myironeyes | A Crab Dressed like a Dementor, Pack Lunches, and Pie

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A Crab Dressed like a Dementor, Pack Lunches, and Pie

[Private to Ned.]

I need help.

[Spam for Kelsier]

[He gave Kelsier time to hide, because - well, he's not a complete hypocrite. But he's knocking on Kel's door now, and he's just as willing to pick the lock as he was on the other barge.]

[Private to Alpha]

I can't see anything on the communicator screens, so I don't know what your room looks like. But if you have not yet acquired a replacement for your recessed pit, I could make a fabric hammock.

They're...easier to move around than solid furniture, if you change your mind about what you want where.

[Spam for Nathan, backdated to several days after the mirror even but before White Flag - 5th or 6th?]

[He knocks only once. He has cherry-raspberry pie.]

[Open Spam all over the barge, from a few days after the mirror event through White Flag, particularly relevant to Jean, Cassel, Alex, Zane, and Ryan, because you guys now have a pointy extra shadow.]

[Several months of memories of being used as a brutal nightmare of a weapon have made Marsh even more skittish, if possible, than he was when he first board the barge. He skulks and lurks and generally keeps to the corners of the regrettably well-lit corridors. He ducks into empty cabins when people pass in the halls, and he collects food at odd times. It is, however, less absent than his usual hermitage, because he's actively stalking a few people at a distance whenever they emerge from hiding.]

[OOC: feel free to run into him while he's watching out for someone else, or if you want to say your character was chopped to pieces once or a dozen times by mind controlled!Marsh in the mirror event, he might feel obligated to quasi-discretely check on them too. Just let me know!]

[Open Spam, CES]

[It's pitch dark, except for the small area illuminated by the light spilling in through the open door; Marsh doesn't need light. The CES gave him the rebellion's cave systems today, and although there are torches stashed here in there in the tunnels, Marsh doesn't need them. The rock is solid, cool but not cold, and he's tucked just around a bend, holding still. Letting himself be still. He isn't sure himself if it's comforting or just stalling, but at least it is familiar.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I need someone who can see colors.

I'm relatively experienced with this skill set. I've been seeing colors all my life.

Could you visit me? The last room on the lowest deck.

[Because of course he is.]

I'm coming. Should I be bringing anything?

['Just your eyes' would be creepy. Don't say that.]

Not unless you want to.

Okay.

[Several minutes later, a knock sounds on Marsh's door. The Piemaker has brought something after all; Digby, the colorblind dog, sits patiently beside his master and awaits the opening door]

[The door is heavy wood; the walls inside are dark grey stone. There are little oil lamps all around, and a quiescent wood stove, and a wide glass skylight with no metal in its frame. The room isn't messy; it's neat but cluttered, two thirds dressmaker's workshop to one third actual living space. There are old-fashioned cloth-and-wicker mannequins in varying states of coverage; the bed in one corner is cover in stacks of fabric and bowls of buttons. There's a wooden drafting table with scraps and half-coiled measuring tape and pieces of embroidery. Aster's cage is in one corn, large and conspicuously modern by contrast to everything else, its door perpetually open. Aster shrills a few whistles in greeting, but decides that Ned's presence is permissible.

Marsh lets Ned in and herds him gently toward the chair at the table, pausing to rub Digby's ears. He takes the stool on the other side of the table and pulls a flower blossom out of his pocket, a hawthorn very slightly wilting around the edges.]

What color is this?

[Digby in turn backs up as Aster starts to shrill, before walking over to sniff around the cage. Once satisfied, he lays down beside it, placing his head on his paws and watching Marsh and the Piemaker.

The Piemaker himself allows Marsh to herd him, dropping down obediently into a chair]

Pink.

It's.

It's definitely pink.

Sorry, are you making a dress?

Yes.

[He stands, leaving the flower on the table, and fetches a quilt, in which every patch is a slightly different color. He feels long one edge to confirm the orientation of it, then folds it and lays it over the table so that the pink section is facing Ned.]

Which shade is closest?

[The Piemaker leans forward, looking over the quilt in quiet concentration]

Um. Here. This one. The one in the corner.

Thank you.

Would you like tea?

Yes, please.

Was that everything? All you needed?

I'll need help matching thread and complimentary tones as well.

[He has a teapot waiting, the ceramic one with red designs that Cassel made him, already brewed in the morning. He pours cups for each of them and brings them over.]

If that's alright.

Okay.

[The Piemaker watches the cup ceremony with tired, aged eyes, and takes the cup when it's offered]

It's not so big a favor to ask.

Cream or sugar?

[The set came with a little pitcher and a sugar bowl; he feels vaguely obligated to keep them stocked even though he takes his plain.]

I wouldn't. Want to ask it of just anyone.

[It's not a big favor. But it's not a thing he shares easily.]

Sugar. Um. Please.

[The Piemaker was always one for sweet things, in moderation. He places a single sugar cube in his cup]

Are you. Talking like me?

No.

[He frowns slightly, because maybe he is. Ned is - not soothing not that - a gentle presence. Maybe part of him wants to incorporate that. Or maybe it's just a function of struggling with how to phrase things.]

Not on purpose.

Edited 2013-11-14 01:33 (UTC)

...It's all right. If you wanted to try on my, um. Vocal patterns. I don't have a monopoly on it. Pauses. I mean.

...[Slowly, he brings the teacup to his lips, staring straight ahead without really seeing]

You haven't been in the kitchens. Much. Recently.

[Subtle, Marsh.]

I'm not part of the kitchen staff.

[It's true; technically the Piemaker was never signed on for the job. That never stopped him using the kitchens anyway, even if he did need to be let in by the people with the keys]

You said, when we met, that it was a respectable craft. Sewing.

My mother taught me. I didn't...forget that. But I let other things obscure it.

[Maybe he shouldn't have. Maybe it was inevitable, with his world the way it was. But he's glad Ned said what he did, glad that he has re-attained something of his old comfort with it, instead of merely using it as something to take up his hands and his time that does not result in bloodshed.

This is why he wouldn't want just anyone else to help him, even if nearly anyone on the ship could have done it.]

[The Piemaker quietly watches Marsh work, staring across the colors, his mind a hazy, impenetrable fog]

What other things?

It was something I did when I -

[couldn't?]

- didn't care enough to fight anymore.

[Mash feels guilty no matter what he does.]

But now it's. Nice.

Is it peaceful?

Yes.

[One of a very few things, for Marsh, that always feels peaceful, going neat and even, stitch by stitch.]

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