, it can be completely a lie, but sometimes it's not. For me, it was home. It just can't be anymore.

[How much of Manticore was the truth? Zack doesn't know.]

Why can't it be?

It wasn't letting me be myself.

What if that person was the only you that you knew?

[He's uncertain how to express that he's been in a cage since he was first made: he was designed for a purpose and knew nothing else.]

It is. I'm trying to figure the rest out. Just a little bit at a time.

[A long silence, before the audio feed clicks on.]

Any... advice?

[He doesn't like it. Admitting that he can't - but she doesn't know him, he doesn't have to be strong, for her, and she's gone through the same process he has. Maybe it's like different shades of the same colour, but it's still the same colour.]

[And she looks like Her. The irony of this isn't lost on him.]

I wish. I've been taking advice from everyone else.

[ This is a little self-deprecating. ]

But... I don't know. Draw boundaries between yourself and the cage. Remember that you're not supposed to be anything, and that you should just figure out you.

And find something you really like. Something that's just yours. And enjoy it.

...I don't know if any of that is good advice.

Best not to. Everyone else always thought they knew the situation better than I did, when they hadn't seen or felt any of it.

[Bitter? Yes, he is. Even at Max.]

That's what I've tried, but what if people needed the you who was still in a cage?

Then they just have to handle themselves. You should put what you need before what other people need, even if you put what they want before what you want.

What if they're family, and they can't?

They have to. How can you take care of someone else if you can't take care of yourself first?

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