that escalated quickly

[myironeyes]

[Public, video]

[Marsh, the barge's resident friendly constantly dour eyeless spike-horror, is currently lounging on Iris's most garish couch, the first time the vast majority of barge residents have seen him without his Nazgul-style engulfing black cloak, which is tossed over one of the arms of the couch. Underneath he's wearing vaguely 19th-century style workman's trousers and and loose shirt, both in a drab, unpurposeful sort of dark grey. Bumps - and a few poked holes - in the shirt reveal a topography of even more spikes, over a dozen of them, impaling his chest and abdomen in odd configurations. Nevertheless, he seems both drunk - an unlabeled bottle of dark green glass hanging from between his second and third fingertips - and entirely cheerful, laughing in a low rumble even as he's in the middle of protesting.]

- said I can doesn't mean - Iris, put that down -

We're celebrating, you plonker. 'E deserves the recognition. If you don't tell them I will!

-aaaugh, fine, woman.

[He throws his head back against the couch in defeat. There is a small ripping sound from the spike-tips at the back of his skull taking their toll on the upholstery, but he'll mend it later. He's not looking right at the camera - but he's beaming.]

C'Rizz graduated.

[That's all. Marsh isn't really a speech guy. But some people may connect this with the abundance of pie at dinner, the last few days.]


[Spam for C'Rizz, backdated to a little after the thread with Roderick.]

[Marsh's heart stops when he sees C'Rizz vanished from his item. Truly stops, falters in its constant aching rhythm, still beating around the spike perforating his ventricle. Not dead, gone. He tears up the stairs to C'Rizz's room, a shadowy blur, gasps and sags against a wall when he sees the door still there. So. So -]


[Spam for Iris]

[A knock, after dinner.]

Iris, it's me. I want to tell you something.

[He sounds happy.]

Comments

[myironeyes]

Zane. Zane. He did it. I knew he could.

Sylvanas helped.

Well. She was there.

[Poor angry lady.]

[forsaken_queen]

I did not help.

[myironeyes]

Okay. You are very aggravating.

[Shhhh. Not to Marsh. To C'Rizz, tho.]

[forsaken_queen]

[She's glaring so hard at you right now, Marsh. Can you feel it?]

Don't patronize me.

[myironeyes]

[He can't even see it. Her tragic saga continues.]

It's only true.

He really was very ruffled. For him.

[forsaken_queen]

[You're lucky you're drunk, Marsh. Also impressively powerful.]

I don't care. Don't involved me in this farce.

private

[myironeyes]

[Head tilt; the shadow of his usual solemnity.]

We spoke, once, about transformation.

private

[forsaken_queen]

And my opinion on graduation [She says the word like it has a foul taste.] hasn't changed since then.

private

[myironeyes]

You know that I know what unwilling transformation is. So please believe me when I say that this, for C'Rizz at least, was willing.

And your proximity to his graduation does not offend the principle of resistance to yours.

[It may offend her for other reasons, but for that, it's groundless. And - proximity, not involvement.]

private

[forsaken_queen]

Don't pretend that this an effort to correct a misunderstanding on my part. You were the one who declared that I had a hand in it. Correct yourself.

Re: private

[myironeyes]

You didn't help. Didn't I say that?

[No. Oh well. Said now.]

But you were there.

private

[forsaken_queen]

[She mutters something in a foreign, ugly language. She's probably swearing.

Because she is.]

As I said, leave me out of it. All of it.

[She's hanging up on you now, Marsh.]

[godsays]

What are you doing...

[myironeyes]

I am celebrating.

[A shadow, briefly.]

I never got to at home, you know. It always cost so much when we won.

[godsays]

Not like here. Times like this are happy.

[myironeyes]

Yes.

So.

[godsays]

You're happy, Marsh.

[myironeyes]

I can be happy.

[godsays]

I know. I knew. But I'd never seen it.

[myironeyes]

It was never this simple.

[Not without a flood, or someone else's mind spilling into his, and rarely even then. He was mostly solemn even as a child, cautious by nature even before it was all undergirded with pain. Even his reunions with Kelsier were each tangled with blame and shock and cavernous miscommunications.

But he is, right now.]

[godsays]

You deserve this.

Think what Sazed would say.

[myironeyes]

[Marsh's expression goes a bit prim and sour, not in earnest, but as though he's trying really hard to look sour, and the delight is leaking from the corners of his eyes anyway, about to burst out again.]

Sazed would say nothing, because he is much too self-effacing for I told you so.

[godsays]

But you would feel how happy he was.

[myironeyes]

And studiously ignore it.

[Primly. Yes, he is laughing at himself.]

[godsays]

Of course you would.