Lulu the Lugubrious Voodoo Doll, now with free ball of cheeping dryer lint

[myironeyes]

[Open spam in the greenhouse.]

[It's a peculiar sight, even moreso than Marsh on his own. The man with spikes for eyes is carrying a very small, ugly, excitable cockatiel chick, carefully transferring her from one flowerbed to the next, letting her waddle intrepidly through the greenery, meticulously watching over her and snatching her gently away from any drop-offs or sinister-looking creeper vines while frowning in terse disapproval.]

[Private to Zane]

I'd like to teach you the fast way to kill an Inquisitor.

[It's neither an instruction nor a question; it's a preference. He knows Zane is struggling with his own relationship with violence right now. Zane could refuse, if he wants to.]

Just in case.


[Private to Barbara]

What is your opinion on mercy killing?


[Private to Erik]

How are you getting along with Kelsier?


[Private separately to Ned and Lua]

If you had to trust someone on this ship to kill you, who would it be?


[Private to Ryan Hardy]

I am your warden. I am still not a metaphor for anything.

We should meet.

Comments

[godsays]

It lets me pick it up. Just doesn't want to go in the hutch.

[myironeyes]

I can give you fabric scraps to make it a nest in the corner, if you want. Easier to clean, but without the cage part.

[If that's what it doesn't like.]

[godsays]

...maybe so.

I think I'll try to make it one. Maybe it doesn't like the... plastic.

[myironeyes]

Plastic is odd.

[You have a sensible rabbit.]

[godsays]

[Zane agrees, privately.]

She - it doesn't seem to like the cabbage Kelsier gave me, either.

[myironeyes]

[From somewhere in the folds of his cloak, Marsh produces an apple and a little bone knife that looks too small for his hand. It's one piece, the edge fire-hardened, scraped, and nicked, and the handle - once a ball joint of some kind - long since worn smooth. It's not terribly sharp. But it's enough to carve out an apple slice, and set it experimentally next to the cabbage.]

[godsays]

[The rabbit inches forward, slowly, and sniffs up and down the apple slice. This examination seems to take a while. Enough for the silence to stretch out a bit awkwardly. And then, finally, she leans forward and takes a tiny nibble.

Zane relaxes, a little.]

[myironeyes]

[Vaguely self-consciously]

I don't think anyone really likes cabbage.

[It took him years to think of food in those terms. But people tell him this.]

[godsays]

Rabbits are supposed to like green, leafy things.

[Cabbage is self-evidently green and contains leaves. But this rabbit would not cooperate.]

...We don't have to focus on it - her.

[myironeyes]

Would Kelsier give you a rabbit that did what rabbits are supposed to do?

[This is a rhetorical question; no.]

[godsays]

Well.

[Good point.]

[myironeyes]

Cassel gave me a baby bird.

[He doesn't really know what to do with it either.]

I think they'll - let us know. If we try things, and pay attention.

[godsays]

There are books.

[Odd, that Kelsier gave Zane something, and Cassel gave it to Marsh.]

[myironeyes]

[oh god if they're plotting we're all doomed let's hope it's a coincidence]

Yes. They are...sometimes helpful.

[Sometimes not.]

[godsays]

Not if you can't read them.

[myironeyes]

Is that a problem?

[He isn't sure whether Zane is referencing Marsh's lack of eyes or his own abilities.]

[godsays]

Is it for you?

[myironeyes]

It depends on the type of ink.

I can read the book that came with her.

[godsays]

Oh. Good.

[myironeyes]

[After another lull of rabbit observation,]

I'm going to need to show you the rest of the spikes.

[Marsh: not good at segues.]

[godsays]

[Zane looks back to him, calm enough. Not as calm as he wants to be.]

How many?

[myironeyes]

Nineteen.

There's just one you'd need to pull.

[But they're kind of all clustered together in the vital organ/torso area]

[godsays]

[Nineteen. It's far too many, and Zane wonders, again, if Marsh should just have them healed. ]

Show me.

[myironeyes]

[He wordlessly unfastens the cloak and pulls off the tunic beneath it, folding them each loosely. He's left in simple black pants, much thinner without the shapeless volume of the cloak, and absolutely riddled with spikes, of different sizes and metals and angles. There's a neat pattern marching down between his ribs, two by two, but others interrupt it, and more rest haphazardly in his abdomen. It's nineteen just in his trunk, for a total of twenty-one. He turns, twists an arm behind himself to rest his fingertips on the linchpin spike in the center of his back.]

It's this one.

[godsays]

[He doesn't reach out to touch, doesn't let sympathy make its way into his eyes. This isn't a conversation that should leave them bonded - this is a conversation that is necessary. Zane understands how easily he was pushed, and that it took all of him to resist. With that influence multiplied, he wouldn't have had a chance.

He takes in the spikes as dispassionately as he can, but his hand clenches into a fist.]

May I? Muscle memory. [If he feels it by touch, the placement of it, he'll be able to find it in the middle of a fight.]